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CHAPTEK XIV. 

 The Gardens of Versailles. 



This being one of the most celebrated gardens in the world, it 

 may profit us to examine it somewhat in detail — were we, how- 

 ever, to treat of it in proportion to its real merits as a garden, a 

 very small amount of space would suffice. Let us pass through the 

 vast stone courtyard and look from the garden-front of the palace. 

 Standing near the palace walls, one first sees a vast expanse of 

 gravel, some marble margins of great water-basins, sundry protu- 

 berances from the level of the water, and away in the distance an 

 effect like that afforded by a suburban canal in a highly-practical 

 and unlovely country. A few LombardyPoplars help the remote 

 vista, but the effect of the whole is from this point of our view 

 lamentable. To the right of the palace is a parterre-garden, with 

 high Box-edgings, clipped conical Yews and other trees, and 

 numerous statues prominent against dense woods of Horse-chestnut 

 trees. To the left is one of those spreads, of gravel and grass, 

 diversified by stone steps, walls, and a few stumpy clipped Yews, 

 forming what are termed_geometricalgardens, Horse;;chestnut 

 grovesjtaxtingjip_be2wi^(r_it and so mewhatrelieving the wE ole. 

 AdvancTngfromthe palace, the lower terrace and its surroundings 

 come into view, the faces of the terrace walls are hedged with 

 green ; above the terrace-walls Yew-trees planted and clipped very 

 regularly ; in the centre there is an elabor ate fountain, and the 

 dense groves ^oT^rees near by again spring up and oHly just save 

 the scene from bald formality, not to say ugliness. Versailles is 

 a vast garden, much of its interest hidden behind these kindly 

 groves of trees, but it is about this spot that we obtain the 

 broadest effects of this far-famed place, and may judge how far 



