298 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



(see p. 231) was thus carried a step further. This is already visible in 

 the gardens of Maisons laid out by F. Mansart between 1640 and 

 1650, but the system was carried to its greatest perfection by Andre 

 Le Notre who had given an earnest of his talents at Vaux-le-Vicomte. 

 Royal patronage, by providing a wider scope for his powers, brought 

 his methods into such prominence that they reigned without a rival 

 in the greater part of Europe for a century or more. His chief merit 

 lies in the breadth of his grasp ; under his hand an estate became 

 an organic whole in which every individual part took its appointed place 

 and fulfilled its well-defined function in the total scheme. Apart from 

 the broad stretches of woodland through which he cut a network of 

 vistas converging upon the house or other point of interest, the elements 

 were much the same as before. But fountains, tanks and cascades, 

 grottoes and terraces, enclosed parterres, orangeries and topiary work, 

 statues and garden houses, were used in more skilful subordination to 

 the general scheme. Trellis walks and arbours were largely employed, 

 though sometimes replaced by walls of foliage and structures of stone 

 and marble, such as colonnades, temples, and closed pavilions. Here 

 the avenues would be narrow and shady leading to some concealed 

 work of art or to enclosed spaces cut, like themselves, in groves of 

 elm and hornbeam cabinets de verdure ; there they would be broad 

 enough to embrace lawns boulingrins and tapis verts parterres or 

 pools and fountains. Hydraulic tricks and surprises passed out of 

 fashion under his rule with other puerilities of the early seventeenth 

 century. Water was now used to more artistic spectacular effect. A 

 canal was a frequent feature, as for instance at Vaux, Tanlay, Versailles, 

 and Fontainebleau. Parterres d'eau were sometimes introduced as in 

 the early days of Versailles, and on a larger scale at Chantilly in which 

 curiously planned basins took the place of flower-beds in parterres de 

 broderie or grass plots in parterres de decoupe. Among the various 

 water effects the most striking were the cascades in which water fell in 

 sheets and jets down flights of steps in an architectural setting. Two 

 such were the glories of Marly ; that at St Cloud, of which the upper 

 portion was designed by Antoine le Pautre and the lower by J. H. 

 Mansart, still exists and may be seen in action on fete-days. 



LE NOTRE'S WORKS. Le Notre's works for the King included the 

 gardens of Versailles, Trianon and Clagny, and the remodelling of 

 those at the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and St Germain where he 

 created the great terrace. He designed for the King's brother, the 

 Duke of Orleans, the gardens of St Cloud ; for the Prince of Conde, 

 those of Chantilly ; for Colbert those of Sceaux, and many others in 

 France, but most of the foreign gardens attributed to him, except 

 perhaps two Roman examples, are only indirectly due to him, for he 

 seems to have declined to make designs when he had not visited the 



