Men, plants and gardens between Mauritius and the Petit Trianon in the XVIIIth century1

Abstract

Remarkable studies have been conducted on the movement of plants from the Indies to France and the Jardin du Roi at Paris (today Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle). Researchers have seldom focused in detail on the links between the Île de France (now Mauritius) and the Gardens of Trianon during the reign of Louis XV. 2 Scholars interested in bio-prospecting have established how France’s colonial ambitions informed this trade; however, less attention has focused on alternative networks of botanists, collectors, and members of the medical community who pursued their passion for plants. Botanical enthusiasts at the court of Versailles, inspired by the Louis XV’s patronage of his own botanical garden at the Petit Trianon, collaborating with the king’s gardeners, pursued a botanical exchange with planters in the Île de France. Focusing on a diverse set of documents, this essay reconstructs the networks of travelers and naturalists who were sufficiently enthusiastic about exotic plants to have sponsored a collection of them in expensive greenhouses, and examines their collective wish to enrich the royal collection with seeds and plants drawn from the first plant collection gardens set up in Mauritius at the time of the French East India Company.