European and Japanese Gardens 
and a personal character at once of winning charm and of 
masterly strength. An individuality so marked as his would 
have achieved greatness in almost any time or land ; small 
wonder, then, that in a period so sympathetic with his nature as 
was the age of Louis XIV in France,—an age of luxury, limit¬ 
less expenditure, devotion to art, to pomp and to ceremony, 
an age which played upon his own nature and formed it, and 
in turn was played upon and formed by it,—we find him 
accomplishing a work very exceptional in its extent and its 
THE TUILERIES AND THE LOUVRE PARIS 
variety. No doubt he had countless assistants in his multifa¬ 
rious tasks, but his spirit informs and distinguishes all the end¬ 
less list of works which are counted among his masterpieces; 
and, in addition, the indications of his genius served to remodel, 
and practically reconstruct, many of the gardens of an earlier 
day, already famous, but transformed and made to blossom 
anew under the suggestions of his enlightening imagination. 
He stands alone for his art, through the century, which was 
honored by his birth, and the succeeding one. He summed up 
all that was best worth while in the garden practice of his own 
time and that preceding it, and welded it into a consistent 
whole, through sheer force of creative power. He invented, 
indeed, no new kind, but he ennobled and synthesized the 
