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Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
WORKS OF 
 
 
 FRANCIS MILTOUN 
 
 ;!^^ 
 
 
 Rambles on the Riviera 
 
 $2.50 
 
 Rambles in Normandy 
 
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 The Cathedrals of Southern France 
 
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 In the Land of Mosques and Minarets 
 
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 Ro^al Palaces and Parks of France 
 
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 Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine 
 
 
 and the Loire Country 
 
 3.00 
 
 Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre 
 
 
 and the Basque Provinces 
 
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 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 
 
 
 and the Border Provinces 
 
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 Italian Highways and Byways from a 
 
 
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 {Postag 
 
 e Extra) 
 
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 L. C Page and Company 
 
 
 53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 
ROYAL PALACES AND 
 PARKS OF FRANCE 
 
 By Francis Miltoun. 
 
 Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine." "Castles 
 and Chateaux of Old Burgundy," " Rambles in Nor- 
 mandy," "Italian Highways and Byways 
 from a Motor-Car," etc. 
 
 With Many Illustrations 
 Reproduced from pfy.riti , wade on the spot 
 
 By Blanch McManus 
 
 miaO ^moZ ^\ nnaU \o sDmt^T 
 
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 ^-S^^^'V'^^^ 
 
 BOSTON 
 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 I 9 I o 
 
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 Terrace ofi Henri IV^ Saint Germain 
 
 (See page ^86) 
 
\\- 
 
 VU-o^'^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ROYAL PALACES AND 
 PARKS OF FRANCE 
 
 By Francis Miltoun ,, 
 
 Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine," "Castles 
 and Chateaux of Old Burgundy," " Rambles in Nor- 
 mandy," "Italian Highways and Byways 
 from a Motor-Car," etc. 
 
 ^ith Many Illustrations 
 Reproduced from paintings made on the spot 
 
 By Blanche McManus 
 
 BOSTON 
 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 I 9 I o 
 
^0 
 
 T^ 
 
 Copyright, 1910, 
 
 By L. C. Page & Company, 
 (incobporated) 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Pirst Impression, November, 1910 
 
 Printed by 
 THE COLONIAL PRESS 
 C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 ©CI.A275G65 
 
Preface 
 
 " A thousand years ago, by the rim of a tiny spring, a 
 monk who had avowed himself to the cult of Saint Saturnin, 
 robed, cowled and sandalled, knelt down to say a prayer to 
 his beloved patron saint. Again he came, this time followed 
 by more of his kind, and a wooden cross was planted by 
 the side of the " Fontaine Belle Eau," by this time become 
 a place of pious pilgrimage. After the monk came a king, 
 the latter to hunt in the neighbouring forest." 
 
 It was this old account of fact, or legend, that 
 led the author and illustrator of this book to a 
 full realization of the wealth of historic and 
 romantic incidents connected with the French 
 royal parks and palaces, incidents which the 
 makers of guidebooks have passed over in favour 
 of the, presumably, more important, well au- 
 thenticated facts of history which are often the 
 bare recitals of political rises and falls and dull 
 chronologies of building up and tearing down. 
 
 Much of the history of France was made in 
 the great national forests and the royal country- 
 houses of the kingdom, but usually it has been 
 only the events of the capital which have been 
 passed in review. To a great extent this history 
 
11 
 
 Preface 
 
 was of the gallant, daring kind, often written in 
 blood, the sword replacing the pen. 
 
 At times gayety reigned supreme, and at times it 
 was sadness; but always the pageant was imposing. 
 
 The day of pageants has passed, the day when 
 lords and ladies moved through stately halls, 
 when royal equipages hunted deer or boar on 
 royal preserves, when gay cavalcades of solemn 
 corteges thronged the great French highways 
 to the uttermost frontiers and ofttimes beyond. 
 Those days have passed; but, to one who knows 
 the real France, a ready-made setting is ever 
 at hand if he would depart a little from the beaten 
 paths worn smooth by railway and automobile 
 tourists who follow only the lines of conventional 
 travel. 
 
 France, even to-day, the city and the country 
 alike, is the paradise of European monarchs 
 on a holiday.' One may be met at Biarritz on 
 the shores of the Gascon gulf; another may be 
 taking the waters at Aix or Vichy, shooting 
 pigeons under the shadow of the Tete de Chien, 
 or hunting at Rambouillet. This is modern 
 France, the most cosmopolitan meeting place 
 and playground of royalty in the world. 
 
 French royal parks and palaces, those of the 
 kings and queens of mediaeval, as well as later, 
 times, differ greatly from those of other lands. 
 
Preface iii 
 
 This is perhaps not so much in their degree of 
 splendour and luxury as in the sentiment which 
 attaches itself to them. In France there has 
 ever been a spirit of gayety and spontaneity 
 unknown elsewhere. It was this which in- 
 spired the construction and maintenance of such 
 magnificent royal residences as the palaces of 
 Saint Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau, Ver- 
 sailles, Compiegne, Rambouillet, etc., quite dif- 
 ferent from the motives which caused the erec- 
 tion of the Louvre, the Tuileries or the Palais 
 Cardinal at Paris. 
 
 Nowhere else does there exist the equal of 
 these inspired royal country-houses of France, 
 and, when it comes to a consideration of their 
 surrounding parks and gardens, or those royal 
 hunting preserves in the vicinity of the He de 
 France, or of those still further afield, at Ram- 
 bouillet or in the Loire country, their superiority 
 to similar domains beyond the frontiers is even 
 more marked. 
 
 In plan this book is a series of itineraries, at 
 least the chapters are arranged, to a great ex- 
 tent in a topographical sequence; and, if the 
 scope is not as wide as all France, it is because 
 of the prominence already given to the parks 
 and palaces of Touraine and elsewhere in the 
 old French provinces in other works in which 
 
iv Preface 
 
 the artist and author have collaborated. It 
 is for this reason that so little consideration 
 has been given to Chambord, Amboise or Chenon- 
 ceaux, which were as truly royal as any of that 
 magnificent group of suburban Paris palaces 
 which begins with Conflans and ends with Marly 
 and Versailles. 
 
 Going still further afield, there is in the Pyrenees 
 that chateau, royal from all points of view, in 
 which was born the gallant Henri of France 
 and Navarre, but a consideration of that, too, 
 has already been included in another volume. 
 
 The present survey includes the royal dwell- 
 ings of the capital, those of the faubourgs and 
 the outlying districts far enough from town to 
 be recognized as in the country, and still others 
 as remote as Rambouillet, Chantilly and Com- 
 piegne. All, however, were intimately connected 
 with the life of the capital in the mediaeval and 
 Renaissance days, and together form a class 
 distinct from any other monumental edifices 
 which exist, or ever have existed, in France. 
 
 Mere historic fact has been subordinated as 
 far as possible to a recital of such picturesque 
 incidents of the life of contemporary times as the 
 old writers have handed down to us, and a com- 
 plete chronological review has in no manner 
 been attempted. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 13 
 14 
 43 
 61 
 75 
 
 Introductory 
 
 The Evolution of French Gardens 
 
 The Royal Hunt in France 
 
 The Palais de la Cite and Tournelles . 
 
 The Old Louvre and Its History 
 
 The Louvre of Francis I and Its Suc- 
 cessors 
 
 The Tuileries and Its Gardens 
 
 The Palais Cardinal and the Palais 
 Royal 
 
 The Luxembourg, the Elysee and the 
 Palais Bourbon . 
 
 ViNCENNES AND CoNFLANS 
 
 Fontainebleau and Its Forest 
 By the Banks of the Seine 
 Malmaison and Marly . 
 Saint Cloud and Its Park . 
 Versailles: The Glory of France . 
 The Gardens of Versailles and the 
 
 Trianons 
 
 Saint Germain-en-Laye .... 
 Maintenon 296 
 
 V 
 
 85 
 106 
 
 131 
 
 151 
 
 168 
 180 
 203 
 215 
 229 
 244 
 
 260 
 
 279 
 
vi Contents 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 XIX. Rambouillet and Its Forest . . . 309 
 XX. Chantilly 324 
 
 XXI. COMPIEGNE AND ItS FoREST . . . .342 
 
 Index 363 
 
PAOB 
 
 Terrace of Henri IV, Saint Germain (see page 
 
 286) Frontispiece 
 
 The Louvre, the Tuileries and the Palais Royal 
 
 OF To-day facing 12 
 
 " Jardin Francais — Jardin Anglais " . . .15 
 
 Henri IV in an Old French Garden . facing 20 
 
 Parterre de Diane, Chenonceaux .... 27 
 
 Plan of Sunken Garden (Jardin Creux) . . 30 
 
 A Parterre . . . . . . . facing 32 
 
 Bassin de la Couronne, Vaux-le-Vicomte facing 42 
 
 A " Curee aux Flambeaux " . . . facing 46 
 
 An Imperial Hunt at Fontainebleau . facing 52 
 
 Rendezvous de Chasse, Rambouillet . facing 56 
 
 Bird's Eye View of Old Paris (Map) . facing 74 
 
 The XIV Century Louvre .... facing 82 
 
 The Louvre facing 90 
 
 Original Plan of the Tuileries (Diagram) . . 106 
 
 Salle des Marechaux, Tuileries . . facing 116 
 
 The Galleries of the Palais Royal . . . 146 
 Bourbon-Orleans Descendants of Loufs Philippe 
 
 (Diagram) facing 146 
 
 Palais du Luxembourg .... facing 154 
 
 Door in Throne Room, Luxembourg . . . 156 
 
 The Petit Luxembourg facing 156 
 
 The Luxembourg Gardens .... facing 158 
 
 The Throne of the Palais Bourbon . . . 161 
 
 ViNCENNES under Charles V 168 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll 
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Chateau de Vincennes .... 
 A Hunt under the Walls of Vincennes 
 
 conflans 
 
 Original Plan of Fontainebleau 
 From Paris to Fontainebleau (Map) 
 Palais de Fontainebleau 
 Salle du Throne, Fontainebleau 
 Fragments from Fontainebleau 
 Cheminee de la Reine, Fontainebleau 
 Monument to Rousseau and Millet at 
 
 Barbison .... 
 Chateau de Bagatelle . 
 Chateau de Malmaison 
 The Gardens of Saint Cloud 
 The Cascades at Saint Cloud 
 CouR DE Marbre, Versailles 
 The Potager du Roy, Versailles 
 The Bassin de Latone, Versailles . 
 The Fountain of Neptune, Versailles 
 
 Petit Trianon 
 
 Laiterie de la Reine, Petit Trianon 
 
 Saint Germain (Diagram) 
 
