René Louis de Girardin
| René de Girardin | |
|---|---|
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| Born | February 25, 1735 |
| Died | 1808 |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | Landscape gardening |
René Louis de Girardin (February 25, 1735 – 1808), Marquis of Vauvray, was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's last pupil. He created the first French landscape garden at Ermenonville. It was inspired by Rousseau's ideas. De Girardin was the author of De la composition des paysages (1777), which strongly influenced the style of the modern French landscape garden.
Girardin was descended from the old Florentine Gherardini family. In 1762 he inherited his title of Marquis of Vauvray and his mother's fortune (she was the daughter of René Hatte, the chief tax collector for Louis XV). The inheritance included 300,000 livres and the 800-hectare (2,000-acre) estate of Ermenonville. His estates brought him an income of about 100,000 livres a year.
Girardin became an officer in Louis XV's army and served until the end of the Seven Years' War. He then left the army and went to Lunéville, where he joined the Polish Court of Stanislas Leszczynski.
In 1761 he married Cécile Brigitte Adélaide Berthelot, daughter of the maréchal des camps et armées of Lorraine. They had four sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Cécile Stanislas-Xavier (born 1762), was the godson of King Stanislas and became an important political figure during the French Revolution and a member of the French National Assembly from 1791 to 1792.
Girardin left the Polish court after the king's theater presented a play ridiculing Rousseau's ideas. He traveled for three years, visited Italy, Switzerland, Germany and England, where he saw Stowe. He didn't like Stowe much because he felt it contrary to nature in its collection of different styles. But Girardin greatly admired the English poet William Shenstone's garden at The Leasowes.
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