We don't come to this garden by chance. Located at the far east of the Bois de Vincennes, on the edge of 12th century Paris and Nogent-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne), the Tropical Agronomy Garden is a place steeped in history and memory, some of which not always glorious.
Jacky Ribaud, guide, both independent and lecturer for the city of Paris, knows the place like the back of his hand. We gladly follow him for a visit in time. The place is vast, shelters a large number of ruins and monuments, and the walk informative.
Here we tested the cultures of exotic plants
The journey begins once you have passed the green gates. We are then facing the door of Amman, red and gold wood, today devoid of its characters deposited because weakened. “Originally, at the end of the 19th century, at the time of the maximum expansion of the colonies, we had a trial garden here,” explains the guide. It housed agricultural explorations of exotic crops (flowers, coffee trees, bananas, rubber trees, cocoa trees, vanilla trees), then shipped to the French colonies overseas. "
The garden now houses the Center for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development (CIRAD) and one of the greenhouses for the Menier chocolate and Hamel coffee brands. A survivor of the 1900 Universal Exhibition at the Trocadéro, it was moved here when the place officially became the Tropical Agronomy Garden.
The big greenhouse of the Universal Exhibition
At the time, colonial exhibitions multiplied: in 1905 in Paris, without much success; in 1906 at the Grand Palais, dedicated to Asia; in 1906, in Marseille, which met with enormous success. Then, from May to October 1907, it is in the Tropical Agronomy Garden that one sets up one. “Some buildings have been recovered from previous exhibitions,” explains Jacky Ribaud. To which were added replicas of houses and temples typical of conquered and / or invaded countries. In addition to the decorations of Sudanese, Congolese, Indochinese, Kanak villages, and a Tuareg camp, populated and "animated" by women, men and children, colonized natives. Exhibitions denounced later by those who spoke of these “human zoos”.
The sad vestiges or ruins of the colonial exhibition
If the villages have disappeared, there are some more or less ruined vestiges of the colonial pavilions. In particular, the Dinh esplanade stands out, with its Vietnamese-inspired stone portico adorned with a blue and gold circular mosaic, an enormous bronze funeral urn, "replica of one of the nine imperial urns of the palace of Hue (Viêt Nam) ”says the guide.
And at the top of a staircase with protective dragons, the Red Temple of Indochinese Remembrance (listed as a historic monument in 1965). It replaced in 1992 a larger Chinese communal house that came from the Colonial Exhibition in Marseille, but was devastated by fire in April 1984.
The all white Tunisian flag has recently been renovated. It is next to the Dahomey greenhouse "which was used to test the resistance of exotic woods to termites". The Indochina Pavilion, a replica of the palace of the Governor of Indochina, is a large building in white and red bricks bordered by superb pomegranate trees with double flowers and astonishing cockscomb erythrines, or coral tree, native to 'South America.
The list of our desires
Every day, Le Parisien shares with you his favorites for fun and cultureI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers. Learn more
Further on, the Congo pavilion, that of Reunion whose exotic woods stand up to time, that of Morocco, dilapidated and the flag of Guyana initially in the shape of a cross.
Monuments to the glory of foreign soldiers
During the war of 14-18, a hospital was set up in the garden "to accommodate the wounded soldiers of the colonial troops who fought on the metropolitan territory in 14-18, indicates Jacky Libaud. It was flanked by a mosque ”. A discreet base marks its location.
After the war, more villages and a lot of ruins. The Garden then becomes a place of commemoration where monuments to the glory of foreign soldiers who died for France stand.
The monument "to the glory of colonial expansion", broken down into five remains of statues sculpted by Jean-Baptiste Belloc. If we put the puzzle together, we get a man and a woman, indigenous, as if in adoration at the foot of the Republic enthroned alongside a huge Gallic rooster in the middle of weapons of war, paw placed on a terrestrial globe or, a Creole hieratic surrounded by fruit or even "a woman, black, stunned by the storm of 1999, holding an elephant's tusk", specifies Jacky Ribaud.
There are also the monuments "To the Indochinese Christians", "To the black soldiers who died for France", the one dedicated "To the Cambodians and Laotians who died for France", a stupa from 1927 and "To the Malagasy soldiers" and the one which brings together the 'together: "To the colonial soldiers of the Great War".
Curiosities
Here and there, the gaze stops on unusual elements. The bridge with the rusticage balustrade, in reinforced concrete appearing in wood, attracts the eye towards it and the small waterfall, just like the Tonkinese bridge whose pillars are, again because of the storm, stripped of their ornament in form. of fish. The one with the najas drawn up in a fan or the Pagodon, truncated from its hat. This is a small Indochinese altar intended to honor the gods or placed where some had lost their lives by accident.
The tiger trap, made of tilted wooden logs, hiding a pit, which, once the animal was attracted by a tantalizing bait, blocked the trap. Without missing the “architextures” of the artist Yohann le Guillerm, in residence in the garden since 2011.
45 bis, avenue de la Belle-Gabrielle, Paris 12th century. Open every day. Access: RER A Nogent-sur-Marne or health cycle path from Porte de Vincennes.
Guided tour: Jacky Ribaud: www.baladesauxjardins.fr or www.paris.fr
