Return to News about France and the Desert de Retz
2006
October 3, 2006. Two of Michael Kenna's photographs of Monsieur de Monville's Column House along with a text in Spanish about the Desert de Retz appeared in El Blog de Irene Gracia, an apparently-defunct weblog by the novelist Irene Gracia, author of the novel El coleccionista de almas perdidas, a section of which, entitled Los Sustanciales, takes place at the Desert de Retz.
La Colonne Détruite podría ser la casa de mis sueños y de mis pesadillas. Aquí ubiqué el cuento Los Sustanciales, de mi novela El Coleccionista de Almas Perdidas. En él se narra la historia de una cofradía de seres creados por la mano del hombre que cada año se reúnen en un jardín diferente: desde el jardín del edén hasta el del fin de los tiempos. El último encuentro de Los Sustanciales tuvo lugar en este espacio mágico de Chamburcy[sic], sin duda porque allí encontraron el cobijo que sólo el arte de la arquitectura puede ofrecer. Este espacio simbólico es un sueño de piedra, la escenografía real y perfecta para que estos seres virtuales vivan su propio paraíso o su propio infierno. --Irene Gracia
2005
October 19, 2005. Opening of a new exposition at the Château de Fontainebleau, "Court Theatre: Shows at Fontainebleau in the 18th Century." In the eighteenth century, the Château de Fontainebleau was a particularly creative environment,producing many new shows that enjoyed lasting success. Costumes and props, drawings, engravings, and manuscripts complete this glimpse of the way shows were organised at the chateau: 150 works in all, from private and public collections in France and abroad.
The 43-page press release contains descriptions in French of all the works along with a chronology and practical information. The exposition continues until January 23, 2006.
September 15, 2005 Issue number 36 of the Racine de Monville Home Page News was circulated today. The first issue appeared on July 4, 2002. If you would like to add your name to the mailing list and receive the newsletter regularly, send an email to the Webmaster.
June 13, 2005 Jean-Marc Heftler-Louiche, co-owner of the Desert de Retz, along with Dominique Césari, author of Jardins des Lumières en Ile-de-France, recently published by Parigrammes, and the webmaster of the Racine de Monville Home Page, Ronald Kenyon, met for lunch at Les Editeurs in the Latin Quarter of Paris. During the lunch, each of these Three Musketeers defended his personal interpretation of the significance of the Desert de Retz and responded to questions from the other guests. Photo: from left to right, Heftler-Louiche, Kenyon, Césari.
Jean-Marc Heftler-Louiche, co-propriétaire du Désert de Retz, ainsi que Dominique Césari, auteur de l’ouvrage Jardins des Lumières en Ile-de-France, récemment paru chez Parigramme, et Ronald Kenyon, webmestre de la Racine de Monville Home Page, se sont réunis au déjeuner aux Editeurs au Quartier Latin. Pendant le repas, chacun des Trois Mousquetaires a défendu sa thèse concernant le symbolique du Désert de Retz et a répondu aux interrogations des autres convives. Photo: de gauche a droit, Heftler-Louiche, Kenyon, Césari.
April 29, 2005 View a watercolor of Monsieur de Monville's Column House by acclaimed Latin American surrealist painter Alfredo Castañeda. This piece is an early work from the artist, signed and dated 1967. From Noyola Anticuarios, Monterrery, Mexico.
January 30, 2005 The Racine de Monville Home Page was referenced on a post to a weblog called fastacting: "[Situationalist author] Guy Debord considered it one of the esoteric, psychogeographical centers of Paris." Well, of course, the Desert de Retz isn't in Paris, but this is what the blogger was referring to.
January 2, 2005 In a post about follies and monuments, the pseudonymous "Thomas J. Wise" posted a link to the Racine de Monville Home Page on Metafilter, the community weblog. This is the second mention of the Racine de Monville Home Page on Metafilter.
