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he garden of Vaux le Vicomte

About the middle of the century, on the threshold of a new age, there stood out conspicuously a

man who by virtue of his personality seemed to exhibit the spirit of his time—both the arrogance

and the autocratic defiance characterising that period: this was Fouquet, the Finance Minister of 

Mazarin. Fouquet’s delusion, and the snare that led to his fall, was that he—although having thefinest instinct for what the future held in matters of art and science—failed entirely to realise

what the embryo monarch would prove himself to be. So in blind security Fouquet rushed to his

fate. There was an element of noble tragedy in his career. A shining example to Louis Quattorze,who knew himself to be his pupil but never acknowledged it, he was nevertheless overthrown by

the king.

Fouquet was in the prime of life and at the zenith of his powers, when at the beginning of 1650he arranged a contract with the architect Le Vau to build a castle called Vaux le Vicomte in his

own viscounty, at Melun. He was still under forty, and he had no reason to doubt that by favour 

of Mazarin he would soon be appointed First Minister of Finance, and he supposed that the

rivalry of Colbert might be easily ignored. The young king, carelessly enmeshed in his loveaffairs and other pleasures, did not appear to feel the least desire to take the reins of state into his

own hands. In order to clear the ground for castle, garden, and a proper open space round them, it

was necessary for Fouquet to buy three villages, and to pull them down. The place grew withastonishing quickness over its foundations, The powerful financier had inexhaustible wealth at

his disposal, so he pressed on the work eagerly. It is said that at times as many as eighteen

thousand labourers were employed together, and the cost was computed at sixteen million livres.

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FIG. 390. VAUX-LE-VICOMTE—GROUND-PLAN

Vaux-le-Vicomte is a fine building with pavilions about it, and has a wide moat all round (Fig.

390)— the natural thing for any country place, for almost without exception the neighbouring

castles of recent erection were still made as water-castles, for instance Ruel, Liancourt, andLouis the Thirteenth’s palace at Versailles. In front of the castle was the wide entrance court, the

cour d’honneur, cut off by a handsome semicircular balustrade and fine trellis barriers, to which

the broad carriage roads of the park led. The stabling on both sides of the court covered kitchen places and vegetable plots. On the other side of the house, erected on terraces that were built up

artificially, there was a vestibule inside the moat, which was bordered by a balustrade. From here

there was a very good view of the greater part of the garden, which had perhaps been begun

 before the foundation stones of the castle were laid.

As early as 1625 the editor of Claude Mollet’s work, Le Théâtre des Plans et Jardinage,

dedicated it to Fouquet, and in it speaks of the wonderful garden at Vaux-le-Vicomte, where

“they very delightfully allow art to strive with nature, and every day bring fresh beauties andnew treasures." The work at the garden must at that time have been carried on with mucheagerness, and it is certain that it was in great beauty when the castle was finished. Fouquet

secured the then famous painter Charles Le Brun to decorate his castle and the other rooms at the

villa. Le Brun then recommended to the Minister of Finance his young friend André Le Nôtre,who had, like himself, studied painting. He had got to know and like him through their common

teacher, Simon Vouet, and he admired his imaginative fancy in decoration and his knowledge of 

garden art. Le Nôtre owed his scientific knowledge to his own home. His father wassuperintendent of the Tuileries Gardens, Here in Vaux-le-Vicomte André was to win that rank as

an expert which was recognised half a century later all over Europe.

Mademoiselle de Scudéry, who describes Vaux in her novel Clélie, says soon after the place wascompleted: “ The most wonderful thing is how this garden lies between two shrubberies, whichagreeably break the view.” This fine observer has here caught the peculiarity of the garden. We

can stand with her on the terrace of the castle, whence a drawbridge leads over the moat

(Fig.:391).

