The Versailles of to-day is no longer the Versailles of Louis XIII, so far as the actual disposition of details goes. Then there was very little green grass and much sand and gravel, a scheme of decoration which entered largely into the seventeenth century garden. This refers principally to the general effect, for Le Notre made much use of the enclosing battery of lindens, chestnuts and elms of a majestic and patriarchal grandeur which have since been cut and replaced by smaller species of trees, or not replaced at all. No sooner were the ornamental gardens planned at Versailles than the Potager du Roy, or fruit and vegetable garden, was created. This same garden exists to-day with almost its former outlines. Here a soil sufficiently humid, and yet sufficiently well drained, contributed not a little towards the success of this most celebrated of all kitchen gardens the world has known. The work of installing a further system of artificial drainage was immediately begun, and the Eaux des Suisses was created, to take the place of a former stagnant pool near by. Undoubtedly it was a stupendous work, like all the projects launched with regard to Versailles, but, like the others, it was brought to a speedy and successful conclusion. The details of the history of this royal vegetable garden are fully set forth in a work published in 1690 by the son of the designer, the Abbe Michel de la Quintinye, in two bulky volumes. "It was meet that a royal vegetable garden should have been designed by a 'Gentleman Gardener,'" said the faithful biographer in his foreword, and as such the man and the work are to be considered here. The work was accomplished by the combined efforts of a gracious talent and the expenditure of much money, put at La Quintinye's disposition by his royal master, who had but to put his hand deep into the coffers of the royal treasury to draw it forth filled with gold. Critics have said that La Quintinye's ability stopped with the preparation of the soil, and with the design of the garden, rather than with the actual cultivation, but at all events it was he who made the garden possible. La Quintinye adopted Arnauld d'Andilly's method of planting fruit trees _en espalier_ by training them against a wall-like background, and to accomplish this divided the garden plot, which covered an area of eight hectares (twenty acres), into a great number of subdivisions enclosed by walls, in order to multiply to as great an extent as possible the available space to be used for the _espaliers_. Again, these same walls served to shelter certain varieties which were planted close against them. If this Potager du Roy was not actually the first garden of its class so laid out, it was certainly one of the most extensive and the most successful up to that time. The great terraces of at least two metres in width surrounded the central garden, leaving a free area for the latter which approximated three hectares.