The Fountain of Latona: Louis XIV, Charles Le Brun, and the Gardens of Versailles

By Thomas F. Hedin

Ovid tells the story of Latona, the mother by Jupiter of Apollo and Diana. In her flight from the jealous Juno, she arrives faint and parched on the coast of Asia Minor. Kneeling to sip from a pond, Latona is met by the local peasants, who not only deny her effort but muddy the water in pure malice. Enraged, Latona calls a curse down upon the stingy peasants, turning them to frogs.

In his masterful study, Thomas F. Hedin reveals how and why a fountain of this strange legend was installed in the heart of Versailles in the 1660s, the inaugural decade of Louis XIV’s patronage there. The natural supply of water was scarce and unwieldy, and it took the genius of the king’s hydraulic engineers, working in partnership with the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to exploit it. If Ovid’s peasants were punished for their stubborn denial of water, so too the obstacles of coarse nature at Versailles were conquered; the aquatic iconography of the fountain was equivalent to the aquatic reality of the gardens.

Latona was designed by Charles Le Brun, the most powerful artist at the court of Louis XIV, and carried out by Gaspard and Balthazar Marsy. The 1660s were rich in artistic theory in France, and the artists of the fountain delivered substantial lectures at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture on subjects of central concern to their current work. What they professed was what they were visualizing in the gardens. As such, the fountain is an insider’s guide to the leading artistic ideals of the moment.

Louis XIV was viewed as the reincarnation of Apollo, the god of creativity, the inspiration of artists and scientists. Hedin’s original argument is that Latona was a double declaration: a glorification of the king and a proud manifesto by artists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9780812298376

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Cover: The Fountain of Latona. Louis XIV, Charles Le Brun, and the Gardens of Versailles by Thomas F. Hedin

PENN STUDIES IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

John Dixon Hunt, Series Editor

This series is dedicated to the study and promotion of a wide variety of approaches to landscape architecture, with special emphasis on connections between theory and practice. It includes monographs on key topics in history and theory, descriptions of projects by both established and rising designers, translations of major foreign-language texts, anthologies of theoretical and historical writings on classic issues, and critical writing by members of the profession of landscape architecture.

The series was the recipient of the Award of Honor in Communications from the American Society of Landscape Architects, 2006.

The Fountain of Latona

Louis XIV, Charles Le Brun, and the Gardens of Versailles

Thomas F. Hedin

PENN

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia

Copyright © 2022 University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

Published by

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8122-5375-7

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8122-9837-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hedin, Thomas F., author.

Title: The Fountain of Latona : Louis XIV, Charles Le Brun, and the gardens of Versailles / Thomas F. Hedin.

Other titles: Penn studies in landscape architecture.

Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2022] | Series: Penn studies in landscape architecture | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021039347 | ISBN 978-0-8122-5375-7 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Louis XIV, King of France, 1638–1715. | Le Brun, Charles, 1619–1690. | Fountains—France—Versailles. | Sculpture, French—France—Versailles. | Parc de Versailles (Versailles, France)—History—17th century.

Classification: LCC NA9415.V4 H43 2022 | DDC 720.9409/032—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021039347

To Jack, Edward, Frank, and Hugh

Contents

Acknowledgments

Note on Measurements

List of Illustrations

Prologue

Chapter 1. Foundations

Chapter 2. Fountains in Context

Chapter 3. Original State

Chapter 4. Visual Narrative

Chapter 5. Latona Group

Chapter 6. Lycean Peasants

Chapter 7. Panegyric and Manifesto

Epilogue

Photographs

Appendix A. Execution of the Fountain

Appendix B. Mansart’s Marble Cone

Appendix C. Marsy’s Lecture of 7 December 1669

Appendix D. Nathan Whitman’s Fronde Thesis

Appendix E. Translations of Ovid

Appendix F. Elaborations of the Western Axis, Briefly

List of Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

I was introduced to the gardens of Louis XIV’s Versailles in a slide lecture by the late Francis Dowley at the University of Chicago, nearly a half century ago. Frank’s subject on that lovely fall morning was the so-called Grande Commande, a suite of twenty-four allegorical statues from the 1670s. Even now, I cannot say exactly what struck me so deeply. I had scarcely heard of Charles Le Brun, the designer of the statues, but his ideals of beauty have remained at the top of my list ever since. Later, I learned from Frank that there was plenty of room for research in the field of French Baroque art, sculpture included. Could a young historian ask for a more winning combination? On reaching Versailles for the first time, I raced across the terrace to view the statues. For his example, guidance, and friendship, my debt of gratitude to Frank Dowley is deeper than all others.

