Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. Uh. And this is a two parter. This is the first of a two parter. And this has been the word works for a long time. It has been since our trip to France in June, so like six months. Uh, And it has taken a while for a few reasons. Um when we had Sarah Roberts from the Atlanta History Center on to talk about the center's historic gardens. As we were talking after we had recorded, I mentioned to her that I was working on an episode about French gardener Andre Lenore and that I thought it was going to have to be two episodes because there was so much, And she responded, how are you going to get it all into just two episodes? Admittedly she comes at this from the perspective of someone who is steeped in horticulture, and so to her it could have been a whole podcast series. But even if you are not from that background, it's a lot. Because Na was a very busy man. He worked on many, many very high profile landscapes and gardens in France and throughout Europe, including most famously the grounds of Versailles, and his work really defined the French formal garden in the seventeenth century, and a lot of that work is still being enjoyed today, more than three hundred years after his death. He also was very long lived, so that is part of why he was so influential and there is so much to talk about. You will find statues and memorials to him in a number of different locations in Paris and the surrounding areas, because his work was really instrumental in developing the cultural identity of France as an epicenter of design and style. If you walk around Toulri, there is a bust of him there. If you are driving through the town of Versailles going up to the palace, you will see a statue of him. I saw another smaller one just in a little neighborhood while we were walking around at the end of our trip, when everybody had left but Brian and my sell and so like. He clearly is very very important. Um So today in part one we are going to cover his life up to and including a project that was controversial, not for Lenussle's part in it, but because of its implications for the property's owner, there was scandal, but it did not impact Lenore negatively. And then on part two, we're going to talk a lot about Versailles, and then the last years of Leno was life. Before we get started, though, we're going to do a little level set on the use of the word gardener versus another term like landscape architect or something else that might seem a little more descriptive of what he was actually doing. The term landscape architect didn't exist at all during Lenore's time. It wasn't coined until the mid nineteenth century. So even though we'll default to some degree to using the term gardener or master gardener because that's often named as his profession, historically, his work really went way way beyond that as his role under Louis the fourteenth evolved and expanded. Not only did he turned his intellect into learning geometry and mathematics to ensure that his landscape designs were sound, but he also ended up needing to learn a lot about engineering for his more large scale works, and he had to develop management and leadership skills. Also. In the mix of all of this, was a love for an understanding of art, and that informed all of his other work. So even though we're going to call him a gardener, there's no disrespect intended with that, and he was much more than what we might describe as a gardener today. Yeah. I think if someone working professionally today did the types of things he did and you called them a gardener, they would be super insulted. That is not the intent. Um. It is this impressive combination of his of skills and disciplines, as well as a very calm and humorous temperament that enabled him to collaborate with a variety of strong minded people, and that has given Andre Lenoza an important place in French history and has made his work something that continues to influence landscape architecture around the world today. Centuries after he was born, he was really born into his life's work and consequently into his legacy. His father, Jean Lenore, was royal gardener. He worked for King Louis the thirteenth and his expertise was employed at the gardens at Twilerie. He held the title of Jardignier ordinaire, which was sort of like a government contractor position under senior gardener Claude Moulle. Andre's grandfather, Pierre Lenotre, had been one of the gardeners employed by Catherine de Medici when the Tulry gardens were first established, and this was also a time culturally in France when family ties were routinely part of employment security. All of the gardeners serving the crown in seventeenth century France were from only a handful of families. When this continued with the Lennotles, two of Andre's three sisters, Francoise and Elizabeth, also married gardeners, and they also helped end some of the royal gardens. His third sister, Marie, was the only one who married outside of the gardening occupation. Andre was born on March twelfth in Paris. His family lived adjacent to Le Jardine de Tuli as part of his father's employment arrangement. So it's from the really very beginning of his life his environment was dominated by just a very carefully managed and beautiful park setting. At this point, these gardens weren't public, so he was lucky enough because of his father's position to have access to the menagerie and the gardens, all these things that had been created at Katherine de Medici's order for Royalty to enjoy. As a child, Andrea Lenotre is said to have watched his father draft designs for hours, just mesmerized, so it seemed like gardening was truly not just in his blood, but was just a source of fascination for him. But despite that, initially it didn't seem like gardening or landscaping or any kind of work in that vein we're going to be Andre's career calling because as much as he loved watching his father work, he was way more interested initially in becoming a painter. From the time he was sixteen until his mid twenties, the Notre studied with painter Similan Buai Hua, who painted the Italian Baroque style, was a prominent artist. He served as Louis the thirteenth primary painter and portraitist. Bua was situated in a studio at the Grand Gallery that was built to connect the Louver to the Tutelary Palace, so he was very close to the Notre's residence and at this point, all the elements that are today part of the Louver Museum complex, we're still royal residences and art Academy spaces, and he also studied under architect Lancis Mansus, and Mansut's influence on French culture and specifically Versailles is pretty significant. His nephew by marriage, Jules Hardouin Mansut, would become the main architect of the Chapel at Less and Valid and the Grand Trianon at Versailles, as well as a lot of renovation that happened at Versailles much later. Studying under Vuai in particular opened a lot of doors for Lenore. Because the painter was so connected to King Louis the Thirteen, he knew everybody, so spending time in Vouet's atlier meant that Andre Lenotre was meeting all the powerful people who came to visit, and he in turn visited those people with Voua. He was also part of a group of young men who were studying with the painter who would rise up to prominence in their own right as they got older, including Charles Lebrun, who Lenotre would collaborate with later on in his life. That, of course, was the great uncle