2004
November 5, 2004 The decorative hardware created by an eccentric Bostonian locksmith named Enoch Robinson (1801-1888), became famous throughout the United States, and examples of his originality remain today in Boston and in Washington, where some of Robinson¨ˆs fixtures still operate doors in the U.S. Treasury Building next to the White House.
But Enoch Robinson¨ˆs most famous creation may have been his own home, a round house that he built in Somerville, Massachusetts. The shape of the house has been traced by architectural historians to Monsieur de Monville¨ˆs Column House at the Desert de Retz.
Enoch Robinson's round house is located at 36 Atherton Street in Somerville, Massachusetts. It is privately owned and can not be visited. Badly needed restorations were undertaken in the 1970's but never completed.
October 14, 2004. Again this year, the Association Histoire de Chambourcy, de Retz et d'Aigremont ( HISCREA), sponsored a series of “Lundis du Désert” walks in the Forêt de Marly from October 2004 through March 2005. The walks were be led by Pierre Emile Renard, a historian with extensive knowledge of the Désert de Retz. During the walks, visitors were able to view most of the follies at the Desert de Retz from vantage points outside the garden. Additional informaton: telephone 01 34 74 47 51 or contact .
September 27, 2004 The Municipal Council of Chambourcy, in its monthly deliberations, decided to undertake negotiations with the co-owners of the Desert de Retz in view of acquiring the property, restoring the garden and opening it to the public once again. Target date: September 2005. For more information (in French) consult the minutes of the meeting
on the Chambourcy website.
2003
October 21, 2003. The Association Histoire de Chambourcy, de Retz et d'Aigremont (HISCREA), sponsored a series of “Lundis du Désert” walks in the Forêt de Marly from November 2003 through March 2004.
October 12, 2003. The Age of Watteau, Chardin and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting opens at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The exhibition will include Antoine Watteau's fêtes galantes; Boucher's lyrical pastorals; Jean Siméon Chardin's dignified representations of bourgeois life; Jean-Honoré Fragonard's dangerous liaisons; and Louis-Léopold Boilly's polished interiors and Paris street scenes. The show will run through January 11, 2004, then move to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, from February 8 through May 9, 2004.
September 29, 2003. A discription of the Desert de Retz and four photographs copied from the Racine de Monville Home Page were posted to a French weblog called M'Zelle Jenny's. In 2005 this weblog was defunct.
September 20-21, 2003. Launched twenty years ago by Jack Lang, then the French Minister of Culture, this year's Journées Européennes du Patrimoine are scheduled for the weekend of September 20-21. Thousands of historic sites, including many that are normally closed to the public, will be open during the weekend. Consult the full schedule for France.
May 23-25, 2003. Le ministère de la culture crée une manifestation nationale : "Rendez-vous aux jardins" qui a l'ambition d'être pour le végétal ce que les Journées du patrimoine sont à la pierre, au métal ou au béton. Pour l'occasion, quelque 900 jardins, publics ou privés, seront ouverts aux visiteurs. Lire l'article au Monde du 21 mai 2003.
May 13, 2003. As part of its week-long study tour, An American in Paris: The Legacy of Jefferson, the National Trust for Historic Preservation sponsored a guided tour of the Desert de Retz.
May 4, 2003. Jean-Antoine Houdin - Sculptor of the Englightenment, an exposition of 66 works by the greatest European portrait sculptor of the last half of the 18th century, opens at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The show will run through September 7, 2003 in Washington, then will move to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from November 4, 2003 to January 25, 2004; and the Chateau de Versailles from March 1 to May 30, 2004.
May 1, 2003. Jean-Marc Heftler-Louiche delivered a presentation on the Desert de Retz to 250 members of the Harvard Club and escorted the guests to a picnic and garden party at the Desert de Retz.
April 24, 2003. For the third year in a row, the Racine de Monville Home Page has been selected by the International Association of Web Masters & Designers(IAWMD) to receive its Golden Web Award for 2003-2004.
