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Louis XIV's Maniere De Montrer Les Jardins De Versailles an Unknown View by William Roberts in the Month of July 1689 the Exiled

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Louis XIV's Maniere De Montrer Les Jardins De Versailles an Unknown View by William Roberts in the Month of July 1689 the Exiled Louis XIV's Maniere de montrer les jardins de Versailles An Unknown View by William Roberts In the month of July 1689 the exiled queen of England—Marie-Beatrix d'Este, wife of James II—came to see Versailles. According to Dangeau, Louis XIV himself ordered a short itinerary to be drawn up for her visit to the gardens. This was to be the first of six similar MS. texts on the subject, including one written in the King's own hand, hence presumably composed by him. It dates from 1702-04 but is unfortunately incomplete. The third and most interesting version consisting of 26 paragraphs which is considered to be from 1691-1695, was copied by a royal Secretary, and has since been published.1 From the same period, we have recently discovered the Harvard Library Map Collection, a large engraving entitles "Veue...de Versailles," issued by A. Schoonbeek in Amsterdam in 1693, and apparently not reproduced since then.2 We shall relate the King's walking directions to this panoramic engraving, by referring [in square brackets] to its key letters. In a further coincidence, at Versailles, there have been preserved two sets of garden paintings done by Jean Cotelle, the King's miniaturist, and dated c. 1693. We shall describe these and other contemporary illustrations of the garden groves {bosquets), in an attempt to reconstruct verbally the experience of late 17th c. visitors who might have followed the prescribed itinerary. The painter Etienne Allegrain has recorded an "tour guide" impression of the Sun King in his mid- fifties, who liked to have important visitors appreciate and admire the gardens (in Hoog 48-49; Walton 24).3 He portrays a group assembled around the King on the terrace opposite the then recently completed North wing [C on the engraving]. They have already left the departure point just outside the ground floor vestibule [A] (which itself is centered under the Galerie des Glaces). This spot "sur les haut des degrez," marks the perpendicular crossing of the 196 WILLIAM ROBERTS garden's main axial system. What the courtiers see looking westward across the new water parterres is exactly captured in painting by Jean Cotelle, Louis XIV's miniaturist in the 1690's, and it has hardly changed in the intervening centuries.4 The King's guidelines almost immediately invite the group to move forward to the "haut de Latone"-to the steps which mark the secondary axial crossing point [Z]. This offers a surprise—a different, plunging perspective straight down, revealing the famous Latona fountain, and then off into the distance. Turning around, one gets a first chance to look back at the very recently completed north wing.5 In another decade or so the long, implacably horizontal Italianate roofline [B,C] will be abruptly broken by the Gothic-Baroque silhouette of the present Chapel. f Louis sets up a pause to consider the "nappe" and "gerbe" ] of the Daybreak fountain (Cabinet du Point du Jour). Strangely, he does not even mention the obviously cruel j ferocity of the wild animals, nor the high quality of statues I nearby, left over from the Grande Commande of 1674. He ! make the group turn left so as to pass between the very \ early marble Sphinxes, saddled by Jacques Sarrasin's bronze j children, which since 1685 have guarded the Parterres du J Midi. Similar to the view form a broad terrace enclosing the large square pool called l'Arpent d'eau at Vaux-le- Vicomte, which leads unexpectedly to the Petites Cascades below, Le N6tre again contrives a major effect of optical illusion. He prevents us even now, until we reach it, from seeing the dropaway Orangerie which lies just beyond the balustrade of the southern parterres and their pools. Cotelle has captured the moment of discovery and delight.6 Louis tells us next to go down by way of the Cyclopean right- hand ramp, now called Les Cent Marches, so as perhaps to wonder from below what sort of cultural giants must live in this place. Two paintings of J.-B. Martin preserve the monumental aspect of this new Mansart Orangerie.7 At the time two classical rape statues, also from the Grande Commande, were prominently displayed there. The view from the exaggeratedly high Satory hillside shows the LOUIS XIVS MANIERE DE MONTRER... 