Ordres et désordres des jardins de George Sand

Abstract

In gardens, appearances are deceptive, and order and disorder are not always where you think they are. If the well “arranged” gardens represented in George Sand’s works invariably arouse at first the amazed surprise of the author or her characters, they end up disappointing them, because of their lack of a certain order. In contrast, the gardens that Sand defines as “natural”, where the vegetation is left to itself and free to grow wildly, reveal to whom may see it an unfailing order. How to explain this paradox? Consideration of the scientific debates that took place at the time of Sand will partly resolve it. 

Keywords: native flora, exotic flora, natural garden, arranged garden, order, relationality, Cuvier-Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire debate, geography of plants.