Ermenonville
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Coordinates: 49°07′36″N 2°41′48″E / 49.1266666667°N 2.69666666667°E
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Commune of Ermenonville |
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| Location | |
  Ermenonville
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| Administration | |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Region | Picardie |
| Department | Oise |
| Arrondissement | Senlis |
| Canton | Chantilly |
| Mayor | Alain Petrement |
| Statistics | |
| Elevation | 92 m (300 ft) avg. |
| Land area1 | 16.5 km2 (6.4 sq mi) |
| Population2 | 913 (2008) |
| - Density | 55 /km² (140 /sq mi) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 60213/ 60950 |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| 2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. | |
Ermenonville is a commune in the Oise department in northern France.
Ermenonville is notable for its park named for Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose tomb designed by the painter Hubert Robert is on the Isle of Poplars in its lake.
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[edit] Park
The garden at Ermenonville was one of the earliest and finest examples of the French landscape garden. The garden at Ermenonville was planned by marquis René Louis de Girardin, friend and final patron to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Girardin's master plan drew its inspiration from Rousseau's novels and philosophy of the nobility of Nature. Rousseau's tomb, in fact, is prominently situated on the artificial island in the lake at Ermenonville. Girardin was probably assisted in the design by the painter Hubert Robert. Created with care and craft, the garden came to resemble a natural environment, almost a wilderness, appearing untouched by any human intervention. Girardin admired the work of William Shenstone at The Leasowes and made a ferme ornee at Ermenonville. An imitation of Rousseau's Island at Ermenonville was produced in Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, Germany.
It was much visited and admired during the early nineteenth century. The garden at Ermenonville was described by Girardin's son in 1811 in an elegant tour-book with aquatint plates that reveal Girardin's love of diverse vistas that capture painterly landscape effects. Enhancing the elegiac mood of these views were the altars and monuments, the 'Rustic Temple', and other details meant to evoke Rousseau's Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse.
Nearby is Rousseau's 'cabin' in the secluded désert of Ermenonville.
Napoleon Bonaparte famously visited Ermenonville, where he remarked to Girardin that it might have been better for the peace of Frenchmen that neither himself nor Rousseau had ever been born. Girardin retold this story again and again after the fact.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Memoirs of Meneval, p. 22, http://books.google.com/books?id=MhQRAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#PPA22,M1
[edit] External links
- Ermenonville official website
- Château d'Ermenonville website
- Ermenonville, Parc Jean-Jacques Rousseau - a Gardens Guide review
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