THE EVOLUTION OF FRENCH GARDENS
The French garden was a creation of all epochs from the fifteenth to the
seventeenth centuries, and, for the most part, those of to-day and of
later decades of the nineteenth century, are adaptations and
restorations of the classic accepted forms.
From the modest _jardinet_ of the moyen-age to the ample gardens and
_parterres_ of the Renaissance was a wide range. In their highest
expression these early French gardens, with their _broderies_ and
_carreaux_ may well be compared as works of art with contemporary
structures in stone or wood or stuffs in woven tapestries, which latter
they greatly resembled.
Under Louis XIV and Louis XV the elaborateness of the French garden was
even more an accentuated epitome of the tastes of the period. Near the
end of the eighteenth century a marked deterioration was noticeable and
a separation of the tastes which ordained the arrangement of
contemporary dwellings and their gardens was very apparent. Under the
Empire the antique style of furniture and decoration was used too, but
there was no contemporary expression with regard to garden making.
[Illustration: JARDIN FRANCAIS
JARDIN ANGLAIS]
In the second half of the nineteenth century, under the Second Empire,
the symmetrical lines of the old-time _parterres_ came again into being,
and to them were attached composite elements or motives, which more
closely resembled details of the conventional English garden than
anything distinctly French.
The English garden was, for the most part, pure affectation in France,
or, at best, it was treated as a frank exotic. Even to-day, in modern
France, where an old dwelling of the period of Henri IV, Francois I,
Louis XIII, Louis XIV, or Louis XV still exists with its garden, the
latter is more often than not on the classically pure French lines,
while that of a modern cottage, villa or chateau is often a poor,
variegated thing, fantastic to distraction.
Turning back the pages of history one finds that each people, each
century, possessed its own specious variety of garden; a species which
responded sufficiently to the tastes and necessities of the people, to
their habits and their aspirations.
Garden-making, like the art of the architect, differed greatly in
succeeding centuries, and it is for this reason that the garden of the
moyen-age, of the epoch of the Crusades, for example, did not bear the
least resemblance to the more ample _parterres_ of the Renaissance.
Civilization was making great progress, and it was necessary that the
gardens should be in keeping with a less restrained, more luxurious
method of life.
If the gardens of the Renaissance marked a progress over the _preaux_
and _jardinets_ of mediaevalism, those of Le Notre were a blossoming
forth of the Renaissance seed. Regretfully, one cannot say as much for
the garden plots of the eighteenth century, and it was only with the
mid-nineteenth century that the general outlines took on a real charm
and attractiveness again, and this was only achieved by going back to
original principles.
The first gardens were the _vergers_ and _preaux_, little checker-board
squares of a painful primitiveness as compared with later standards.
These squares, or _carreaux_, were often laid out in foliage and
blossoming plants as suggestive as possible of their being made of
carpeting or marble. When these miniature enclosures came to be
surrounded with trellises and walls the Renaissance in garden-making may
be considered as having been in full sway.
Under Louis XIV a certain affluence was noticeable in garden plots, and
with Louis XV an even more notable symmetry was apparent in the
disposition of the general outlines. By this time, the garden in France
had become a frame which set off the architectural charms of the
dwelling rather than remaining a mere accessory, but it was only with
the replacing of the castle-fortress by the more domesticated chateau
that a really generous garden space became a definite attribute of a
great house.
The first gardens surrounding the French chateaux were developments, or
adaptations, of Italian gardens, such as were designed across the Alps
by Mercogliano, during the feudal period.
Later, and during the time of the Crusades, the garden question hardly
entered into French life. Gardens, like all other luxuries, were given
little thought when the graver questions of peace and security were to
be considered, and, for this reason, there is little or nothing to say
of French gardens previous to the twelfth century.
An important species of the gardens of the moyen-age was that which was
found as an adjunct to the great monastic institutions, the _preaux_,
which were usually surrounded by the cloister colonnade. One of the most
important of these, of which history makes mention, was that of the
Abbaye de Saint Gall, of which Charlemagne was capitular. It was he who
selected the plants and vegetables which the dwellers therein should
cultivate.
