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He retired in bad health to Paris, where he died shortly afterwards, in 1553, "in Rue des Jardins, parish of St. Paul, in the cemetery whereof he was interred," says Colletet, "close to a large tree which was still to be seen a few years ago."
"I don't like the streets, in which I cannot walk but in the kennel; I don't like the shops, that contain nothing except what's at the window; I don't like the houses, like prisons which look upon a courtyard; I don't like the beaux jardins, which grow no plants save a Cupid in plaster; I don't like the wood fires, which demand as many petits soins as the women, and which warm no part of one but one's eyelids, I don't like the language, with its strong phrases about nothing, and vibrating like a pendulum between 'rapture' and 'desolation; I don't like the accent, which one cannot get, without speaking through one's nose; I don't like the eternal fuss and jabber about books without nature, and revolutions without fruit; I have no sympathy with tales that turn on a dead jackass, nor with constitutions that give the ballot to the representatives, and withhold the suffrage from the people; neither have I much faith in that enthusiasm for the beaux arts, which shows its produce in execrable music, detestable pictures, abominable sculpture, and a droll something that I believe the French call POETRY. Dancing and cookery, these are the arts the French excel in, I grant it; and excellent things they are; but oh, England! oh, Germany! you need not be jealous of your rival!"
In him I recognised one of those abandoned natures who shrink from all honest labour, and live upon the sacrificial fondness of some weak being who has been enslaved by their personal attractions. There are many such. I have met them in the jardins of Paris; in the casinos of London; in the cafes of Havanna, and the "quadroon" balls of New Orleans everywhere in the crowded haunts of the world.
The later Renaissance gardens divided themselves into various classes, jardins de plaisir, jardins de plaisance, jardins de propreté, etc. Parterres now became of two sorts, parterres
"Voici tes ifs en cone et tes tritons joufflus Tes jardins composés où Louis ne vient plus, Et ta pompe arborant les plumes et les casques." It is not possible to give here either an architectural review or a historical chronology of Versailles; either could be made the raison d'être for a weighty volume.
Fortunately, they discovered amongst their collection of books Boitard's work entitled L'Architecte des Jardins. The author divides them into a great number of styles. First there is the melancholy and romantic style, which is distinguished by immortelles, ruins, tombs, and "a votive offering to the Virgin, indicating the place where a lord has fallen under the blade of an assassin."
Elle est traversée d'une rivière qui s'y divise en plusieurs canaux, et fermée dans son enceinte seulement de belles murailles; car les faubourgs sont plus grands que la ville. Nulle part je n'ai vu d'aussi grands jardins, de meilleurs fruits, une plus grande abondance d'eau. Cette abondance est telle qu'il y a peu de maisons, m'a-t-on dit, qui n'aient leur fontaine.
After remaining for a short time in Albany, without any apparent purpose, the De Jardins sold most of their effects, and disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.
It was he who made kindergartens for little children, jardins des enfants, you know. Some of your grand-mothers remember Froebel, I think?" Hereupon two of the smaller chits shouted some sort of a negation which I did not in the least comprehend, but which from large American experience I took to be, "My grandmother doesn't!" "My grandmother doesn't!"
This gentleman has concluded his 'Les Jardins' with an encomium on Captain Cook, of which the following lines are a translation: "Give, give me flowers: with garlands of renown Those glorious exiles' brows my hands shall crown, Who nobly sought on distant coasts to find, Or thither bore those arts that bless mankind: Thee chief, brave Cook, o'er whom, to nature dear, With Britain, Gallia drops the pitying tear.
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