 The Valley of the Seine, from the 
 
 Saint Germain 
 
 Fauteuil of Mme. de Maintenon 
 Chateau de Maintenon .... 
 Aqueduct of Louis XIV at Maintenon 
 Chateau de Rambouillet (Diagram) . 
 Laiterie de la Reine, Rambouillet . 
 Chateau de Rambouillet . . . 
 Chantilly (Diagram) .... 
 Statue of Le Notre, Chantilly 
 Chateau de Chantilly .... 
 Compiegne (Diagram) .... 
 Napoleon's Bedchamber, Compeigne . 
 CouRS DE Compiegne .... 
 
 facing 172 
 
 facing 174 
 
 . 176 
 
 . 180 
 
 facing 180 
 
 facing 186 
 
 facing 190 
 
 facing 192 
 
 facing 194 
 
 facing 
 
 facing 
 facing 
 facing 
 facing 
 facing 
 facing 
 facing 
 facing 
 
 200 
 204 
 
 218 
 236 
 240 
 264 
 270 
 272 
 274 
 276 
 277 
 280 
 
 Terrace at 
 
 facing 288 
 
 . 297 
 
 facing 300 
 
 facing 306 
 
 . 309 
 
 facing 312 
 
 facing 316 
 
 . 325 
 
 facing 326 
 
 facing 336 
 
 . 343 
 
 facing 352 
 
 facing 356 
 
Royal Palaces and Parks 
 of France 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The modern traveller sees something beyond 
 mere facts. Historical material as identified 
 with the life of some great architectural glory 
 is something more than a mere repetition of 
 chronologies; the sidelights and the co-related 
 incidents, though indeed many of them may be 
 but hearsay, are quite as interesting, quite as 
 necessary, in fact, for the proper appreciation 
 of a famous palace or chateau as long columns 
 of dates, or an evolved genealogical tree which 
 attempts to make plain that which could be better 
 left unexplained. The glamour of history would 
 be considerably dimmed if everything was ex- 
 plained, and a very seamy block of marble may 
 be chiselled into a very acceptable statue if the 
 workman but knows how to avoid the doubt- 
 ful parts. 
 
 1 
 
2 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 An itinerary that follows not only the ridges, 
 but occasionally plunges down into the hollows 
 and turns up or down such crossroads as may 
 have chanced to look inviting, is perhaps more 
 interesting than one laid out on conventional 
 lines. A shadowy something, which for a better 
 name may be called sentiment, if given full play 
 encourages these side-steps, and since they are 
 generally found fruitful, and often not too fa- 
 tiguing, the procedure should be given every 
 encouragement. 
 
 Not all the interesting royal palaces and cha- 
 teaux of France are those with the best known 
 names. Not all front on Paris streets and quays, 
 no more than the best glimpses of ancient or 
 modern France are to be had from the benches 
 of a sight-seeing automobile. 
 
 Versailles, and even Fontainebleau, are too 
 frequently considered as but the end of a half- 
 day pilgrimage for the tripper. It were better 
 that one should approach them more slowly, 
 and by easy stages, and leave them less hurriedly. 
 As for those architectural monuments of kings, 
 which were tuned in a minor key, they, at all 
 events, need to be hunted down on the spot, the 
 enthusiast being forearmed with such scraps of 
 historic fact as he can gather beforehand, other- 
 wise he will see nothing at Confians, Marly or 
 
Introductory 3 
 
 Bourg-la-Reine which will suggest that royalty 
 ever had the slightest concern therewith. 
 
 Dealing first with Paris it is evident it is there 
 that the pilgrim to French shrines must make his 
 most profound obeisance. This applies as well 
 to palaces as to churches. In all cases one goes 
 back into the past to make a start, and old Paris, 
 what there is left of it, is still old Paris, though 
 one has to leave the grand boulevards to find 
 this out. 
 
 Colberts and Haussmanns do not live to-day, 
 or if they do they have become so ^^ practical" 
 that a drainage canal or an overhead or under- 
 ground railway is more of a civic improvement 
 than the laying out of a public park, like the 
 gardens of the Tuileries, or the building and 
 embellishment of a public edifice — at least with 
 due regard for the best traditions. When the 
 monarchs of old called in men of taste and culture 
 instead of "business men" they builded in the 
 most agreeable fashion. We have not improved 
 things with our "systems" and our committees 
 of ^'hommes d^ajjairesV 
 
 It is the fashion to-day to decry the cavaliers 
 and the wearers of "love-locks," but they had 
 a pretty taste in art and an eye for artistic sur- 
 roundings, those old fellows of the sword and 
 cloak; a much more pretty taste than their de- 
 
4 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 scendants, the steam-heat and running-water par- 
 tisans of to-day. Louis XV and Empire draw- 
 ing and dining-rooms are everywhere adver- 
 tised as the attractions of the great palace 
 hotels, and some of them are very good copies 
 of their predecessors, though one cannot help 
 but feel that the clientele as a whole is more in- 
 sistent on telephones in the bedrooms and auto- 
 taxis always on tap than with regard to the senti- 
 ment of good taste and good cheer which is to be 
 evoked by eating even a hurried meal in a room 
 which reproduces some historically famous Salle 
 des Gardes or the Chambre of the Oeil de Boeuf 
 of the Louvre, if, indeed, most of the hungry folk 
 know what their surroundings are supposed to 
 represent. 
 
 Any chronicle which attempts to set down a 
 record of the comings and goings of French 
 monarchs is saved from being a mere dull chro- 
 nology of dates and resume of facts by its obli- 
 gatory references to the architects and builders 
 who made possible the splendid settings amid 
 which these picturesque rulers passed their lives. 
 
 The castle builders of France, the garden 
 designers, the architects, decorators and crafts- 
 men of all ranks produced not a medley, but a 
 coherent, cohesive whole, which stands apart from, 
 and far ahead of, most of the contemporary work 
 
Introductory 
 
 of its kind in other lands. Castles and keeps 
 were of one sort in England and Scotland, of 
 still another along the Rhine, and if the Renais- 
 sance palaces and chateaux first came into being 
 in Italy it is certain they never grew to the flower- 
 ing luxuriance there that they did in France. 
 
 Thus does France establish itself as leader 
 in new movements once again. It was so in 
 the olden time with the arts of the architect, the 
 landscape gardener and the painter; it is so to- 
 day with respect to such mundane, less senti- 
 mental things as automobiles and aeroplanes. 
 
 Another chapter, in a story long since started, 
 is a repetition, or review, of the outdoor life of 
 the French monarchs and their followers. Not 
 only did Frenchmen of Gothic and Renaissance 
 times have a taste for travelling far afield, pur- 
 suing the arts of peace or war as their conscience 
 or conditions dictated; but they loved, too, the 
 open country and the open road at home; they 
 loved also la chasse, as they did tournaments, 
 jetes-champkres and outdoor spectacles of all 
 kinds. Add these stage settings to the splendid 
 costuming and the flamboyant architectural ac- 
 cessories of Renaissance times in France and we 
 have what is assuredly not to be found in other 
 lands, a spectacular and imposing pageant of 
 mediaeval and Renaissance life and manners 
 
6 R oyal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 which is superlative from all points of view. 
 
 This is perhaps hard, sometimes, to reconcile 
 with the French attitude towards outdoor hfe 
 to-day, when la chasse means the hunting of tame 
 foxes (a sport which has been imported from 
 across the channel), ^^sporV^ means a prize fight, 
 and a garden party or a jete-champetre a mere 
 gossiping rendezvous over a cup of badly made 
 tea. In the France of the olden time they did 
 things differently — and better. 
 
 Not all French history was made, or written, 
 within palace walls; much of it came into being 
 in the open air, like the two famous meetings 
 by the Bidassoa, Napoleon's first sight of Marie 
 Louise on the highroad leading out from Senlis, 
 or his making the Pope a prisoner at the Croix 
 de Saint Heram, in the Forest of Fontainebleau. 
 
 It is this change of scene that makes French 
 history so appealing to those who might other- 
 wise let it remain in shut-up and dry-as-dust 
 books on library shelves. 
 
 The French monarchs of old were indeed 
 great travellers, and it is by virtue of the fact that 
 affairs of state were often promulgated and con- 
 summated en voyage that a royal stamp came to 
 be acquired by many a chateau or country-house 
 which to-day would hardly otherwise be con- 
 sidered as of royal rank. 
 
Introductory 
 
 Throughout France, notably in the neighbour- 
 hood of Paris, are certain chateaux — palaces 
 only by lack of name — of the nobility where 
 royalties were often as much at home as under 
 their own royal standards. One cannot attempt 
 to confine the limits where these chateaux are to 
 be found, for they actually covered the length 
 and breadth of France. 
 
 Journeying afield in those romantic times 
 was probably as comfortably accomplished, by 
 monarchs at least, as it is to-day. What was 
 lacking was speed, but they lodged at night under 
 roofs as hospitable as those of the white and gold 
 caravanserai (and some more humble) which 
 perforce come to be temporary abiding places 
 of royalties en tour to-day. The writer has seen 
 the Dowager Queen of Italy lunching at a neigh- 
 bouring table at a roadside trattoria in Piedmont 
 which would have no class distinction whatever 
 as compared with the average suburban road- 
 house across the Atlantic. At Biarritz, too, the 
 automobihng monarch, Alphonse XIII, has been 
 known to take " tea " on the terrace of the 
 great tourist - peopled hotel in company with 
 mere be-goggled commoners. Le temps va! Were 
 monarchs so democratic in the olden time, one 
 wonders. 
 
 The court chronicles of all ages, and all ranks, 
 
8 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 have proved a gold mine for the makers of books 
 of all sorts and conditions. Not only court 
 chroniclers but pamphleteers, even troubadours 
 and players, have contributed much to the records 
 of the Hfe of mediaeval France. All history was 
 not made by political intrigue or presumption; 
 a good deal of it was born of the gentler passions, 
 and a chap-book maker would put often into 
 print many accounts which the recorder of mere 
 history did not dare use. ^History is often enough 
 sorry stuff when it comes to human interest, 
 and it needs editing only too often. 
 
 Courtiers and the fashionable world of France, 
 ever .since the days of the poetry-making and 
 ballad-singing Francis and Marguerite, and be- 
 fore, for that matter, made of literature — at 
 least the written and spoken chronicle of some 
 sort — a diversion and an accomplishment. 
 Royal or official patronage given these mediaeval 
 story-tellers did not always produce the truest 
 tales. Then, as now, writer folk were wont tq 
 exaggerate, but most of their work made in- 
 teresting reading. 
 
 These courtiers of the itching pen did not often 
 write for money. Royal favour, or that of some 
 fair lady, or ladies, was their chief return in many 
 more cases than those for which their accounts 
 were settled by mere dross. It is in the work 
 
Introductory 
 
 of such chroniclers as these that one finds a fund 
 of unrepeated historic lore. 
 
