164.The Due d'Aremberg's seat, near Enghien, like many others in Flanders and Holland, was ruined during the excesses of the French revolution; but the Duke is now restoring it, and has begun with the gardens rather than with the house. Extensive hothouses are erected, and many new fruit trees planted. The finest part of the park was not injured, when Neill visited it in 1817. He thus describes the celebrated temple of the grande etoile:�'This temple is of an heptangular shape, and at tho angles on every side are two parallel columns placed about a foot apart. From the seven large sides proceed as many broad, straight, and long avenues of noble trees, affording rich prospects of the distant country in all these directions; and from the seven angles, and seen between the columns, proceed an equal number of small and narrow alleys, each terminated by some statue, vase, bust, or other ornament. The temple is surrounded by a moat lined with polished marble. The old orange grove is situated at the end of the avenue. It is one hundred and seventy feet long, and twenty-seven feet wide, and contains one hundred and eight orange trees in tubs, many of them, as is the case in different old family seats of the Netherlands, presents from the kings of Spain 200, 300, and 400 years ago. The trees show straight stems of six or eight feet, and globular heads, from which, according to continental practice, protruding shoots and blossoms are pinched off as soon as they appear, for culinary and perfumery purposes.� (Neill's Hort. Tour, p. 324. 372.) When Mr. M'Intosh visited this garden in 1835, he found in it a fine specimen of purple beech, which produced seeds every year, from which several purple beeches had been raised, the proportion being about one in three. In the park were some fine specimens of larch.
