Le Nôtre designed an elaborate parterre de broderie to frame the central path. Photo: Béatrice Lécuyer-Bibal

Le Nôtre’s original goal was to design a formal garden that remained the same throughout the seasons, and he achieved this with large, dramatic parterres framed with low boxwood hedges, wide pebble alleys, statues, fountains, basins, grottoes, and a canal. He played with symmetry, scale, and perspective, using a technique called anamorphosis abscondita (“hidden distortion”) to create a sweeping view from the château’s Terrace de Diane that makes the garden appear longer and larger than it actually is.

Details of the formal gardens. Photo: Béatrice Lécuyer-Bibal

“Up until the design of Vaux-le-Vicomte, landscapers were doing less ambitious work,” says landscape architect and garden historian Frédéric Sichet, whose lush monograph on the 1,200-acre park, André Le Nôtre à Vaux-le-Vicomte, will be published by Somogy Editions d’Art in April. “Vaux-le-Vicomte was the first time that a landscape designer oversaw the entire project—the gardens, the fountains, the water, everything. Le Nôtre was given carte blanche. And what he did was a real rupture with what had been done before.”

The castle, set amongst the 1,200-acre park, appears to be floating on the wide moat. Photo: © Himes/Alamy

It also set the tone for what would come. King Louis XIV was so impressed with Vaux-le-Vicomte, he took the triumvirate of Le Vau, Le Brun, and Le Nôtre to the southwest of Paris and launched the construction of Versailles. While working on the royal palace, Le Nôtre also oversaw the design of the gardens for the châteaus of Chantilly, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and Saint-Cloud, as well as the renovation of the Tuileries in Paris.

The king, however, was less amused with Fouquet. Convinced that Vaux had been built with money pilfered from the national treasury, the king had his finance minister arrested a few weeks after the infamous fête, and Fouquet spent the rest of his life in jail.

Vaux-le-Vicomte is open through November 11, and during the Christmas season. On Saturdays from May to October, there are candlelight tours of the château and gardens, with dinner on the Terrace de Diane by reservation, and fireworks. For more information, visit: vaux-le-vicomte.com