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Welcome to
The Racine de Monville Home Page
The best source on the internet for information about
The Désert de Retz
An Extraordinary 18th Century Garden in Chambourcy, near Paris
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Check out all the pages on this site.
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The Racine de Monville Home Page is the world's first and most authoritative web site devoted to the Désert de Retz and its creator, François Racine de Monville (1734-1797).
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Viewing the Racine de Monville Home Page on your iPhone?
Just save this page to add the Retz icon--below--to your Home Screen. Or create an original Retz icon for your Home Screen by using the free Touch Icon app. It only takes a few seconds.
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The most romantic folly garden in Europe...
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Leave a trace of your visit by sticking a pin in the GuestMap - it's fun and easy!
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What's happening at the Désert de Retz?
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Go for a short guided tour of the Désert de Retz. Your tour guides? Dr. Pierre Morange, Mayor of Chambourcy, and Francois Racine de Monville himself!
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The Désert de Retz welcomes an estimated 1,000 visitors--including 839 adults purchasing entry tickets--
on the occasion of European Heritage Days, September 17-18, 2011.
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Was Monsieur de Monville a Freemason?
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View Mexican artist Lirio Garduño-Buono's paintings, The Chinese House and Pina Bausch inside the Broken Column, both inspired by the Désert de Retz.
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Watch Les Folies de Retz, a one-minute forty-nine second slide show of the Desert de Retz--past and present.
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The Désert de Retz makes the front cover of France's mass-circulation weekly L'Express.
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The Désert de Retz was the inspiration for New York-based painter Carol Markel's painting Folly Wedding.
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At least two surrealist paintings by French artist and film-maker Jean Barral were inspired by the Désert de Retz.
- A twenty-first century Désert de Retz? In England? Learn more about Alnwick Garden
- The Désert de Retz is above ground, but underground is the strange and mysterious Aqueduc de Retz.
On connaît le Désert de Retz. Mais connaissez-vous l'Aqueduc de Retz, insolite et souterrain.
- Watch a video of the Désert de Retz from the archives of the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA).
- Monsieur de Monville's Column House selected as one of the world's Top 7 Weirdest Houses!
- An English Monville? Learn more about John "Mad Jack" Fuller and his follies.
- Read an exclusive, first-hand account of a visit to the Désert de Retz in 1952.
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Enoch Robinson, an American Monville?
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Did Monsieur de Monville's Column House portend the French Revolution?
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Latest update January 1, 2012.
Dernière mise à jour le 1er janvier 2012.
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| Entire contents copyright ©1996-2012 by Ronald W. Kenyon. All rights reserved. Copying of any portion of this website without the written authorization of the author is forbidden. Permission to republish content from this website in print or online will be granted by the author upon request. Links to this site are welcome; no authorization is required but notification is requested.
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