It was in the file room of the Minutier central of the Archives nationales that I met my dear friend Françoise de La Moureyre, who (along with Henriette Dumuis) was in an early phase of collaboration with François Souchal on French Sculptors of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Reign of Louis XIV, their four-volume illustrated catalog. I have written little over the years without Françoise’s generous and learned counsel. Our travels together, to the archives and libraries and to the sculptures in situ, are among my fondest memories. Alice de La Moureyre transcribed a set of hydraulic documents on my behalf; the results of her diligent and much appreciated labors have been at the heart of my latest research on the early period of Versailles. Joining the late Thierry Prat on his photographic expeditions for French Sculptors was pure joy. His fearless and good-humored ascent by ladder to record the Lycean peasants on an elevated tier of the Latona fountain was a feat to behold. Thierry’s images testify to his greatness as a photographer of sculpture.

A pair of fellowships in the Garden and Landscape Studies program at Dumbarton Oaks, the first under the direction of Michel Conan in 2006–7, the second under that of John Beardsley in 2009, arrived at just the right times. Thanks to the luxury of the finest library in the field of garden history at arm’s reach, I made significant headway on three articles on the north-south axis of the gardens of Versailles, and several others on allied topics. The book in hand, substantial parts of which were written at Dumbarton Oaks, is a complement to those studies. Linda Lott made my hours in the Rare Book Collection both enjoyable and enlightening.

Two friends, authorities on the history of Versailles, read my manuscript and offered insightful suggestions on ways to strengthen it. One was the late Robert Berger, with whom I had the privilege to coauthor a book in this series: Diplomatic Tours in the Gardens of Versailles Under Louis XIV (2008). Bob’s standards of scholarship were of the highest order, a reminder that a close reading of the primary sources will always be rewarding. The other was Guy Walton, who organized the Colloque Versailles in 1985 and the Tessin Symposium in 2002. Taking part in Guy’s two conferences turned my research in exciting new directions.

Alexandre Maral not only shared the results of his research and answered my questions, he also has been a friendly cicerone through the storage facilities at Versailles on many occasions. His new monograph, Girardon, is an indispensable resource for researchers of the gardens. I have been the grateful recipient of the correspondence of Jean-Claude Le Guillou, whose knowledge of the earliest history of Versailles is unmatched.

The morning that I spent with Lionel Arsac in the Petite Ecurie, the current residence of the marble group of Latona, was a delight. It was on this occasion that Christophe Fouin took his remarkable photographs of the group. To Cyril Pasquier, who replied swiftly and helpfully to my queries, my gratitude.

Françoise Joulie tracked down a fan painting of relevance to this study. Camille Lefauconnier Ripoli traveled on missions to the Archives nationales to transcribe a group of obscure documents. To both, my many thanks. It is pleasure acknowledging the kindness of Olivia Voisin, directrice of the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, who made special arrangements for me to view the remains of an ancient statue that inspired the sculptor of the marble figure of Latona.

I owe two sizable debts to John Dixon Hunt, one for his editorship of my articles in Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, the other for his editorship of Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture, the series in which this book is a new member. To the anonymous readers of the manuscript, thank you sincerely for your criticisms. The editorial staff of the University of Pennsylvania Press, in particular Zoe Kovacs, has been exceptionally attentive and efficient.

Following the lead of Jacqueline Lichtenstein’s and Christian Michel’s recent Conférences de l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, the orthography and grammar of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French quotations have been modernized (except the poetic verses), and it was my good fortune that Sarah Beytelmann agreed to undertake the task. Knotty problems in translation were ironed out by the late Milan Kovacovic and Jane Fleeson. Bill Spofford, a friend from our undergraduate days, read an early draft with an eagle eye and improved it significantly.

Support for my research, in the form of travel grants and leaves of absence from the classroom, was provided by the University of Minnesota at all levels of administration, from the Office of International Programs in Minneapolis to the Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs, the School of Fine Arts, and the Department of Art and Design in Duluth. Funding from the Professional Development Grant Program for Retirees was put to excellent use during the final stages of production.

