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In the second half of the nineteenth century, under the Second Empire, the symmetrical lines of the old-timeparterrescame 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 treatedas a frank exotic. Even to-day, in modern France, where an old dwelling of the period of Henri IV, François 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 ampleparterresof 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 thepreauxandjardinetsof mediævalism, those of Le Notre were a blossoming forth of the Renaissance seed. Regretfully, one cannot say as much for the garden plots of theeighteenth 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 thevergersandpreaux, little checker-board squares of a painful primitiveness as compared with later standards. These squares, orcarreaux, 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, thepreaux, 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 thepotagerandverger.
Thepotagerwas virtually a vegetable garden within the walls which surrounded the seigneurial dwelling, and was of necessity of very limited extent, chiefly laid out in tinycarreaux, 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.
Theverger, orviridarium, was practically a fruit garden, as it is to-day, with perhaps a generous sprinkling of flowers and aromatic plants. Thevergerwas always outside the walls, but not far from the entrance or the drawbridge crossing the moat and leading to the chateau.
It was to theverger, 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 vergierEascuns jour pour s'esbanoier."
Thus ran a couplet of the "Roman de Thèbes"; and of the hundred or more tales of chivalry in verse, which are recognized as classic, nearly all make mention of theverger.
It was here that young men and maidens came in springtime for the fête of flowers, when theywove 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.
Henri IV in an Old French GardenHenri IV in an Old French Garden
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, orconsoude, was one of the most loved of all.
The carnation, orœillet, was calledarmerie; 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 thevergerwas 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.
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 hemay have been, was the designer of thepreauxand thetreillesof 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 René 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 apetit preau. Again: "XI Sols" for the employ of six gardeners to trim the vines and clean up the alleys of thegrandandpetit 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 theverger, and thepreaubecame a greensward accessory, at once practical and decorative, the precursor of thepelouseand theparterreof Le Notre.
Thepreau(in old Frenchprael) was a symmetrical square or rectangular grass-grown garden plot. From the Latinpratum, orpratellum, the wordspreau,préandprairiewere 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 especieuxQue est carré, et, afin qu'il soit mieulxA un prael, ou milieu, gracieuxVert sans grappinOu a planté en my un très 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 preëminence in garden-making be questioned.
The gardens of the Gothic era seldom surpassed theencloswith a rivulet passing through it, a spring, a pine tree giving a welcome shade, some simple flowers and avergerof 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 rôle 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 thegloriettes, which became so greatly the vogue in the eighteenth century. Practically thegloriette, a word in common use in northern France and in Flanders, was alogette de plaisance. The Spaniards, too, in theirglorietta, a pavilion in a garden, had practically the same signification of the word.
In the fourteenth century French garden thegloriettewas 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, andplayed 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 "Ménagier 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 planté d'arbres à fruits, de legumes, de rosiers, orné de volières et tapisé de gazon sur lesquels se promènent 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 fifteenthcentury. 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 thegloriettes. 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 hundredlivresand Edme Marceliano at two hundredlivreswere in the employ of Henri II. It was the former who laid out the magnificentParterre de Dianeat Chenonceaux, where Catherine de Médici later, being smitten with the skill of the Florentines, gave the further commissionof theJardin Vert, which was intended to complete thisparterre, to Henri le Calabrese and Jean Collo.
"Parterre de Diane,"Parterre de Diane," Chenonceaux
The later Renaissance gardens divided themselves into various classes,jardins de plaisir,jardins de plaisance,jardins de propreté, etc.Parterresnow became of two sorts,parterres à compartimentsandparterres de broderies, names sufficiently explicit not to need further comment.
It is difficult to determine just how gardenbroderiescame into being. They may have been indirectly due to woman's love of embroidery and the garden alike. The making of these gardenbroderieswas 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 theirparterresandbroderieswere 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, whereasthe 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 theparterresandbroderiesso 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 simpleparquetinto the elaborateparterre. 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 wasthe equal of many which had previously been designed in the provinces.
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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 adistinctly notable feature, thegrand 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—thegrand roialbeing the equivalent ofAllée 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 theparquetat its best. In "Paris à Travers les Ages" one reads that from the windows of the palace the garden resembled a great checker-board containing more than a hundred uniformcarreaux. 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 conventionalquincunx; 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 Médici. 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 thejardin délectable, an exaggeration of the taste of the epoch, but still critical of its time.
A ParterreA ParterreView larger image
The gardens of the Renaissance readily divided themselves into two classes, those of theparterres à compartimentsand those of theparterres 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 otherparterres, where the compartments were planned on a more utilitarian scale; in other words, they were thepotagerswhich renderedthe 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.
TheGrand Parterreat Fontainebleau, called in other days theParterre 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 Médici, there was a labyrinthgreatly 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 theJardin des Pinsat 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 thebourgeoisiespeedily 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 thechiens de faience, which the smug Paris suburbanite of to-day so loves, were born.