 The dramatists came on the scene with their 
 plots ready-made (and have been coming 
 ever since, if one recalls the large number of 
 French costume plays of recent years), and 
 whether they introduced errors of fact, or not, 
 there was usually so much truth about their 
 work that the very historians more than once 
 were obliged to have recourse to the productions 
 of their colleagues. The dramatists' early days 
 in France, as in England, were their golden days. 
 The mere literary man, or chronicler, was often 
 flayed alive, but the dramatist, even though he 
 dished up the foibles of a king, and without 
 any dressing at that, was feted and made as much 
 of as a record piano player of to-day. 
 
 One hears a lot about the deathbed scrib- 
 blers in England in the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, but there was not much of that 
 sort of thing in France. No one here penned 
 bitter jibes and lascivious verses merely to keep 
 out of jail, as did Nash and Marlowe in England. 
 In short, one must give due credit to the court 
 chroniclers and ballad-singers of France as being 
 something more than mere pilfering, black- 
 mailing hacks. 
 
 All the French court and its followers in the 
 
10 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 sixteenth century shouted epigrams and affected 
 being greater poets than they really were. It 
 was a good sign, and it left its impress on French 
 literature. Following in the footsteps of Fran- 
 cis I and the two Marguerites nobles vied with 
 each other in their efforts to produce some 
 epoch-making work of poesy or prose, and while 
 they did not often publish for profit they were 
 glad enough to see themselves in print. Then 
 there were also the professional men of letters, 
 as distinct from the courtiers with literary am- 
 bitions, the churchmen and courtly attaches of 
 all ranks with the literary bee humming in their 
 bonnets. They, too, left behind them an im- 
 posing record, which has been very useful to others 
 coming after who were concerned with getting 
 a local colour of a brand which should look 
 natural. 
 
 It is with such guiding lights as are suggested 
 by the foregoing resume that one seeks his clues 
 for the repicturing of the circumstances under 
 which French royal palaces were erected, as well 
 as for the truthful repetition of the ceremonies 
 and functions of the times, for the court life of 
 old, whether in city palace or country chateau, 
 was a very different thing from that of the Re- 
 publican regime of to-day. 
 
 Not only were the royal Paris dwellings, from 
 
Introductory 11 
 
 the earliest times, of a profound luxuriance of 
 design and execution, but the private hotels, 
 the palaces, one may well say, of the nobility 
 were of the same superlative order, and kings 
 and queens alike did not disdain to lodge therein 
 on such occasions as suited their convenience. 
 The suggestive comparison is made because of 
 the close liens with which royalty and the higher 
 nobility were bound. 
 
 It is sufficient to recall, among others of this 
 class, the celebrated Hotel de Beauvais which 
 will illustrate the reference. Not only was this 
 magnificent town house of palatial dimensions, 
 but it was the envy of the monarchs themselves, 
 because of its refined elegance of construction. 
 This edifice exists to-day, in part, at No. 68 Rue 
 Francois Miron, and the visitor may judge for 
 himself as to its former elegance. 
 
 Loret, in his "Gazette" in verse, recounts a 
 visit made to the Hotel de Beauvais in 1663 by 
 Marie Therese, the Queen of Louis XIV. 
 
 Mercredi, notre auguste Reine, 
 Cette charmante souveraine, 
 Fut chez Madame de Beauvais 
 Pour de son amiable palais 
 Voir les merveilles etonnantes 
 Et les r aretes surprenantes. 
 
 Times have changed, for the worse or for the 
 better. The sedan-chair and the coach have 
 
12 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 given way to the automobile and the engine, and 
 the wood fire to a stale calorifer, or perhaps a 
 gas-log. 
 
 The comparisons are odious; there is no ques- 
 tion as to this; but it is by contrast that the sub- 
 ject is made the more interesting. 
 
 From the old Palais des Thermes (now a part 
 of the Musee de Cluny) of the Roman emperors 
 down through the Palais de la Cite (where lodged 
 the kings of the first and second races) to the 
 modern installations of the Louvre is a matter 
 of twelve centuries. The record is by no means 
 a consecutive one, but a record exists which em- 
 braces a dozen, at least, of the Paris abodes of 
 royalty, where indeed they lived according to 
 many varying scales of comfort and luxury. 
 
 Not all the succeeding French monarchs had 
 the abilities or the inclinations that enabled 
 them to keep up to the traditions of the art-loving 
 Francis I, but almost all of their number did 
 something creditable in building or decoration, 
 or commanded it to be done. 
 
 J!^ouis XIV, though he delayed the adjustment 
 of Europe for two centuries, was the first real 
 beautifier of Paris since Philippe Auguste. Pri- 
 vately his taste in art and architecture was rather 
 ridiculous, but publicly he and his architects 
 achieved great things in the general scheme. 
 
l?s'^il 
 
 
Introductory 13 
 
 Napoleon I, in turn, caught up with things 
 in a poHtical sense, in truth he ran ahead of them, 
 but he in no way neglected the embellishments 
 of the capital, and added a new wing to the 
 Louvre, and filled Musees with stolen loot, which 
 remorse, or popular clamour, induced him, for 
 the most part, to return at a later day. 
 
 In a decade Napoleon made much history, 
 and he likewise did much for the royal palaces 
 of France. After him a gap supervened until 
 the advent of Napoleon III, who, weakling 
 that he was, had the perspicacity to give the 
 Baron Haussmann a chance to play his part in 
 the making of modern Paris, and if the Tuileries 
 and Saint Cloud had not disappeared as a result 
 of his indiscretion the period of the Second Em- 
 pire would not have been at all discreditable, 
 as far as the impress it left on Paris was con- 
 cerned. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF FRENCH GARDENS 
 
 The French garden was a creation of all epochs 
 from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, 
 and, for the most part, those of to-day and of 
 later decades of the nineteenth century, are 
 adaptations and restorations of the classic ac- 
 cepted forms. 
 
 From the modest jardinet of the moyen-age 
 to the ample gardens and parterres of the Renais- 
 sance was a wide range. In their highest ex- 
 pression these early French gardens, with their 
 broderies and carreaux may well be compared 
 as works of art with contemporary structures 
 in stone or wood or stuffs in woven tapestries, 
 which latter they greatly resembled. 
 
 Under Louis XIV and Louis XV the elaborate- 
 ness of the French garden was even more an 
 accentuated epitome of the tastes of the period. 
 Near the end of the eighteenth century a marked 
 deterioration was noticeable and a separation 
 of the tastes which ordained the arrangement 
 of contemporary dwellings and their gardens 
 
 14 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 15 
 
 was very apparent. Under the Empire the 
 antique style of furniture and decoration was 
 used too, but there was no contemporary ex- 
 pression with regard to garden making. 
 
 In the second half of the nineteenth century, 
 under the Second Empire, the symmetrical lines 
 
 JARDIN rR.A>ICAIS 
 
 J-ATLDIH AN GrI-i-A 
 
 ^ 
 
 of the old-time parterres came again into being, 
 and to them were attached composite elements 
 or motives, which more closely resembled details 
 of the conventional English garden than any- 
 thing distinctly French. 
 
 The English garden was, for the most part, 
 pure ajffectation in France, or, at best, it was treated 
 
16 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 as a frank exotic. Even to-day, in modern 
 France, where an old dwelling of the period of 
 Henri IV, Fran5;ois I, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, 
 or Louis XV still exists with its garden, the latter 
 is more often than not on the classically pure 
 French lines, while that of a modern cottage, 
 villa or chateau is often a poor, variegated thing, 
 fantastic to distraction. 
 
 Turning back the pages of history one finds 
 that each people, each century, possessed its 
 own specious variety of garden; a species which 
 responded sufficiently to the tastes and necessi- 
 ties of the people, to their habits and their 
 aspirations. 
 
 Garden-making, like the art of the architect, 
 differed greatly in succeeding centuries, and it 
 is for this reason that the garden of the moyen- 
 age, of the epoch of the Crusades, for example, 
 did not bear the least resemblance to the more 
 ample parterres of the Renaissance. Civiliza- 
 tion was making great progress, and it was neces- 
 sary that the gardens should be in keeping with 
 a less restrained, more luxurious method of life. 
 
 If the gardens of the Renaissance marked 
 a progress over the preaux and jardinets of mediae- 
 valism, those of Le Notre were a blossoming 
 forth of the Renaissance seed. Regretfully, one 
 cannot say as much for the garden plots of the 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 17 
 
 eighteenth century, and it was only with the 
 mid-nineteenth century that the general outlines 
 took on a real charm and attractiveness again, 
 and this was only achieved by going back to 
 original principles. 
 
 The first gardens were the vergers and preaux, 
 little checker- board squares of a painful primitive- 
 ness as compared with later standards. These 
 squares, or carreatix, were often laid out in foliage 
 and blossoming plants as suggestive as possible 
 of their being made of carpeting or marble. 
 When these miniature enclosures came to be 
 surrounded with trellises and walls the Renais- 
 sance in garden-making may be considered as 
 having been in full sway. 
 
 Under Louis XIV a certain affluence was 
 noticeable in garden plots, and with Louis XV 
 an even more notable symmetry was apparent 
 in the disposition of the general outlines. By 
 this time, the garden in France had become a 
 frame which set off the architectural charms 
 of the dwelling rather than remaining a mere 
 accessory, but it was only with the replacing of 
 the castle-fortress by the more domesticated 
 chateau that a really generous garden space be- 
 came a definite attribute of a great house. 
 
 ^The first gardens surrounding the French 
 chateaux were developments, or adaptations, 
 
18 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 of Italian gardens, such as were designed across 
 the Alps by Mercogliano, during the feudal 
 period. 
 
 Later, and during the time of the Crusades, 
 the garden question hardly entered into French 
 life. Gardens, like all other luxuries, were given 
 little thought when the graver questions of peace 
 and security were to be considered, and, for this 
 reason, there is little or nothing to say of French 
 gardens previous to the twelfth century. 
 
 An important species of the gardens of the 
 moyen-age was that which was found as an 
 adjunct to the great monastic institutions, the 
 preaux, which were usually surrounded by the 
 cloister colonnade. One of the most important 
 of these, of which history makes mention, was 
 that of the Abbaye de Saint Gall, of which Char- 
 lemagne was capitular. It was he who selected 
 the plants and vegetables which the dwellers 
 therein should cultivate. 
 
