The Island of Felicity

For the 2025 International Garden Festival at the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, themed “Once upon a time in the garden”, Alice Stevens designed a garden inspired by The Island of Felicity together with Aude Seigneur, Raphaël Fenoglio and Jean-Christophe Ravaux.

In 1690, Madame d’Aulnoy published the first fairy tale in French, L’Île de la Félicité. It tells the story of Prince Adolphe, who sets out to find a legendary island said to grant eternal happiness. The garden tells the story of this quest. Visitors cross arid landscapes of sand and rock, where plants they barely notice have nonetheless drawn strength and beauty from seemingly barren ground.

Suddenly the long-awaited islet appears. Hidden behind curtains floating in the wind, like a sanctuary, it shelters lush vegetation where grains, fruit and vegetables grow beside a peaceful river. Glass-paste pebbles stand for the magic of the island’s nymphs, thanks to which Adolphe lives three hundred years of happiness untouched by time.

But will this Garden of Eden satisfy the young prince? At the end of his journey, Adolphe realises that his ideal of an unchanging paradise was an illusion. Happiness is not necessarily found in a nature that has been selected, organised, tamed and forced. One need not be weighed down with fruit to be happy.

A metaphorical composition, the garden invites visitors to enjoy less spectacular but more accessible paradises, all the sweeter when discovered through hardship: to see richness in restraint and resilience, and simply to enjoy the journey. For the wild grasses met along the way, the soft green carpets of the discreet Lippia or the fragrant Eucalyptus are sources of joy too, for those who know how to gather them.

The garden was open to the public from 19 April to 2 November 2025. See the 2025 edition on the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire website.