Coup d'Oeil at Beloeil and a Great Number of European Gardens

by Charles-Joseph de Ligne, Basil Guy (Editor)

Charles-Joseph, seventh Prince de Ligne, Field marshal, Grandee of Spain, Knight of the Golden Fleece, sovereign of the minuscule county of Fagnolles in the Ardennes, and author of the Coup d'Oeil sur Beloeil, was born in 1735. Claiming descent from Charlemagne, intimate with royalty from Paris to Vienna to St. Petersburg, he traveled widely, associating with such luminaries as Madame de Staël, Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and Rousseau until the eighteenth-century douceur de vivre came to an abrupt halt with the French Revolution. Forced to flee his Belgian estates, he became an exile in Vienna, where he died in 1814, having attempted to support himself by writing. But Ligne's real passion was for his garden at Beloeil, which he described as he lay dying as "the handsomest garden in Europe . . . if it weren't for Versailles."
This new critical edition presents the 1795 version of Ligne's masterwork, his garden treatise on Beloeil and the great gardens of Europe. Designed by Wolfgang Lederer and elegantly illustrated from sources Ligne himself might have known, this extensively annotated translation will introduce a new generation of readers to Ligne's intelligence and wit as well as his ideas on gardens. The charm and vivacity of the Prince's anecdotes and pithy observations lead one through his own beloved gardens to a Grand Tour of European culture in the eighteenth century.
"These pages were composed in happy days, when the world was not sullied with crime and when our blood and tears had not been shed. I wrote names then that I no longer have the strength to utter. Now everything is altered. But that does not change the intent of my work, which was simply to give counsel and example to others. These are not the tales of a traveler but rather the precepts of a gardener."--Preface to the First Edition

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1781

About the author

Charles-Joseph Lamoral, 7e prince de Ligne was born in Brussels, the son of Field Marshal Claude Lamoral, 6th Prince of Ligne and Elisabeth Alexandrine de Salm.
As an Austrian subject he entered the imperial army at an early age. He distinguished himself by his valour in the Seven Years' War, notably at Breslau, Leuthen, Hochkirch and Maxen, and after the war rose rapidly to the rank of lieutenant field marshal. He became the intimate friend and counsellor of the emperor Joseph II, and, inheriting his father's vast estates, lived in the greatest splendour and luxury till the War of the Bavarian Succession brought him again into active service.
This war was short and uneventful, and the prince then travelled in England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France, devoting himself impartially to the courts, the camps, the salons and the learned assemblies of philosophers and scientists in each country. He developed a great admiration for Frederick the Great, even to the point of justifying his seizure of Silesia.
In 1784 he was again employed in military work, and was promoted to Feldzeugmeister. In 1787 he was with Catherine II in Russia and accompanied her in her journey to the Crimea. In 1788 he was present at the siege of Belgrade.
Shortly after the siege of Belgrade he was invited to place himself at the head of the Belgian revolutionary movement, in which one of his sons and many of his relatives were prominent, but declined with great courtesy, saying that "he never revolted in the winter." Though suspected by Joseph of collusion with the rebels, the two friends were not long estranged, and after the death of the emperor the prince remained in Vienna. His Brabant estates were overrun by the French in 1792-1793, and his eldest son killed in action at La Croix-du Bois in the Argonne (September 14, 1792). He was given the rank of field marshal (1809) and an honorary command at court.