From an article at The Australian:
Posted on August 28, 2003 09:03 AM. Filed under: history & archaeology.France has mourned the death in this month's heatwave of the oldest tree at the Chateau de Versailles, a 321-year-old oak that once shaded the playground of Marie-Antoinette.
The Marie-Antoinette oak, nearly 30m tall, was certified dead by experts from the National Office of Forests on Monday after losing its last leaves to the scorching sun that inflicted record temperatures all over France. The great oak stood midway between the Grand Trianon palace and the lake, and survived the 1776 revamp of Versailles in which Louis XVI, husband of Queen Marie-Antoinette, felled most of the royal trees.
The oak lived through revolution and war as well as the 1999 storms that destroyed 10,000 of the trees in the 1600ha Versailles park. It was planted in 1680 by Andre Lenotre, the architect-landscaper who built the chateau and laid out the park for Louis XIV, the Sun King.
A century later Marie-Antoinette and her court of friends and followers used to play blind-man's bluff and other games around the tree. [continue]