THE PARKS AND GARDENS OF PARIS. [Chap. V. 



The Garden of the Elysee. 



This, a state garden, is typical of a large class of Parisian 

 private gardens. The too-frequently accepted notion is that, 

 given a small garden in a city, it should be geometrical in 

 design. In the neighbourhood ■ of this garden we have streets, 

 high walls, houses and all the other impediments to good effect 

 in landscape-gardening, and yet a quiet, picturesque result is 

 produced. It is always easy, by judicious planting, to hide 

 objectionable surroundings, and, both in Paris and London, noble 

 deciduous trees attain almost as grand proportions as in their 

 native forests. Then in these French city private gardens they 

 cover objectionable wall-surfaces with a lovely mantle of Ivy, so 

 carefully pinched and tended that in winter or summer it forms 

 a level sheet of green. In this way trellises, high railings sur- 

 mounting walls, gates, &c., are not only rendered inoffensive to 

 the eye, but made to add to the beauty of the garden by the 

 extent of rich glossy verdure which they support. There are 

 cool shady walks here, too, quite as refreshing in their way as 

 many away from cities ; there is grass kept green with abundance 

 of water ; and there is a pleasant and open lawn — though a small 

 one. Without the little open lawn as a foreground, so to speak, 

 the garden picture would be, to a great extent, lost. It is in- 

 structive to compare the sketch with one of the old Dutch or 

 other geometrical gardens frequently represented in old en- 

 gravings, or with some modern English geometrical gardens, 

 sometimes supposed to be " original " in design, but which are 

 simply reproductions from times when people had not half a 

 dozen kinds of evergreens — when simple conventional figures 

 were sufficiently appreciated to be thought worth delineating on 

 the ground. 



In French gardens of this type it is unusual to have any 

 regular or formal set of beds, and this is a great improvement. 

 One half the miserable formalities existing in our gardens arise 

 from the presence of a series of formal " figures," or beds, which 

 have to be filled once or twice a year, in the hope of making them 

 look somewhat presentable — a result seldom obtained. Anything 

 artistic in effect can never be produced through or near them. 



