The Frenchman shrugged. "Raze, sire, raze. There is no other remedy than to demolish all that has been done and dig the canals anew." This, however, was too much, even for Peter, and the project was abandoned, although from time to time Peter would go to Vasilevsky Island to look at the canals and come home sorrowfully without uttering a word. On the south bank, however, LeBlond built the city's main boulevard, the great Nevsky Prospect, cutting straight through two and a half miles of meadows and forests from the Admiralty to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. The Nevsky was constructed and paved by gangs of Swedish prisoners (who were also ordered to clean it every Saturday) and soon became the most famous street in Russia.
LeBlond almost made a remarkable contribution to another famous St. Petersburg landmark, the Summer Garden. Even before Poltava, Peter had begun the garden, which spread over thirty-seven acres behind his Summer Palace at the junction of the Neva and the Fontanka. At the height of his worry about the Swedes, the Tsar constantly issued orders about the garden. Moscow was commanded to send "seeds and roots, together with thirteen young lads to train as gardeners." Books on the gardens of France and Holland were sought. Trees were ordered to line the avenues: lime and elm trees from Kiev and Novgorod, chestnuts from Hamburg, oaks and fruit trees from Moscow and the Volga, cypresses from the south. Flowers arrived from everywhere: tulip bulbs from Amsterdam, lilac bushes from Liibeck, lilies, roses and carnations from other parts of Russia.
LeBlond's contribution to the Summer Garden was water. "Fountains and water are the soul of a garden and make the principal ornament of it," he had written. He pumped water from the Fontanka (the name derives from Fountain) into a new water tower, from which elevation the pressure would cause his new fountains to jet and spray. There were fifty fountains scattered through the garden: grottoes, cascades, plumes of water spouting from the mouths of dolphins and horses. In the basins beneath these fountains, creatures real and mythical—stone gargoyles, real fish and even a seal—swam or splashed. Nearby, rare birds sang in cages shaped like pagodas, a blue monkey chattered and a porcupine and sables stared morosely back at human sightseers.
Using the lesson he had learned from Le Notre created for Peter a true French formal garden. He traced parterres of flower, shrubs and gravel in intricate curving lines. He pruned the crowns of trees and shrubs into spheres, cubes and cones. He built a glassed conservatory and installed orange, lemon and bay trees and even a small tree of cloves. Italian sculptures were placed at the intersections of all the walks and along the avenues; eventually, sixty white mable statues depicting scenes from Aesop's fables were set in place along with other sculptures titled "Peace and Abundance," "Navigation," "Architecture," "Truth" and "Sincerity."
When Peter was in St. Petersburg, he came often to the Summer Garden. There the Tsar would sit on a bench and drink beer or play draughts with his friends while Catherine and her ladies walked along the paths. The garden was open to the public, and society came to stroll during the afternoons, or to sit by its fountains during the long white nights of June and July. In 1777, a terrible flood wreaked fearful damage on the Summer Garden, uprooting trees and shattering the fountains, and afterward, Catherine the Great reconstructed the garden on different lines, preferring the less formal English garden to the French style; she did not rebuild the fountains, and the trees and shrubs were allowed to grow normally. But the Summer Garden maintained its charm and appeal. Pushkin lived nearby and often came to walk there; Glinka and Gogol were constant visitors to Peter's Summer Garden. As old as the city itself, the Summer Garden still renews itself every spring and remains as young as the newest leaf and the tenderest bud.
Menshikov was increasingly jealous of LeBlond's favor with the Tsar and used the Summer Garden as another means of striking at the Frenchman. In 1717, he wrote to Peter that LeBlond was cutting down the Summer Garden trees of which he knew the Tsar was extremely proud—in fact, LeBlond had only lopped some branches to improve the view and shape the trees according to French concepts. When Peter returned and encountered LeBlond, he flew into a rage, thinking of his lost trees. Before he knew what he was doing, he had struck the architect with his cane, sending LeBlond to bed with shock and fever. Peter then went to see the garden and realizing that the trees had only been trimmed, hastily sent apologies to LeBlond and instructions that the Architect General should be specially cared for. Soon after, the Tsar met Menshikov on a stairway. Seizing him by the collar and pushing him up against a wall, Peter shouted, "You alone, you rascal, are the cause of LeBlond's illness!"
LeBlond recovered, but a year and a half later he contracted smallpox. In February 1719, at thirty-nine, he died, having spent only thirty months in Russia. Had he lived and continued to wield the great power of Peter's favor, the face of St. Petersburg would have been far more French. One glorious example of this architecture-that-might:have-been actually exists. Before his death, LeBlond had chosen the site, prepared the drawings and laid out the garden for the fabled summer estate and palace by the sea that is known as Peterhof.
Peterhof was conceived long before LeBlond came to Russia; its origins were linked with Kronstadt. In 1703, within a few months of his conquest of the Neva delta, Peter sailed out on the Gulf of Finland and first saw Kotlin Island. Soon afterward, he decided to build a fortress there to protect St. Petersburg from the sea. Once work was under way, the Tsar visited the island often to observe its progress. At times, and especially in autumn when there were frequent storms, he could not sail directly from the city. On these occasions, he went by land to a point on the coast just south of the coast just south of the island and made the shorter journey by boat, and there he built a small landing wharf and a two-room cottage on the shore where, if necessary, he could wait until the weather improved. This cottage was the genesis of Peterhof.
Once the victory of Poltava had ensured possession of Ingria, Peter divided the land along the south coast of the Gulf of Finland outside St. Petersburg into tracts which he distributed among his chief lieutenants. Many built palaces or mansions along the fifty-or-sixty-foot ridge which ran about a half-mile from the shore. The largest and finest of this semicircular row of great country houses looking out on the gulf belonged to Menshikov, for whom Schadel erected an oval-shaped palace, three stories high, which Menshikov named Oranienbaum.