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Boox I. GARDENING IN FRANCE. 37
168, Watelet’s garden, the Moulin jolt, the next example of the English style in France, is of a very different description from Ermenonville._ Watelet is the author of an Essai sur les Jardins, which ap- peared in 1774. His garden was situated in the suburbs of Paris, on the Seine, and contained about four acres, varied by buildings, grottoes, temples, and inscriptions, and was, on the whole, more in the Chinese style, than in that of Kent or Shenstone._The author, who professes to take utility for the basis of his art, seems to have felt something wanting, In this particular,’ to his temples and altars, and is ridiculed by Hirschfield(Théorze des Jardins, tom. i. p. 168.) for proposing occasionally“‘ de faire paroitre aupres les temples, et les autels, les arcs de triomphe,§e. une troupe de pantomimes, vétues suivant le costume néces- saire, imitant des cérémonies, faisant des sacrifices, allant porter des offrandes,”&c. The Prince de Ligne admired Watelet’s garden almost as much as that of Girardin, though in so different a style. After de- scribing it, he says,“ Addex-y, incrédules.... Méditex sur les inscriptions que le gout y a dictées. Méditex avec le sage, soupire avec Vamant, et bénissex Watelet.”(Mem. et Lettres,&c. 230.) The object of such as attempt English gardening in France on a small scale is still more to imitate the garden of Watelet, than the“‘ paysages intéressans” of Girardin.
169. Of other English or mixed gardens which existed before the Revolution, the garden of Mouceau, the property of the Duke of Orleans, was laid out by Blaikey, a British Jandscape-gardener resident in France, in a romantic and irregular style. Blaikey also formed some scenes in the Petit Trianon, especially in the lower part of the grounds, now occupied by ruins, water, anda cottage, and in their kind very picturesque. It was here that the queen of Louis X VI. used to entertain her guests habited as a shepherdess; that the citizens used to hold fétes champéires during the Revolution; and that Napoleon made a residence for Maria Louisa. Having reverted to the Bourbons, it is now com- paratively neglected and dilapidated.(Hort. Tour, 406.\ Bagatelle, in the Bois de Bologne, formerly the retreat of Count d’ Artois, and the Duke of Orleans’s park at Raincy, were laid out, in 1779, in the same taste, and by the same artist. The Jardin de Marbeuf was planted by the Chevalier Jansin, an Englishman.(Hd. Encyc. xii. 543.) De Lille cites the gardens of Belceil, the chateau of the Prince de Ligne. Montreuil, a garden of the Princess Gremené; Maupertuis, a garden of the Marquis de Montes- quieu, with a beautifully varied surface, abundance of wood and water, and a desert after the manner of Mereville. He mentions several others, all of which are figured in Recueil des Jardins, 16 cahiers, folio, and most of them described by Hirschfield(tom. 1. & v.), who considers Mereville and Ermenonville, as the two best specimens of English gardening in France.
Mereville, the seat of M, La Borde, was one of the most considerable in France, and was laid out im- mediately before the Revolution under the guidance of Robert, a famous landscape-painter. The chateau stood on a terrace, and commanded a distant prospect over a marsh originally of little interest. But the wall of this terrace was covered with artificial rock-work, a river formed in the marsh with a bridge and cascade. The general surface was raised by earth, and on the right and left of the view from the house were raised considerable hills of earth, the one surmounted by a column 120 feet high, serving as a prospect- tower, and the other by a Doric temple of 17 columns. At the base of one hill was a magnificent grotto and rocks, and near the other stables in the character of Gothic ruins. Various buildings were erected in other parts of the grounds; one to the memory of Captain Cook, and another to that of M. Laborde’s two sons, who perished in the voyage of La Peyrouse. Every hardy exotic tree was planted, and many of them, as the tulip-tree, ailanthus, sophora,&c. grew with great vigor and flowered luxuriantly. Many millions of francs were expended on this place, which for_some years past has been falling into decay and has been lately sold in lots.
One of the finest modern parks in France is that of D’Argenson near Vienne. Mathews(Diary of an Invalid) considered it superior to any thing of the kind he had seen in France or Italy, and says it re- minded him of his native, Wye, andits picturesque banks,
170. English gardening during the consulate was little attended to. Malmaison, the
s oO‘= e o b residence of Josephine, was laid out avowedly in the English style by Morel, and greatly altered and improved by Blaikie and the English resident gardener, Hudson; and richly stocked with trees and shrubs from London. Since that time little has been done on an extended plan; and one may travel from one extremity of the kingdom to the other, without seeing any scene having the general external appearance of an English park. The works of this kind which are executed, are on a very limited scale, and crowded with walks and ornaments. Most of them may be called fanciful, ingenious, and pretty, but few are simple and grand.(Dulawre Desc. des Env. de Paris, and Hort. Tour, 357. et seq.) All that a Frenchman considers necessary to form a Jardin Anglois, Blaikie states to us, is crooked walks.\ Blaikie went to France in 1776, remained there during the Revolution, and has been employed by all parties. The directory employed him to plant the Tuilleries with potatoes, and never paid him for the sets; and the national assembly in 1792, appointed him commissioner for the establishment of a botanic garden at Versailles, but he declined the employment. This venerable artist is still employed in all the eminent cases in France, Holland, and the south of Germany.
171. The French revolution, however favorable to the progress of society, by the emancipation of energies and intellects, and by the general subdivision and distribution of property, has, as was to be expected, been injurious to gardening as an art of design but if once the nation were politically content, a few years of quiet and prosperity, by en- riching some and impoverishing others, would end in grouping property in more unequal masses; and the superfluous wealth of the opulent would be employed as before, under the advantages of much more skill to display, and taste to approve what is beautiful or excellent.
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