Novel
Le jardinier de la Pompadour
Not translated into English
Eugène Demolder · 1904
Opening lines
Avec l'alouette la maison de Jasmin Buguet s'éveilla dans le matin de septembre.
With the lark, Jasmin Buguet's house awoke in the September morning.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Jasmin Buguet, a florist like his father before him in Boissise-la-Bertrand, near Melun, goes to watch the king's hunt pass through the forest of Sénart and comes back dazzled: he saw Louis XV raise a chicken leg to his mouth and throw it to his spaniel. He has fallen in love with the Marquise d'Étioles, soon to be Madame de Pompadour, while Martine, his childhood friend, serves the same lady as a chambermaid. The marquise takes him into her service, and he will spend years planting and tending the gardens of her château of Bellevue.
Context
The novel, written in Essonnes, appeared with the Mercure de France. It brings to the France of Louis XV an art formed on Flemish and Dutch painting: flowers, greenhouses and parks are painted in it like pictures, while the people's anger against the favourite rumbles in the distance. The Encyclopædia Britannica sees in it an evocation of an elegant age in which style and subject match.
Who it is for
A novel full of gardens and flowers, written directly in French; the text is freely available on Gallica, Wikisource and Project Gutenberg.
Prizes and reception
Alfred Vallette, director of the Mercure de France, ranked it among the finest books of its author, and encyclopaedias cite it among his principal works.
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The pages consulted to check this page.