It is due more to my wife Joan than to anyone else that my efforts now appear between two covers; her avid and patient encouragement is boundless. To my children, who have followed the progress of my research with unwavering interest, and who share my love of the (original) Latona fountain, I dedicate this book.

Note on Measurements

1 pouce = ca. 2.7 cm

1 pied = 32.4 cm = 12 pouces

1 toise = 1.949 m = 6 pieds

Oval basin: 45 m wide × 30 m deep

Latona group: 5 pieds 6 pouces in height, excluding the rocky island

Illustrations

Figure 1. Latona fountain (current state) from the east.

Figure 2. Latona fountain (original state) from the east. Engraving by Pierre Le Pautre, 1678.

Figure 3.Axial view of Versailles from the west. Engraving by Israël Silvestre, 1674.

Figure 4. Apollo fountain (Soleil levant).

Figure 5. Grotto of Tethys, Facade. Engraving by Jean Le Pautre, 1672.

Figure 6. Grotto of Tethys, Interior. Engraving by Jean Le Pautre, 1676.

Figure 7.Apollo Bathed by the Nymphs of Tethys (Soleil couchant).

Figure 8. Plan of Versailles (Du Bus plan), ca. 1662.

Figure 9. Plan of Versailles (Institut plan), 1663.

Figure 10. Plan of Versailles, 1666.

Figure 11. Plan of Versailles, 1668.

Figure 12.Bird’s-eye view of Versailles from the east. Painting by Pierre Patel, 1668.

Figure 13. Detail of Figure 12.

Figure 14.Angular view of Versailles from the north. Engraving by Israël Silvestre, 1674.

Figure 15.Axial view of Versailles from the north. Engraving by Israël Silvestre, 1676.

Figure 16. Folio from Denis Jolly’s inventory for June–December 1666, with addendum by Charles Perrault.

Figure 17.Axial view of Versailles from the west. Engraving by Jean Le Pautre, 1679.

Figure 18. Latona group. Engraving by Jean Edelinck, 1679.

Figure 19.Bird’s-eye view of Versailles from the east. Engraving by Adam Pérelle, ca. 1680.

Figure 20. Latona group (frontal view).

Figure 21. Latona group (angular view).

Figure 22. Latona (head and upper torso).

Figure 23. Latona (torso).

Figure 24. Latona (rear view).

Figure 25. Apollo (frontal view).

Figure 26. Apollo (rear view).

Figure 27. Diana (profile view).

Figure 28. First Lycean husband.

Figure 29. First Lycean wife.

Figure 30. Second Lycean wife.

Figure 31. Second Lycean husband.

Figure 32. Third Lycean husband.

Figure 33. Third Lycean wife.

Figure 34. First Lycean husband (rear view).

Figure 35. Second Lycean husband (rear view).

Figure 36. Lizard fountain (south).

Figure 37. Lizard fountain (south) (detail).

Figure 38. Lizard fountain (north).

Figure 39. Lizard fountain (north) (opposite side).

Figure 40.Latona and the Lycean peasants. Engraving by Jean Matheus, 1619.

Figure 41.Latona and the Lycean peasants. Tracing by Charles Percier of Ambroise Dubois’s fresco at Fontainebleau.

Figure 42.Israelites Gathering the Manna. Painting by Nicolas Poussin, 1637.

Figure 43.Christ Healing the Blindmen. Painting by Nicolas Poussin, 1649.

Figure 44.Latona and the Lycean Peasants. Painting by Francesco Albani, ca. 1604.

Figure 45.Niobides. Drawing by Stefano della Bella.

Figure 46.Niobides. Engraving by François Perrier, 1638.

Figure 47.Alexander at the Tent of Darius. Painting by Charles Le Brun, 1660–61.

Figure 48.Latona and her Children. Sculpture by Domenico Pieratti, 1629–35.

Figure 49.La Belle Jardinière (La Viergeàl’Enfant et Saint Jean). Painting by Raphael, 1507.

Figure 50.Madonna of François I (La Grande Sainte Famille). Painting by Raphael, 1518.

Figure 51.Medici Venus.

Figure 52.Richelieu Torso (whole figure known as the Richelieu Venus).

