general the compartments were renewed twice a year, in May and August.

[Illustration: _A Parterre_]

The _Grand Parterre_ at Fontainebleau, called in other days the
_Parterre de Tiber_, offered as remarkable an example of the terrace
garden as was to be found in France, the terraces rising a metre or more
above the actual garden plot and enclosing a sort of horticultural
arena.

It was in the sixteenth century that architectural motives came to be
incorporated into the gardens in the form of square, round or octagonal
pavilions, and here and there were added considerable areas of tiled
pavements, features which were found at their best in the gardens of the
Chateau de Gaillon and at Langeais.

One special and distinct feature of the French Renaissance garden was
the labyrinth, of which three forms were known. The first was composed
of merely low borders, the second of hedges shoulder high, or even
taller, and the third was practically a roofed-over grove. The latter
invention was due, it is said, to the discreet Louis XIV. In the
Tuileries garden, in the time of Catherine de Medici, there was a
labyrinth greatly in vogue with the Parisian nobles who "found much
pleasure in amusing themselves therein."

In that garden the labyrinth was sometimes called the "Road of
Jerusalem" and it was presumably of eastern origin.

In the seventeenth century grottos came to be added to the garden,
though this is seemingly an Italian tradition of much earlier date.
Among the notable grottos of this time were that of the _Jardin des
Pins_ at Fontainebleau, and that of the Chateau de Meudon, built by
Philibert Delorme, of which Ronsard celebrated its beauties in verse.
The art was not confined to the gardens of royalties and the nobility,
for the _bourgeoisie_ speedily took up with the puerile idea (said to
have come from Holland, by the way), and built themselves grottos of
shells, plaster and boulders. It was then that the _chiens de faience_,
which the smug Paris suburbanite of to-day so loves, were born.

By the seventeenth century the equalized _carreaux_ of the early
geometrically disposed gardens were often replaced with the oblongs,
circles and, somewhat timidly introduced, more bizarre forms, the idea
being to give variety to the ensemble. There was less fear for the
artistic effect of great open spaces than had formerly existed, and the
avenues and alleys were considerably enlarged, and such architectural
and sculptur