Gardener To The King

Frédéric Richaud

Editions

Review

Jean- Baptiste da La Quintinie was gardener to LouisXIV.  Most of our knowledge of him comes from his autobiography, posthumously produced in Paris in 1690 and made available to the English reader by John Evelyn three years later, as ‘The Compleat Gard’ner’.

To scant biographical details, Frédéric Richaud has added a story of political subversion and intrigue at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  Personal disaffection with courtly life and a retreat to the values of the great Kitchen Garden at Versailles, which yielded produce enough for the thousands who inhabited the palace/city, make for a fascinating novel which has been impeccably translated by Barbara Bray.

On the endpapers of this beautifully produced book, fact and fiction merge, showing as they do a plan of the ‘Potager du Roi’ which is La Quintinie’s enduring triumph. - review by Stewart Grimshaw