Figure 53.Venus Emerging from the Water. Sculpture by Pierre Le Gros.

Figure 54.Belvedere Torso.

Figure 55.Farnese Hercules.

Figure 56.Laocoön.

Figure 57.Belvedere Antinous.

Figure 58.Niobe.

Figure 59.Borghese Seneca (Dying Seneca).

Figure 60.Versailles Diana (Diana Chasseresse).

Figure 61.Belvedere Apollo.

Figure 62.Wrestlers.

Figure 63.Exemple touchant les proportions et les contours. Engraving by Henri Testelin, 1680.

Figure 64.Dancing Faun. Engraving by Claude Mellan, 1671.

Figure 65.Hercules-Commodus.

Figure 66.Borghese Gladiator.

Figure 67.Borghese Gladiator (images reversed). Engravings by François Perrier, 1638.

Figure 68.Massacre of the Innocents. Painting by Nicolas Poussin, ca. 1625.

Figure 69.Saint Michael and the Devil. Painting by Raphael, 1518.

Figure 70.Astonishment. Diagram by Charles Le Brun.

Figure 71.Despair. Diagram by Charles Le Brun.

Figure 72.Anger. Diagram by Charles Le Brun.

Figure 73.Terror. Diagram by Charles Le Brun.

Figure 74. Siren fountain. Engraving by Pierre Le Pautre, 1679.

Figure 75. Fer-à-Cheval memo. Manuscript by Charles Perrault.

Figure 76.Fontaine des Muses. Engraving by Louis de Chastillon, ca. 1683–84.

Figure 77.Fontaine des Arts. Engraving by Louis de Chastillon, ca. 1683–84.

Figure 78. Deluge fountain. Engraving by Louis de Chastillon, ca. 1683–84.

Figure 79. Python fountain. Drawing by the atelier of Charles Le Brun.

Figure 80.Parnassus. Drawing by Charles Le Brun, ca. 1674–75.

Prologue

The ideal point from which to behold the panorama of Versailles is at the end of the terrace in front of the main garden facade. The point lies along the axis and is perfectly aligned with the Allée Royale, the Grand Canal, and the western horizon. The visitor is drawn to it almost instinctively. It is one of the most stood upon pinpoint destinations in the world. In the whole of Versailles, no point offers a more magnificent overview.

At that point, the visitor is standing at the top of the so-called Fer-à-Cheval, the immense U-shaped slope that bridges the upper and lower levels of the gardens. Inside the embracing arms of the Fer-à-Cheval stands a tall conical fountain in colored marbles (fig. 1): An ensemble of three marble figures presides at the top; six lead figures resembling frogs squat on a low tier; and menageries of small lead amphibians circle the cone on multiple levels. The cone was constructed in 1687, five years after Louis XIV, the reigning monarch, decreed that Versailles would henceforth serve as the official seat of his government and court.

The conical fountain is surely the most viewed and discussed work of art in the gardens of Versailles. Visitors from around the globe stare in wonder or befuddlement or amusement at the antics of the strange, part-human, part-batrachian creatures. Not many realize that this imposing cone was preceded by a deceptively simple fountain, without architecture, in the same basin. The figures were arranged on or slightly above the surface of the water (fig. 2). This earlier incarnation goes back to the second half of the 1660s, when Versailles was still only a modest retreat in the country outside Paris. The book in hand is an investigation of that great original.

The original was a scenic fountain, a visual rendering of the legendary origin of frogs, as recounted by Ovid in the Metamorphoses (VI: 313–81). The story is quickly told. Latona, the daughter of Titans, following an affair with Jupiter, conceived twins. Fearing Juno’s ire, no land on earth would admit Latona as her delivery drew near. Her desperate travels took her to Delos in the Aegean, and there, while standing between palm and olive trees, she gave birth to Apollo and Diana. Juno continued her spiteful chase to Lycea in Asia Minor. Arriving faint and parched, Latona knelt to drink from a pond, but the local peasants denied her efforts, muddying the water in pure malice and cursing her all the while. She appealed to their humanity but was rebuffed; the children’s plea, on behalf of their mother, came to nothing more. Never during her ordeal did Latona invoke the divine pedigree of her twins or threaten the locals with reprisals. Her wrath soon overran her other passions and she beseeched Jupiter to punish her tormentors. The king of the gods answered her prayer by turning the Lyceans instantly to frogs (App. E, for English and French prose translations of the Latin verse).

