House and Garden 
The arid, open mountainsides were to be 
changed into the cooling, wooded seclusions 
of a garden, trout brooks to be made into 
broader and more gently flowing streams, 
pools and ponds should become miniature 
lakes, and fountains should burst forth 
from rocks in cooling play. Tiny water¬ 
falls should flash from mossy heights, the 
level and sometimes marshy ground at 
the foot of the descent should be devel¬ 
oped into parterres and such well-kept 
bosquets as were associated with recollec¬ 
tions of his youth. 
Philip charged his architect-in-chief to 
restore or re-arrange the old monastery as 
might seem best, that it might serve as a 
dwelling-place for the royal family, but he 
strictly enjoined him to destroy nothing. 1 he 
plans were soon perfected and approved by 
the king, and the vigorous prosecution of 
the work was ordered. 
At the same time his engineer, Marchand, 
commenced the task of grading the lesser 
hills, and planting the gardens, the cultiva¬ 
tion of which was confided to Boutelet. 
The best sculptors of the day, Forman 
and Thierry, were empowered to produce in 
bronze the fountains and also the ornamental 
work that was to border the basins and 
cascades, but this proved too great a task 
and required too long a time, and the king 
was forced to content himself with the execu¬ 
tion of much of the minor work in lead, 
colored to match the genuine bronze. 
"I he whole enterprise went forward so 
quickly that even in Spain, where the time 
to do anything is always to-morrow, the work 
which was not started till 1719 had, in 1723, 
so far progressed that the former habitation 
of the monks had assumed the air of a small 
palace, and the fields and woods of the 
grange had been transformed into a labyrinth 
of paths, bosquets and cool, shaded glades. 
On the ground floor of the monastery a 
dozen rooms had been prepared as museums 
and galleries wherein to display a collection 
of remarkable antique statues and biic-a- 
brac which had once formed part of a col¬ 
lection which the able but eccentric Queen 
Christina of Sweden had gathered in Rome, 
THE DIANA FOUNTAIN 
