Missouri Botanical 
Garden Bulletin 
Vol. VIII St. Louis, Mo., September, 1920 No. 7 
FRENCH CHATEAU GARDENS IN POST-WAR 
PERIOD 
When the subject of chateau gardens of France is men- 
tioned, places such as Versailles, Fontainebleau, Chantilly, St. 
Cloud, and St. Germain suggest themselves, they being some 
of the finest examples of the French school of landscape gar- 
dening. While touching upon some of these gardens, the pur- 
pose of this article is to dwell more on the smaller places, 
especially those in the Touraine Valley. 
The climax of garden-making in France was reached when 
Le Notre, the celebrated French landscape architect, developed 
and completed the gardens of Versailles. Gardens one can 
hardly call them, however, for they are so vast that their mag- 
nitude alone would serve to make them extremely interesting. 
The innumerable lead vases, the many statues, fountains, and 
smaller gardens give the park of Versailles a charm not to be 
equalled elsewhere. None of the gardens were used for war 
purposes, but a portion of the park remote from the chateau 
was devoted in 1918 and 1919 by the Garden Service of the 
United States Quartermaster Corps to the growing of vege- 
tables for the American Expeditionary Forces. In the spring 
and summer of 1919 the park undoubtedly was in as good a 
condition as at any time, and fortunate were the many mem- 
bers of the American Expeditionary Forces who journeyed 
from Paris to view that marvelous chateau and park. 
Fontainebleau, that beautiful palace built by Francis I, 
with its wonderful forests and gardens, was in fine condition, 
except that the bedding plants, so essential to carry out the 
scheme of the parterres, were lacking. 
A visit to Paris was necessary to see French gardens at 
their best in 1919. The garden of the Luxembourg, the only 
remaining Renaissance garden in Paris, with its balustrades, 
many statues, beautiful flower beds, shady chestnut and plane- 
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