From this place runs on the great alley, which brings you into a complete
round, where is the bason of Apollo, the biggest in the gardens. He is
rising in his car out of the water, surrounded by nymphs and tritons, all
in bronze, and finely executed, and these, as they play, raise a perfect
storm about him; beyond this is the great canal, a prodigious long piece
of water, that terminates the whole. All this you have at one coup d'oeil
in entering the garden, which is truly great.

I can not say as much of the general taste of the place: everything you
behold savors too much of art; all is forced, all is constrained about
you; statues and vases sowed everywhere without distinction; sugar loaves
and minced pies of yew; scrawl work of box, and little squirting jets-
d'eau, besides a great sameness in the walks, can not help striking one at
first sight, not to mention the silliest of labyrinths, and all Aesop's
fables in water; since these were designed "in usum Delphini" only.

Here, then, we walk by moonlight, and hear the ladies and the nightingales
sing. Next morning, being Whitsunday, make ready to go to the installation
of nine Knights du Saint Esprit. Cambis is one: high mass celebrated with
music, great crowd, much incense, King, Queen, Dauphin, Mesdames,
Cardinals, and Court: Knights arrayed by his Majesty; reverences before
the altar, not bows, but curtsies; stiff hams; much tittering among the
ladies; trumpets, kettledrums, and fifes.




Fontainebleau