THE STYLE OF LOUIS XII. 



They made decorative use of water by means of grottoes and cascades, 

 tanks and fountains, laying out moats in graceful plans, and spanning 

 them with ornamental bridges. The French garden was at first only 

 slightly affected by the Italian influence, although several garden 

 designers were among the earliest Italians employed in France. They 

 retained the practice of having one or more gardens within the castle 

 walls, forming, as it were, additional courts, supplemented in some cases 

 by further enclosed gardens at a little distance. They introduced, how- 

 ever, a more symmetrical method of laying them out with Italian detail 

 in the trellis work, arbours, and pavilions (Fig. 8), and Italian works of 

 art as ornaments, and sometimes arcaded porticoes of stone along the 

 enclosing walls. 



FOUNTAINS, 'PPpHII^^^HBHMP^RSIB^^C^S^^iHB 

 WELL-HOUSES. 

 Water for all pur- 

 poses was drawn 

 from open-air foun 

 tains and wells. 

 This practice per- 

 sists to the present 

 day to a far greater 

 extent on the Con- 

 tinent than with us ; 

 even when water is 

 laid on to the 

 houses, the house- 

 holder often sends 

 to the town fountain 

 for the coolest and 

 clearest drinking 

 water, while clothes 



and vegetables are washed in its basins. Both fountains and wells took 

 the form of isolated monuments or were incorporated in a wall ; in either 

 case they were often sheltered under a canopy or loggia. One or other 

 stood in the courtyard of every castle or large house, and in the squares 

 and streets of towns and villages. The market fountain at Blois, built 

 by Louis XII., is entirely Gothic, but that of Tours, built by his minister, 

 Jacques de Beaune-Semblangay (1510), is entirely Renaissance. It is the 

 work of the brothers Martin and Sebastien (Bastien) Frangois, mailres des 

 cduvres to the city. They had been trained in Colombe's studio, whose 

 great-niece Bastien married. Both appear to have died about 1525. The 

 well-heads in theold Hotel deVilleat Bourges and the Archbishop's palace 

 at Sens, and the public fountain at St Saturnin are in the mixed style. 

 3 



29. EMBLEM OF ANNE OF BRITTANY. 