 Of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there 
 is an abundant literary record, and, in a way, 
 a pictorial record as well. From these one can 
 make a very good deduction of what the garden 
 of that day was like; still restrained, but yet 
 something more than rudimentary. From now 
 on French gardens were divided specifically 
 into the potager and verger. 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 19 
 
 The potager was virtually a vegetable garden 
 within the walls which surrounded the seigneurial 
 dwelling, and was of necessity of very limited 
 extent, chiefly laid out in tiny carreauXy or beds, 
 bordered by tiles or bricks, much as a small 
 city garden is arranged to-day. Here were cul- 
 tivated the commonest vegetables, a few flowers 
 and a liberal assortment of herbs, such as rue, 
 mint, parsley, sage, lavender, etc. 
 
 The verger, or viridarium, was practically 
 a fruit garden, as it is to-day, with perhaps a 
 generous sprinkling of flowers and aromatic 
 plants. The verger was always outside the walls, 
 but not far from the entrance or the drawbridge 
 crossing the moat and leading to the chateau. 
 
 It was to the verger, or orchard, curiously 
 enough, that in times of peace the seigneur and 
 his family retired after luncheon for diversion 
 or repose. 
 
 " D illocques vieng en cest vergier 
 Eascun3 jour pour s'esbanoier." 
 
 Thus ran a couplet of the ''Roman de Thebes"; 
 and of the hundred or more tales of chivalry 
 in verse, which are recognized as classic, nearly 
 all make mention of the verger. 
 
 .It was here that young men and maidens came 
 in springtime for the fete of flowers, when they 
 
20 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 wove chaplets and garlands, for the moyen-age 
 had preserved the antique custom of the coiffure 
 of flowers, that is to say hats of natural flowers, 
 as we might call them to-day, except that modern 
 hats seemingly call for most of the products of 
 the barnyard and the farm in their decoration, 
 as well as the flowers of the field. 
 • The rose was queen among all these flowers 
 and then came the lily and the carnation, chiefly 
 in their simple, savage state, not the highly 
 cultivated product of to-day. From the ballads 
 and the love songs, one gathers that there were 
 also violets, eglantine, daisies, pansies, forget- 
 me-nots, and the marguerite, or consoude, was 
 one of the most loved of all. 
 
 The carnation, or oeilletj was called armerie; 
 the pansy was particularly in favour with the 
 ladies, who embroidered it on their handker- 
 chiefs and their girdles. Still other flowers found 
 a place in this early horticultural catalogue, 
 the marigold, gladiolus, stocks, lily-of-the-valley 
 and buttercups. 
 
 Frequently the verger was surrounded by a 
 protecting wall, of more or less architectural 
 pretense, with towers and accessories conform- 
 ing to the style of the period, and decorative and 
 utilitarian fountains, benches and seats were 
 also common accessories. 
 
Henri IV in an Old French Garden 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 21 
 
 The old prints, which reproduced these early 
 French gardens, are most curious to study, amus- 
 ing even; but their point of view was often distorted 
 as to perspective. In the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries, perspective was almost wholly 
 ignored in pictorial records. There was often 
 no scale, and no depth; everything was out of 
 proportion with everything else, and for this 
 reason it is difficult to judge of the exact pro- 
 portions of many of these early French gardens. 
 
 ^he origin of garden-making in France, in 
 the best accepted sense of the term, properly 
 began with the later years of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury and the early years of the fourteenth; con- 
 tinuing the tradition, remained distinctly French 
 until the mid-fifteenth century, for the Itahan 
 influence did not begin to make itself felt until 
 after the Italian wars and travels of Charles VIII, 
 Louis XI and Francis I. 
 
 The earliest traces of the work of the first 
 two of these monarchs are to be seen at Blois 
 and, for a time henceforth, it is to be presumed 
 that all royal gardens in France were largely 
 conceived under the inspiration of Itahan in- 
 fluences. Before, as there were primitives in 
 the art of painting in France, there were cer- 
 tainly French gardeners in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries. One of these, whoever he 
 
22 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 may have been, was the designer of the preaux 
 and the treilles of the Louvre of Charles V, of 
 which a pictorial record exists, and he, or they, 
 did work of a Hke nature for the powerful house 
 of Bourgogne, and for Rene d'Anjou, whom we 
 know was a great amateur gardener. 
 
 The archives of these princely houses often 
 recount the expenses in detail, and so numerous 
 are certain of them that it would not be difficult 
 to picture anew as to just what they referred. 
 
 Debanes, the gardener of the Chateau d' Angers, 
 on a certain occasion, gave an accounting for 
 *'X Sols'' for repairing the grass-plots and for 
 making a petil preau. Again: "XI Sols" for 
 the employ of six gardeners to trim the vines and 
 clean up the alleys of the grand and petit jar din. 
 
 Luxury in all things settled down upon all 
 France to a greater degree than hitherto in the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and almost 
 without exception princely houses set out to 
 rival one another in the splendour of their sur- 
 roundings. Now came in the ornamental garden 
 as distinct from the verger, and the preau became 
 a greensward accessory, at once practical and 
 decorative, the precursor of the pelouse and the 
 parterre of Le Notre. 
 
 The preau (in old French prael) was a sym- 
 metrical square or rectangular grass-grown gar- 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 23 
 
 den plot. From the Latin pratum, or pratellum, 
 the words preau, pre and prairie were evolved 
 naturally enough, and came thus early to be 
 applied in France to that portion of the pleasure 
 garden set out as a grassy lawn. The word is 
 very ancient, and has come down to us through 
 the monkish vocabulary of the cloister. 
 
 Some celebrated verse of Christine de Pisan, 
 who wrote "The Life of Charles V," thus de- 
 scribes the cloister at Poissy. 
 
 "Du cloistre grand large et especieux 
 Que est carre, et, afin qu'il soit mieulx 
 A un prael, ou milieu, gracieux 
 Vert sans grappin 
 Ou a plante en my un tres hault pin." 
 
 It was at this period, that of Saint Louis and 
 the apotheosis of Gothic architecture, that France 
 was at the head of European civilization, there- 
 fore in no way can her preeminence in garden- 
 making be questioned. 
 
 The gardens of the Gothic era seldom surpassed 
 the enclos with a rivulet passing through it, a 
 springs a pine tree giving a welcome shade, 
 some simple flowers and a verger of fruit trees. 
 
 The neighbours of France were often warring 
 among themselves but the Grand Seigneur here 
 was settling down to beautifying his surround- 
 
24 Ro yal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ings and framing his chateaux, manors and 
 country-seats in dignified and most appeaHng 
 pictures. Grass-plots appeared in dooryards, 
 flowers climbed up along castle walls and shrubs 
 and trees came to play a genuinely esthetic role 
 in the life of the times. 
 
 An illustrious stranger, banished from Italy, 
 one Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante, who 
 had sought a refuge in France, wrote his views 
 on the matter, which in substance were as above. 
 
 About this time originated the progenitors of 
 the glorietteSj which became so greatly the vogue 
 in the eighteenth century. Practically the glori- 
 ette, a word in common use in northern France 
 and in Flanders, was a logette de plaisance. The 
 Spaniards, too, in their glorietta, a pavilion in a 
 garden, had practically the same signification 
 of the word. 
 
 In the fourteenth century French garden the 
 gloriette was a sort of arbour, or trellis-like summer- 
 house, garnished with vines and often perched 
 upon a natural or artificial eminence. Other 
 fast developing details of the French garden 
 were tree-bordered alleys and the planting of 
 more or less regularly set-out beds of flowering 
 plants. 
 
 Vine trellises and vine-clad pavilions and groves 
 were a speedy development of these details, and 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 25 
 
 played parts of considerable importance in garden- 
 ing under the French Renaissance. 
 
 In this same connection there is a very precise 
 record in an account of the gardens of the Louvre 
 under Charles V concerning the contribution 
 of one, Jean Baril, maker of Arlors, to this form 
 of the landscape architect's art. 
 
 "Ornamental birds — peacocks, pheasants and 
 swans now came in as adjuncts to the French 
 land and water garden." This was the way 
 a certain pertinent comment was made by a 
 writer of the fifteenth century. From the "Mena- 
 gier de Paris," a work of the end of the four- 
 teenth century, one learns that behind a dwelling 
 of a prince or noble of the time was usually to 
 be found a ^'beau jar din tout plante d'arhres 
 a fruits, de legumes, de rosters, orne de volieres 
 et tapise de gazon sur lesquels se promenent 
 les paons^ 
 
 French gardens of various epochs are readily 
 distinguished by the width of their alleys. In 
 the moyen-age the paths which separated the 
 garden plots were very narrow; in the early 
 Renaissance period they were somewhat wider, 
 taking on a supreme maximum in the gardens 
 of Le Notre. 
 
 Trimmed trees entered into the general 
 scheme in France towards the end of the fifteenth 
 
26 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 century. Under Henri IV and under Louis XII 
 trees were often trimmed in ungainly, fantastic 
 forms, but with the advent of Le Notre the good 
 taste which he propagated so widely promptly 
 rejected these grotesques, which, for a fact, 
 were an importation from Flanders, like the 
 gloriettes. Not by the remotest suggestion could 
 a clipped yew in the form of a peacock or a giraffe 
 be called French. Le Notre eliminated the 
 menagerie and the aviary, but kept certain geo- 
 metrical forms, particularly with respect to hedges, 
 where niches were frequently trimmed out for 
 the placing of statues, columns surmounted with 
 golden balls, etc. 
 
 The most famous of the frankly Renaissance 
 gardens developed as a result of the migrations 
 of the French monarchs in Italy were those 
 surrounding such palaces and chateaux as Fon- 
 tainebleau, Amboise, and Blois. Often these mani- 
 festly French gardens, though of Italian in- 
 spiration in the first instance, were actually the 
 work of Italian craftsmen. Pucello Marceliano 
 at four hundred livres and Edme Marceliano at 
 two hundred livres were in the employ of Henri 11. 
 It was the former who laid out the magnificent 
 Parterre de Diane at Chenonceaux, where Cath- 
 erine de Medici later, being smitten with the skill 
 of the Florentines, gave the further commission 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 27 
 
 of the Jardin Vert, which was intended to com- 
 plete this parterre, to Henri le Calabrese and 
 Jean Collo. 
 
 The later Renaissance gardens divided them- 
 selves into various classes, jardins de plaisir, 
 jar dins de plaisance, jardins de proprete, etc. 
 Parterres now became of two sorts, parterres a 
 compartiments and parterres de hroderies, names 
 sufficiently explicit not to need further comment. 
 