By the seventeenth century the equalizedcarreauxof 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 formerlyexisted, 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.
TheGrand Sièclelent 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 theRoi Soleil.
Parterresandbroderieswere 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, andtheatres de verdureat 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 résumé shows the various steps through which the French formal garden passed. In the moyen-age the garden was a thingquite 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 mélange 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 thePavillon deMusiqueof 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, orrooted 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 Père, 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 theparterresof to-day are rather more warm in colouring, even cruder, than those of a former time.
Thejardin fleuristeand theparterre horticoleof 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 thejardin fleuristewas 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 fêtes 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 fête 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 thegreat 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 andchaises-à-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.
Bassin de la Couronne, Vaux-le-Vicomte
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.
Just how great a part the royal hunt played in the open-air life of the French court all who know their French history and have any familiarity with the great forests of France well recognize.
The echo of French country architecture as evinced in the "maisons de plaisance" and "rendezvous de chasse" scattered up and down the France of monarchial times lives until to-day, scarcely fainter than when the note was originally sounded. Often these establishments were something more than a mere hunting-lodge, or shooting-box, indeed they generally aspired to the proportions of what may readily be accepted as a country-house. They established a specious type of architecture which in many cases grew, in later years, into a chateau or palace of manifestly magnificent appointments.
At the great hunting exposition recently held at Vienna theclouof the display was a French royal hunting-lodge in the style of Louis XVI,hung with veritable Gobelin tapestries, loaned by the French government and picturing "The Hunt in France." It was called by the critics a unique painting in a beautiful frame.
In the days of Francis I and his sons, the royal hunt was given a great impetus by Catherine de Médici, wife of Henri II.
Francis, in company with his sons, had gone to Marseilles to meet the Médici bride, who was on her way to make her home at the Paris Louvre, and when he found her possessed of so lively manners and such great intelligence he became so charmed with her that, it is said, he danced with her all of the first evening. What pleased the monarch even more, and perhaps not less his sons, was that she shot with an arquebuse like a sharpshooter, and could ride to hounds like a natural-born Amazon. She was more than a rival, as it afterwards proved, of that arch-huntress, Diane de Poitiers.
History recounts in detail that last royal hunt of Francis I at Rambouillet, when he was lying near to death, the guest of his old friend, d'Angennes.
The old manor, half hunting-lodge, half fortress, and very nearly royal in all its appointments, proved a comfortable enough rest-house, and on the day after his arrival, in March, 1547, themonarch commanded the preparations for a royal hunt to commence at daybreak in the neighbouring forest.
The equipage started forth in full ceremonial on the quest of stag and boar. The bugles blew and a sort of stimulated courage once more entered the king's breast, courage born of the excitement around him, the baying of the hounds and the tramping and neighing of impatient horses. He had forced himself from his bed and on horseback and started off with the rest, defying the better counsel of his retainers.
His strength proved to be born of a fictitious enthusiasm, and, speedily losing interest, he was brought back to the manor where he had his apartments, and put speechless and half dead to bed, actually dying the next day from this last over-exertion, scarce half a century of the span of his life accomplished.
Henri de Navarre also was a true lover of the open. Born in a mountain town in the Pyrenees he would rather camp on a bed of pine needles in the forest than lie on a tuft of down. He preferred his beloved Bayonne ham, spiced with garlic, to a sumptuous dinner inJarnethouse, a famous Paris tavern of the day; and had rather quench his thirst with a quaff of the wine of Jurançon than the finestcruin Paris cellars.
A "Curée aux Flambeaux"A "Curée aux Flambeaux"
He hated the parade of courts, was dirty, unkempt and careless, a genuine son of the soil, heedless of fate, and an excellent huntsman.
Up to the seventeenth century the ladies of the French court showed a keener interest for falconry than for the hunt by horse and hounds.
The heroines of the Fronde, and the generation which followed, seemed to lose interest in this form of sport, and gave their favour to packs of hounds, and followed with equal interest the hunt for deer, wolves, boars, foxes and hares as they were tracked through forests and over arid wastes.
The old hunting horn, the winding horn of romance, still exists at the hunts of France, a relic of the days of Louis XIV. It sounds the conventional comings and goings of the huntsmen in the same classic phraseology as of old—thelancer, thebien allée, thevue, thechangement de forêt, theaccompagné, thebat l'eau, thehallali par terre, and thecurée.
The "Curée aux Flambeaux" was one of the most picturesque ceremonies connected with the royal hunt in France. It began in the gallant days, and lived even until the time of the Second Empire.