of Elizabeth b Lebron's husband, and despite spending several years studying to be a painter. Lenotrea eventually decided that he would follow in his father's career footsteps after all, and so he started working with his father at Tuleri. And this definitely was not a situation where those years of study of art had been wasted due to this shift in direction, though, because Lenotre throughout the rest of his career applied the artistic principles that he had learned to his work designing gardens. In sixteen thirty five, when he was twenty two, his career as a gardener officially began. Through the connections that he forged through Simone Vue and through his father's good reputation, he was brought on as head gardener for Louis the thirteenth brother Gaston the Duke d'Or leon. The Luxembourg Gardens ground of the Luxembourg Palace where the Duke lived, served as Leonotia's first professional responsibility. These grounds had already been laid out and established, though, so there wasn't a whole lot of change or innovation on his to do list. It was more about maintenance and upkeep. When Andre's father, Jean Leno retired from the Tuilerie in sixteen thirty seven, his son was named as his replacement. I ran into some sources that incorrectly reported this event as taking place because Jean le Notre died. That is not the case. The senior gardener, Lenotrea lived another eighteen years after he quit working and went to a life of retirement. As was the case with the Luxembourg Gardens, tou Lerie at this point was designed and in pretty good shape. This did not end Andre Lenatre's work, by the way, at Luxembourg Palace, he managed the grounds of both the Duke d'arleon and the grounds at Tulerie, as well as other side projects for wealthy clients. Lenotre married Francois Langrois in sixteen forty. Her father was an artillery officer and her family was considered low level nobility. This marriage match seemed to be a good one. The two of them had three children over the course of their marriage. They were Jean Francois, Marianne, and Jeanne Francoise. All of them died very young, though their first born, Jean Francoise, had been born just shy of three years into the marriage, and the two daughters were born much later on sty three, King Louis died and his son Louis the fourteenth, who was just four years old at the time, became the King of France. Of course, there was a regent involved when he was still a child. Lenotre's work continued after this transition in monarchs, just as it had before louist death. We'll come back to the next step in his career, but first we will have a quick sponsor break. In sixteen fifty seven, Lenore was granted the title of General Controller of Buildings, Gardens, arts and Factories, and this was an appointed position for the crown, but Lenotre was still, to some degree kind of a cog in the much bigger machine of maintaining optimally beautiful surroundings for the King, the king's family, and his guests. Lenota at this point was sort of like a company man being promoted through the ranks, but he actually had to pay for the privilege of being promoted into this role, which was customary for the time. This was not a post that Lenotre held exclusively. The controller roles were usually shared among three men, with each man serving for a year at a time. On this three year rotation, Lenore paid forty thousand livre for the job, while the annual salary for it was only three thousand. But this also meant that he was given the title of advisor to the King, and that was sort of like social security. The job gave him enough cloud that the side projects he took on more than made up for the money that he had paid for this title. And the job duties of the notalist controller post were varied and they covered a lot of different things, as indicated by that wording of buildings, gardens, arts and factories that he was like a very wide swath of potential things. Uh. He had to supervise all kinds of projects that were going on in any of the royal buildings, and he also had to review financial records of contractors before payment for work could be issued by the treasury, essentially like approving invoices would happen today. And he was also himself a contractor, working as the King's designer and submitting his own paperwork for payment. That would be very frowned upon today in most places, but at this point it was not at all unusual. When he rose to the controller position, the Nore was already a year into a significant undertaking. In sixteen fifty six, he had started work on a project for Finance Minister Nicola Fouquet. He designed the landscaping at the Chateau de Vaud de Viconte near Milneux, France, that was about thirty miles outside of Paris, and that's a famous example of French Baroque architecture. Over the course of five years, as the chateau on site was being built, Noture worked to create a design that took advantage of this natural rise and fallow the ground. He also used water features to make an already very large landscape look almost infinite from ground level. Fouquet entertained King Louis the fourteenth vau le Vicomte by staging a historically famous party, and the king was wildly impressed with what Lenotre had accomplished there. Lenotre had worked alongside the famed architect Louis Leveaux and the artist Charles Lebrun, who painted the lavish chateaus interiors and designed all of the sculpture. And Lebron in particular had a reputation for being headstrong, but because he and the very good natured Lenore were old friends from their days. Under the tutelage of simul Vue, the master gardener was able to negotiate most conflicts among the three creators and keep things pretty even keel. The party thrown to show off this new estate was just mind blowing. It featured an eight course meal served to a thousand guests on gold plates. That was just the beginning. Moliere staged a play in the gardens. Jean Baptiste Lulie, sometimes called the grandfather of ballet, staged a ballet for the guests. Partygoers could roam these beautifully laid out parterre or sit by Lenotre's water features as they watched the spectacular end of the evening fireworks display. Allegedly, the stillness of the night made the water reflect the fireworks so perfectly the guests lost track of whether they were looking at the fireworks or the water. And you might think that all of this, which sounds like a pretty fantastic party, was a feather in his cap situation. For Fouquet, he had built an incredibly impressive estate fit for an entertaining the guest of honor at his marvelous fete, the King of France. But three weeks after the party Nicola, Fouquet was arrested by none other than the musketeer d'Artagnan on charges of embezzling money from France's treasury, with the implication that he had used those funds to build Voule Viconte. This story is often told in sort of a shorthand, as though Louis the fourteenth was jealous of Fouquet's dazzling, hunderd Acre estate and then had him arrested because of that jealousy. According to this version of the story, the king was affronted that somebody of lesser rank than he was would dare to create a grander chateau than a royal palace. We should mention here that there were also rumors that Fouquet had even offered all of Volviconte to the king at the end of the night as a gift. But there is a whole lot of additional context to this story. Even though Fouquet had been incredibly loyal to the throne, even through