About us
Different gardens have succeeded each other since the XNUMXth century around the castle...
When Louis XV decides to have the castle rebuilt, he asks the architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel to reflect on the project of a garden. The garden designed by Gabriel, with its five terraces and its embroidery beds, was never completed. The quincunxes of lime trees that frame the garden and a small round pond originally set up on the terrace of Marie-Antoinette, then moved to the center of the Jardin des Roses, remain from this project.
From 1810, the Emperor entrusted the architect Berthault with the management of the development of outdoor spaces. The Emperor's will was to “link, as soon as possible, the palace with the forest, which is the real garden and constitutes all the pleasure of this residence”. On a large park of 700 hectares linking the garden to the forest, Berthault created: the famous alley of the Beaux-Monts and the cradle of Marie-Louise, a set of trellises of greenery in the shape of a cradle which leads to the heart of the forest.
The castle garden de Compiègne, as it had been designed by Gabriel in 1755, did not include a specific project for the installation of sculpted works. The first two statues are installed at the top of the ramp, the wounded Philoctetes by Dupaty and the Venus of the Capitol by Chinard, in the First Empire, under the direction of L.-M. Berthault. Today, the castle garden de Compiègne has around thirty sculpted works. They come from shows or special orders. The only exception is the last sculpture installed, in 1869, an Andromeda by the chisel of Clesinger, the nephew of George Sand. Some works are original, but the park also hosts many copies of the antique like the Venus Génitrix by Barthélémy Frison or the Venus of the Capitol by Joseph Chinard.
Pratical information
- Free parking
- Toilets
- walks
Admission fees
- Free