It is often said that the mark of a person’s understanding of a subject is the capacity to relate it clearly and economically, in a few words or sentences. The more intricate the subject, so it goes, then all the more admirable is the skill in presenting it in plain terms. The artists of Latona spoke to the wisdom of the old adage. They composed their fountain to be seen from a fixed spot on the lower of two landings along the axis, below the popular viewpoint of today and just above the retaining wall of the Fer-à-Cheval (fig. 3, an early engraving showing the Fer-à-Cheval, the landing, and the fountain). From no other spot was their visual language so simple or unassuming (fig. 2). There were Latona and her children and there were the offensive peasants, just as Ovid said. What could be more open, more straightforward? But the easy accessibility of Latona was merely the artists’ way of expressing their mastery of the subject, for under the surface there lay a deep, many-sided world of artistic and cultural interest. We will spend much of our time traveling in that underworld.

Latona continues to invite a long and far-ranging list of challenging questions. What role did the raw natural setting of Versailles play in shaping or defining the fountain? Where did all the water come from? How was it activated to such abundant effect, and to what purpose? Was there an allegorical message hiding in it? To whom was credit due for the achievement?

Utmost, how was Latona understood by contemporaries? The fountain by itself held an inherent interest—the batrachian imagery was enough to ensure that much—but at the same time it was one of three scenic panels along the spinal axis. It reigned in the approximate middle of what has recently been called a sculptural triptych. In the panel on the western side, Apollo emerged at dawn from the Bassin des Cygnes to commence his journey across the sky (fig. 4, the Soleil levant). The eastern panel was the Grotto of Tethys (fig. 5), the underwater haven into which the same Apollo descended at dusk to rest and renew his powers (fig. 6, the Soleil couchant), before rising the following day to repeat his ritual.

It was proposed a half century ago that Latona was a reminder of the uprisings that roiled Paris during Louis XIV’s childhood, a veiled warning to the instigators of old that their fate would resemble that of the Lycean peasants if history repeated itself. One of several problems with this so-called Fronde thesis is that it isolates Latona from the outer panels in both content and purpose, effectively splintering the axis into disjointed units. Such a sociopolitical reading will find no favor in this book. A study of the fountain is lacking without an assessment of all three scenic panels in tight partnership.

This book opens in Chapter 1 with the essentials: the landscape, the whereabouts and prospects of water, and the struggle to access and later to energize the element in the form of a scenic fountain. Chapter 2 includes a review of the king’s growing attachment to the gardens of Versailles during the first decade of his engagement, as well as a glimpse at the small committee of savants that polished and spread his public image. The artists and planners, along with the leading visual and literary testimonies of the day, are introduced in Chapter 3. It is followed by Chapters 4–6, three consecutive forays into the artistic and aesthetic provenance of the fountain, including the many intersections of art and academic theory. In Chapter 7, Latona’s pivotal role in the triptych is investigated, and a new argument for an axis-long allegory is put forward. Six appendixes bring the book to a close.

CHAPTER 1

Foundations

During the second half of 1666, workers in the gardens of Versailles inserted wire grates in the discharge pipes of twelve basins to prevent dirt and toads from entering. Identical measures, to prevent frogs from entering, were taken in 1667 and again in 1668. The little meddlers seem to have been plotting to avenge their Lycean forebears by sabotaging the hydraulic system of Louis XIV! Their assaults ended once and for all in 1669.¹ The system had prevailed over nature’s repeated and determined efforts to obstruct it.