Of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there is an abundant literary
record, and, in a way, a pictorial record as well. From these one can
make a very good deduction of what the garden of that day was like;
still restrained, but yet something more than rudimentary. From now on
French gardens were divided specifically into the _potager_ and
_verger_.
The _potager_ was virtually a vegetable garden within the walls which
surrounded the seigneurial dwelling, and was of necessity of very
limited extent, chiefly laid out in tiny _carreaux_, or beds, bordered
by tiles or bricks, much as a small city garden is arranged to-day. Here
were cultivated the commonest vegetables, a few flowers and a liberal
assortment of herbs, such as rue, mint, parsley, sage, lavender, etc.
The _verger_, or _viridarium_, was practically a fruit garden, as it is
to-day, with perhaps a generous sprinkling of flowers and aromatic
plants. The _verger_ was always outside the walls, but not far from the
entrance or the drawbridge crossing the moat and leading to the chateau.
It was to the _verger_, or orchard, curiously enough, that in times of
peace the seigneur and his family retired after luncheon for diversion
or repose.
"D illocques vieng en cest vergier
Eascuns jour pour s'esbanoier."
Thus ran a couplet of the "Roman de Thebes"; and of the hundred or more
tales of chivalry in verse, which are recognized as classic, nearly all
make mention of the _verger_.
It was here that young men and maidens came in springtime for the fete
of flowers, when they wove chaplets and garlands, for the moyen-age had
preserved the antique custom of the coiffure of flowers, that is to say
hats of natural flowers, as we might call them to-day, except that
modern hats seemingly call for most of the products of the barnyard and
the farm in their decoration, as well as the flowers of the field.
The rose was queen among all these flowers and then came the lily and
the carnation, chiefly in their simple, savage state, not the highly
cultivated product of to-day. From the ballads and the love songs, one
gathers that there were also violets, eglantine, daisies, pansies,
forget-me-nots, and the marguerite, or _consoude_, was one of the most
loved of all.
The carnation, or _oeillet_, was called _armerie_; the pansy was
particularly in favour with the ladies, who embroidered it on their
handkerchiefs and their girdles. Still other flowers found a place in
this early horticultural catalogue, the marigold, gladiolus, stocks,
lily-of-the-valley and buttercups.
Frequently the _verger_ was surrounded by a protecting wall, of more or
less architectural pretense, with towers and accessories conforming to
the style of the period, and decorative and utilitarian fountains,
benches and seats were also common accessories.
[Illustration: _Henri IV in an Old French Garden_]
The old prints, which reproduced these early French gardens, are most
curious to study, amusing even; but their point of view was often
distorted as to perspective. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
perspective was almost wholly ignored in pictorial records. There was
often no scale, and no depth; everything was out of proportion with
everything else, and for this reason it is difficult to judge of the
exact proportions of many of these early French gardens.
The origin of garden-making in France, in the best accepted sense of the
term, properly began with the later years of the thirteenth century and
the early years of the fourteenth; continuing the tradition, remained
distinctly French until the mid-fifteenth century, for the Italian
influence did not begin to make itself felt until after the Italian wars
and travels of Charles VIII, Louis XI and Francis I.
The earliest traces of the work of the first two of these monarchs are
to be seen at Blois and, for a time henceforth, it is to be presumed
that all royal gardens in France were largely conceived under the
inspiration of Italian influences. Before, as there were primitives in
the art of painting in France, there were certainly French gardeners in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. One of these, whoever he may
have been, was the designer of the _preaux_ and the _treilles_ of the
Louvre of Charles V, of which a pictorial record exists, and he, or
they, did work of a like nature for the powerful house of Bourgogne, and
for Rene d'Anjou, whom we know was a great amateur gardener.
The archives of these princely houses often recount the expenses in
detail, and so numerous are certain of them that it would not be
difficult to picture anew as to just what they referred.
Debanes, the gardener of the Chateau d'Angers, on a certain occasion,
gave an accounting for "X Sols" for repairing the grass-plots and for
making a _petit preau_. Again: "XI Sols" for the employ of six gardeners
to trim the vines and clean up the alleys of the _grand_ and _petit
jardin_.
