152 GARDEN CRAFT IN EUROPE 



Another famous eighteenth-century garden laid out by a pupil of Le 

 Notre was at Rochefoucauld's Chateau at Liancourt. The waterworks 

 were renowned in their day, and Silvestre's engravings show the -parterre des 

 cascades, and long alleys of fountains, each connected by a series of channels 

 and small pools. The Grand parterre was surrounded by berceaux of lattice 

 work, terminating in pavihons. Upon the eastern side of the chateau was 

 the flower garden and orangery, a combined arrangement often to be met 

 with in French eighteenth-century gardens, where the parterre was generally 

 reserved for bedding out. Amongst other curiosities of these gardens was 

 a large cabinet de verdure, or summer-house, in the midst of a square pool ; 

 this was quite surrounded by a series of green arcades each containing a 

 tiny fountain jet. Another feature at Liancourt were the avenues of 

 poplars, trees which found little favour with horticulturists of the seven- 

 teenth century. 



A good insight into the smaller town gardens of the period may be 

 obtained from the exhaustive collections of plans that exist, showing them 

 in detail. They generally include a small forecourt set back from the street; 

 behind the house, terraces led to trim parterres ; the odd angles of 

 the sites were often filled in with bosquets or cut trees, forming walls of 

 verdure. Blondel, in his Architecture a la Mode, gives many examples of 

 the larger town gardens. The Palais Royal, as laid out by Le Notre with 

 little parterres de broderie, and planted with bosquets of chestnuts, limes, 

 and hundreds of cut yews, is a good example of the palatial town gardens 

 of Paris. 



There are two manuscript volumes preserved in the Bibliotheque Na- 

 tionale which give minute plans of scores of beautiful country seats exist- 

 ing round Paris in the middle of the century; these volumes are quite a 

 study of eighteenth-century garden planning. The Chateaux were mostly 

 planned with an avenue leading to the cour d'honneur which was frequently 

 protected by a broad moat. The parterre is usually placed upon the 

 opposite side, terminating in a formal piece d'eau, and every garden, even 

 of a few acres, had its bosquet. At Nogent and along the banks of the 

 Marne were many large gardens, while Fromont, on the way to Fontaine- 

 bleau, Ecouen, where the Conde property lay, and the Forest of Bondy 

 were all favourite districts. 



La Meutte was one of the smaller villas built for the Court of Louis XV, 



