424 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



403. PETIT TRIANON : VIEW FROM SOUTH. 



sides builtin 1705 by Gabriel's 

 father, Jacques Jules. On the 

 south is the main entrance 

 through a walled forecourt 

 with lodges and a wrought- 

 iron grille. 



REVOLUTION IN GARDEN 

 DESIGN. To turn to the 

 two remaining sides of the 

 house is to become conscious 

 that one is on the boundary 

 line of two ages. Here is no 

 trace of the old French garden 

 design, but a wild disordered park, a symptom of the widespread change 

 which the reading of Rousseau had wrought in men's outlook on the 

 world. Civilisation was according to him the root of all evil, and a return 

 to what was conceived to be a life in accordance with nature the first 

 desideratum. The supply of caves being inadequate for the population, 

 and this form of residence presenting other drawbacks besides scarcity, 

 his disciples were obliged to fall back on houses like their fathers. But 

 their fathers, in their ignorance, had always interposed an artistically 

 ordered garden between wild nature and the inevitable artificiality of the 

 house. This the follower of Rousseau made haste to sweep away, so as to 

 let wild nature end only at his doorstep. Such at least was the theory, 

 but in practice other considerations influenced him. He was above all 

 things a man of sensibility, and it was not to be expected that he would 

 find matter for his mild ecstasies and lachrymose effusions in any bit of 

 untouched nature that happened to lie at his door. So nature had to 

 be arranged after all; in fact, another art with new but ill-defined 

 principles and uncertain aims took the place of the old with its established 

 tradition and definitely realised goal. The methods of Le Notre had 

 been followed so long as his pupils lived, but after the death of his 

 nephew des Gots, their last important exponent, the art began to decline, 

 though good formal designs still appear in the pages of Neufforge. In 

 the garden of an Hotel Conti* laid out by one Le Clerc about the middle 

 of the century, though the main scheme is in Le Notre's manner, the 

 walks inside the " bosquets " are drawn in weak serpentine lines. 



THE ANGLO-CHINESE GARDEN. Then came the reign of Anglo- 

 mania. English books, English dress and equipages, English horse- 

 racing became the rage in French society, and with them the " Jardin 

 Anglais." In England, garden design had undergone a pseudo-naturalistic 

 revolution some fifty years earlier, and acres of stately gardens had been 

 ravaged to produce picturesque effects. More recently Sir William 

 * Now Hotel du Ministre de la Guerre, 14-18 Rue St Dominique. 