Luxury in all things settled down upon all France to a greater degree
than hitherto in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and almost
without exception princely houses set out to rival one another in the
splendour of their surroundings. Now came in the ornamental garden as
distinct from the _verger_, and the _preau_ became a greensward
accessory, at once practical and decorative, the precursor of the
_pelouse_ and the _parterre_ of Le Notre.
The _preau_ (in old French _prael_) was a symmetrical square or
rectangular grass-grown garden plot. From the Latin _pratum_, or
_pratellum_, the words _preau_, _pre_ and _prairie_ were evolved
naturally enough, and came thus early to be applied in France to that
portion of the pleasure garden set out as a grassy lawn. The word is
very ancient, and has come down to us through the monkish vocabulary of
the cloister.
Some celebrated verse of Christine de Pisan, who wrote "The Life of
Charles V," thus describes the cloister at Poissy.
"Du cloistre grand large et especieux
Que est carre, et, afin qu'il soit mieulx
A un prael, ou milieu, gracieux
Vert sans grappin
Ou a plante en my un tres hault pin."
It was at this period, that of Saint Louis and the apotheosis of Gothic
architecture, that France was at the head of European civilization,
therefore in no way can her preeminence in garden-making be questioned.
The gardens of the Gothic era seldom surpassed the _enclos_ with a
rivulet passing through it, a spring, a pine tree giving a welcome
shade, some simple flowers and a _verger_ of fruit trees.
The neighbours of France were often warring among themselves but the
Grand Seigneur here was settling down to beautifying his surroundings
and framing his chateaux, manors and country-seats in dignified and most
appealing pictures. Grass-plots appeared in dooryards, flowers climbed
up along castle walls and shrubs and trees came to play a genuinely
esthetic role in the life of the times.
An illustrious stranger, banished from Italy, one Brunetto Latini, the
master of Dante, who had sought a refuge in France, wrote his views on
the matter, which in substance were as above.
About this time originated the progenitors of the _gloriettes_, which
became so greatly the vogue in the eighteenth century. Practically the
_gloriette_, a word in common use in northern France and in Flanders,
was a _logette de plaisance_. The Spaniards, too, in their _glorietta_,
a pavilion in a garden, had practically the same signification of the
word.
In the fourteenth century French garden the _gloriette_ was a sort of
arbour, or trellis-like summer-house, garnished with vines and often
perched upon a natural or artificial eminence. Other fast developing
details of the French garden were tree-bordered alleys and the planting
of more or less regularly set-out beds of flowering plants.
Vine trellises and vine-clad pavilions and groves were a speedy
development of these details, and played parts of considerable
importance in gardening under the French Renaissance.
In this same connection there is a very precise record in an account of
the gardens of the Louvre under Charles V concerning the contribution of
one, Jean Baril, maker of Arlors, to this form of the landscape
architect's art.
"Ornamental birds--peacocks, pheasants and swans now came in as adjuncts
to the French land and water garden." This was the way a certain
pertinent comment was made by a writer of the fifteenth century. From
the "Menagier de Paris," a work of the end of the fourteenth century,
one learns that behind a dwelling of a prince or noble of the time was
usually to be found a "_beau jardin tout plante d'arbres a fruits, de
legumes, de rosiers, orne de volieres et tapise de gazon sur lesquels se
promenent les paons_."
French gardens of various epochs are readily distinguished by the width
of their alleys. In the moyen-age the paths which separated the garden
plots were very narrow; in the early Renaissance period they were
somewhat wider, taking on a supreme maximum in the gardens of Le Notre.
Trimmed trees entered into the general scheme in France towards the end
of the fifteenth century. Under Henri IV and under Louis XII trees were
often trimmed in ungainly, fantastic forms, but with the advent of Le
Notre the good taste which he propagated so widely promptly rejected
these grotesques, which, for a fact, were an importation from Flanders,
like the _gloriettes_. Not by the remotest suggestion could a clipped
yew in the form of a peacock or a giraffe be called French. Le Notre
eliminated the menagerie and the aviary, but kept certain geometrical
forms, particularly with respect to hedges, where niches were frequently
trimmed out for the placing of statues, columns surmounted with golden
balls, etc.
