3S6 Foreign JVolkes. 



eminent should permit the custom of pulling off the leaves, and break- 

 ing the branches of public trees, and that no obstacle should be inter- 

 posed to prevent such disfigurement, is what I cannot conceive. 



Gardens of Fontainbleau. — For sixteen years I had not seen Fon- 

 tainbleau. I found there old friends, who received me with the greatest 

 kindness. I mention particularly M. Souchet, who replaced nie in the 

 care of the English garden* of the palace, when I w-as appointed to the 

 Royal Nurseries of Versailles ; and M. Brassin, entrusted with the care 

 of the Park and the Royal Vinery, which furnishes the finest grapes 

 that appear at Paris. It may easily be imagined how delighted! was 

 to re-visit the English garden of the palace, which had passed into my 

 hands, almost on leaving the hands of M. Hurtaut, who had laid it 

 down. With what interest I sought for those trees which I had planted 

 myself sixteen or seventeen years before ! As I expected, the general 

 plan was preserved in the same form as when I left it; but the grace 

 of infancy, the freshness of youth, had disappeared, to give place to a 

 physiognomy more decided and more powerful. The huge squares of 

 plantations, which, in my time, looked gay and light, had become vast 

 forests, through which but little light could penetrate. The lar<re pieces 

 of grass had become narrowed by the branches of trees spreading out 

 on all sides, and the whole look was different. How sixteen years 

 increases the growth of a tree ! How mistaken are they who give, as an 

 excuse for not planting, that the enjoyment is too long to wait for ! 

 The enjoyment comes more quickly than they think. The land of 

 Fontainbleau is exceedingly silicious, tolerable in some parts, and ab- 

 solutely bad in others. It is now twenty-two years since the garden 

 was laid down, and if all the wood which has been already taken was 

 added to that now standing in it at present, the proceeds in money 

 would certainly be greater than could, by any process of cultivation, be 

 drawn from the same land in the same length of time. 



Dahlias. — For a very long time M. Souchet has been celebrated for 

 his beautiful dahlias. His collection certainly appeared to me a fine 

 one ; but, without meaning any offence to my good friend, I must de- 

 clare that I have seen finer ones. Amongst many varieties of phlox, 

 obtained from seed by this excellent horticulturist, I remarked one ad- 

 mirable for its large scarlet flowers. I was favored by M. Souchet 

 with a plant, in order to multiply it, and distribute it amongst the nur- 

 serymen. A seedling of the Salvia fulg-ens also has furnished a variety 

 with far larger flowers, and more brilliant than those of the original, and 

 which will take its place in the trade. 



Grapes.— M. Brassin has under his care two objects of a very dif- 

 ferent nature — the grand park in the style of Le Notre — and the Royal 

 Vinery ; I intend speaking of the latter object alone. This vinery, the 

 origin of which is taken back as far as Francis the First's time, is, with- 

 out dispute, the finest and largest in the world. It is a wall about a 

 quarter of a league in length, running from east to west, about ten feet 

 high for three-fourths of its length, and eighteen to twenty in the rest. 

 It is covered on the south side with a kind of grape called Chasselas, the 

 fruit of which acquires, at Fontainbleau and at Thomery, quality and 

 beauty which do not distinguish it elsewhere. It is useless to say, that, 

 since its origin, the wall has been many times repaired and rebuilt, and 

 that the vine has been frequently replanted; but that which is little known, 

 and little practised in any other place, except Fontainbleau and Thom- 

 ery, is the clearing of the vine, or the replacing of the vines of 



* The name generally given to the oniaraental grounds and shnibberies of a gentle- 

 man 'ij house in France. 