 ^^ Parterre de Diane/' Chenonceaux 
 
 It is difficult to determine just how garden 
 broderies came into being. They may have been 
 indirectly due to woman's love of embroidery 
 and the garden alike. The making of these 
 garden broderies was a highly cultivated art. 
 Pierre Vallet, embroiderer to Henri IV, created 
 much in his line of distinction and note, and 
 acquired an extensive clientele for his flowers 
 and models. Often these gardens, with their par- 
 
28 R oyal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 terres and hroderies were mere additions to an 
 already existing architectural scheme, but with 
 respect to the gardens of the Luxembourg and 
 Saint Germain-en-Laye they came into being 
 with the edifices themselves, or at least those 
 portions which they were supposed to embellish. 
 Harmony was then first struck between the works 
 of the horticulturist — the garden-maker — and 
 those of the architect — the builder in stone 
 and wood. This was the prelude to those majes- 
 tic ensembles of which Le Notre was to be the 
 composer. 
 
 Of the celebrated French palace and chateau 
 gardens which are not centered upon the actual 
 edifices with which they are more or less inti- 
 mately connected, but are distinct and apart 
 from the gardens which in most cases actually 
 surround a dwelling, may be mentioned those 
 of Montargis, Saint Germain, Amboise, Villers- 
 Cotterets and Fontainebleau. These are rather 
 parks, like the "home-parks," so called, in Eng- 
 land, which, while adjuncts to the dwellings, 
 are complete in themselves and are possessed 
 of a separate identity, or reason for being. Chiefly 
 these, and indeed most French gardens of the 
 same epoch, differ greatly from contemporary 
 works in Italy in that the latter were often built 
 and terraced up and down the hillsides, whereas 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 29 
 
 the French garden was laid out, in the majority 
 of instances, on the level, though each made 
 use of interpolated architectural accessories such 
 as balustrades, statuary, fountains, etc. 
 
 Mollet was one of the most famous gardeners 
 of the time of Louis XIV. He was the gardener 
 of the Due d'Aumale, who built the gardens 
 of the Chateau d'Anet while it was occupied by 
 Diane de Poitiers, and for their time they were 
 considered the most celebrated in France for their 
 upkeep and the profusion and variety of their 
 flowers. This was the highest development of 
 the French garden up to this time. 
 
 It is possible that this Claude Mollet was the 
 creator of the parterres and hroderies so largely 
 used in his time, and after. Mollet's formula 
 was derived chiefly from flower and plant forms, 
 resembling in design oriental embroideries. He 
 made equal use of the labyrinth and the sunken 
 garden. His idea was to develop the simple 
 parquet into the elaborate parterre. He began 
 his career under Henri III and ultimately be- 
 came the gardener of Henri IV. His elaborate 
 work '* Theatre des Plans et Jardinage" was 
 written towards 1610-1612, but was only pub- 
 lished a half a century later. It was only in the 
 sixteenth century that gardens in Paris were 
 planned and developed on a scale which was 
 
30 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 the equal of many which had previously been 
 designed in the provinces. 
 
 The chief names in French gardening — be- 
 fore the days of Le Notre — were those of the 
 
 Be§onia.. 
 
 Gloire de 
 touveciennei 
 Blanc rose 
 
 Be§onia 
 . Vernon,,^ 
 Roufc culvre 
 
 Van 
 
 '§radhs 
 lurnineux 
 Bose 
 
 ..3e§onio 
 §raciKs 
 
 Blanc 
 
 Echelte: 
 
 il I I f I 
 
 ELaAN of SUJSTKEISt GA'RlDEt^ (C/'^Si^IJV CR^Z/pC) 
 
 two Mollets, the brothers Boyceau, de la Barau- 
 derie and Jacques de Menours, and all suc- 
 cessively held the post of Superintendent of the 
 Garden of the King. 
 In these royal gardens there was always a 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 31 
 
 distinctly notable feature, the grand roiales, the 
 principal avenues, or alleys, which were here 
 found on a more ambitious scale than in any of 
 the private gardens of the nobility. The central 
 avenue was always of the most generous pro- 
 portions, the nomenclature coming from royal 
 — the grand ratal being the equivalent of Allee 
 Roy ale, that is, Avenue Royal. 
 
 By the end of the sixteenth century the Gar- 
 den of the Tuileries, which was later to be entirely 
 transformed by Le Notre, offered an interesting 
 aspect of the parquet at its best. In ^^ Paris a 
 Tr avers les Ages^^ one reads that from the win- 
 dows of the palace the garden resembled a great 
 checker-board containing more than a hundred 
 uniform carreaux. There were six wide longi- 
 tudinal alleys or avenues cut across by eight or 
 ten smaller alleys which produced this rectangular 
 effect. Within some of the squares were single, 
 or grouped trees; in others the conventional 
 quincunx; others were mere expanses of lawn, 
 and still others had flowers arranged in sym- 
 metrical patterns. In one of these squares was 
 a design which showed the escutcheons of the 
 arms of France and those of the Medici. These 
 gardens of the Tuileries were first modified by 
 a project of Bernard Palissy, the porcelainiste. 
 He let his fancy have full sway and the criss- 
 
32 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 cross alleys and avenues were set out at their 
 junctures with moulded ornaments, enamelled 
 miniatures, turtles in faience and frogs in porce- 
 lain. It was this, perhaps, which gave the im- 
 petus to the French for their fondness to-day 
 for similar effects, but Bernard Pahssy doubtless 
 never went so far as plaster cats on a ridgepole, 
 as one may see to-day on many a pretty villa in 
 northern France. This certainly lent an element 
 of picturesqueness to the Renaissance Garden 
 of the Louvre, a development of the same spirit 
 which inspired this artist in his collaboration 
 at Chenonceaux. This was the formula which 
 produced the jardin delectable, an exaggeration 
 of the taste of the epoch, but still critical of its 
 time. 
 
 The gardens of the Renaissance readily divided 
 themselves into two classes, those of the par- 
 terres a compartiments and those of the parterres 
 de hroderies. The former, under Francis I and 
 Henri II, were divided into geometrical com- 
 partments thoroughly in the taste of the Renais- 
 sance, but bordered frequently with representa- 
 tions of designs taken from Venetian lace and 
 various other contemporary stuffs. There were 
 other parterres, where the compartments were 
 planned on a more utilitarian scale; in other 
 words, they were the potagers which rendered 
 
<^ 
 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 33 
 
 the garden, said Olivier de Serres, one of "prof- 
 itable beauty." Some of the compartments were 
 devoted entirely to herbs and medicinal plants 
 v^hile others were entirely given over to flowers. 
 In general the compartments were renewed twice 
 a year, in May and August. 
 
 The Grand Parterre at Fontainebleau, called 
 in other days the Parterre de Tiber, offered as 
 remarkable an example of the terrace garden 
 as was to be found in France, the terraces rising 
 a metre or more above the actual garden plot 
 and enclosing a sort of horticultural arena. 
 
 It was in the sixteenth century that architec- 
 tural motives came to be incorporated into the 
 gardens in the form of square, round or octagonal 
 pavilions, and here and there were added con- 
 siderable areas of tiled pavements, features which 
 were found at their best in the gardens of the 
 Chateau de Gaillon and at Langeais. 
 
 One special and distinct feature of the French 
 Renaissance garden was the labyrinth, of which 
 three forms were known. The first was com- 
 posed of merely low borders, the second of hedges 
 shoulder high, or even taller, and the third was 
 practically a roofed-over grove. The latter in- 
 vention was due, it is said, to the discreet 
 Louis XIV. In the Tuileries garden, in the time 
 of Catherine de Medici, there was a labyrinth 
 
34 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 greatly in vogue with the Parisian nobles who 
 "found much pleasure in amusing themselves 
 therein." 
 
 In that garden the labyrinth was sometimes 
 called the "Road of Jerusalem" and it was pre- 
 sumably of eastern origin. 
 
 Jn the seventeenth century grottos came to 
 be added to the garden, though this is seemingly 
 an Italian tradition of much earlier date. Among 
 the notable grottos of this time were that of the 
 Jar din des Pins at Fontainebleau, and that of 
 the Chateau de Meudon, built by Philibert De- 
 lorme, of which Ronsard celebrated its beauties 
 in verse. The art was not confined to the gar- 
 dens of royalties and the nobility, for the bour- 
 geoisie speedily took up with the puerile idea 
 (said to have come from Holland, by the way), 
 and built themselves grottos of shells, plaster 
 and boulders. It was then that the chiens de 
 faience, which the smug Paris suburbanite of 
 to-day so loves, were born. 
 
 ^By the seventeenth century the equalized 
 carreaux of the early geometrically disposed 
 gardens were often replaced with the oblongs, 
 circles and, somewhat timidly introduced, more 
 bizarre forms, the idea being to give variety to 
 the ensemble. There was less fear for the artis- 
 tic effect of great open spaces than had formerly 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 35 
 
 existed, and the avenues and alleys were con- 
 siderably enlarged, and such architectural and 
 sculptural accessories as fountains, balustrades 
 and perrons were designed on a more extensive 
 scale. Basins and canals and other restrained 
 surfaces of water began to appear on a larger 
 scale, and greater insistence was put upon their 
 proportions with regard to the decorative part 
 which they were to play in the ensemble. 
 
 This was the preparatory period of the coming 
 into being of the works of Le Notre and Mansart. 
 
 The Grand Steele lent a profound majesty to 
 royal and noble dwellings, and its effect is no 
 less to be remarked upon than the character of 
 their gardens. The moving spirit which or- 
 dained all these things was the will of the Roi 
 Soleil. 
 
 Parterres and hroderies were designed on even 
 a grander scale than before. They were fre- 
 quently grouped into four equal parts with a 
 circular basin in the centre, and mirror-like basins 
 of water sprang up on all sides. 
 
 \ Close to the royal dwelling was the fore-court, 
 as often dressed out with flowers and lawn as 
 with tiles and flags. From it radiated long alleys 
 and avenues, stretching out almost to infinity. 
 At this time the grass-plots were developed to 
 high order, and there were groves, rest-houses. 
 
36 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 bowers, and theatres de verdure at each turning. 
 Tennis-courts came to be a regularly installed 
 accessory, and the basins and "mirrors" of 
 water were frequently supplemented by cascades, 
 and some of the canals were so large that barges 
 of state floated thereon. Over some of the canals 
 bridges were built as fantastic in design as those 
 of the Japanese, and again others as monumental 
 as the Pont Neuf. 
 
