reds of trees brought from
Normandy, and the seeding of flower gardens of surpassing beauty. Ponds,
fountains, grottoes, waterfalls and straying brooks came into being at
the command of the ambitious young ruler. At some distance from the
chateau courts and cages were constructed to shelter rare birds and
animals. It was designed that this should be "the most splendid palace
of animals in the world." The King decided the details of building and
decoration and supervised the installation of the furred and feathered
tenants of the palatial menagerie. This was the enclosure so greatly
admired by La Fontaine, Racine and Boileau, during a visit to Versailles
in 1668.

The first epoch of the construction of Louis XIV coincided with the first
sculptural decoration of Versailles. A great number of works of art were
ordered for the adornment of the walks and gardens. Many statues and
busts of mythological subjects that were made at Rome to the order of
Fouquet, after models by Nicolas Poussin, were removed from Vaux to
Versailles. That was a thriving period for sculptors of France and
adjacent countries. Records faithfully kept by Colbert detail
expenditures of thousands of pounds of the nation's money for bronze
vases, stone figures of nymphs and dryads and dancing fauns that were
placed among the trees and fountains of Versailles. Much of the
ornamental sculpture ordered at this time disappeared from the royal
domain, as Louis XIV constantly demanded the work of the newest artists
and all the novelties of the moment.

By the year 1668 Versailles apparently approached completion. It had
then been seven years in building. But in 1669 the general character of
the chateau was again changed. In the embellishments proposed by Le Vau,
the architect, the royal domain became the scene of renewed activity,
engendered by the King, then just turned thirty years of age, and eager
to achieve still greater improvements at Versailles to mark the
increasing prosperity of his reign. Half-finished buildings were
demolished and begun anew. Immense structures arose, and once again
artists flocked to Versailles. Inside the palace and in the park they
wrought an elaborate scheme of decoration that made this the most
sumptuous dwelling of the monarchy. In the words of Madame Scudery, an
annalist of that epoch, Versailles, under the new orders of the King,
became "incomparably more beautiful." Another Versailles was born; at
the sa