François Racine de Monville

François Racine de Monville ( born October 4, 1734 Paris, † April 1797 ), also François Nicolas Henri Racine de Monville, later François Racine, was a French civil servant of King Louis XV. and amateur architect. His most famous creation is the Désert de Retz Landscape Park.

Life

Racine de Monville grew up with his grandfather on mother's side. His father was head of the financial management of Alençon; he sat for fraud from 1742 to 1750 a in prison. Nevertheless, the young François enjoyed a good education. First attempts to obtain a position at court, failed. 1757 Racine superintendent of the Water and Forests in Normandy. This position he took off again in 1764 true.

Racine was moving on the court of Louis XV. , Worked as a composer and was a skilful ball player in the Jeu de Paume. For more details of his life and information about his income is not known. From 1774 Racine began with the realization of his plan to create a " Désert ". He understood including a landscape garden in the English style, built into this approach on a moody landscape staging.

Racine acquired for this purpose by a royal valet, a property with a country house in Saint -Jacques- de -Retz. He supplied four thousand trees, provided for a system of waterways and ponds for irrigation. In the following years he built several garden staffages, the best known in the form of an oversized columns ruin. This building was his home. As Racine funded the extensive and expensive changes to the landscape and buildings, is not known.

The political events in the wake of the French Revolution led Racine his Paris mansion 'and the Désert de Retz to sell and to live henceforth as a simple citizen. In 1794 he was arrested and spent his life until the end of the Grande Terreur of the Jacobins in the dungeon. Racine died in 1797 completely depleted at the gangrene.