Of the twelve pipes, three originated in the Parterre de Latone, the wide-open space inside the arms of the Fer-à-Cheval. Three basins resided there at the time of the batrachian invasions, each equipped with a pipe for the release of surplus water into the nearby woods. They were arranged in a triangular pattern and are not difficult to locate in the center of garden-wide plans from 1666 (fig. 10) and 1668 (fig. 11). The basin along the axis is oval in shape, the two companions round. The trio appears in the sunlit background of a bird’s-eye view of 1668 from the brush of Pierre Patel (figs. 12, 13).²

The scenic fountains of the Parterre de Latone were carried out between 1666 and 1670. All three were designed by Charles Le Brun, the premier peintre du roi, far and away the most powerful artist at the court of Louis XIV. To convert his designs into three dimensions, Le Brun called on the Marsy brothers, Gaspard and Balthazar, two of the most trusted members of his team of sculptors. In the center of the oval basin, Le Brun placed the heroine who lent her name to the vicinity (fig. 2). She and her twins were marooned on an island rising just above water level; they faced the château, to the east. Except for a narrow shoreline, the island was no larger than the ensemble. There was no escaping the menace of the six adult peasants, each of whom was transformed into a frog to some degree; full frogs, former peasants that they once were, sat in regular intervals along the grassy border. In the round basins were the so-called Lizard fountains, a pair of young peasants in each, a clump of marsh reeds, or aigrettes, separating them; their grassy borders were inhabited by turtles, crocodiles, and lizards, not to mention still more frogs.³ The entire Lycean community was cast in lead, then gilded, in stunning contrast to the white Carrara marble of the Latona group.⁴ When we discuss Latona in general terms, let it be agreed that both Lizards are included in the conversation.

To Begin, the Landscape …

The gardens of Versailles were some forty years old when the Ovidian episode of Latona and the Lycean peasants was programmed for the spinal axis in the middle of the 1660s. Indeed, there had already been several earlier phases of elaboration, each a pointed response to its predecessor.

The forests to the southwest of Paris were rich in game, and the allure of the rustic surroundings inspired Henri de Bourbon, later Henri IV, to hunt there over the course of several decades.⁵ Louis XIII, who succeeded his father on the throne in 1610, continued the royal practice, traveling periodically from Paris or Saint-Germain-en-Laye with friends to hunt in the woods near Versailles, sometimes even spending the night in a shack or barn. In 1623, he abandoned his carefree ways and ordered the construction of a house of cheap, impermanent materials for his use, on the rising ground of the windmill near [the village of] Versailles—so reads a legal agreement of that year.⁶ The humble style of the house befit the rustic setting. There is reason to attribute the design to the king, or to associate it closely with him. In form it was fortlike, a square courtyard framed on the sides by stables and kitchens and at the back by living quarters, the whole surrounded by a moat and, farther out, by a wall. The house opened onto a pair of four-part parterres, one of which displaced the windmill. The estate was laid out along an east-west axis, the same spinal axis that divides the gardens in half today. An expanse of fields, lying just beyond the twin parterres and on lower ground, was then acquired. No plan or view of this initial phase is known to exist, but a recent reconstruction by Jean-Claude Le Guillou is a superb substitute.⁷

Toward the end of the 1620s, about two-thirds of the acquired fields were subdivided by allées into ten quadrangles, a gigantic Saint Andrew’s Cross cutting through the heart of the grid.⁸ In 1631, Louis XIII responded to the new acquisition of land by replacing the house with a larger, more commodious stone-and-brick château on the designs of Philibert Le Roy. To the ten quadrangles already in place, a supplemental four were purchased at the close of the 1630s, opening up enough land for the spinal axis to reach as far as the Bassin des Cygnes, yet another new feature.⁹ The Du Bus plan, though it was executed at the outset of the 1660s and distorts the relative proportions of the quadrangles, is a witness to this phase of evolution (fig. 8).¹⁰ Out front, the twin parterres gave way to a single square parterre with an inner square of allées and a central basin. A basin was inserted at the intersection of the Cross.

Our visual guide to the next, penultimate phase is the Institut plan of 1663 (fig. 9).¹¹ Ephemeral though it was, the plan is a record of the earliest contributions of the great landscape architect André Le Nôtre.¹² His plan featured three independent gardens, one for each facade; each garden was equal in width to the facade overlooking it, and a central axis ran through each.¹³ The Orangerie of Louis Le Vau had been constructed to the south in the previous year, in coordination with Le Nôtre’s new gardens on that side, one for flowers, others for vegetables and fruit, another for an orchard. He covered the northern axis with lawns, basins of assorted shapes, and a cascade that narrowed as it fell away, lending an illusory depth to the view; some but probably not many of the aquatic features shown here were realized.¹⁴ On the Grand Parterre in front of the western facade he planted two rectangular lawns, separating them by a walk that led to a round basin and a pair of small, segmental lawns; there, the ground began sloping down.¹⁵ The outer ramps arched inward on their descent, meeting at the bottom and traveling together to a second round basin, then to a square intersection, and finally to the Bassin des Cygnes.¹⁶ He eliminated the Saint Andrew’s Cross in favor of twin quinconces, the so-called Deux-Bosquets, one on each side of the spine.¹⁷

