VERSAILLES, France, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Amid the mourning for the estimated 10,000 people that died in France during this month's heat wave has come another loss: a 321-year-old tree.
The oldest tree at the Chateau de Versailles was believed to have once shaded the playground of Marie-Antoinette.
The nearly 98-foot-tall oak was certified dead this week by experts from the French National Office of Forests.
The London Times said the great oak stood midway between the Grand Trianon palace and the lake, surviving the 1776 revamp of Versailles in which Louis XVI, husband of Queen Marie-Antoinette, felled most of the royal trees.
The tree 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.
The Times noted the oak had lived through revolution and war, as well as the 1999 storms that destroyed 10,000 of the trees in the nearly 4,000-acre Versailles park.
