The Sun King's garden

"Warmonger, womaniser and autocrat, Louis XIV, France's self-styled 'Sun King', was also history's most fanatical gardener. At Versailles, twelve miles outside Paris, he created not only Europe's most lavish palace, but the most extensive gardens the Western world has ever seen. The domain of Versailles now covers 1,890 acres (about twice the size of New York's Central Park), but in its heyday under Louis, the Grand Parc covered an astounding 19,800 acres."--BOOK JACKET.