 ._Jn their majestic regularity the French gar- 
 dens of the seventeenth century possessed an 
 admirable solemnity, albeit their amplitude and 
 majesty give rise to justifiable criticism. It is 
 this criticism that qualifies the values of such 
 gardens as those of Versailles and Vaux, but one 
 must admit that the scale on which they were 
 planned has much to do with this, and cer- 
 tainly if they had been attached to less majestic 
 edifices the comment would have been even more 
 justifiable. As it is, the criticism must be quahfied. 
 The aspect of the garden by this time 
 had been greatly modified. Aside from such 
 great ensembles as those of Versailles was now 
 to be considered a taste for something smaller, 
 but often overcrowded with accessories of the 
 same nature, which compared so well with the 
 vastness of Versailles, but which, on the other 
 hand, looked so out of place in miniature. 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 37 
 
 It was not long now before the "style pom- 
 padour'' began to make itself shown with regard 
 to garden design — the exaggeration of an un- 
 deniable grace by an affected mannerism. All 
 the rococco details which had been applied to 
 architecture now began to find their duplication 
 in the garden rockeries — weird fantasies built 
 of plaster and even shells of the sea. 
 
 By later years of the eighteenth century there 
 came on the scene as a designer of gardens one, 
 De Neufforge. His work was a prelude to the clas- 
 sicism of the style of Louis XVI which was to 
 come. There was, too, at this time a disposition 
 towards the English garden, but only a slight 
 tendency, though towards 1780 the conventional 
 French garden had been practically abandoned. 
 The revolution in the art of garden-making 
 therefore preceded that of the world of politics 
 by some years. 
 
 ^ There are three or four works which give 
 specific details on these questions. They are 
 *'Z>e la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance,^^ 
 by Blondel (1773), his ^^Cours d'^ Architecture^^ 
 of the same date, and Panseron's volume entitled 
 ^^Recueil de Jardinage,^^ published in 1783. 
 
 yThe following brief resume shows the various 
 steps through which the French formal garden 
 passed. In the moyen-age the garden was a thing 
 
38 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 quite apart from the dwelling, and was but a 
 diminutive dooryard sort of a garden. The gar- 
 den of the Renaissance amplified the regular lines 
 which existed in the moyen-age, but was often 
 quite as little in accord with the dwelling that 
 it surrounded as its predecessor. 
 
 The union of the garden and the dwelling 
 and its dependencies was clearly marked under 
 Louis XIV, while the gardens of Louis XV tended 
 somewhat to modify the grand lines and the majes- 
 tic presence of those of his elder. These gardens 
 of Louis XV were more fantastic, and followed 
 less the lines of traditional good taste. Shapes 
 and forms were complicated and indeed inex- 
 plicably mixed into a melange that one could 
 hardly recognize for one thing or another, cer- 
 tainly not as examples of any well-meaning styles 
 which have lasted until to-day. The straight 
 line now disappeared in favour of the most dis- 
 solute and irrational curves imaginable, and the 
 sober majesty of the gardens of Louis XIV be- 
 came a tangle of warring elements, fine in parts 
 and not uninteresting, effective, even, here and 
 there, but as a whole an aggravation. 
 
 Finally the reaction came for something more 
 simple and more in harmony with rational taste. 
 
 Jhe best example remaining of the Louis XV 
 garden is that which surrounds the Pavilion de 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 39 
 
 Musique of the Petit Trianon, an addition to 
 the garden which Louis XIV had given to the 
 Grand Trianono By comparison with the big 
 garden of Le Notre this latter conception is as 
 a boudoir to a reception hall. 
 
 The garden of Louis XVI was a composite, 
 with interpolations from across the Rhine, from 
 Holland and Belgium and from England even; 
 features which got no great hold, however, but 
 which, for a time, gave it an air less French than 
 anything which had gone before. 
 ^From the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 the formal garden was practically abandoned 
 in France. It was the period of the real deca- 
 dence of the formal garden. This came not from 
 one cause alone but from many. To the straight 
 lines and gentle curves of former generations 
 upon generations of French gardens were added 
 sinuosities as varied and complicated as those 
 of the Vale of Cashmere, and again, with tiny 
 stars and crescents and what not, the ground 
 resembled an ornamental ceiling more than it 
 did a garden. The sentimentalism of the epoch 
 did its part, and accentuated the desire to carry 
 out personal tastes rather than build on tradi- 
 tionally accepted hnes. The taste for the English 
 garden grew apace in France, and many a noble 
 plantation was remodelled on these lines, or 
 
40 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 rooted up altogether. Immediately neighbour- 
 ing upon the dwelling the garden still bore some 
 resemblance to its former outlines, but, as it 
 drew farther away, it became a park, a wildwood 
 or a preserve. 
 
 Isabey Pere, a miniaturist, under Napoleonic 
 stimulus, designed a number of French gardens 
 in the early years of the nineteenth century, 
 following more or less the conventional lines of 
 the best work of the seventeenth century, and 
 succeeded admirably in a small way in resuscita- 
 ting the fallen taste. Isabey's gardens may have 
 lacked much that was remarkable in the best 
 work of Le Notre, but they were considerably 
 better than anything of a similar nature, so far 
 as indicating a commendable desire to return 
 to better ideals. 
 
 Under the Second Empire a great impulse 
 was given to garden design and making in Paris 
 itself. It was then that the parks and squares 
 came really to enter into the artistic conception 
 of what a city beautiful should be. 
 
 Leaving the gardens of the Tuileries and the 
 Luxembourg out of the question, the Pare Mon- 
 ceau and that of the Buttes Chaumont of to-day, 
 the descendants of these first Paris gardens show 
 plainly how thoroughly good they were in design 
 and execution. 
 
The Evolution of French Gardens 41 
 
 The majority of professional gardeners of re- 
 nown in France made their first successes with 
 the gardens of the city of Paris, reproducing the 
 best of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth 
 century work, which had endured without the 
 competition of later years having dulled its beauty, 
 though perhaps the parterres of to-day are rather 
 more warm in colouring, even cruder, than those 
 of a former time. 
 
 The jardin fleuriste and the parterre horticole 
 of the nineteenth century appealed however 
 quite as much in their general arrangement 
 and the modification of their details and their 
 rainbow colours, as any since the time of Louis 
 XVI. According to the expert definition the jar- 
 din fleuriste was a ''garden reserved exclusively to 
 the culture and ornamental disposition of plants 
 giving forth rich leaves and beautiful flowers." 
 The above quoted description is decidedly apt. 
 The seventeenth century French garden formed 
 a superb framing for the animated fetes and 
 reunions in which took part such a brilliant 
 array of lords and ladies of the court as may 
 have been invited to taste the delicacies of a 
 fete amid such luxurious appointments. 
 
 vThe fashionable and courtly life of the day, 
 so far as its open-air aspect was concerned, cen- 
 tered around these gardens and parks of the 
 
42 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 great houses of royalty and the nobility. The 
 costume of the folk of the time, with cloak and 
 sword and robes of silk and velvet and gilded 
 carriages and chaises-a-porteurs, had little in 
 common with the out-of-door garden-party life 
 of to-day, where the guests arrive in automo- 
 biles, be-rugged and be-goggled and somewhat 
 the worse for a dusty journey. It is for this 
 reason that Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte, in 
 spite of the suggestion of sumptuousness which 
 they still retain, are, from all points of view, 
 more or less out of scale with the life of our times. 
 The modern garden, whether laid out in reg- 
 ular hues, or on an ornamental scale, as a flower 
 garden purely, or in a composite style, is usually 
 but an adjunct to the modern chateau, villa or 
 cottage. It is more intimate than the vast, 
 more theatrically disposed area of old, and is 
 more nearly an indication of the personal tastes 
 of the owner because of its restrained propor- 
 tions. 
 
! ■ 
 
 
 Bassin de la Couronne, Vaux-le-Vicomte 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ROYAL HUNT IN FRANCE 
 
 Just how great a part the royal hunt played 
 in the open-air life of the French court all who 
 know their French history and have any familiar- 
 ity with the great forests of France well recog- 
 nize. 
 
 The echo of French country architecture as 
 evinced in the '^maisons de plaismice^^ and ^^ren- 
 dezvous de chasse^^ scattered up and down the 
 France of monarchial times lives until to-day, 
 scarcely fainter than when the note was originally 
 sounded. Often these establishments were some- 
 thing more than a mere hunting-lodge, or 
 shooting-box, indeed they generally aspired to 
 the proportions of what may readily be accepted 
 as a country-house. They established a specious 
 type of architecture which in many cases grew, 
 in later years, into a chateau or palace of mani- 
 festly magnificent appointments. 
 
 At the great hunting exposition recently held 
 at Vienna the clou of the display was a French 
 royal hunting-lodge in the style of Louis XVI, 
 
 43 
 
44 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 hung with veritable Gobelin tapestries, loaned 
 by the French government and picturing "The 
 Hunt in France." It v^as called by the critics 
 a unique painting in a beautiful frame. 
 
 In the days of Francis I and his sons, the 
 royal hunt was given a great impetus by Catherine 
 de Medici, wife of Henri II. 
 
 Francis, in company with his sons, had gone 
 to Marseilles to meet the Medici bride, who 
 was on her way to make her home at the Paris 
 Louvre, and when he found her possessed of so 
 lively manners and such great intelligence he 
 became so charmed with her that, it is said, he 
 danced with her all of the first evening. What 
 pleased the monarch even more, and perhaps 
 not less his sons, was that she shot with an arque- 
 buse like a sharpshooter, and could ride to 
 hounds like a natural-born Amazon. She was 
 more than a rival, as it afterwards proved, of 
 that arch-huntress, Diane de Poitiers. 
 
 History recounts in detail that last royal hunt 
 of Francis I at Rambouillet, when he was lying 
 near to death, the guest of his old friend, d'An- 
 gennes. 
 
 The old manor, half hunting-lodge, half for- 
 tress, and very nearly royal in all its appointments, 
 proved a comfortable enough rest-house, and 
 on the day after his arrival, in March, 1547, the 
 
The Royal Hunt in France 45 
 
 monarch commanded the preparations for a 
 royal hunt to commence at daybreak in the 
 neighbouring forest. 
 
 • The equipage started forth in full ceremonial 
 on the quest of stag and boar. The bugles blew 
 and a sort of stimulated courage once more 
 entered the king's breast, courage born of the 
 excitement around him, the baying of the hounds 
 and the tramping and neighing of impatient 
 horses. He had forced himself from his bed 
 and on horseback and started off with the rest, 
 defying the better counsel of his retainers. 
 
 tHis strength proved to be born of a fictitious 
 enthusiasm, and, speedily losing interest, he was 
 brought back to the manor where he had his 
 apartments, and put speechless and half dead 
 to bed, actually dying the next day from this 
 last over-exertion, scarce half a century of the 
 span of his life accomplished. 
 
 , Henri de Navarre also was a true lover of the 
 open. Born in a mountain town in the Pyrenees 
 he would rather camp on a bed of pine needles 
 in the forest than lie on a tuft of down. He 
 preferred his beloved Bayonne ham, spiced with 
 garlic, to a sumptuous dinner in Jarnet house, 
 a famous Paris tavern of the day; and had rather 
 quench his thirst with a quaff of the wine of 
 Juran^on than the finest cru in Paris cellars. 
 