an uprising of nobles against the crown that was known as the Frond, which could be its own episode, at some point Louis the fourteenth was turned against him through the scheming of other members of the court. At the point in time of the famed voe Viconfette Nicola, Fouquet was the superintendent of finance for the king and had been since Louis the fourteenth was fifteen, and some accounts even suggested Fouquet was something of a father figure to the monarch. The man who served as the primary antagonist to Fouquet was Jean Baptiste Colbert. Over time, as Colbert had managed the responsibilities of Cardinal Joue Mazarin, he had become trusted by King Louis the fourteenth. Colbert was the first person to accuse Fouquet of mismanagement at the treasury, and his efforts to get him out of office began in earnest In sixteen sixty one, letters written by the king indicate that even before the famed vote Vicomfette, Louis the fourteenth had already decided Fouquet's fate, but decided to go to this lavish party and enjoy the meals and festivities and see just what had been built before he did anything about it. There is a famous quote by Voltaire, who was writing on the subject, that says, quote on Auguste that six in the evening, Fouquet was King of France. At two in the morning, he was nobody. Fouquet is sometimes characterized as a man who really seemed to have no idea that the entire life that he had built for himself was about to come crashing down. But if you look a little closer, that doesn't really align with what we know about the construction of the site and the days leading up to that giant party. There were plenty of intrigues about who had visited Vaux de Vicomte during construction and whether they were reporting back to the king about how suspiciously expensive it appeared. And then a letter sent to Fouquet by his friend, the Marquis Duck Says a few days before his events, stated quote, the King would like to be rich, and he does not love those who are more so than he, because they undertake things he cannot do, and he has no doubt that the great wealth of these others has been stolen from him. Those were definitely some ominous words, and in just a moment we'll talk more about how Fouquet and his project, including the creations of the nore, causes downfall, But first we will have a quick word from one of the sponsors who keeps the show going. So before the break, we established that Fouquet undoubtedly knew that his situation was precarious before he had this ostentatious party, and there probably was a little bit of jealousy in the mix when it came to Louis the fourteenth sire, and that the lavish display of vaili vicomte did seal Fouquet's fate with the king. But to say that Louis the fourteenth had Fouquet arrested for building a better house than the king had its kind of tabloid e and it's not really representative of all the machinations in play. After a three year trial, which is another thing that would be a good future episode if I can get my head around all of it, because there are a lot of strange legal things involved, Fouquet was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. As for the actual guilt of Fouquet, that comes with a lot of questions on its own, and some people see him as a villain, while others portray him as a man who was part of a very convoluted and bizarrely organized government who was behaving in ways that were pretty normal for his station. There was money flowing back and forth between Fouquet's private funds and the Crown. The accounts were a big mess overall. He mortgaged his wife's estate to give one point to million liver to the crown, and then later borrowed a lot of money for the treasury thirty million livre, but in his own name and with his own property for collateral. His own accounts and that of France were almost one and the same, and he was not innocent in this. He was making a lot of money by leveraging this fluidity and his position to make deals and acquire a greater personal fortune. Yeah. I don't know if anyone has ever fully unable to untangle like where money was going at any given point and how much was coming in from Fouquet versus possibly going out. I have read accounts that suggests that there were certainly other people that were in buzzling, which makes it even more complicated and convoluted. But even during his lengthy trial, there were people in France who came to support him and believe that he had been less conniving and more just kind of really bad at his job. And there have been plenty of people through the centuries that contend that he was part of a system that had enabled far worse behavior from previous finance ministers, and to reiterate, Louis the fourteenth had been very impressed with Vot de Vicomte, and with good reason. He had heard of the splendor of the chateau and its grounds from his brother, the Duke dour Leon, who had been at a smaller gathering there a month before the famous party. The notes contributions were really extraordinary. It's still considered by many to be his highest achievement, even greater than Versailles, which will get two in Part two. The gardens of Voile Vicante were, as we mentioned, made to look as though they stretched out to infinity if you stood at ground level and looked across the vista. But that was not the only optical illusion that Lenore created. From some angles, particularly higher points that looked out onto garden spaces, he was also able to make large expanses of land appear to be small and intimate. If you looked out into the gardens from the chateau, it wasn't inviting and beckoning vista that did not look too far to walk, an illusion Lenotre created with the placement of for reflecting pool basins of progressively larger sizes as they sat farther and farther from the chateau. This use of space is called anamorphosis abscondito, which translates to hidden distortion. A paper written in twenty and published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage used three D modeling to analyze the layout of the Lenore's garden design and to analyze that using the rules of linear perspective. This paper breaks down the process of how he was tricking the mind of the observer by offering up a wide variety of visual information at various distances while arranging all of these things around a strong central axis. But of course he achieved all that without the use of any kind of three D modeling. But while the math holds up when analyzing Lenore's visual trickery, he undoubtedly learned how to fool the mind's visual perception in Simone Vue's painting studio. Yeah, it's sort of mind blowing to me that they when you do the numbers. He was managing the space in like the optimal way to trick the human mind. Based on what we now know of, like vision and optics, which were not things he probably knew about. Uh, he was just a genius um. This whole space was basically one big long rectangle with that central access line. It was an open avenue that runs still from one end of the property to the other, and the chateau is situated on that line as a central element with a moat around it. One description that I read of the landscape design at Voilee Viconte described it as a vast outdoor room. And into this outdoor room lenotre placed all of the design elements that would become hallmarks of his work and of the formal French garden in this era. So there were pebbled walkways, there were low boxwood hedges, there were statuary fountains, water