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CHAPTEE V. 



The Gardens of the Louvre, the Tuileries, and 



THE ELYSEE. 



The Gardens of the Louvre. 



The Place clu Carrousel, stretching between the Palaces of the 

 Louvre and the Tuileries, a large open paved square, at its 

 eastern end merges into a narrower space, to which I wish more 

 particularly to direct attention. On one side the Place is per- 

 fectly bare and without ornament ; but on the other the eye is 

 refreshed by two little gardens which embellish the smaller space 

 referred to, and form veritable oases in a desert of paving-stone. 

 There is perhaps no spot more capable of teaching a valuable 

 lesson in city-gardening. 



Viewed externally from their immediate surroundings, the 

 gardens have a pretty effect, and show at once the utility of such 

 near buildings. On the one hand there is a space as devoid of 

 vegetation as the desert — on the other, by the creation of the 

 simplest type of garden, the sculptor's work in stone and the 

 changeless lines of the great buildings are relieved by the living 

 grace of vegetation, so as to make a garden -picture of the most 

 charming kind, and all by merely encroaching a little on the 

 space that would otherwise be monopolised by paving-stones. 

 The view from inside the gardens, however, shows their good 

 effect with still greater force. The gardens are very small and 

 most simple in plan, a circle of grass, a walk, and a belt of hardy 

 trees and shrubs around the whole, with an edging of Ivy. No 

 gaudy colouring of the ground — no expensive temporary decora- 

 tion with tender costly flowers, but all green and quiet. 



It has been the rule amongst landscape-gardeners and others 