Thecurée, that is the giving up to the hounds the remains of an animal slain in chase, doesnot always take place at night, but when it does the torches play the part of impressive and picturesque accessories. When acuréetakes place at the spot where the animal is actually killed the French sporting term for the ceremony is "forcé et abattu." This, however, is usually preceded by another called "le pied," which consists in cutting off one of the feet of the dead animal and offering it to the person in whose honor the hunt was held.
When thecuréetakes place by torchlight the body of the animal is carried beneath the windows of the chateau, a circle is formed by the "piqueurs," or head hunters, and all who have participated in the pursuit; and, to the sound of a trumpet, loaned by the sportsmen, one of thevalets de venériecuts up the stag. Themeutes, that is to say, the hounds which are let slip last of all, and which terminates the chase—are then brought by thevalet des chiens, who has great difficulty in keeping them from breaking loose. When the entrails have been cut away the valet sits astride the animal, holding up thenappe, or head and neck, shaking it at the already furious hounds. It is the care of the valet during this interval to conceal the pieces of flesh which are still under the body. The hounds are then loosened, but are kept withinbounds by the whips of thepiqueursand thevalet des chiens. When the dogs are sufficiently exasperated the brutes are allowed to rush upon the remains of their victim; only, however, to be driven back again by whipping. When their docility has thus been proven the definite signal, "lachez tout," is given, and the hounds rush towards the stag.
Thecuréethen presents a savage spectacle: the air is filled with growling, barking and yelling, while the ground is covered with scrambling dogs, their mouths reeking with blood.
The feminine costume for the hunt in the time of Louis XIII was of broadcloth or velvet, with a great feather-ornamented "picture" hat. Only now and again a lady on horseback after 1650 dared borrow doublet and jacket, and mount astride.
The ladies followed the hunt of Louis XIV on horseback, seldom, if ever, in the older manner of sitting behind their cavalier on the same steed. From the time of Catherine de Médici, indeed, the Italian side-saddle had become the fashion for women.
Under Louis XV the ladies sought a little more comfort, and followed the equipage sitting in a sort of hamper-like, diminutive basket, hung from the broad back of a sturdy quadruped.Dresses became more fanciful, both in materials and colours. From this it was but a step to even more elaborate toilettes which necessitated a conveyance of some sort on wheels, but the most intrepid still clung to the traditionally classic methods. Marie Antoinette had herequipage de chasse, and Madame Durfort was constantly abroad in the forests of Montmorency and Boissy, directing the operation of eight or ten professional huntsmen. Among her guests were frequently the ambassadors of Prussia, Russia and Austria.
In the time of Louis XIV the Comtesse de Lude devoted herself to the hunt with a frenzy born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head of a pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on one occasion, penetrated on horseback, followed by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns of the Convent of Estival.
By the end of the seventeenth century the hunt in France had become no more a sport for ladies. Hunting was still a noble sport, but it was more for men than for women. The court hunted not only in royal company, but accepted invitations from any seigneur who possessed an ample preserve and who could put up a good kill; magistrates, financiers and bishops, indeed all classes, became followers of the hunt.
Montgaillard tells of a hunt in which he took part on the feast day of Saint Bernard, with the monks of the Bernardin Convent in Languedoc. In the episcopal domain of Saverne six hundred beaters were employed on one occasion to provide sport for an assembled company of lords and ladies. These were the days when the bishops were in truthGrand Seigneurs.
The women of the court, while they played the game, ceded nothing to the men in bravery. Neither rain, hail nor snow frightened them. On the 28th of June, 1713, Louis XIV was hunting the deer at Rambouillet when a terrific, cyclonic storm fell upon the equipage, but not a man nor woman in the monarch's party quit. The Duchesse de Berry was "wet to the skin," but her ardour for the hunt was not in the least cooled.
To-day at Fontainebleau or Rambouillet the echo is sounded from the hunting horn of Labaudy, the sugar-king, who pulls off at least two "hunts," with his spectacular equipage, each year, and it is a sight too; a French hunting party was ever picturesque, and if to-day not as practical as the more blood-loving Englishman's hunt, is at least traditionally sentimental, even artificial to the extent, at any rate, that it seems stagy, even to the inclusion of the automobiles which bring and carry away the participants. "Other days, other ways" never had a more strict application than tola chasse a courrein France.
Two accounts are here given of two comparatively modern figures in the French hunting field, which show the great store set by the sport in France.
In the annals of the Chateau de Grosbois, belonging to-day to the Prince de Wagram, are the accounts of an early nineteenth century hunt, which shows that the game cost dear. The "Grand Veneur" of the Napoleonic reign was a master sportsman, indeed, and to-day, in a gallery of the chateau, are preserved the guns of the master, his hunting crop and saddle, his "colours" and his hunting horn.
From the registers of the chateau, under date of December 10, 1809, the following, which concerned a hunting party given by the chatelain, is extracted verbatim.