addition to the main edifice, the King gave orders for the building of
small dwellings to be occupied by favorites of his entourage, and by
musicians, actors and cooks. Three broad tree-lined avenues were laid
out and the highway to Paris--the Cours-la-Reine--commenced. Already
Versailles took on a more imposing aspect than ancient Fontainebleau.
Workmen were constantly busy with the building of reservoirs, the laying
of sod, the planting of labyrinths, hedges, secret paths and bosky
retreats, with the setting out of hundreds of trees brought from
Normandy, and the seeding of flower gardens of surpassing beauty. Ponds,
fountains, grottoes, waterfalls and straying brooks came into being at
the command of the ambitious young ruler. At some distance from the
chateau courts and cages were constructed to shelter rare birds and
animals. It was designed that this should be "the most splendid palace
of animals in the world." The King decided the details of building and
decoration and supervised the installation of the furred and feathered
tenants of the palatial menagerie. This was the enclosure so greatly
admired by La Fontaine, Racine and Boileau, during a visit to Versailles
in 1668.

The first epoch of the construction of Louis XIV coincided with the first
sculptural decoration of Versailles. A great number of works of art were
ordered for the adornment of the walks and gardens. Many statues and
busts of mythological subjects that were made at Rome to the order of
Fouquet, after models by Nicolas Poussin, were removed from Vaux to
Versailles. That was a thriving period for sculptors of France and
adjacent countries. Records faithfully kept by Colbert detail
expenditures of thousands of pounds of the nation's money for bronze
vases, stone figures of nymphs and dryads and dancing fauns that were
placed among the trees and fountains of Versailles. Much of the
ornamental sculpture ordered at this time disappeared from the royal