None the less, Le Normand No 1 managed to produce France’s first pineapples at the Potager in the 1730s and had considerable success with coffee, annually producing around 10lb, which Louis XV apparently enjoyed brewing and serving himself. With the French Revolution, pretty much everything, including 800 pineapple plants, was auctioned off and the Potager began a new life as a school for horticulture and landscape architecture.

Contemporary v historical

Today the Potager is run by the National School of Landscape Architecture (ESNP) and the figuerie houses a lecture theatre and offices. The garden is home to 200 landscape architecture students and 350 continuing education students, but also to 400 varieties of fruit tree grown in 68 different shapes (requiring 1,000 hours of expert pruning in winter), 450 varieties of fruit and vegetables – and just nine gardeners.

“What is interesting in this garden is the tension between being contemporary and being historical,” says Antoine Jacobsohn. He is the man charged with balancing the need to maintain historical pruning techniques, educating the public about fruit and vegetable varieties and continuing to innovate in the spirit of La Quintinie. He has to do this with a modest staff and to be as eco-friendly and chemical-free as possible.