nting for "X Sols" for repairing the grass-plots and for
making a _petit preau_. Again: "XI Sols" for the employ of six gardeners
to trim the vines and clean up the alleys of the _grand_ and _petit
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 the _verger_, and the _preau_ became a greensward
accessory, at once practical and decorative, the precursor of the
_pelouse_ and the _parterre_ of Le Notre.

The _preau_ (in old French _prael_) was a symmetrical square or
rectangular grass-grown garden plot. From the Latin _pratum_, or
_pratellum_, the words _preau_, _pre_ and _prairie_ were 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 especieux
Que est carre, et, afin qu'il soit mieulx
A un prael, ou milieu, gracieux
Vert sans grappin
Ou a plante en my un tres 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 preeminence in garden-making be questioned.

The gardens of the Gothic era seldom surpassed the _enclos_ with a
rivulet passing through it, a spring, a pine tree giving a welcome
shade, some simple flowers and a _verger_ of 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 role 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 the _gloriettes_, which
became so