Secrets of Versailles palace perfume gardens

(1 Jun 2023)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4437601
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Versailles, France - 26 May 2023
1. Wide of perfumer’s garden at Versailles
2. Mid of garden with Paulownia tree
3. Mid of flowers
HEADLINE: The secrets of Versailles palace perfume gardens
ANNOTATION: These gardens at Versailles were once famed for helping courtiers cover up their bad odours with perfume.

4. Close of bees on flowers
5. Wide of greenhouse interior
ANNOTATION: Now, they’ve been reimagined to give today’s public a glimpse - and a sniff - into the gilded French palace’s past.

6. Mid of African Marigolds
7. Close of Dash Crimson
8. SOUNDBITE (French) Catherine Pegard, president, Palace of Versailles:
"Those discovering the gardens will go from flower to flower to understand what people liked in the past and what we still like today because perfumes are so present in our lives today."

9. Close of Calycanthus
ANNOTATION: The “Perfumer’s Gardens” aim to explore the importance of flowers in the 17th century French court.

10. Wide of garden
11. Mid of garden
ANNOTATION: They also remind us that Versailles Palace was the very place where the job of perfumer was actually invented during that century.

12. Close of cabbage rose
STORYLINE:
The Versailles flower gardens were once a symbol of the French king’s expeditionary might and helped water-deprived courtiers perfume their skin.

Now, they have been reimagined to give today’s public a glimpse — and a sniff — into the gilded palace’s olfactory past.

Holding secrets to the original concept of flower power, scents of Bulgarian rose, mint and citrus from hundreds of vividly colored historic blooms unveiled this week waft into the nostrils of paying visitors at the Chateauneuf Orangery of the Grand Trianon, transporting them back in time.

“Those discovering the gardens will, from flower to flower, understand what we loved in history,” Versailles Palace president Catherine Pegard said.

The aim of the Perfumer’s Garden is to unlock the mysteries and significance behind the scented flowers of the 17th-century French court — yet also remind us that it was no accident that the Versailles Palace was the very place where the job of perfumer was actually invented during that century.

AP Video by Oleg Cetinic

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