basins that reflected the surroundings, a canal, and various grottos. Lenore was the first garden designer to oversee all of those things prior to Voilee Vicante. If there was a similar chateau and grounds being assembled, different people or departments would handle like the horticultural needs versus the water features versus the statuary. So this is where it becomes very very clear that calling him just a gardener doesn't really encompass what he was doing. One of the many innovations of the Voile Viconte garden was its great water mirror, also called the If you face the front of the chateau, about fifteen hundred feet out from the building, you can see the entire front of the structure perfectly reflected in the water. This water mirror was the first of its kind, and even today people visit Vote of a cult which is now open to the public, to capture this perspective photographically. Yeah, you can find modern photos of this all over the internet if you care to go looking, and they are really striking. That harmony between the landscape and garden design and the design of the chateau itself was all very very intentional. When the site had been chosen, it was already a settlement, but to fulfill the desires of Fouquet to create something entirely new where all of these components were harmonious. The existing church, cottages and farm were all leveled to be replaced with the grand Chateau and the properties owned to design Hamlets Jumeau and Maison Rouge. To execute the grand plans for the estate Fouque provided lots of labor and estimated eighteen thousand men worked on the chateau in the grounds. He also provided plenty of cash. Budget seems to not even be a thing with this. If something was needed, that money was available. The three creators were just giving carte Blanche to do whatever they wanted. That sounds really magical right as as an art project, to have no budget, like I think most people that work in any creative field would just make heart eyes if they are those words. All of those resources meant that Lenore, who at this point was kind of in his middle age uh, and he was able to do something that was unheard of on large estates. He designed and built a landscape that looked absolutely beautiful from every possible angle. It would have been entirely expected, for example, for the gardens to look beautiful for visitors approaching the chateau from the front or looking out at the vast property behind the chateau from the terraces, but to look a little disproportionate or lackluster from say the back of the property. But Lenota using his symmetrical layout but subtly different specifics in each area to avoid a true mirror ring created a space that was visually pleasing no matter where you stood, in what direction you looked. And when you consider the visual trickery that we already talked about, that adds a whole other layer of complexity to this really amazing achievement. Louis had been so wowed by this whole thing that he wanted the dream team of Lenore, Leveaux and Lebron to work on a project specifically for him. He truly marveled as his carriage approached the chateau. Some accounts suggest that Lenotre was traveling with the king as he made his way to the party, and that he explained all the various landscape features as the king requested information about them. Yeah, Louis the fourteenth is we'll talk about a little bit in the next episode. Was really fascinated by gardening, uh, and he undoubtedly would have had a lot of questions. He was also a little bit of an information junkie, so probably Lena was there explaining how he had and everything. After Fouquet's arrest, the king took the furnishings and even some of the more impressive foliage from Voile Vigante, including the orange trees, and he moved them to his hunting lodge at Versailles. And that lodge we've talked about on the show before had started as a very very simple abode, and Louis thirteen had rebuilt it in se to be slightly more appropriate for royal housing. It was still considered by some to be a little lackluster, but Louis the fourteenth had much bigger plans for Versailles, and it was of course Lenore who he tasked with creating the gardens there. And that is the end of part one. It is continually a marvel to me that the artists involved. As much as I think it is easy for um modern folks to characterize the Court of France and Louis the fourteenth that's this sort of very vengeful and backbiting thing. They did not punish any of the creators of that beautiful estate. Uh. They in fact stayed in great favor. And Leno Tree in particular seems to have been a man that everyone loved. He just sounds like a great guy to hang out with. Everyone found him really chills, super delightful, great and good natured, got along with everybody. Um, So I love it. And we're gonna pick up with his his work at Versailles next time. I'm still working through the many, many wonderful holiday cards we have been sent by listeners, so I'm going to have a couple of knows today for listener mail, because there's a really great stack. Um. Our first one is from our listener Catherine. It is a card with the Elf on the Shelf on the front, and it has little note that is Snitches get stitches, which is a little shaky. It makes me laugh. Um. Everybody has feelings, but the show. She writes, Tracy and Holly, you have always been on my nice list, Wishing you both your cats and family the humans a merry Christmas and all of the best stuff in the new year. Catherine. Uh. And she also included pictures of her adorable cats, Witten and Walter, who send their Christmas greetings. Witten is a very fluffy creature that has a tummy that begs for scritches, and Walter is a beautiful orange tabby who is probably super sweet because orange tabby's usually are um. This next card delighted me utterly. It is a repeat listener male that we have read his his mail before and that is Germaine. In his note, it is first of all a gorgeous pop up card with a beautiful Christmas tree in it um and it is from our listener, Chip, and he writes, Happy Holidays from San Francisco. This is Chip again, and ladies, you have rocketed me to stardom for side money. I drive for Lift and Uber, and when I drive, I have stuff you missed in history class playing my Riders, especially like the episodes that involve San Francisco, since that is where we live. In fact, your great quake and Fire's episode had us riveted. And then you read the Halloween card I sent. I went nuts and my Riders burst into applause and cheers. They all subscribed to stuff you missed in his tree class before I dropped them off, and they called me san Francisco's History podcast celebrity. Learning about our home city from the two of you is always a blast. Please hurry back for another live show. I wish you and all you love have a very merry Christmas and new year of fun adventures. Chip, that is the sweetest story. I love it to pieces. So if there's someone in the car with you right now, I hope they appreciate that we love your cards and they're beautiful, and I'm glad that you're our history ambassador in San Francisco. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at History Podcast at i heeart radio dot com. You can also find us everywhere on social media as Missed in History. If you would like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that on the I heart radio app, at Apple podcasts, or wherever it is that you listen. