René Louis de Girardin

René Louis Girardin

René Louis de Girardin (born February 24, 1735 in Paris , †  September 20, 1808 in Vernouillet , Yvelines department ), stage name also René Louis Gérardin , was a French marquis , creator of the park of Ermenonville and writer. He represented ideas of social reform and was a friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau .

Origin and youth

René Louis de Girardin was the only child from the marriage of the Marquis de Vauvré, Louis Alexandre de Girardin, and Anne Catherine Hatte, daughter of René Hatte († 1759), in 1733. Girardin joined the French army under Louis XV in 1754 , but left before the end of the Seven Years' War . He then stayed at the court of the Polish King Stanislaus I. Leszczyński, who was living in exile in Lorraine, in Lunéville . There he received his first ideas for garden design and began to deal with ideas for social reform.

Girardin married in 1761 Cécile Brigitte Adélaïde Berthelot de Baye (1736-1818), daughter of a field marshal of the Lorraine army. After differences of opinion with Stanislaus over the ideas of Rousseau, whom Girardin admired and defended, he left Lunéville. After traveling to England, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, he took possession of the Ermenonville domain he had inherited from his mother in 1763.

Ermenonville and political engagement

Extensive income from agriculture and income from inheritance allowed Girardin to redesign the large estate of Ermenonville, which included a castle and the village of the same name , according to his ideas. Work began in 1763 and was largely completed in 1776. Girardin also tried to use the example of William Shenstone's farm , whom he had met during a stay in England, to run his estates, which in 1777 led to the ruin of one of his estates.

In the years before the revolution , Girardin sided with the rural population, accusing the monarchy of suppressing and exploiting the country. He also led disputes because of violations in the exercise of the hunting rights of the nobles; As a result of his actions, which included a road blockade, he had to flee to England to escape a secret order from the king ( lettre de cachet ) .

Rousseau had come to Ermenonville at Girardin's invitation. He died unexpectedly during his stay from May to July 1778. Girardin had a tomb erected for him on an island near the castle. After the death of the philosopher he admired, he saw himself as his trustee, negotiated with publishers and was in possession of the manuscripts. Together with friends of Rousseau, he prepared the first complete edition of the works from 1780 to 1782.

After the massacre of July 17, 1791 on the Champ de Mars , Girardin turned away from the cause of the revolution. Since the Jacobins accused him of being a supporter of the monarchy, he was under house arrest in Ermenonville until 1794, three of his sons and his eldest daughter were imprisoned. The Ermenonville domain began to deteriorate after sacking, Girardin retired to a house in Vernouillet, where he laid out a small garden and worked on his last publication.

Descendants and Legacies

The Girardin couple had four sons and two daughters. The eldest son was Cécile Stanislas Xavier de Girardin , the second oldest was Alexandre François Louis de Girardin , Amable Ours Séraphin de Girardin (1769 – c.1795), the youngest Alexandre Louis Robert de Girardin . The eldest daughter was Sophie Victoire Alexandrine de Girardin (1762-1845). René Louis Girardin died in Vernouillet on September 20, 1808.

The legacy of René Louis de Girardin included real estate and property. According to his will from 1808, it had a total value of over four million francs. In addition to the Ermenonville estate, there were properties in Brégy and Saint-Germain-du-Pert ; Girardin owned a town house in Paris on Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg (24) and a house in Vernouillet.

Publications

• De la composition des paysages . 4th edition. Paris 1805 (first edition 1777).
• Discours sur la nécessité de la ratification de la loi par la volonté générale . Paris 1791.

literature

• Michel Racine (Ed.): Créateurs de jardins et de paysages en France de la Renaissance au XXIe siècle . tape 1 : De la Renaissance au début du XIXe siècle . Actes Sud, Arles 2001, ISBN 2-7427-3280-2 , pp. 169-174 .
• Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer (Ed.): Nouvelle biography générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours . tape 20 . Paris 1857, Sp. 689 .
• Uwe Schneider: René Louis de Girardin . In: Saur General Artist Lexicon. The visual artists of all times and peoples . tape 55 : Giovanni da Civitella - Glandon. Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-22795-0 , pp. 197-198 .

Fiction

• Lion Feuchtwanger : Fool's Wisdom or Death and Transfiguration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau . Süddeutsche Zeitung Library Volume 88, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-86615-538-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about René Louis de Girardin in the catalog of the German National Library