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FIG, 391. VAUX-LE-VICOMTE—VIEW OF THE GARDEN PROM THE CASTLE

TERRACE

On both sides of the castle there are parterres decked with fountains, intentionally made in

simple lines so as not to distract the eye too much from the fine parterre de broderie that lies below the house. To right and left there are flower-gardens, which are worked out with much

 play of fountains (Fig. 392).

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FIG. 392. VAUX-LE-VICOMTE -PARTERRE AT THE SIDE OF THE CASTLE

The greatest admiration is caused by “la fontaine de la couronne,” which balances on the shining

waters a crown of water-spouts: there is a round fountain at the end, and the parterre is finished

off with two small, narrow canals. Hence one goes down by the main path through a watery road.On both sides there are lawns edged with flowers and decked with fountains, and the water finds

its way into a great square basin. If one stays to look from the terrace, the bright ribbon of thecanal can be seen glittering from the depths below. This canal ends the garden abruptly, and hasno bridge: it widens into a large basin, behind which the natural hill rises somewhat steeply. A

triangle, regular but ending in a semicircle, occupies a space in the park ground.

The hill is marked out and ornamented with grotto-work, fountains, and water-beasts right up to

the top, where the imposing scene ends with a huge figure of Hercules and a great column of water. This limitation of the background corresponds to the confinement of the sides with

shrubberies. On the left of the castle the ground rises; and this is made use of for a terrace,

approached in the side-garden axis by a small piece of ground with a cascade and a fine ascent of steps. On the other side are shrubberies with trellis bordering the walks, and here are found either 

flower-lawns or gardens, or paths with fountains, or what is called a water-theatre. Leaving thecastle terrace and going down through the water road to the terrace of the great canal, the visitor 

is met with a surprise. At the dividing wall of the castle, and so not visible from there, a cascadeappears, a contrast in life and movement to the peaceful gleaming line of the canal. But such

cascades are not only the adornment of the lowest of the terraces, which is sunk between two

high places, they also enliven the scene from the hill where the great Hercules stands with a viewof garden and castle (Fig. 393).

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FIG. 393. VAUX-LE-VICOMTE—VIEW TOWARDS THE CASTLE FROM TUE CANAL

Two important currents of thought that in every field were dominating men’s minds at this

 period were now adopted by Le Nôtre, who saw how to use them in his gardens from the very

 beginning and how to blend them. The one represented the spirit of discipline, of firm, distinct,

defined rule, of proportion: this idea found expression in literature in the work of Boileau, in politics in the ever-increasing monarchical sentiment, in fashionable life in etiquette cultivated to

the very extreme of refinement. In opposition to this, however, there was the unrestrained and

constantly growing desire for variety, for change. The society which was subjected willingly andconsciously to this spirit of discipline, and found therein the expression of its highest culture, the

fixed form and rule of life, would have grown old before its time, indeed would have died of 

sheer boredom, had it not been for its constant search—so often perplexing to us—for noveltyand change, which rendered its votaries continually breathless and excited. Vaux-le-Vicomte was

the first attempt to combine these two requirements.

French gardens before then had the severe axial order, even from the time of Du Cerceau, but the

terraces in his day presented the same or similar pictures, each separately; the parterres againwere exactly alike, and symmetry was marked in the repetition of the same lines. When then in

the seventeenth century Italian influence began to be felt in a new direction, there was no real

mastery of the novel idea of the whole and its parts. The cascades at Saint-Cloud and Ruel lie atthe side in their own special axis, with no relation to that of the house, and the famous “ variété “

at Ruel is, as a whole, unrestful and scattered. But Le Nôtre perceived that the most important

thing was to create a magnificent scene which could be viewed as a whole from the house, and

demanded this character of being visible before anything else, although its main lines mightshow all sorts of variety in parterres and in water: for this garden was intended to serve for royal

fêtes and the display of magnificent costumes, exercises, and fireworks; every- thing and

everybody must be seen. But for a picture a frame was needed, and this was provided by

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shrubberies that each separately constituted a private garden, in which more and more variety

would be found to answer the most extravagant demands.

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