When the city of Washington was planned under the direct and minute supervision of President Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson, the relations that should exist between the Capitol and the President’s House were closely studied. On August 7, 1791, L’Enfant sent a sketch to President Washington, with a note, “the plan altered agreeable to your suggestion.” Indeed, the whole city was planned with a view to the reciprocal relations that should be maintained among public buildings. Vistas and axes; sites for monuments and museums; parks and pleasure gardens; fountains and canals--in a word, all that goes to make a city a magnificent and consistent work of art were regarded as essential. Thus, aside from the pleasure and the positive benefits to health that the people derive from public parks in a capital city like Washington, there is a distinct use of public spaces as the indispensable means of giving dignity to Government buildings and of making suitable connections between the great departments. The original plans were prepared after due study of great models. The stately art of landscape architecture had been brought oversea by royal governors and wealthy planters, and both Washington and Jefferson were familiar with the practice of that art. On September 8, 1791, it was decided by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, and James Madison, in conference with the Commissioners of the District of Columbia-- to name the streets of the Federal City alphabetically one way and numerically the other from the Capitol and that the name of the City and Territory shall be the City of Washington and the Territory of Columbia. The city had also been divided into four sections--namely, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest--with the Capitol as the center and North and South Capitol Streets dividing the east and west sections and East Capitol Street and the Mall the north and south sections. [Illustration: BUILDING REGULATIONS ISSUED BY PRESIDENT WASHINGTON] [Illustration: SKETCH OF THE L’ENFANT PLAN] CHAPTER IV MAJ. PIERRE CHARLES L’ENFANT Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant was born in Paris August 2, 1754, the son of an academician, who was “Painter in ordinary to the King in his Manufacture of the Gobelins,” with a turn for landscape and especially for battles, as is shown by the collections at Versailles and Tours. Trained as a French military engineer, young L’Enfant at the age of 23 obtained a commission as a volunteer lieutenant in the French colonial troops, serving at his own expense. [Illustration: MAJ. PIERRE CHARLES L’ENFANT] L’Enfant preceded Lafayette to America by a month. Arriving in 1777, he entered the Continental Army at his own expense. In February 1778 he was made a captain of engineers and as such proved his valor in battles about Charleston, where he was wounded and was included in the capitulation and exchanged. He was made a major in 1783.