Long-lived fish in the ponds of Petit Trianon, Fontainebleau and Chantilly

The British writer Barbara Pym, in her ironic novel Crampton Hodnet, written in the 1930s and 1940s, observes that the fish in the ponds of the Petit Trianon are so old that they must have seen Marie Antoinette. In principle, some freshwater fish really do live for more than a hundred years; I am not sure that any of them inhabit that particular spot, but still…

Marie de' Medici, for instance, mentioned the carp of Fontainebleau, which lived for 800 years. That is admittedly rather a lot, but 70 to 100 years is quite easy to imagine. Near the château of Chantilly, too, very old carp were found in their day, which might well have remembered the Duc d'Aumale.

The canals and channels of the Petit Trianon may at first glance look overgrown or neglected, but that is precisely the original design. The pavilions appear to have been set on wild islands. The trees seem to grow at random. The fish in the photograph live in the channels of the Queen's Hamlet, where Marie Antoinette milked a cow, beside the Petit Trianon. The fish usually gather in seething heaps by the bridges, expecting passers-by to throw them a scrap of bread.