Parc Bagatelle - la Roseraie

The Bagatelle rose garden is defined by ten thousand rose bushes arranged in formal, geometric beds that sink slightly below the surrounding gravel paths. In seventeen seventy-seven, the Count of Artois wagered his sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette, that he could build a chateau here in sixty-four days. He hired nine hundred workers to labor around the clock, finishing the villa and its initial gardens just in time to host her. The roses arrived much later, during a nineteen oh five competition.