The Public Gardens and Parks of Paris. 87 



these are fully treated of in the portion of this book devoted to 

 subtropical gardening. The source of the superior beauty of this 

 garden is the variety which it presents in all its parts, even the 

 great masses of Canna and the variegated Negundo are not presented 

 in duplicate. 



THE Bois DE BOULOGNE. 



This park illustrates how we improve by friction, so to speak. 

 Till 1852 the Bois was a forest, a dwarf tangled one too, for when 

 the English and Prussians encamped in it in 1815, they cut down 

 everything for fuel. But Napoleon III., in his admiration for 

 English parks, determined to add their charms to Paris, or rather to 

 improve upon them, and the Bois is one result. In concert with 

 the municipality, the Emperor dug out the lakes, made the water- 

 falls, &c. As a combination of wild wood and noble pleasure 

 garden, it is magnificent. The deer are placed in a closed-off 

 space. The Bois is splendid too as regards size much larger than 

 the Phoenix Park at Dublin; in fact, nearly 2^00 acres. Though 

 with large expectations in other directions, the reader will hardly be 

 prepared for the statement that the French beat us in parks. 

 When first entered it may not be much liked, the numerous Scotch 

 pines around one part of the water giving it a sort of pine-barren look, 

 but a few miles walk through it soon dispels that idea. It has more 

 than the beauty and finish of any London park in some spots, but on 

 the other hand, vast spreads of it are covered with a thick, small, 

 and somewhat scrub-like wood, in which wild flowers grow abun- 

 dantly, unlike the prim London parks. There were plenty of wild 

 cowslips dotted over even the best kept parts of it last spring, and 

 groups of those splendid deciduous Magnolias could be seen for long 

 distances through the then leafless oaks. To see what the Bois de 

 Boulogne really is, the visitor should keep to the left when he enters 

 from Passy or the Arc de Triomphe, and go right to the end of the 

 two pieces of ornamental water. Then, standing with his back to 

 the water, he will notice an elevated spot with a cedar growing on 

 it, and by going to that spot he will get the finest view he has pro- 



