The document discusses French gardens and their history and design principles. French gardens aimed to correct and control nature through symmetry and order. They reached their peak in the 17th century with the creation of the gardens at Versailles for King Louis XIV by landscape architect André Le Nôtre, which were then imitated across Europe. Le Nôtre organized the gardens around a central axis with perpendicular and oblique axes to give the impression that man had complete control over nature. Lawns and topiary developed in France in the 16th century and were used to imitate drawings and embroidery through lines of boxwood and flowers.