46 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 He hated the parade of courts, was dirty, 
 unkempt and careless, a genuine son of the soil, 
 heedless of fate, and an excellent huntsman. 
 
 Up to the seventeenth century the ladies of 
 the French court showed a keener interest for 
 falconry than for the hunt by horse and hounds. 
 
 The heroines of the Fronde, and the genera- 
 tion which followed, seemed to lose interest in 
 this form of sport, and gave their favour to packs 
 of hounds, and followed with equal interest the 
 hunt for deer, wolves, boars, foxes and hares 
 as they were tracked through forests and over 
 arid wastes. 
 
 The old hunting horn, the winding horn of 
 romance, still exists at the hunts of France, 
 a relic of the days of Louis XIV. It sounds 
 the conventional comings and goings of the hunts- 
 men in the same classic phraseology as of old 
 — the lancer, the hien allee, the vue, the ckange- 
 ment de foret, the accompagne, the hat Peau, the 
 hallali par terre, and the curee. 
 
 The ^^ Curee aux Flambeaux^* was one of the 
 most picturesque ceremonies connected with the 
 royal hunt in France. It began in the gallant 
 days, and lived even until the time of the Second 
 Empire. 
 
 The curee, that is the giving up to the hounds 
 the remains of an animal slain in chase, does 
 
A '^ Curee aux Flauiheaux 
 
The Royal Hunt in France 47 
 
 not always take place at night, but when it does 
 the torches play the part of impressive and pic- 
 turesque accessories. When a curee takes place 
 at the spot where the animal is actually killed 
 the French sporting term for the ceremony is 
 ''force et abattu.^^ This, however, is usually pre- 
 ceded by another called ''/e pied,^^ which con- 
 sists in cutting off one of the feet of the dead 
 animal and offering it to the person in whose 
 honor the hunt was held. 
 
 ■When the curee takes place by torchlight the 
 body of the animal is carried beneath the win- 
 dows of the chateau, a circle is formed by the 
 '^ piqueurs,^^ or head hunters, and all who have 
 participated in the pursuit; and, to the sound 
 of a trumpet, loaned by the sportsmen, one of 
 the valets de venerie cuts up the stag. The 
 meuteSy that is to say, the hounds which are let 
 slip last of all, and which terminates the chase 
 — are then brought by the valet des chiens, who 
 has great difficulty in keeping them from break- 
 ing loose. When the entrails have been cut 
 away the valet sits astride the animal, holding 
 up the nappe, or head and neck, shaking it at 
 the already furious hounds. It is the care of the 
 valet during this interval to conceal the pieces 
 of flesh which are still under the body. The 
 hounds are then loosened, but are kept within 
 
48 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 bounds by the whips of the piqueurs and the 
 valet des chiens. When the dogs are sufficiently 
 exasperated the brutes are allowed to rush upon 
 the remains of their victim; only, however, to 
 be driven back again by whipping. When their 
 docility has thus been proven the definite signal, 
 ''lachez tout,'' is given, and the hounds rush 
 towards the stag. 
 
 The curee then presents a savage spectacle: 
 the air is filled with growling, barking and yell- 
 ing, while the ground is covered with scrambling 
 dogs, their mouths reeking with blood. 
 
 The feminine costume for the hunt in the 
 time of Louis XIII was of broadcloth or velvet, 
 with a great feather-ornamented ^^ picture" hat. 
 Only now and again a lady on horseback after 
 1650 dared borrow doublet and jacket, and 
 mount astride. 
 
 The ladies followed the hunt of Louis XIV 
 on horseback, seldom, if ever, in the older manner 
 of sitting behind their cavalier on the same steed. 
 I From the time of Catherine de Medici, indeed, 
 the Italian side-saddle had become the fashion 
 for women. 
 
 Under Louis XV the ladies sought a little 
 more comfort, apd followed the equipage sitting 
 in a sort of hamper-like, diminutive basket, 
 hung from the broad back of a sturdy quadruped. 
 
The Royal Hunt in France 49 
 
 Dresses became more fanciful, both in materials 
 and colours. From this it was but a step to even 
 more elaborate toilettes which necessitated a 
 conveyance of some sort on wheels, but the most 
 intrepid still clung to the traditionally classic 
 methods. Marie Antoinette had her equipage 
 de chassej and Madame Durfort was constantly 
 abroad in the forests of Montmorency and Boissy, 
 directing the operation of eight or ten profes- 
 sional huntsmen. Among her guests were fre- 
 quently the ambassadors of Prussia, Russia 
 and Austria. 
 
 In the time of Louis XIV the Comtesse de 
 Lude devoted herself to the hunt with a frenzy 
 born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head 
 of a pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on 
 one occasion, penetrated on horseback, followed 
 by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns of the 
 Convent of Estival. 
 
 By the end of the seventeenth century the hunt 
 in France had become no more a sport for ladies. 
 Hunting was still a noble sport, but it was more 
 for men than for women. The court hunted 
 not only in royal company, but accepted in- 
 vitations from any seigneur who possessed an 
 ample preserve and who could put up a good 
 kill; magistrates, financiers and bishops, indeed 
 all classes, became followers of the hunt. 
 
50 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 Montgaillard tells of a hunt in which he took 
 part on the feast day of Saint Bernard, with 
 the monks of the Bernardin Convent in Langue- 
 doc. In the episcopal domain of Saverne six 
 hundred beaters were employed on one occasion 
 to provide sport for an assembled company of 
 lords and ladies. These were the days when 
 the bishops were in truth Grand Seigneurs. 
 
 vThe women of the court, while they played 
 the game, ceded nothing to the men in bravery. 
 Neither rain, hail nor snow frightened them. 
 On the 28th of June, 1713, Louis XIV was hunt- 
 ing the deer at Rambouillet when a terrific, 
 cyclonic storm fell upon the equipage, but not 
 a man nor woman in the monarch's party quit. 
 The Duchesse de Berry was "wet to the skin," 
 but her ardour for the hunt was not in the least 
 cooled. 
 
 \ To-day at Fontainebleau or Rambouillet the 
 echo is sounded from the hunting horn of La- 
 baudy, the sugar-king, who pulls off at least 
 two ''hunts," with his spectacular equipage, 
 each year, and it is a sight too; a French hunting 
 party was ever picturesque, and if to-day not 
 as practical as the more blood-loving English- 
 man's hunt, is at least traditionally sentimental, 
 even artificial to the extent, at any rate, that it 
 seems stagy, even to the inclusion of the auto- 
 mobiles which bring and carry away the partici- 
 
The Royal Hunt in Prance 51 
 
 pants. ^' Other days, other ways "never had a 
 more strict application than to la chasse a courre 
 in France. 
 
 Two accounts are here given of two com- 
 paratively modern figures in the French hunting 
 field, which show the great store set by the sport 
 in France. 
 
 In the annals of the Chateau de Grosbois, 
 belonging to-day to the Prince de Wagram, are 
 the accounts of an early nineteenth century hunt, 
 which shows that the game cost dear. The 
 "Grand Veneur" of the Napoleonic reign was 
 a master sportsman, indeed, and to-day, in a 
 gallery of the chateau, are preserved the guns of 
 the master, his hunting crop and saddle, his 
 "colours" and his hunting horn. 
 
 From the registers of the chateau, under date 
 of December lo, 1809, the following, which con- 
 cerned a hunting party given by the chatelain, 
 is extracted verbatim. 
 Note of the Maitre d'Hotel for colla- 
 tions for the guests 8,226 francs 
 
 Illuminations 1,080 francs 
 
 Gratifications to the beaters 1,000 francs 
 
 Eau de Cologne for the ladies . . 30 francs 
 
 Gun-bearers 148 francs 
 
 Helpers (150) 600 francs 
 
 Aids (200) 315 francs 
 
52 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Another hunt was given in 1811, in honour of 
 Napoleon, when such items as three thousand 
 francs for an orchestra, a hke sum for bouquets 
 for the ladies, a thousand or two for bonbons 
 and fans, and twelve thousand for hired furni- 
 ture, etc., to say nothing of the expenses of the 
 hunt itself, made the bag somewhat costly. It 
 was not always easy for the master of the hunt 
 to get justice when it came to paying for his sup- 
 plies, and in these same records a mention of a 
 dozen leather breeches at a hundred and forty 
 francs each was crossed off and a marginal note, 
 NoUj added in the hand of Marechal Berthier, 
 Prince de Wagram, himself. 
 
 The chief figure in the French hunting world 
 of' to-day is another descendant of the Napo- 
 leonic portrait gallery. Prince Murat. At the 
 age of twelve the young Prince Joachim had 
 already followed the hounds at Fontainebleau 
 and Compiegne. In his double quality of rela- 
 tive and companion of the Prince Imperial he 
 was one of the chiefs of the equipment of the Im- 
 perial Hunt. To-day, though well past the span 
 of life, he is as active and as enduring in his 
 participation in the strenuous sport as many a 
 younger man and his knowledge of the grand 
 art of venerie-y and his ardour for being always 
 ahead with the hounds, is noted by all who may 
 
n^ *^^r".- /~V^' * - -n _ v.''- 
 
 1 
 
 4n frhteriai Hunt ai Fontainehleau 
 
3 and Parks of France 
 
 u..,,i - .c nyQYi in (8iij in honour of 
 
 . i items as three thousand 
 
 . stra, a like sum for bouquets 
 
 ^liousand or two for bonbons 
 
 ive thousand for hired furni- 
 
 ofhinrr o^ the expenses of the 
 
 omewhat costly. It 
 
 master of the hunt 
 
 it came to paying for his sup- 
 
 ' se same records a mention of a 
 
 .1 hundred and forty 
 
 francs eac crossed oil and a marginal note, 
 
 Non, aHd- the hand of Marechai Berthier, 
 
 Pri; im, himself. 
 
 :-<jay IS another descendant of the Napo- 
 
 nrailery. Prince Murat. At the 
 
 he young Prince Joachim had 
 
 •ed the hounds at Fontainebleau 
 
 a his double quality of rela- 
 
 uon of the Prince Imperial he 
 
 the chiefs of the equipment of the Im- 
 
 i Hui vday, though well past the span 
 
 di active and as enduring in his 
 
 in the strenuous sport as many a 
 
 '}(1 his knowledge of the grand 
 
 rid his ardour for being always 
 
 axiuuu wiUi UiC iiounds, is noted by all who may 
 
The Royal Hunt in France 53 
 
 happen to see him while jaunting through the 
 Foret de Compiegne, keeping well up with the 
 traditions of his worthy elder, the "Premier 
 Cavalier'* of the First Empire, the King of Naples. 
 