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. Uh. And this is a two parter. This is the first of a two parter. And this has been the word works for a long time. It has been since our trip to France in June, so like six months. Uh, And it has taken a while for a few reasons. Um when we had Sarah Roberts from the Atlanta History Center on to talk about the center's historic gardens. As we were talking after we had recorded, I mentioned to her that I was working on an episode about French gardener Andre Lenore and that I thought it was going to have to be two episodes because there was so much, And she responded, how are you going to get it all into just two episodes? Admittedly she comes at this from the perspective of someone who is steeped in horticulture, and so to her it could have been a whole podcast series. But even if you are not from that background, it's a lot. Because Na was a very busy man. He worked on many, many very high profile landscapes and gardens in France and throughout Europe, including most famously the grounds of Versailles, and his work really defined the French formal garden in the seventeenth century, and a lot of that work is still being enjoyed today, more than three hundred years after his death. He also was very long lived, so that is part of why he was so influential and there is so much to talk about. You will find statues and memorials to him in a number of different locations in Paris and the surrounding areas, because his work was really instrumental in developing the cultural identity of France as an epicenter of design and style. If you walk around Toulri, there is a bust of him there. If you are driving through the town of Versailles going up to the palace, you will see a statue of him. I saw another smaller one just in a little neighborhood while we were walking around at the end of our trip, when everybody had left but Brian and my sell and so like. He clearly is very very important. Um So today in part one we are going to cover his life up to and including a project that was controversial, not for Lenussle's part in it, but because of its implications for the property's owner, there was scandal, but it did not impact Lenore negatively. And then on part two, we're going to talk a lot about Versailles, and then the last years of Leno was life. Before we get started, though, we're going to do a little level set on the use of the word gardener versus another term like landscape architect or something else that might seem a little more descriptive of what he was actually doing. The term landscape architect didn't exist at all during Lenore's time. It wasn't coined until the mid nineteenth century. So even though we'll default to some degree to using the term gardener or master gardener because that's often named as his profession, historically, his work really went way way beyond that as his role under Louis the fourteenth evolved and expanded. Not only did he turned his intellect into learning geometry and mathematics to ensure that his landscape designs were sound, but he also ended up needing to learn a lot about engineering for his more large scale works, and he had to develop management and leadership skills. Also. In the mix of all of this, was a love for an understanding of art, and that informed all of his other work. So even though we're going to call him a gardener, there's no disrespect intended with that, and he was much more than what we might describe as a gardener today. Yeah. I think if someone working professionally today did the types of things he did and you called them a gardener, they would be super insulted. That is not the intent. Um. It is this impressive combination of his of skills and disciplines, as well as a very calm and humorous temperament that enabled him to collaborate with a variety of strong minded people, and that has given Andre Lenoza an important place in French history and has made his work something that continues to influence landscape architecture around the world today. Centuries after he was born, he was really born into his life's work and consequently into his legacy. His father, Jean Lenore, was royal gardener. He worked for King Louis the thirteenth and his expertise was employed at the gardens at Twilerie. He held the title of Jardignier ordinaire, which was sort of like a government contractor position under senior gardener Claude Moulle. Andre's grandfather, Pierre Lenotre, had been one of the gardeners employed by Catherine de Medici when the Tulry gardens were first established, and this was also a time culturally in France when family ties were routinely part of employment security. All of the gardeners serving the crown in seventeenth century France were from only a handful of families. When this continued with the Lennotles, two of Andre's three sisters, Francoise and Elizabeth, also married gardeners, and they also helped end some of the royal gardens. His third sister, Marie, was the only one who married outside of the gardening occupation. Andre was born on March twelfth in Paris. His family lived adjacent to Le Jardine de Tuli as part of his father's employment arrangement. So it's from the really very beginning of his life his environment was dominated by just a very carefully managed and beautiful park setting. At this point, these gardens weren't public, so he was lucky enough because of his father's position to have access to the menagerie and the gardens, all these things that had been created at Katherine de Medici's order for Royalty to enjoy. As a child, Andrea Lenotre is said to have watched his father draft designs for hours, just mesmerized, so it seemed like gardening was truly not just in his blood, but was just a source of fascination for him. But despite that, initially it didn't seem like gardening or landscaping or any kind of work in that vein we're going to be Andre's career calling because as much as he loved watching his father work, he was way more interested initially in becoming a painter. From the time he was sixteen until his mid twenties, the Notre studied with painter Similan Buai Hua, who painted the Italian Baroque style, was a prominent artist. He served as Louis the thirteenth primary painter and portraitist. Bua was situated in a studio at the Grand Gallery that was built to connect the Louver to the Tutelary Palace, so he was very close to the Notre's residence and at this point, all the elements that are today part of the Louver Museum complex, we're still royal residences and art Academy spaces, and he also studied under architect Lancis Mansus, and Mansut's influence on French culture and specifically Versailles is pretty significant. His nephew by marriage, Jules Hardouin Mansut, would become the main architect of the Chapel at Less and Valid and the Grand Trianon at Versailles, as well as a lot of renovation that happened at Versailles much later. Studying under Vuai in particular opened a lot of doors for Lenore. Because the painter was so connected to King Louis the Thirteen, he knew everybody, so spending time in Vouet's atlier meant that Andre Lenotre was meeting all the powerful people who came to visit, and he in turn visited those people with Voua. He was also part of a group of young men who were studying with the painter who would rise up to prominence in their own right as they got older, including Charles Lebrun, who Lenotre would collaborate with later on in his life. That, of course, was the great uncle of Elizabeth b Lebron's