No sooner had Le Nôtre transformed the gardens than he did so again, this time thoroughly and, for the most part, lastingly. To this day, the gardens of Versailles have never undergone a more profound change. With this phase, which opened in 1664–65, we enter the world of our Latona. Three (nameless) plans from 1666 alert us to the magnitude of his alterations (e.g., fig. 10),¹⁸ as do three from 1668 (e.g., fig. 11).¹⁹ The south, already the site of the Orangerie and the gardens of natural produce, remained essentially the same. By contrast, Le Nôtre radically revised the north, doubling it in size by shifting the axis to the west and by formalizing the blocks of land on that side; the upper half of the new territory, at first called the Parterre de Gazon and later the Parterre du Nord, was split into two equal parts, a round basin in each; a long pathway, the Allée d’Eau, led to a large round basin, the Rondeau (Chapter 2).

The western axis, our primary attention, was reformed no less radically than its northern cousin. The approach from upper to lower level, which on the Institut plan had taken the form of arching ramps that converged at the bottom, now consist of ramps that diverge at the top, widening as they drop down and embracing a vast open space below, the nouvelle parterre, as it was known in the middle of 1665.²⁰ The nouvelle parterre was later identified as the Parterre de l’Ovale for the shape of the axial basin, and still later as the Parterre de Latone for the Titaness who ruled over it. At first, the reconstructed area as a whole was called the demi-lune or amphithéâtre, but Fer-à-Cheval was soon preferred.

Pedestrians descend the Fer-à-Cheval in stages, by taking a flight of eleven steps to a first landing, then a flight of fourteen steps to a wider second landing; at each end of this lower landing, a narrow flight of steps leads to the floor of the gardens. The outer ramps were graded to accommodate wheeled vehicles.

On top, the two rectangular lawns on the Grand Parterre gave way to the more spacious Parterre de Broderie, and the round basin at the end was superseded by a larger one—a basin, though it lay above, that played a surprising role in the origins of Latona (Chapter 7). It took much more than a year of herculean effort by the landscapers to level the end of the Grand Parterre and to contour the Fer-à-Cheval.

The boundaries of the gardens had been defined in the 1630s by the formation of the fourteen-unit grid. This Petit Parc, as it was called early on, was bordered on the south by the Orangerie and on the north by the Rondeau; the château framed it on the east, the Bassin des Cygnes on the west. Ranging beyond the edges of the Petit Parc was the Grand Parc, a wild preserve for hunting, shooting, and riding. The Ménagerie of Le Vau, from 1662, lay to the southwest (fig. 10, upper left corner).

… And, Together with the Landscape, the Water …

André Félibien, the author of the first official guidebook of Versailles and the historiographe of the Bâtiments du Roi, was attentive to the same topographical features that stand out in Louis XIII’s legal agreement of 1623. The château, he wrote in 1674, rests on a little eminence rising at the middle of a wide valley surrounded by hills.²¹ Just that casually he pointed to two blessings of the site: that the château lay atop an elevation, above a habitat for game and a source of water, was one; that the ground ran gradually downhill from the château, a precondition for a system of gravity-fed basins, was the other.

It is a high form of irony that in Ovid’s story the Lycean peasants deny the element of water to Latona and her children, but in the scenic equivalent of the same story in the gardens of Versailles they threw it in profusion in their direction (fig. 2). From legend to fountain, the life-threatening denial of water was transformed into the life-sparing acquisition of it.

Studies of most fountains do not require a review of the system that provided the water, but, in our case, where the aquatic reality of Versailles in the 1660s was identical to the aquatic iconography of Latona, it is fundamental. An overview of the early stages of the process will take us within sight of the conceit.

There are no fountains without water, and no water without the genius of experts who manage to access and deliver it to the basins. At Versailles, their challenges were daunting. Could they gather enough water in one place to maximize volume? Could they devise a method by which to raise the water to reservoirs on the upper level, for use in the