the grand cascade & samson fountain

The Grand Cascade is modeled on one constructed for Louis XIV at his Château de Marly. At the center of the cascade is an artificial grotto with two stories, faced inside and out with hewn brown stone. The fountains of the Grand Cascade are located below the grotto and on either side of it. Their waters flow into a semicircular pool, the terminus of the fountain-lined Sea Channel. In the 1730s, the large Samson Fountain was placed in this pool, a gold statue depicting the moment when Samson tears open the jaws of a lion.