The most famous of the frankly Renaissance gardens developed as a result
of the migrations of the French monarchs in Italy were those surrounding
such palaces and chateaux as Fontainebleau, Amboise, and Blois. Often
these manifestly French gardens, though of Italian inspiration in the
first instance, were actually the work of Italian craftsmen. Pucello
Marceliano at four hundred _livres_ and Edme Marceliano at two hundred
_livres_ were in the employ of Henri II. It was the former who laid out
the magnificent _Parterre de Diane_ at Chenonceaux, where Catherine de
Medici later, being smitten with the skill of the Florentines, gave the
further commission of the _Jardin Vert_, which was intended to complete
this _parterre_, to Henri le Calabrese and Jean Collo.
The later Renaissance gardens divided themselves into various classes,
_jardins de plaisir_, _jardins de plaisance_, _jardins de proprete_,
etc. _Parterres_ now became of two sorts, _parterres a compartiments_
and _parterres de broderies_, names sufficiently explicit not to need
further comment.
[Illustration: _"Parterre de Diane," Chenonceaux_]
It is difficult to determine just how garden _broderies_ came into
being. They may have been indirectly due to woman's love of embroidery
and the garden alike. The making of these garden _broderies_ was a
highly cultivated art. Pierre Vallet, embroiderer to Henri IV, created
much in his line of distinction and note, and acquired an extensive
clientele for his flowers and models. Often these gardens, with their
_parterres_ and _broderies_ were mere additions to an already existing
architectural scheme, but with respect to the gardens of the Luxembourg
and Saint Germain-en-Laye they came into being with the edifices
themselves, or at least those portions which they were supposed to
embellish. Harmony was then first struck between the works of the
horticulturist--the garden-maker--and those of the architect--the
builder in stone and wood. This was the prelude to those majestic
ensembles of which Le Notre was to be the composer.
Of the celebrated French palace and chateau gardens which are not
centered upon the actual edifices with which they are more or less
intimately connected, but are distinct and apart from the gardens which
in most cases actually surround a dwelling, may be mentioned those of
Montargis, Saint Germain, Amboise, Villers-Cotterets and Fontainebleau.
These are rather parks, like the "home-parks," so called, in England,
which, while adjuncts to the dwellings, are complete in themselves and
are possessed of a separate identity, or reason for being. Chiefly
these, and indeed most French gardens of the same epoch, differ greatly
from contemporary works in Italy in that the latter were often built and
terraced up and down the hillsides, whereas the French garden was laid
out, in the majority of instances, on the level, though each made use of
interpolated architectural accessories such as balustrades, statuary,
fountains, etc.
Mollet was one of the most famous gardeners of the time of Louis XIV. He
was the gardener of the Duc d'Aumale, who built the gardens of the
Chateau d'Anet while it was occupied by Diane de Poitiers, and for their
time they were considered the most celebrated in France for their upkeep
and the profusion and variety of their flowers. This was the highest
development of the French garden up to this time.
It is possible that this Claude Mollet was the creator of the
_parterres_ and _broderies_ so largely used in his time, and after.
Mollet's formula was derived chiefly from flower and plant forms,
resembling in design oriental embroideries. He made equal use of the
labyrinth and the sunken garden. His idea was to develop the simple
_parquet_ into the elaborate _parterre_. He began his career under Henri
III and ultimately became the gardener of Henri IV. His elaborate work
"Theatre des Plans et Jardinage" was written towards 1610-1612, but was
only published a half a century later. It was only in the sixteenth
century that gardens in Paris were planned and developed on a scale
which was the equal of many which had previously been designed in the
provinces.
[Illustration: PLAN of SUNKEN GARDEN (_JARDIN CREUX_)]
The chief names in French gardening--before the days of Le Notre--were
those of the two Mollets, the brothers Boyceau, de la Barauderie and
Jacques de Menours, and all successively held the post of Superintendent
of the Garden of the King.