husband, and despite spending several years studying to be a painter. Lenotrea eventually decided that he would follow in his father's career footsteps after all, and so he started working with his father at Tuleri. And this definitely was not a situation where those years of study of art had been wasted due to this shift in direction, though, because Lenotre throughout the rest of his career applied the artistic principles that he had learned to his work designing gardens. In sixteen thirty five, when he was twenty two, his career as a gardener officially began. Through the connections that he forged through Simone Vue and through his father's good reputation, he was brought on as head gardener for Louis the thirteenth brother Gaston the Duke d'Or leon. The Luxembourg Gardens ground of the Luxembourg Palace where the Duke lived, served as Leonotia's first professional responsibility. These grounds had already been laid out and established, though, so there wasn't a whole lot of change or innovation on his to do list. It was more about maintenance and upkeep. When Andre's father, Jean Leno retired from the Tuilerie in sixteen thirty seven, his son was named as his replacement. I ran into some sources that incorrectly reported this event as taking place because Jean le Notre died. That is not the case. The senior gardener, Lenotrea lived another eighteen years after he quit working and went to a life of retirement. As was the case with the Luxembourg Gardens, tou Lerie at this point was designed and in pretty good shape. This did not end Andre Lenatre's work, by the way, at Luxembourg Palace, he managed the grounds of both the Duke d'arleon and the grounds at Tulerie, as well as other side projects for wealthy clients. Lenotre married Francois Langrois in sixteen forty. Her father was an artillery officer and her family was considered low level nobility. This marriage match seemed to be a good one. The two of them had three children over the course of their marriage. They were Jean Francois, Marianne, and Jeanne Francoise. All of them died very young, though their first born, Jean Francoise, had been born just shy of three years into the marriage, and the two daughters were born much later on sty three, King Louis died and his son Louis the fourteenth, who was just four years old at the time, became the King of France. Of course, there was a regent involved when he was still a child. Lenotre's work continued after this transition in monarchs, just as it had before louist death. We'll come back to the next step in his career, but first we will have a quick sponsor break. In sixteen fifty seven, Lenore was granted the title of General Controller of Buildings, Gardens, arts and Factories, and this was an appointed position for the crown, but Lenotre was still, to some degree kind of a cog in the much bigger machine of maintaining optimally beautiful surroundings for the King, the king's family, and his guests. Lenota at this point was sort of like a company man being promoted through the ranks, but he actually had to pay for the privilege of being promoted into this role, which was customary for the time. This was not a post that Lenotre held exclusively. The controller roles were usually shared among three men, with each man serving for a year at a time. On this three year rotation, Lenore paid forty thousand livre for the job, while the annual salary for it was only three thousand. But this also meant that he was given the title of advisor to the King, and that was sort of like social security. The job gave him enough cloud that the side projects he took on more than made up for the money that he had paid for this title. And the job duties of the notalist controller post were varied and they covered a lot of different things, as indicated by that wording of buildings, gardens, arts and factories that he was like a very wide swath of potential things. Uh. He had to supervise all kinds of projects that were going on in any of the royal buildings, and he also had to review financial records of contractors before payment for work could be issued by the treasury, essentially like approving invoices would happen today. And he was also himself a contractor, working as the King's designer and submitting his own paperwork for payment. That would be very frowned upon today in most places, but at this point it was not at all unusual. When he rose to the controller position, the Nore was already a year into a significant undertaking. In sixteen fifty six, he had started work on a project for Finance Minister Nicola Fouquet. He designed the landscaping at the Chateau de Vaud de Viconte near Milneux, France, that was about thirty miles outside of Paris, and that's a famous example of French Baroque architecture. Over the course of five years, as the chateau on site was being built, Noture worked to create a design that took advantage of this natural rise and fallow the ground. He also used water features to make an already very large landscape look almost infinite from ground level. Fouquet entertained King Louis the fourteenth vau le Vicomte by staging a historically famous party, and the king was wildly impressed with what Lenotre had accomplished there. Lenotre had worked alongside the famed architect Louis Leveaux and the artist Charles Lebrun, who painted the lavish chateaus interiors and designed all of the sculpture. And Lebron in particular had a reputation for being headstrong, but because he and the very good natured Lenore were old friends from their days. Under the tutelage of simul Vue, the master gardener was able to negotiate most conflicts among the three creators and keep things pretty even keel. The party thrown to show off this new estate was just mind blowing. It featured an eight course meal served to a thousand guests on gold plates. That was just the beginning. Moliere staged a play in the gardens. Jean Baptiste Lulie, sometimes called the grandfather of ballet, staged a ballet for the guests. Partygoers could roam these beautifully laid out parterre or sit by Lenotre's water features as they watched the spectacular end of the evening fireworks display. Allegedly, the stillness of the night made the water reflect the fireworks so perfectly the guests lost track of whether they were looking at the fireworks or the water. And you might think that all of this, which sounds like a pretty fantastic party, was a feather in his cap situation. For Fouquet, he had built an incredibly impressive estate fit for an entertaining the guest of honor at his marvelous fete, the King of France. But three weeks after the party Nicola, Fouquet was arrested by none other than the musketeer d'Artagnan on charges of embezzling money from France's treasury, with the implication that he had used those funds to build Voule Viconte. This story is often told in sort of a shorthand, as though Louis the fourteenth was jealous of Fouquet's dazzling, hunderd Acre estate and then had him arrested because of that jealousy. According to this version of the story, the king was affronted that somebody of lesser rank than he was would dare to create a grander chateau than a royal palace. We should mention here that there were also rumors that Fouquet had even offered all of Volviconte to the king at the end of the night as a gift. But there is a whole lot of additional context to this story. Even though Fouquet had been incredibly loyal to the throne, even through an uprising of nobles against