"Ornamental birds--peacocks, pheasants and swans now came in as adjuncts to the French land and water garden." This was the way a certain pertinent comment was made by a writer of the fifteenth century. From the "Ménagier de Paris," a work of the end of the fourteenth century, one learns that behind a dwelling of a prince or noble of the time was usually to be found a "_beau jardin tout planté d'arbres à fruits, de legumes, de rosiers, orné de volières et tapisé de gazon sur lesquels se promènent les paons_."
French gardens of various epochs are readily distinguished by the width of their alleys. In the moyen-age the paths which separated the garden plots were very narrow; in the early Renaissance period they were somewhat wider, taking on a supreme maximum in the gardens of Le Notre.
Trimmed trees entered into the general scheme in France towards the end of the fifteenth century. Under Henri IV and under Louis XII trees were often trimmed in ungainly, fantastic forms, but with the advent of Le Notre the good taste which he propagated so widely promptly rejected these grotesques, which, for a fact, were an importation from Flanders, like the _gloriettes_. Not by the remotest suggestion could a clipped yew in the form of a peacock or a giraffe be called French. Le Notre eliminated the menagerie and the aviary, but kept certain geometrical forms, particularly with respect to hedges, where niches were frequently trimmed out for the placing of statues, columns surmounted with golden balls, etc.
The most famous of the frankly Renaissance gardens developed as a result of the migrations of the French monarchs in Italy were those surrounding such palaces and chateaux as Fontainebleau, Amboise, and Blois. Often these manifestly French gardens, though of Italian inspiration in the first instance, were actually the work of Italian craftsmen. Pucello Marceliano at four hundred _livres_ and Edme Marceliano at two hundred _livres_ were in the employ of Henri II. It was the former who laid out the magnificent _Parterre de Diane_ at Chenonceaux, where Catherine de Médici later, being smitten with the skill of the Florentines, gave the further commission of the _Jardin Vert_, which was intended to complete this _parterre_, to Henri le Calabrese and Jean Collo.