The Famous Gardeners: French Gardens

His sons Andre and Gabriel were gardeners at St. James's Park, London, during the interregnum and continued under Charles II. Another son carried the French garden to Sweden, and it is said that a Claude Mollet, whether father or son is not clear, was employed by James I. Claude Mollet's famous and influential book Le Theatre des Plans et Jardinages, although not published until 1652, was composed about 1613. The genius of Andre Le Notre did not spring from uncultivated ground. Naturally his early days are least well known to us. In 1649 he was a designer of the Royal gardens and received a salary; in 1657 he was appointed Controller-General of Royal Buildings. Vaux-le-Vicomte was started in 1650 and in 1652 the `wonderful gardens' there were already referred to in the dedication of Claude Mollet's book. There is no evidence what designing Le Notre had done before Vaux. His craft he learned at the Tuileries; his eye was trained during the period when, with Le Brun as a fellow pupil, he learned painting under Simon Vouet; from 1640 Poussin lived in the Tuileries gardens, a contact which could hardly have been without influence on his mind. Fouquet had been Richelieu's protege; Andre Le Notre's father had been employed by Richelieu in 1629; Fouquet will scarcely have needed the recommendations of Le Brun to employ one who at the age of 37 had already for thirteen years been heir apparent to the position of First Gardener at the Tuileries. Influence and opportunity were not wanting; experience and traditional learning were at his elbow; the lesson of grandeur, the courage to conceive vast designs, Fouquet taught him. At Melun Fouquet bought three villages and pulled them down because they were in the way. At one time he employed there as many as eighteen thousand labourers. It is important to realize the sort of garden that Le Notre was required to provide at Vaux-le-Vicomte. It was not to be a spot in which a cultured than might take pleasure with his friends, the need which inspired the gardens of the Medici; still less was its principal purpose to supply seclusion for repose or love; it was primarily to be a stupendous theatre for fetes.