197 former Mall and boating parties on the Swiss Lake. The pillar statuary dates from 1687-94, which fact makes it and the paintings coincide closely with our present MS text. The royal tour cuts out the lake visit and directs us to go into "le jardin des orangers...droit a la fontaine d'ou Ton considera POrangerie, on passera dans l'allee des grands orangers." Then one is to cross over into the horseshoe- shaped Orangerie "couverte" and double back down the long storage gallery, in the summer now occasionally used for art exhibits and antique shows. This visit exits out of the curved vestibule at its northwest corner, around an octagonal red marble basin sunk into the floor, to emerge just below the "Porte de 1'Orangerie." Conveniently, this is right to the front of the former Labyrinth entrance, [b]. Charles Perrault is credited with imagining this tall maze of vegetal and sculptural fantasy, which he has described in glowing tones. Its entrance was quite properly guarded by a statue of Aesop, whose fables would eventually teach morality to the young Dauphin, Due de Bourgogne, and to others. Opposite the fabulist and also standing on a lozanged base, Love held out the thread of Ariadne and shared the guarding of this secret place.8 [At the time of its construction, Racine's Phedre had not yet demonstrated the perfidious nature of passion developed in a Labyrinth (!)]. Of the 38 sculpted and painted lead fountains which represented animals in scenes from Aesop, the two groups illustrating dinner with "le Renard et la grue" (#14) must have held a special meaning for La Fontaine's readers after 1668.9 For purposes of syllabic symmetry and balance, in Fable 1, 18 he may well have substituted the longer name "cigogne" for "grue" which achieving roughly the same pictorial effect. On this particular visit our cicerone does not allow us to go as far as the regular exit point (#39/40), but intentionally sends us on a short cut back to #33 (les Cannes et le barbet), to emerge by the rond-point of Bacchus. Its Dionysian lead statuary, featuring autumn grapes and grapevines, has been regilded and painted in recent years to make it flash out brightly from under the trees, although it was once surrounded by tall panels of greenery.10 We must now take Le Notre's "dog leg" path 198 WILLIAM ROBERTS which suddenly thrusts us tangentially into the Salle de Bal, or Rockwork Grove [a]. Its motifs of Madagascan shells, exotic rock formations, grassy tiers of circular benches then covered with stone, outdoor marble inlays, and the central quadrilobe island set in a watery frame-all will occur again, as we shall see.11 One could well apply to Louis XIV Bossuet's statement concerning Conde: qui embellit cette magnifique et delicieuse maison, ou qu'il conduisit ses amis dans les superbes allees, au bruit de tant de jets d'eau qui ne se taisaient ni jour ni nuit, c'etait toujours le meme homme et sa gloire le suivait partout (Blomfield 171). Guidebooks today still credit the King with establishing the "point de veue" (Observation Point) in a half-moon at the bottom of the Latona parterre, which offers a quadruple grand crossing of axial line sand the only view of all four Seasonal fountains. A decade beforehand, the view eastward had been quite different: in 1678 Latona [Z] still stood on a rock and faced the chateau.12 Since 1686 on her present multi-layered, monumental base-the so-called "wedding cake"—she turns her imploring gaze westward, looking down the Allee Royale axis toward her son Apollo riding his chariot out of the waters. She was made to switch her underlying dependency, from Jupiter in the chateau to the Sun God in the garden—possibly a sign of overall mythological consolidation. The Lycian peasants, by being painfully metamorphosized into life-size frogs and lizards, are punished much more severely in the newer version although they seem to remain impenitent. Still this monument could be seen as a stronger symbolic warning to any would-be "neo-Frondeurs" who might be tempted to again take the royal family too lightly. Despite its Satyr fountain nearby, La Girandole or chandelier [x] seems indeed worthy to be seen only "en passant pour aller a Saturne," as the King says. The latter fountain persona, representing the wintry age that Louis could now begin to appreciate, also displays a recently renewed gilding which sets him off to great dramatic LOUIS XIV'S MANIERE DE MONTRER... 199 advantage. In 1683 at the Salle des Antiques (or Galerie d'eau) [e] one could walk out by way of two narrow bridges onto the center of a long, geometrically veneered island, finished in marble of many colors, an elaborate variant of la Salle de Bal [a]. Here, alternating with boxed orange trees, one could appreciate each of 24 ancient statues whose bases were set in the water of a surrounding shallow canal or moat.13 Unfortunately in 1704 Louis was to order the entire ensemble removed, in order to create the Salle des Marronniers which remains on that spot. The guide text had cited a number of features ("les gerbes, les coquilles, les bassins, les statues et les portiques") to be noticed around the He Royale, or Bassin du Miroir [c], a large double pond fed by the water from rows of fountain jets.
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