244 



VERSAILLES. 



now possess^ is an enemy to every true interest of the 

 garden. 



We will next visit a few of the more interesting of such 

 features as are hidden from the general scene;, firsts how- 

 ever^, glancing at the Tapis Vert — the grassy avenue which 

 leads from the parterre to the Bassin d^ApoUon and the 

 Grand Canal. From it the effect is much better than from 

 the terrace above^ and it^, like many parts of the place^ is 

 bordered or hedged with numbers of costly statues and 

 yases. They seem as profuse as if the gold and marble had 

 been dug up on the spot_, and as if this had been the reason 

 why a great garden had been made in such a very bad 

 position. 



The Orangery here^ in a sunk garden to the south of 

 the Palace and the Parterre du Midi^ is probably the most 

 remarkable known. It is most permanently and massively 

 built in the face of a terrace^, and is more than thirteen 

 hundred feet long by thirty- six wide. It is in fact an 

 immense archway, lighted at one side. The height from 

 the balustrade of the terrace above to the walk in front of the 

 Orangery is about forty-six feet_, and once on the occasion of 

 a night fete a poor English visitor, thinking this balustrade 

 was merely a dividing line between two parterres, jumped 

 over, and was found nearly killed below. The collection of 

 Orange trees here is immense ; but as we have akeady dis- 

 cussed this unhappy phase of horticulture in the chapter on 

 the Tuileries gardens, little need be said here. One of the 

 trees, however, is deserving of especial remark, and, indeed, 

 I hoped to give an exact portrait of it, and should have 

 done so were it not for an unpunctual photograjDher. This 

 tree was produced from seeds sown in 1421, by Leonora of 

 Castillo, wife of Charles III., King of Navarre, and after 

 enduring between 400 and 500 years, is still healthy and 

 verdant in its leafage, though a little tottering, and requiring 

 to be carefully propped up. That it should have lived so 

 long under the circumstances is indeed very remarkable, 

 for of course a tree put into a half-lighted building in 

 winter, and placed in the open air in summer, and at all 

 times liable to vicissitudes at the roots, runs great danger 



