ON GARDENS 207 



Indeed the entertainment is very splendid, and not 

 unreasonable, considering the excellent manner of 

 dressing their meate, and of the service. Here are 

 many debauches and excessive revellings, being out of 

 observance. 



About a league farther we went to see Cardinal 

 Richelieu's villa at Rueil. The house is small, but 

 fairely built, in form of a castle, moated round. The 

 offices are towards the road, and over against are large 

 vineyards walled in. 



Though the house is not of the greatest, the gardens 

 about it are so magnificent that I doubt whether Italy 

 has any exceeding it for all rarities of pleasure. The 

 garden nearest the pavilion is a parterre, having in the 

 middst divers noble brasse statues, perpetually spouting 

 water into an ample bassin, with other figures of the 

 same metal ; but what is most admirable is the vast 

 enclosure, and variety of ground, in the large garden, 

 containing vineyards, cornefields, meadows, groves, 

 (whereof one is one of perennial greens), and walkes 

 of vast lengthes, so accurately kept and cultivated, that 

 nothing can be more agreeable. On one of these 

 walkes, within a square of tall trees, is a basilisc of 

 copper, which managed by the fountainere casts water 

 neere 60 feet high, and will of itself move round so 



