THE PLANT DECOUATION OE APARTMENTS. 271 



These arrangements are infinitely varied at tlie great 

 balls^ both public and private; rocks_, water grottoes, and 

 similar decorations, are occasionally introduced, both in- 

 doors and in the open air, and in the gardens behind pri- 

 vate houses. The Tuileries Gardens at the time of the great 

 fetes were largely decorated in this way, each of the nume- 

 rous lamp-posts having a bed of flowers around it, and the 

 whole scene being turned into a kind of conservatory in a 

 few days. The number of flowers required to do this was 



Fig. 109. 



Pteris cretica albo-lineata. 



something enormous ; and when it is considered that at the 

 same time great quantities of plants were arranged both 

 indoors and out, in other great public and private buildings, 

 some faint idea may be formed of the enormous extent to 

 which plant decoration is carried out in Paris. 



To go more fully into details would be useless — very few 

 words serve to explain the diflerence between their system 

 and ours. It simply consists in the use of a far greater 

 number of fine-leaved subjects on their part. This, of 