In these royal gardens there was always a distinctly notable feature,
the _grand roiales_, the principal avenues, or alleys, which were here
found on a more ambitious scale than in any of the private gardens of
the nobility. The central avenue was always of the most generous
proportions, the nomenclature coming from royal--the _grand roial_ being
the equivalent of _Allee Royale_, that is, Avenue Royal.
By the end of the sixteenth century the Garden of the Tuileries, which
was later to be entirely transformed by Le Notre, offered an interesting
aspect of the _parquet_ at its best. In "_Paris a Travers les Ages_" one
reads that from the windows of the palace the garden resembled a great
checker-board containing more than a hundred uniform _carreaux_. There
were six wide longitudinal alleys or avenues cut across by eight or ten
smaller alleys which produced this rectangular effect. Within some of
the squares were single, or grouped trees; in others the conventional
_quincunx_; others were mere expanses of lawn, and still others had
flowers arranged in symmetrical patterns. In one of these squares was a
design which showed the escutcheons of the arms of France and those of
the Medici. These gardens of the Tuileries were first modified by a
project of Bernard Palissy, the porcelainiste. He let his fancy have
full sway and the criss-cross alleys and avenues were set out at their
junctures with moulded ornaments, enamelled miniatures, turtles in
faience and frogs in porcelain. It was this, perhaps, which gave the
impetus to the French for their fondness to-day for similar effects, but
Bernard Palissy doubtless never went so far as plaster cats on a
ridgepole, as one may see to-day on many a pretty villa in northern
France. This certainly lent an element of picturesqueness to the
Renaissance Garden of the Louvre, a development of the same spirit which
inspired this artist in his collaboration at Chenonceaux. This was the
formula which produced the _jardin delectable_, an exaggeration of the
taste of the epoch, but still critical of its time.
The gardens of the Renaissance readily divided themselves into two
classes, those of the _parterres a compartiments_ and those of the
_parterres de broderies_. The former, under Francis I and Henri II, were
divided into geometrical compartments thoroughly in the taste of the
Renaissance, but bordered frequently with representations of designs
taken from Venetian lace and various other contemporary stuffs. There
were other _parterres_, where the compartments were planned on a more
utilitarian scale; in other words, they were the _potagers_ which
rendered the garden, said Olivier de Serres, one of "profitable
beauty." Some of the compartments were devoted entirely to herbs and
medicinal plants while others were entirely given over to flowers. In
general the compartments were renewed twice a year, in May and August.
[Illustration: _A Parterre_]
The _Grand Parterre_ at Fontainebleau, called in other days the
_Parterre de Tiber_, offered as remarkable an example of the terrace
garden as was to be found in France, the terraces rising a metre or more
above the actual garden plot and enclosing a sort of horticultural
arena.
It was in the sixteenth century that architectural motives came to be
incorporated into the gardens in the form of square, round or octagonal
pavilions, and here and there were added considerable areas of tiled
pavements, features which were found at their best in the gardens of the
Chateau de Gaillon and at Langeais.
One special and distinct feature of the French Renaissance garden was
the labyrinth, of which three forms were known. The first was composed
of merely low borders, the second of hedges shoulder high, or even
taller, and the third was practically a roofed-over grove. The latter
invention was due, it is said, to the discreet Louis XIV. In the
Tuileries garden, in the time of Catherine de Medici, there was a
labyrinth greatly in vogue with the Parisian nobles who "found much
pleasure in amusing themselves therein."
In that garden the labyrinth was sometimes called the "Road of
Jerusalem" and it was presumably of eastern origin.
In the seventeenth century grottos came to be added to the garden,
though this is seemingly an Italian tradition of much earlier date.
Among the notable grottos of this time were that of the _Jardin des
Pins_ at Fontainebleau, and that of the Chateau de Meudon, built by
Philibert Delorme, of which Ronsard celebrated its beauties in verse.
The art was not confined to the gardens of royalties and the nobility,
for the _bourgeoisie_ speedily took up with the puerile idea (said to
have come from Holland, by the way), and built themselves grottos of
shells, plaster and boulders. It was then that the _chiens de faience_,
which the smug Paris suburbanite of to-day so loves, were born.