April 12, 2003. Anne Vallayer-Coster: peintre à la cour de Marie-Antoinette L'oeuvre d'Anne Vallayer-Coster, artiste virtuose souvent comparée à Chardin mais oubliée au rayon femmes par la "grande" histoire de l'art, revient en pleine lumière au musée de la Vieille Charité à Marseille, seule escale européenne d'une exposition créée aux Etats-Unis.
L'exposition, conçue par le Dallas Museum of Art, a déjà tourné à Washington et New York (Frick Collection). Elle est présentée à Marseille jusqu'au 23 juin.
March 20, 2003. In a thread about country gardens and nature diaries, a reference to the Racine de Monville Home Page was posted on Metafilter, a collaborative weblog that is open to contributions by the public. Metafilter was rated "best media blog" by Forbes magazine on March 17, 2003.
January 22, 2003. Discover Monsieur de Monville's contemporary and one of France's best still-life painters, the long-neglected Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette, at a new exposition at the Frick Collection in New York. Runs until March 23, 2003.
Buy the Anne Vallayer-Coster catalogue illustrated with 175 color and 50 black-and-white reproductions from Amazon.com and save 30%!
January 14, 2003. The Racine de Monville Home Page was listed on the Ile-de-France page of French-at-a-Touch, an English-language portal providing information, history, maps and other resources about French-speaking countries.
January 13, 2003. The Racine de Monville Home Page and Monsieur de Monville's Garden were listed on the SAPLING Landscape Gateway. SAPLING - the Architecture, Planning & Landscape INformation Gateway - contains over 700 annotated links to websites, books and news stories worldwide.
January 11, 2003. The Desert de Retz is located at a latitude of approximately 48.9 degrees North and a longitude of approximately 2.0 degrees East. As of today, these coordinates appear on the GeoURL Address Server.
GeoURL is a location-to-URL reverse directory that allows you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location. The site is currently offline.
2002
December 12, 2002. Mathematical oddity: on 12/12/2002 this site received its 12012th visitor.
December 1, 2002. A description of the Racine de Monville Home Page was added to the John “Mad Jack” Fuller website. Fuller, a younger contemporary of Francois Racine de Monville, was an eccentric with a penchant for constructing follies, including a pyramid, an obelisk and a classical temple.
September 9, 2002. The Racine de Monville Home Page recorded the eleven thousandth visit since the site was launched in 1996.
August 31, 2002. In today’s entry, the British weblog Plep featured a description of the Racine de Monville Home Page and a link to this site. Plep is an outstanding weblog with much excellent content.
Read these articles to learn more about weblogs and blogging. Camworld, Salon, Wired, Rebecca's Pocket, New York Times, Globe & Mail, Wall Street Journal, Tech Central Station.
August 25, 2002. Wayne Lorentz, Chief Editor of Glass Steel and Stone, the Art of Arcitecture, added the Racine de Monville Home Page banner to his website.
June 22, 2002. The Racine de Monville Home Page was referenced in a message posted on Yaronet.com.
June 15, 2002. The Tourist Offices of Etampes and Méréville sponsored an exceptional day-long visit to the gardens of Méréville and Jeurre. Méréville, along with the Désert de Retz, was one of the greatest eighteenth-century French folly gardens. After the decline of Méréville, a number of its follies were salvaged and transported to the park at Jeurre.
June 1, 2002. Faculty, staff and students of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure in Paris enjoyed a déjeuner sur l'herbe at the Désert de Retz that was followed by a tour of the garden escorted by Olivier Choppin de Janvry.
May 15, 2002. The Racine de Monville Home Page registered its ten thousandth visitor.
April 26, 2002. Following a message about the Francophilia Page of this site posted on the rec.travel.europe newsgroup on the Usenet, Peter Hornby added a link to the Racine de Monville Home Page on his site, The Languedoc Pages.
April 14, 2002. Sean K. MacPherson writes in today's New York Times Magazine about Lotusland, the garden of Madame Ganna Walska, whose credo was "Enemy of the average." Created in Montecito, California, Lotusland is a labyrinthine collection of many gardens, "The living incarnation of Walska's irrational exuberance." Included is a Lotusland slide show.
