THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



Fig. 



1640. — Ancient Labyinth in the Gar- 

 den at Versailles 



winding path was flanked on either side 

 with grotesque imitations of animals in- 

 tended to represent the beasts of Aesops 

 fables. The gardens of Versailles were 

 extremely formal in character. They 

 still exist, but modern critics who have 

 written disparagingly of them should re- 

 member that to form a just idea of their 

 merits they should have been seen when 

 thronged with all the splendid life of 

 the court of the Grand Monarque Louis 

 XIV. They were admirably adapted 

 to the purpose for which they were to 

 be used drawing-rooms for summer 

 days for the gaily clad courtiers and 

 ladies. Ten thousand people lived in 

 the palace, so the lawns could seldom 

 have been deserted. Versailles was en- 

 tirely the creation of Louis XIV. If he 

 did not " make the desert smile," he at 

 all events through his gardener, Le 

 Notre, turned a pestilent marsh into a 

 superb pleasure ground. He was ex- 

 tremely fond of gardening, and at some 

 periods of the year spent whole days in 

 watching and superintending work in 

 his gardens and his different buildings, 

 and took as much interest in the minute 



detail of direction as if he had been a 

 landscape artist or an architect. The 

 cost of the palace and park of Versailles 

 according to Voltaire's estimate, now con- 

 sidered the calculation most nearly ap- 

 proaching the truth, was something like 

 one hundred millions of dollars, and to 

 this must be added the worth of the 

 labor given by the peasants, who were 

 forced under the law of the corvee to toil 

 without any pay. At Versailles and its 

 adjoining parks of Trianon and Marly, 

 there were at one time employed no less 

 than 22,000 men and 6,000 horses. 

 The making of Versailles was a trag- 

 edy. A diary of a French notable con- 

 tains, under date of 31st May, 1685, the 

 following entry. " There are now more 

 than 36,000 peasants at work in and 



Fig. 



1641. — Locis XIV. — From a rare por- 

 trait in the Archives at Ottawa. 



about Versailles for the King. The half- 

 starved and half clad wretches die by 

 dozens under the strain of the cruel 

 tasks imposed on them." In October 

 of 1687, Madame de Sevigne wrote as 



334 



