[1] André Le Nôtre initially planned a maze of unadorned paths in 1665, but in 1669, Charles Perrault advised Louis XIV to include thirty-nine fountains, each representing one of the fables of Aesop.

Although La Fontaine had incurred the royal displeasure, his poems perhaps encouraged[2] Charles Perrault, author of the Mother Goose stories, who the year before had been named senior civil servant in the Superintendence of the King's Buildings,[1] to advise Louis XIV in 1669 to remodel the labyrinth in such a way as to serve the Dauphin's education.

The water for the elaborate waterworks was conveyed from the Seine by the Machine de Marly, which used fourteen water-wheels driving 253 pumps, some of which worked at a distance of three-quarters of a mile.

He continues: "At every turn you see a fountain decorated with delicate rocaille, and representing very simply a fable, the subject of which is indicated by a four-line inscription in gold letters on a bronze plate.

The basins of these fountains, all different in figure and design, are enriched with fine rock-work and rare shells and for ornamentation have different animals who represent the most charming fables of Aesop.

The book was eventually translated into English, appearing twice in 1768, in John Bowles's edition[9] and Daniel Bellamy, the elder's Aesop at Court, with plates engraved by George Bickham the Younger.

The Turnings and Windings, edged on both sides with green cropt hedges, are not at all tedious, by reason that at every hand there are figures and water-works representing the mysterious and instructive fables of Aesop".

"[16] For Michel Conan,[17] the maze's design "invited all visitors to give first-person attention" to their movements, and the statues "advised that unless they pondered their choices they might fail to find their way through the labyrinth."