Another article has short descriptions and illustrations of five more of MacPherson's fantasy lands: Carlos de Beistegui's Paris penthouse; Edward James's Las Pozas in Xilitla, Mexico; Dawnridge, the Beverly Hills home and garden of Tony Duquette; the Old Deaf School Park's topiary Garden in Columbus, Ohio; and Alfonso Ossorio's the Creeks at Georgica Pond on Long Island.
April 2002. Paris and the South of France: In the Footsteps of Jefferson
The 2002 Study Trip abroad of the Decorative Arts Trust focused on the thoughts, passions and reality of Thomas Jefferson in France from 1784-1789. Included in the program was a visit to the Desert de Retz, accompanied by Oliver Choppin de Janvry.The Decorative Arts Trust is a non-profit organization of collectors, museum professionals, and others who share an interest in the study and preservation of the decorative arts.
January 6, 2002. Fictionalized Column House centerpiece of new novel.
An exact replica of Monsieur de Monville’s Column House at the Desert de Retz figures as the focal point of I’ll Let You Go, a new novel by Bruce Wagner. In the novel, a fabulously rich industrialist erects the replica of the Column House on his estate in the exclusive Los Angeles suburb of Bel Air and his nephew disappears after spending his wedding night in the structure… Read the review by Jay McInerney in the New York Times.
Buy the book. at Amazon.com and save 30%!2001
- October 29, 2001. The Wayback Machine is a new digital library tool that locates archived versions of over 10 billion Web pages dating to 1996. These snapshots reveal the origins of the Internet and how it has evolved over the years. Find archived versions of The Racine de Monville Home page dating as far back as January 16, 1999. Read more about the Wayback Machine in Wired, Salon, and in these interviews with its inventor, Brewster Kahle.
August 19, 2001. The International Association of Web Masters & Designers selected the Racine de Monville Home Page as a winner of its Golden Web Award 2001-2002.
July 6, 2001. "Charlottesville: The Other Utopia Jefferson Founded" is the title of an article by Paula Dietz in today's New York Times that discusses how Thomas Jefferson's visit to the Desert de Retz influenced his design for the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Sign-in required.
June 3, 2001. During a visit to France, the webmaster and two friends from St.-Germain-en-Laye went to the site of the Desert de Retz. Some storm damage is still evident on the wall protecting the property, but the Column House and the Theatre Decouvert were visible and in good condition as was the Petit Autel Presque Ruiné.
April 1, 2001. The Racine de Monville Home Page was referenced in the Web Watch column of the Spring, 2001, issue of Follies: The International Magazine for Follies, Grottoes and Garden Buildings. This magazine is published quarterly by the Folly Fellowship.
March 15, 2001. While the webmaster was in Paris, he received an email from Jessica Williams, informing him that none of the photographs on the site were visible. After confirmation that this was indeed the case, the problem was quickly corrected. Jessica Williams is a gifted and creative jazz pianist with a long and distinguished career as a leader. She is also an entrepreneur, having designed her own web site where you can listen to samples of her work and order CD's directly from her.
March 5, 2001. The Racine de Monville Home Page is featured in Ric Erickson's "Au Bistro" column in today's issue of Metropole Paris.
January 4, 2001. The Racine de Monville Home Page receives the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) content label. Content Labels generated by ICRA conform to an internet industry standard known as PICS - the Platform for Internet Content Selection. The ICRA content labeling system makes the internet safer for children and helps parents select sites with content that is appropriate for their children. Read more about ICRA.
2000
December 19, 2000. CNN.com published an excellent article about "Earth from Above," the outdoor exposition of 200 sensational aerial photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand that attracted more than 2.5 million visitors to the Jardin du Luxembourg this summer. Includes a gallery of photographs and links.
November 18, 2000. This site's Francophilia page is featured on Vues du Ciel, the Internet's first French-English weblog [currently off-line/hors-ligne jusqu'à nouvel avis]. What are weblogs? They are unquestionably the best way to explore the Web!
