Book I. 



GARDENING IN FRANCE. 



together witli the personal character of this monarch, was favoraJble to pomp and 

 brilliancy. The nation and the court wished to be dazzled and enchanted by novelty and 

 singularity ; and though there certainly was nothing in Le Notre's manner that had not 

 before been displayed in Fmnce and Italy, and with the exception of parterres, even by 

 the Romans, yet the grand scale and sumptuous expense of the plans surpassed every 

 thing before seen in France, and produced precisely the desired end. His long dipt 

 alleys, triumphal arches, richly decorated and highly wrought parterres ; tiis fountains 

 and cascades, with their grotesque and strange ornaments ; his groves, full of architecture 

 and gilt trellises ; his profusion of statues and therms; all these wonders springing up 

 in a desert-looking open country, dazzled and enchanted every class of observers. Le 

 Notre v/as educated an architect, and had attained his fortieth year before ho finished his 

 first work in the rural department of his profession, the garden of Vaux le Vicoinpte, 

 afterwards V. le Villars, and nov/ (1823) Vaux Praslin. The king, enchanted v/ith 

 this decoration, made Le Notre his controller-general of buildings and director of gardens, 

 loaded him with presents, gave him a patent of nobility, and made him Knight of the order 

 of Saint Michael. His principal works are Versailles, v/hich cost nearly 200 millions 

 of francs ; Trianon, Meudon, Saint Cloud, Sceaux, Chantilly, and the celebrated terrace 

 of Saint Germains. The gardens of the Tuilleries, the Champs Elys^cs, and many otiiers 

 were either ■ formed by him or improved from his designs. In 1678 he went to Italy, 

 where he furnished the plans of several gardens, particularly those of the villas Pamphili 

 and Ludovisi. England, Sweden, and all Europe adopted his ^manner. He died in 

 1700. {Hirsc/ifield, torn. V. 293.) 



1 64. The gardens of Versailles, the grand effort of Le Notre, have been so frequently 

 described, and are so generally known, that we shall only quote one or two opinions 

 concerning them. Hirschfield considers them not as models of taste, but as models of 

 a particular class or character of gardens. Gray the poet was struck with their splendor 

 when filled with company, and when the water-works were in full action. Lord 

 Kaimes says they would tempt one to believe that nature was below die notice of a 

 great monarch, and therefore monsters must be created for him as being more astonish- 

 ing productions. Bradley says, " Versailles is the sum of every thing that has been done 

 in gardening." Agricola, a German author, declares {Phil. Treat, on Agr. Trans, by 

 Bradley,) that the sight of Versailles gave him a foretaste of Paradise. Our opinion 

 coincides with Gray's : " Such symmetry," as Lord Byron observes, " is not for soli- 

 tude." During the Revolution, it was proposed that the palace and gardens should be 

 sold as national property ; but M. Le Roy, the architect, greatly to his honor, stepped 

 forward and represented that the palace might be usefully employed for public purposes, 

 and the garden rendered productive of food for the people. " This satisfied the citizens : 

 a military school was established in the palace ; and by planting some of the parterres 

 with apple-trees, and others with potatoes, the garden was saved." Niell was in- 

 formed, that by calculation the v/ater-works of Versailles, which are not played off 

 oftener than eight or ten times a-year, cost 2001. jjer hour. There is an orange-tree 

 here " seme in 1421," and thirty feet high. (Hurt. Tour, 409. et seq.) 



165. Le Notre's successor was Dufresnoy, controller of buildings ; his taste differed 

 considerably from that of his predecessor, and he is said to have determined on inventing a 

 style different and more picturesque. He preferred unequal surfaces, and sometimes at- 

 tempted these by art. His style had something of the modern English manner, but 

 his projects were rarely carried into execution. He was accused of being two ex- 

 pensive ; but it is more probable that the chief objection to his taste was the continued 

 prevalence of that of his predecessor. However, he constructed, in a style superior to 

 that of Le Notre, the gardens of the Abb6 Pajot, near Vincennes, and in the Faubourg 

 Saint Antoine, two other gardens of his own, now known under tlie names of Moulin, and 

 of Chemincreux, Marly has been erroneously attributed to Dufresnoy, but it was 

 constructed from the plans of the architect Drus^, controller of the works at St. Ger- 

 mains, The garden of Bagnolet is the principal vv^ork of Desgodetz, a relation of Le 

 Notre. Chapelle d'Isle and the brothers Mansard, and other architects, at that time 

 constructed several gardens in France, but on the general plan of that of Le Notre. 

 Millin considers Dufresnoy as an artist of much greater genius than Le Notre, and 

 more attached to natural beauties, though less known by his talent for designing gardens 

 than by his comedies. 



166. The English style of gardening began to pass into France, after the peace of 

 1762, and was soon afterwards pursued with the utmost enthusiasm. Hirschfield af- 

 firms that they set about destroying the ancient gardens, and replanting them in the 

 English manner, with a warmth more common to the mania of imitation than the genius 

 of invention. Even a part of the gardens of Versailles were removed, as De Lille la- 

 ments {Les Jardins, 4th edit. p. 40.), to make way for a young plantation d VAngloise. 

 Dufresnoy, as we have already stated, had been bold enough to depai-t from the f&rmer 

 style, and Gabriel Thouin, in the preface to his Plans Raisonnes des Jardins, &c. (1818) 



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