44 
House & Garden 
Broad panels of begonias and festooned arches of ivy form the basis of the planting scheme 
in this town garden near Paris. The Plants themselves are an incidental part of the general 
design, subdued by the importance of the symmetrical plan 
THE FORMALITY OF FRENCH TOWN GARDENS 
In Which Design Plays the Leading 
Role and Nature a Minor Part 
MING A TOTE DURYEA 
RENCH gardens represent 
the triumph of man over na¬ 
ture. Ever since that 17th 
Century day when Louis XIV called 
in the rising young landscape archi¬ 
tect, Andre Le Notre, and commis¬ 
sioned him to show plants to their 
places and keep them there, the gar¬ 
dens of France have been upon their 
good behaviour. The lesson of those 
eye-stretching vistas and knotted 
parterres of Versailles, Chantilly, 
the Tuileries, and Fontainebleau, 
has not been forgotten. Plants that 
are neat in habit and readily sub¬ 
dued to the purpose of their ar¬ 
rangement are the favored ones. All 
others are kept under strict surveil¬ 
lance. Wild gardens, one suspects, 
are grown in cages. 
Almost every garden in France, 
from the dooryards of the Midi to 
the sophisticated schemes of the 
modem manoirs and chateaux, re- 
The untroubled simplicity of such an architecturally treated 
garden as this is both satisfying and intensely practical 
fleets this spirit of formality. An air 
of relentless symmetry extends over 
each detail of the designs. And 
therein lies the difference between 
formal gardens in France and form¬ 
al gardens in England and Ameri¬ 
ca. Here and in England formality 
is generally confined to the main out- 
lines of the garden. The plants of 
the flower beds and borders are ar¬ 
ranged into irregular groupings and 
derive their chief charm from this 
method of thoughtful confusion. 
Small trees and shrubs that form part 
of the decorative scheme of British 
and American gardens for the most 
part grow independently and undis¬ 
turbed. Vines clamber up walls nat¬ 
urally and with no obvious guidance. 
In France, on the other hand, 
plants are placed in flower beds with 
strict regularity, and only such 
plants are used which will maintain 
this formality at all times. It hap- 
