erb
Basin of Neptune and the Lake of the Swiss
Guards were commenced. In the years
1680-1685 workmen were busy digging, laying
pipes, planting and decorating the _Salle de
Bal_, or outdoor salon of festivities, the
Parterre of Fountains, and the Colonnade,
where amid marble columns and balustrades
the Court often came to sup and make merry.

In all, fourteen hundred gushing fountain
jets animated the gardens. Le Notre, the
author of these amazing water-works, died
in the year 1700, when almost ninety years
of age. Saint-Simon declared him justly
renowned in that he had given to France
gardens of so unique and ravishing a design
that they completely outran in beauty the
famous gardens of Italy. European
landscape decorators counted it part of their
education to journey to France for the
purpose of studying the handiwork of the supreme craftsman.

An illustrated guide, printed at
Amsterdam in 1682, contains the following quaint
description of the Labyrinth, or Maze:
"Courteous Reader," it begins, "it is
sufficiently known how eminently France and
especially the Royal Court doth excel above
other places with all manner of delights.
The admirable faire Buildings and Gardens
with all imaginable ornaments and
delightful spectacles represent to the eye of the
beholder such abundant and rich objects as
verily to ravish the spectator. Amongst all
these works there is nothing more admirable
and praiseworthy than the Royal Garden at
Versailles, and, in it, the Labyrinth. Other
representations are commonly esteemed
because they please the eye, but this because it
not only delights the ear and eye, but also
instructs and edifies. This Labyrinth is
situated in a wood so pleasant that Daedalus
himself would have stood amazed to behold
it. The Turnings and Windings, edged on
both sides with green cropt hedges, are not
at all tedious, by reason that at every hand
there are figures and water-works
representing the mysterious and instructive fables
of Aesop, with an explanation of what Fable
each Fountain representeth carved on each
in black marble. Among all the Groves in
the Park at Versailles the Labyrinth is the
most to be recommended, as well for the
novelty of the design as the number and
diversity of the fountains that with
ingenuity and _naivete_ express the philosophies, of
the sage Aesop. The animals of colored
bronze are so modeled that they seem truly
to be in action. And the streams of water