The gardens of the Renaissance readily divided themselves into two classes, those of the _parterres à compartiments_ and those of the _parterres de broderies_. The former, under Francis I and Henri II, were divided into geometrical compartments thoroughly in the taste of the Renaissance, but bordered frequently with representations of designs taken from Venetian lace and various other contemporary stuffs. There were other _parterres_, where the compartments were planned on a more utilitarian scale; in other words, they were the _potagers_ which rendered the garden, said Olivier de Serres, one of "profitable beauty." Some of the compartments were devoted entirely to herbs and medicinal plants while others were entirely given over to flowers. In general the compartments were renewed twice a year, in May and August.
The _Grand Parterre_ at Fontainebleau, called in other days the _Parterre de Tiber_, offered as remarkable an example of the terrace garden as was to be found in France, the terraces rising a metre or more above the actual garden plot and enclosing a sort of horticultural arena.
It was in the sixteenth century that architectural motives came to be incorporated into the gardens in the form of square, round or octagonal pavilions, and here and there were added considerable areas of tiled pavements, features which were found at their best in the gardens of the Chateau de Gaillon and at Langeais.
One special and distinct feature of the French Renaissance garden was the labyrinth, of which three forms were known. The first was composed of merely low borders, the second of hedges shoulder high, or even taller, and the third was practically a roofed-over grove. The latter invention was due, it is said, to the discreet Louis XIV. In the Tuileries garden, in the time of Catherine de Médici, there was a labyrinth greatly in vogue with the Parisian nobles who "found much pleasure in amusing themselves therein."
In that garden the labyrinth was sometimes called the "Road of Jerusalem" and it was presumably of eastern origin.
In the seventeenth century grottos came to be added to the garden, though this is seemingly an Italian tradition of much earlier date. Among the notable grottos of this time were that of the _Jardin des Pins_ at Fontainebleau, and that of the Chateau de Meudon, built by Philibert Delorme, of which Ronsard celebrated its beauties in verse. The art was not confined to the gardens of royalties and the nobility, for the _bourgeoisie_ speedily took up with the puerile idea (said to have come from Holland, by the way), and built themselves grottos of shells, plaster and boulders. It was then that the _chiens de faience_, which the smug Paris suburbanite of to-day so loves, were born.