JARDIN MASSEY / TARBES
At the moment when a life begins, it is impossible to know how it one day will end.
Through chance, unexpected events and serendipity, most people experience things they never would have thought or planned for.
Life is a strange and wonderous journey, a gift that allows us to grow with every new experience.
In 1777, Placide Massey was born in Tarbes, in the south of France, the son of Anne Marmouget and Jean Massey, a master shoemaker.
He began working as an assistant pharmacist, considering it as a potential career, but at 18, he gave left to join the army.
In the army, Massey first became assistant to Louis Ramond, but was later appointed intendant of the gardens of Queen Hortense.
On the order of King Louis-Philippe, he planted many trees by the Trianon, Chèvreloup and in the part of Saint-Cloud, all in the royal park of Versailles, where he also, from 1819 and onwards, became responsible for the management of the vegetable garden.
But he remained attached to his hometown, and in 1829 (and once more a few decades later, in 1852), he would buy land in Tarbes.
In 1850, he finally retired from his work as a botanist at Versailles, and returned permanently to Tarbes. He built a house and continued planting the land he had purchased with rare trees.
He wished for Tarbes to have a museum of national history, and had an oriental-style building constructed for this purpose.
It is dominated by an observation tower with view of the nearby Pyrenees Mountains, designed by architect Jean-Jacques Latour.
After his death, this building would come to house the Massey Museum. He bequeathed his garden, now known as Jardin Massey, and almost all of his possessions to the town of Tarbes.
Massey’s life ended in the same geographical place where it had begun, but at the same time, during his lifetime, he expanded his horizon beyond what was imaginable when he was only a young junior pharmacist, creating a legacy that still lives on, through the work he carried out as a royal botanist in Versailles.
“Today, the park and the unique museum is a popular spot with the people of Tarbes, who enjoy strolling among the many peacocks that roam freely in the park, along its many paths, lawns and flower beds.”
The park, covering 11 hectares, is a magnificent landscaped park, typical of the style of the mid-19th century.
Today, the park and the unique museum is a popular spot with the people of Tarbes, who enjoy strolling among the many peacocks that roam freely in the park, along its many paths, lawns and flower beds.
It has two lakes and pebble canals, supplied with water. The city of Tarbes takes great care of the garden. Motorcycles, scooters and even rollerblades and bicycles are not permitted within the park.
It is expressly forbidden to cut the branches of trees, to pick flowers or to tread on the lawns.
The park is to be experienced through eyes, touch and scent only, a memory to keep and revisit in one’s mind.