the crown that was known as the Frond, which could be its own episode, at some point Louis the fourteenth was turned against him through the scheming of other members of the court. At the point in time of the famed voe Viconfette Nicola, Fouquet was the superintendent of finance for the king and had been since Louis the fourteenth was fifteen, and some accounts even suggested Fouquet was something of a father figure to the monarch. The man who served as the primary antagonist to Fouquet was Jean Baptiste Colbert. Over time, as Colbert had managed the responsibilities of Cardinal Joue Mazarin, he had become trusted by King Louis the fourteenth. Colbert was the first person to accuse Fouquet of mismanagement at the treasury, and his efforts to get him out of office began in earnest In sixteen sixty one, letters written by the king indicate that even before the famed vote Vicomfette, Louis the fourteenth had already decided Fouquet's fate, but decided to go to this lavish party and enjoy the meals and festivities and see just what had been built before he did anything about it. There is a famous quote by Voltaire, who was writing on the subject, that says, quote on Auguste that six in the evening, Fouquet was King of France. At two in the morning, he was nobody. Fouquet is sometimes characterized as a man who really seemed to have no idea that the entire life that he had built for himself was about to come crashing down. But if you look a little closer, that doesn't really align with what we know about the construction of the site and the days leading up to that giant party. There were plenty of intrigues about who had visited Vaux de Vicomte during construction and whether they were reporting back to the king about how suspiciously expensive it appeared. And then a letter sent to Fouquet by his friend, the Marquis Duck Says a few days before his events, stated quote, the King would like to be rich, and he does not love those who are more so than he, because they undertake things he cannot do, and he has no doubt that the great wealth of these others has been stolen from him. Those were definitely some ominous words, and in just a moment we'll talk more about how Fouquet and his project, including the creations of the nore, causes downfall, But first we will have a quick word from one of the sponsors who keeps the show going. So before the break, we established that Fouquet undoubtedly knew that his situation was precarious before he had this ostentatious party, and there probably was a little bit of jealousy in the mix when it came to Louis the fourteenth sire, and that the lavish display of vaili vicomte did seal Fouquet's fate with the king. But to say that Louis the fourteenth had Fouquet arrested for building a better house than the king had its kind of tabloid e and it's not really representative of all the machinations in play. After a three year trial, which is another thing that would be a good future episode if I can get my head around all of it, because there are a lot of strange legal things involved, Fouquet was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. As for the actual guilt of Fouquet, that comes with a lot of questions on its own, and some people see him as a villain, while others portray him as a man who was part of a very convoluted and bizarrely organized government who was behaving in ways that were pretty normal for his station. There was money flowing back and forth between Fouquet's private funds and the Crown. The accounts were a big mess overall. He mortgaged his wife's estate to give one point to million liver to the crown, and then later borrowed a lot of money for the treasury thirty million livre, but in his own name and with his own property for collateral. His own accounts and that of France were almost one and the same, and he was not innocent in this. He was making a lot of money by leveraging this fluidity and his position to make deals and acquire a greater personal fortune. Yeah. I don't know if anyone has ever fully unable to untangle like where money was going at any given point and how much was coming in from Fouquet versus possibly going out. I have read accounts that suggests that there were certainly other people that were in buzzling, which makes it even more complicated and convoluted. But even during his lengthy trial, there were people in France who came to support him and believe that he had been less conniving and more just kind of really bad at his job. And there have been plenty of people through the centuries that contend that he was part of a system that had enabled far worse behavior from previous finance ministers, and to reiterate, Louis the fourteenth had been very impressed with Vot de Vicomte, and with good reason. He had heard of the splendor of the chateau and its grounds from his brother, the Duke dour Leon, who had been at a smaller gathering there a month before the famous party. The notes contributions were really extraordinary. It's still considered by many to be his highest achievement, even greater than Versailles, which will get two in Part two. The gardens of Voile Vicante were, as we mentioned, made to look as though they stretched out to infinity if you stood at ground level and looked across the vista. But that was not the only optical illusion that Lenore created. From some angles, particularly higher points that looked out onto garden spaces, he was also able to make large expanses of land appear to be small and intimate. If you looked out into the gardens from the chateau, it wasn't inviting and beckoning vista that did not look too far to walk, an illusion Lenotre created with the placement of for reflecting pool basins of progressively larger sizes as they sat farther and farther from the chateau. This use of space is called anamorphosis abscondito, which translates to hidden distortion. A paper written in twenty and published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage used three D modeling to analyze the layout of the Lenore's garden design and to analyze that using the rules of linear perspective. This paper breaks down the process of how he was tricking the mind of the observer by offering up a wide variety of visual information at various distances while arranging all of these things around a strong central axis. But of course he achieved all that without the use of any kind of three D modeling. But while the math holds up when analyzing Lenore's visual trickery, he undoubtedly learned how to fool the mind's visual perception in Simone Vue's painting studio. Yeah, it's sort of mind blowing to me that they when you do the numbers. He was managing the space in like the optimal way to trick the human mind. Based on what we now know of, like vision and optics, which were not things he probably knew about. Uh, he was just a genius um. This whole space was basically one big long rectangle with that central access line. It was an open avenue that runs still from one end of the property to the other, and the chateau is situated on that line as a central element with a moat around it. One description that I read of the landscape design at Voilee Viconte described it as a vast outdoor room. And into this outdoor room lenotre placed all of the design elements that would become hallmarks of his work and of the formal French garden in this era. So there were pebbled walkways, there were low boxwood hedges, there were statuary fountains, water basins that reflected