By the seventeenth century the equalized _carreaux_ of the early
geometrically disposed gardens were often replaced with the oblongs,
circles and, somewhat timidly introduced, more bizarre forms, the idea
being to give variety to the ensemble. There was less fear for the
artistic effect of great open spaces than had formerly existed, and the
avenues and alleys were considerably enlarged, and such architectural
and sculptural accessories as fountains, balustrades and perrons were
designed on a more extensive scale. Basins and canals and other
restrained surfaces of water began to appear on a larger scale, and
greater insistence was put upon their proportions with regard to the
decorative part which they were to play in the ensemble.
This was the preparatory period of the coming into being of the works of
Le Notre and Mansart.
The _Grand Siecle_ lent a profound majesty to royal and noble dwellings,
and its effect is no less to be remarked upon than the character of
their gardens. The moving spirit which ordained all these things was the
will of the _Roi Soleil_.
_Parterres_ and _broderies_ were designed on even a grander scale than
before. They were frequently grouped into four equal parts with a
circular basin in the centre, and mirror-like basins of water sprang up
on all sides.
Close to the royal dwelling was the fore-court, as often dressed out
with flowers and lawn as with tiles and flags. From it radiated long
alleys and avenues, stretching out almost to infinity. At this time the
grass-plots were developed to high order, and there were groves,
rest-houses, bowers, and _theatres de verdure_ at each turning.
Tennis-courts came to be a regularly installed accessory, and the basins
and "mirrors" of water were frequently supplemented by cascades, and
some of the canals were so large that barges of state floated thereon.
Over some of the canals bridges were built as fantastic in design as
those of the Japanese, and again others as monumental as the Pont Neuf.
In their majestic regularity the French gardens of the seventeenth
century possessed an admirable solemnity, albeit their amplitude and
majesty give rise to justifiable criticism. It is this criticism that
qualifies the values of such gardens as those of Versailles and Vaux,
but one must admit that the scale on which they were planned has much to
do with this, and certainly if they had been attached to less majestic
edifices the comment would have been even more justifiable. As it is,
the criticism must be qualified.
The aspect of the garden by this time had been greatly modified. Aside
from such great ensembles as those of Versailles was now to be
considered a taste for something smaller, but often overcrowded with
accessories of the same nature, which compared so well with the vastness
of Versailles, but which, on the other hand, looked so out of place in
miniature.
It was not long now before the "style pompadour" began to make itself
shown with regard to garden design--the exaggeration of an undeniable
grace by an affected mannerism. All the rococco details which had been
applied to architecture now began to find their duplication in the
garden rockeries--weird fantasies built of plaster and even shells of
the sea.
By later years of the eighteenth century there came on the scene as a
designer of gardens one, De Neufforge. His work was a prelude to the
classicism of the style of Louis XVI which was to come. There was, too,
at this time a disposition towards the English garden, but only a slight
tendency, though towards 1780 the conventional French garden had been
practically abandoned. The revolution in the art of garden-making
therefore preceded that of the world of politics by some years.
There are three or four works which give specific details on these
questions. They are "_De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance_," by
Blondel (1773), his "_Cours d'Architecture_" of the same date, and
Panseron's volume entitled "_Recueil de Jardinage_," published in 1783.
The following brief resume shows the various steps through which the
French formal garden passed. In the moyen-age the garden was a thing
quite apart from the dwelling, and was but a diminutive dooryard sort of
a garden. The garden of the Renaissance amplified the regular lines
which existed in the moyen-age, but was often quite as little in accord
with the dwelling that it surrounded as its predecessor.
The union of the garden and the dwelling and its dependencies was
clearly marked under Louis XIV, while the gardens of Louis XV tended
somewhat to modify the grand lines and the majestic presence of those of
his elder. These gardens of Louis XV were more fantastic, and followed
less the lines of traditional good taste. Shapes and forms were
complicated and indeed inexplicably mixed into a melange that one could
hardly recognize for one thing or another, certainly not as examples of
any well-meaning styles which have lasted until to-day. The straight
line now disappeared in favour of the most dissolute and irrational
curves imaginable, and the sober majesty of the gardens of Louis XIV
became a tangle of warring elements, fine in parts and not
uninteresting, effective, even, here and there, but as a whole an
aggravation.
