Reading Nathan Branch's current travels post Château de Versailles: A Lesson In Humility click here
reminds me of a slender book Gardener to the King full of insights into people and plants.
André Le Nôtre, gardener to Louis the XIV, is quoted from his notebooks; he also added to the field of meteorology using his knowledge of plants and weather.
I find his observations of people on the extreme ends of the range of wealth, insightful and witty. Le Nôtre came up with some good growing and storing solutions to be at the ready for one thousand hungry people to descend at any time.
Gardener to the King, Frederic Richaud
Extract of Plan of Versailles: Jean Delagrive 1689-1757
