Sceaux

Le Nôtre designed the garden with two great axes meeting sat at rightangles on the hill-top chateau. From the garden front of the chateau, a leading perspective runs westwards into a valley and up the opposite hill. At the dip point, one finds a broad canal in the valley bottom. Sceaux was deserted during the revolutionary years. In the ninetenth century, an under-sized new chateau was built and the gardens were restored with some modifications. Today the garden is well-maintained and has a interesting network of avenues, canals and basins. From the east front of the chateau, a stepped cascade crashes down the axis into a great oxagon pool. Had Sceaux been in England, Brown should surely have serpentined the layout, as he did at Stowe,