the surroundings, a canal, and various grottos. Lenore was the first garden designer to oversee all of those things prior to Voilee Vicante. If there was a similar chateau and grounds being assembled, different people or departments would handle like the horticultural needs versus the water features versus the statuary. So this is where it becomes very very clear that calling him just a gardener doesn't really encompass what he was doing. One of the many innovations of the Voile Viconte garden was its great water mirror, also called the If you face the front of the chateau, about fifteen hundred feet out from the building, you can see the entire front of the structure perfectly reflected in the water. This water mirror was the first of its kind, and even today people visit Vote of a cult which is now open to the public, to capture this perspective photographically. Yeah, you can find modern photos of this all over the internet if you care to go looking, and they are really striking. That harmony between the landscape and garden design and the design of the chateau itself was all very very intentional. When the site had been chosen, it was already a settlement, but to fulfill the desires of Fouquet to create something entirely new where all of these components were harmonious. The existing church, cottages and farm were all leveled to be replaced with the grand Chateau and the properties owned to design Hamlets Jumeau and Maison Rouge. To execute the grand plans for the estate Fouque provided lots of labor and estimated eighteen thousand men worked on the chateau in the grounds. He also provided plenty of cash. Budget seems to not even be a thing with this. If something was needed, that money was available. The three creators were just giving carte Blanche to do whatever they wanted. That sounds really magical right as as an art project, to have no budget, like I think most people that work in any creative field would just make heart eyes if they are those words. All of those resources meant that Lenore, who at this point was kind of in his middle age uh, and he was able to do something that was unheard of on large estates. He designed and built a landscape that looked absolutely beautiful from every possible angle. It would have been entirely expected, for example, for the gardens to look beautiful for visitors approaching the chateau from the front or looking out at the vast property behind the chateau from the terraces, but to look a little disproportionate or lackluster from say the back of the property. But Lenota using his symmetrical layout but subtly different specifics in each area to avoid a true mirror ring created a space that was visually pleasing no matter where you stood, in what direction you looked. And when you consider the visual trickery that we already talked about, that adds a whole other layer of complexity to this really amazing achievement. Louis had been so wowed by this whole thing that he wanted the dream team of Lenore, Leveaux and Lebron to work on a project specifically for him. He truly marveled as his carriage approached the chateau. Some accounts suggest that Lenotre was traveling with the king as he made his way to the party, and that he explained all the various landscape features as the king requested information about them. Yeah, Louis the fourteenth is we'll talk about a little bit in the next episode. Was really fascinated by gardening, uh, and he undoubtedly would have had a lot of questions. He was also a little bit of an information junkie, so probably Lena was there explaining how he had and everything. After Fouquet's arrest, the king took the furnishings and even some of the more impressive foliage from Voile Vigante, including the orange trees, and he moved them to his hunting lodge at Versailles. And that lodge we've talked about on the show before had started as a very very simple abode, and Louis thirteen had rebuilt it in se to be slightly more appropriate for royal housing. It was still considered by some to be a little lackluster, but Louis the fourteenth had much bigger plans for Versailles, and it was of course Lenore who he tasked with creating the gardens there. And that is the end of part one. It is continually a marvel to me that the artists involved. As much as I think it is easy for um modern folks to characterize the Court of France and Louis the fourteenth that's this sort of very vengeful and backbiting thing. They did not punish any of the creators of that beautiful estate. Uh. They in fact stayed in great favor. And Leno Tree in particular seems to have been a man that everyone loved. He just sounds like a great guy to hang out with. Everyone found him really chills, super delightful, great and good natured, got along with everybody. Um, So I love it. And we're gonna pick up with his his work at Versailles next time. I'm still working through the many, many wonderful holiday cards we have been sent by listeners, so I'm going to have a couple of knows today for listener mail, because there's a really great stack. Um. Our first one is from our listener Catherine. It is a card with the Elf on the Shelf on the front, and it has little note that is Snitches get stitches, which is a little shaky. It makes me laugh. Um. Everybody has feelings, but the show. She writes, Tracy and Holly, you have always been on my nice list, Wishing you both your cats and family the humans a merry Christmas and all of the best stuff in the new year. Catherine. Uh. And she also included pictures of her adorable cats, Witten and Walter, who send their Christmas greetings. Witten is a very fluffy creature that has a tummy that begs for scritches, and Walter is a beautiful orange tabby who is probably super sweet because orange tabby's usually are um. This next card delighted me utterly. It is a repeat listener male that we have read his his mail before and that is Germaine. In his note, it is first of all a gorgeous pop up card with a beautiful Christmas tree in it um and it is from our listener, Chip, and he writes, Happy Holidays from San Francisco. This is Chip again, and ladies, you have rocketed me to stardom for side money. I drive for Lift and Uber, and when I drive, I have stuff you missed in history class playing my Riders, especially like the episodes that involve San Francisco, since that is where we live. In fact, your great quake and Fire's episode had us riveted. And then you read the Halloween card I sent. I went nuts and my Riders burst into applause and cheers. They all subscribed to stuff you missed in his tree class before I dropped them off, and they called me san Francisco's History podcast celebrity. Learning about our home city from the two of you is always a blast. Please hurry back for another live show. I wish you and all you love have a very merry Christmas and new year of fun adventures. Chip, that is the sweetest story. I love it to pieces. So if there's someone in the car with you right now, I hope they appreciate that we love your cards and they're beautiful, and I'm glad that you're our history ambassador in San Francisco. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at History Podcast at i heeart radio dot com. You can also find us everywhere on social media as Missed in History. If you would like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that on the I heart radio app, at Apple podcasts, or wherever it is that you listen. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.