November 16, 2000. Tom Dowd of the University of Virginia reports that over 300 trees were destroyed at the Desert de Retz during last year's storms and that "the damage was very much in evidence" during his visit on October 26, 2000. The University of Virginia bought several American trees to help with the reforresting of the Desert de Retz.
October 22-27, 2000. Thomas Jefferson in Paris was the theme of a six-day program of discussions, tours, and other events sponsored by the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundationm and led by Professor Tom Dowd. The program included a visit to the Desert de Retz.
October 12, 2000. "Surf the Palace at Versailles. Donations Accepted" is the title of an article by Michael Pollack in today's New York Times about the Versailles web site. Sign-in required.
June 14, 2000. The Racine de Monville Home Page is added to the listing on About.com's page of Famous Gardens and their Designers. About.com is a network of over 700 sites led by expert guides.
May 4, 2000. The Washington Post publishes an article by Adrian Higgins about Chanticleer, a 30-acre garden in Wayne PA, containing an artificial ruin inspired by the Desert de Retz.
April 27, 2000. The city of St.-Germain-en-Laye presented a conference about the Desert de Retz by Pierre-Emile Renard in the Office Municipal de Tourisme.
April 6, 2000. The New Orleans chapter of Friends of Vieilles Maisons Françaises sponsored a lecture by Olivier Choppin de Janvry entitled "Le Desert de Retz: An 18th century French Folly Garden."
March 2-May 28, 2000. The Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University in New Orleans presented an exposition in the Woldenberg Art Center Gallery entitled: Pondering the Folly: The Désert de Retz and its Legacy.
February 23, 2000. An international subscription program has been set up by the Château de Versailles to replant the 10,000 trees uprooted by the storm on December 25-26, 1999. A total of $23 million is needed. For only $154 anyone can adopt a tree to be planted in the park at Versailles. Read the article in the Christian Science Monitor.
January 31, 2000. Amazon.com forwards the first payment of referral fees for purchases made from the Racine de Monville Home Page. The amount, $30.19, will be contributed to the World Monuments Fund or another organization working to preserve the Désert de Retz and other endangered sites.
1999
December 25-26 and December 27-28, 1999. With hurricane-force winds, the worst storms in recorded history destroy over 300 million trees in western Europe. In the Forêt de Marly, an estimated 130,000 trees are uprooted. According to preliminary reports, the buildings of the Désert de Retz suffer no damage.
November 30, 1999. The Racine de Monville Home Page is added to the data base of the World Wide Arts Resources. WWAR was created in 1994 and is now the Web's largest collection of arts-related links.
November 20, 1999. The Racine de Monville Home Page is accepted into the architectural history section of the Open Directory Project. The Open Directory Project's goal is to produce the most comprehensive directory of the web, by relying on a vast army of volunteer editors.
October 29, 1999. Dominique Césari, who has created an informative site about eighteenth century gardens, and Ronald Kenyon visit and photograph the park at Jeurre, 45 kilometers south of Paris. Jeurre is the location of four fabriques that once graced the fabulous garden at Méréville, designed in 1784 by Hubert Robert for the Marquis de Laborde. The four fabriques, the Laiterie, the Temple of Filial Piety, the Rostral Column and the Cenotaph of Captain Cook, were relocated to Jeurre at the turn of the century.
September 30, 1999. The Racine de Monville Home Page hosts its 1,000th visitor.
September 6, 1999. The Racine de Monville Home page is now listed by Yahoo! on its search engine.
August 20, 1999. The Racine de Monville Home Page becomes an associate of Amazon.com with all commissions allocated to a fund for the restoration of the Desert de Retz.
August 17, 1999. The Racine de Monville Home Page is added to the French Revolution Home Page (currently offline).
June 4-6, 1999. The Architectural Association in London hosted an international symposium,French Gardens and Their Conservation, featuring lectures by specialists from France and England. Olivier Choppin de Janvry delivered a lecture entitled "The Désert de Retz: The Rescue of a Late-Eighteenth-Century Landscape Garden."