Finally the reaction came for something more simple and more in harmony
with rational taste.
The best example remaining of the Louis XV garden is that which
surrounds the _Pavillon de Musique_ of the Petit Trianon, an addition
to the garden which Louis XIV had given to the Grand Trianon. By
comparison with the big garden of Le Notre this latter conception is as
a boudoir to a reception hall.
The garden of Louis XVI was a composite, with interpolations from across
the Rhine, from Holland and Belgium and from England even; features
which got no great hold, however, but which, for a time, gave it an air
less French than anything which had gone before.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century the formal garden was
practically abandoned in France. It was the period of the real decadence
of the formal garden. This came not from one cause alone but from many.
To the straight lines and gentle curves of former generations upon
generations of French gardens were added sinuosities as varied and
complicated as those of the Vale of Cashmere, and again, with tiny stars
and crescents and what not, the ground resembled an ornamental ceiling
more than it did a garden. The sentimentalism of the epoch did its part,
and accentuated the desire to carry out personal tastes rather than
build on traditionally accepted lines. The taste for the English garden
grew apace in France, and many a noble plantation was remodelled on
these lines, or rooted up altogether. Immediately neighbouring upon the
dwelling the garden still bore some resemblance to its former outlines,
but, as it drew farther away, it became a park, a wildwood or a
preserve.
Isabey Pere, a miniaturist, under Napoleonic stimulus, designed a number
of French gardens in the early years of the nineteenth century,
following more or less the conventional lines of the best work of the
seventeenth century, and succeeded admirably in a small way in
resuscitating the fallen taste. Isabey's gardens may have lacked much
that was remarkable in the best work of Le Notre, but they were
considerably better than anything of a similar nature, so far as
indicating a commendable desire to return to better ideals.
Under the Second Empire a great impulse was given to garden design and
making in Paris itself. It was then that the parks and squares came
really to enter into the artistic conception of what a city beautiful
should be.
Leaving the gardens of the Tuileries and the Luxembourg out of the
question, the Parc Monceau and that of the Buttes Chaumont of to-day,
the descendants of these first Paris gardens show plainly how thoroughly
good they were in design and execution.
The majority of professional gardeners of renown in France made their
first successes with the gardens of the city of Paris, reproducing the
best of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century work, which
had endured without the competition of later years having dulled its
beauty, though perhaps the _parterres_ of to-day are rather more warm in
colouring, even cruder, than those of a former time.
The _jardin fleuriste_ and the _parterre horticole_ of the nineteenth
century appealed however quite as much in their general arrangement and
the modification of their details and their rainbow colours, as any
since the time of Louis XVI. According to the expert definition the
_jardin fleuriste_ was a "garden reserved exclusively to the culture and
ornamental disposition of plants giving forth rich leaves and beautiful
flowers." The above quoted description is decidedly apt.
The seventeenth century French garden formed a superb framing for the
animated fetes and reunions in which took part such a brilliant array of
lords and ladies of the court as may have been invited to taste the
delicacies of a fete amid such luxurious appointments.
The fashionable and courtly life of the day, so far as its open-air
aspect was concerned, centered around these gardens and parks of the
great houses of royalty and the nobility. The costume of the folk of the
time, with cloak and sword and robes of silk and velvet and gilded
carriages and _chaises-a-porteurs_, had little in common with the
out-of-door garden-party life of to-day, where the guests arrive in
automobiles, be-rugged and be-goggled and somewhat the worse for a dusty
journey. It is for this reason that Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte, in
spite of the suggestion of sumptuousness which they still retain, are,
from all points of view, more or less out of scale with the life of our
times.
The modern garden, whether laid out in regular lines, or on an
ornamental scale, as a flower garden purely, or in a composite style, is
usually but an adjunct to the modern chateau, villa or cottage. It is
more intimate than the vast, more theatrically disposed area of old, and
is more nearly an indication of the personal tastes of the owner because
of its restrained proportions.
[Illustration: _Bassin de la Couronne, Vaux-le-Vicomte_]