 He won his first stripes in the hunting field 
 at Compiegne in 1868, at a hunt given in honour 
 of the Prince de Hohenzollern and the Princesse, 
 who was the sister of the King of Portugal. It 
 was a most moving event, so much so that it just 
 escaped being turned into a drama, for one of 
 the ladies of the court had a leg broken, and the 
 minister, Fould, was almost mortally injured. 
 A ^^dix cors,^^ a stag with antlers of ten branches, 
 had been run down at the Rond Royal where it 
 had taken refuge in a near-by copse, and after 
 an hour's hard chase was finally cornered in 
 the courtyard of some farm buildings of the 
 Hameau d'Orillets. A troop of cows was en- 
 tering the courtyard at the same moment, and a 
 most confused melee ensued. The Inspector 
 of Forests saved the situation and the cows 
 of the farmer, and the stag fell to the carabine 
 of Prince de la Moskowa, with the young Prince 
 Murat on his pony in the very front rank. 
 
 Thus early initiated in the chivalrous sport 
 of the hunt the young man followed every hunt, 
 big or little, which was held in the environs of 
 Paris for many years, and by the time that he 
 
54 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 came to possess the epaulettes of an Officier de 
 Cuirassiers he was known to all the hunts from 
 the Ardennes to Anjou. 
 
 For the past generation he has been retired 
 to civil life by a Republican decree, and since 
 that time has lived in his suburban Paris prop- 
 erty, devoting himself to the raising of hunters. 
 Here he lives almost on the borders of that great 
 extent of forest which occupies the northern 
 section of the He de France, occasionally organiz- 
 ing a hunt, which takes on not a little of the noble 
 aspect of a former time, the prince following 
 always within sound of the hunting horn and the 
 baying of the hounds, if not actually always 
 within sight of the quarry. 
 
 lit is here, in his Villa Normande, near which 
 Saint Ouen gave Dagobert that famous counsel 
 which has gone down in history, that the Prince 
 and Princesse Murat come to pass two or three 
 months each year with their children, their al- 
 lied parents and the "great guns" of the old 
 regime who still gather about the master of the 
 hunt as courtiers gather around their king. 
 
 At Chamblay there have been held magnificent 
 gun shoots under the organization of the prince 
 and his equipage. His kennels contain forty- 
 eight of the finest bred hounds in France, and 
 are guarded by three care-takers, the goader, 
 
The Royal Hunt in France 55 
 
 Carl, whose fame has reached every hunting 
 court of Europe and a couple of valets des chiens. 
 The prince's colours are distributed as follows: 
 a huzzar jacket of blue, with collar, plaquettes, 
 and vest of grenadine and breeches of a darker 
 blue. 
 
 Formerly Prince Murat hunted the roe-deer 
 in the valley of the Oise, but many enclosures 
 of private property having made this exceedingly 
 difficult in later years he is to-day obliged to 
 go farther afield. In the spring the equipage 
 goes to Rosny, near Mantes, and perhaps during 
 the same season occasionally to Rambouillet. 
 
 The hunts at Chamblay are the perfection of 
 the practice of the art. Seldom, is the quarry 
 wanting. The refrain of the Ode to Saint Hubert 
 lauds the prowess of this great "Maitre d'Equi- 
 page." 
 
 " Par Saint Hubert mon patron 
 C'est quel que due de haut renom 
 
 Sonnez : ecuyers et piqueux 
 Un Murat vien en ces lieux." 
 
 Chamblay fortunately being neither populous 
 nor near a great town there is no throng of curi- 
 ous spectators hovering about to get in the way 
 and scare the game and the hounds and their 
 followers out of their wits. The Chasse de 
 
56 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Chamblay is the devotion of the vrais veneurs; 
 the Prince Murat and his son, the Prince Joachim, 
 (to-day at the military school at Saint Cyr), the 
 Prince Eugene Murat, the Comte de Vallon, 
 the Baron de Neuflize and a few famous veneurs 
 in gay uniforms come from afar to give eclat 
 to the hunt of the master. And the ladies: 
 the following names are of those devoted to the 
 prowess of the Prince Murat — Madame la Prin- 
 cesse, la Princesse Marguerite Murat, Mademoi- 
 selle d'Elchingen, the Duchesse and the Mar- 
 quise d'Albufera, the Duchesse de Camestra, 
 and Madame ICraft. 
 
 From this one sees that romance is not all 
 smouldering. If other proof were wanting a 
 perusal of that most complete and interesting 
 account of the hunt in France in modern times, 
 ^^Les Chasses de RambouilleV (Ouvrage offert 
 far Monsieur Felix Faure) would soon establish 
 it. This was not a work destined for the public 
 at large. The hunt was ever a sport of kings 
 in France, and though France has become Re- 
 publican its Chasse Nationale at Rambouillet 
 partakes not a little of the aspect of those courtly 
 days when there was less up-to-dateness and 
 more sentiment. 
 
 There were but one hundred copies of this 
 work printed for the friends of the late president 
 
The Royal Hunt in France 57 
 
 of the Republic — ''Other Sovereigns," as the 
 dedication reads, "Princes, Grand Dukes, Am- 
 bassadors." 
 
 Rambouillet was the theatre of the most splendid 
 hunts of the sixteenth century, and down through 
 the ages it has ever held a preeminent place; 
 holds it to-day even. Louis XVI in the Rev- 
 olutionary torment even regretted the cutting 
 off of his prerogative of the royal hunt, but 
 he had no choice in the matter. In his journal 
 of 1789 one reads: "the cerf runs alone in the 
 Pare en Bas" (Rambouillet), and again in 
 1790: "Seance of the National Assembly at 
 noon; Audience of a deputation in the afternoon. 
 The deer plentiful at Gambayseuil. " 
 
 The Revolution felled many French institu- 
 tions; low, great, ecclesiastical and monarchial 
 monuments, the trees of the forest, and the royal 
 game, by a system of poaching, had become 
 greatly diminished in quantity. 
 
 The nineteenth century, so frankly democratic 
 in its latter years, was less favourable to the 
 hunt than the monarchial days which had gone 
 before. It had a considerable prominence under 
 Charles X, more perhaps than it ever had under 
 Napoleon, who in his infancy and laborious 
 adolescence had few opportunities of following 
 it ; and in the later years of his life he was too busy. 
 
58 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Napoleon III was not really a *^good hunter,'' 
 though he was something of a marksman and 
 took a considerable pride in his skill in that 
 accomplishment. 
 
 Entering the democratic era, Jules Grevy 
 seems to have been only a pot-hunter of the 
 bourgeoisie, who practiced the art only because 
 he wanted a jugged hare for his dinner, or again 
 simply to kill time. 
 
 Sadi-Carnot was still less a hunter of the ro- 
 mantic school, but assisted frequently at the 
 ceremonial shootings which were arranged for 
 visiting monarchs. On one occasion he was 
 put down on the record-sheet of a hunt at Ram- 
 bouillet as responsible only for the death of 
 eighteen heads, whilst a visiting Grand Duke 
 pulled down a hundred and fifty. 
 \ It was notably during the presidency of Felix 
 Faure that Rambouillet again took on its ani- 
 mation of former times. The chateau had 
 been furbished up once more after a long sleep, 
 and, to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants 
 of the town, there were more comings and goings 
 than there had been for a quarter of a century. 
 
 In the summer and autumn the president 
 made Rambouillet his preferred residence, and 
 there received many visiting sovereigns and 
 notables of all ranks. In one year a score 
 
The Royal Hunt in France 59 
 
 of ''Official Hunts" were held, to which all the 
 members of the diplomatic corps were invited, 
 while there were two or three affairs of an ''In- 
 ternational" character in honour of visiting sov- 
 ereigns. 
 
 All was under the control of the Grand Veneur 
 of the Third Republic, the Comte de Girardin, 
 and while a truly royal flavour may have been 
 lacking the general aspect was much the same 
 as it might have been in the days of the monarchy. 
 The Captain of the Hunt under Felix Faure 
 was the Inspector of Forests, Leddet, and the 
 Premier Veneur was the Commandant Lagarenne. 
 ' The president himself was a marksman of 
 the first rank, and never w^as there a reckoning 
 up of the tableau but that he was near the head 
 of the list. So accomplished was he with the 
 rifle that on more than one occasion he was obliged 
 to practically efface himself in favour of some 
 visiting monarch, as it was said he did in the 
 case of the King of Portugal in 1895, the Grand 
 Dues Vladimir and Nicolas in 1896. 
 
 Huntsmen not royal by virtue of title, or al- 
 liance, the Republican president beat to a stand- 
 still. He had no pity nor favour for a mere am- 
 bassador, whether he hailed from England or 
 Germany, nor for members of the Institute, 
 Senators nor Deputies. With Prince Albert of 
 
60 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Monaco he held himself equal, and for every 
 bird shot on the wing by the head of the house 
 of Grimaldi the "longshoreman" of Havre 
 brought down another. 
 
 La chasse a courre before the law in France 
 to-day may be practiced only under strictly 
 laid down conditions. The huntsman must le- 
 gally have his dogs under such control, and keep 
 sufficiently close to them, as to be able to recover 
 the quarry immediately after it has been closed 
 in upon by the hounds. 
 
 Like shooting, since the Decree of 1844, hunt- 
 ing with hounds may only be undertaken under 
 authority of a permis de chasse, and in open 
 season, during the daytime, and with the consent 
 of the owners over whose properties the hunt 
 is to be held. 
 
 The ceremony of the hunt in France now fol- 
 lows the traditions of the classic hunt of the 
 monarchy. The veneur decides on the rendez- 
 vous, whether the quarry be stag or chevreuil, 
 fox or hare. The piqueur follows close up with 
 the dogs, sets them on or calls them off, and re- 
 calls them if they go off on a false scent. 
 
CHAPTER ivy 
 
 THE PALAIS DE LA CITE AND TOURNELLES 
 
 Not every one assumes the Paris Palais de 
 Justice to ever have been the home of kings and 
 queens. It has not, however, always been a tilt- 
 ing ground for lawyers and criminals, though, 
 no doubt, when one comes to think of it, it is 
 in that role that it has acted its most thrilling 
 episodes. 
 
 The Saint Chapelle, the Conciergerie and 
 the great clock of the Tour de THorloge mark 
 the Palais de Justice down in the books of most 
 folk as one of the chief Paris "sights," but it 
 was as a royal residence that it first came into 
 prominence. 
 
 This palace, not the conglomerate half-secular, 
 half-religious pile of to-day, but an edifice of 
 some considerable importance, existed from the 
 earliest days of the Frankish invasion, and 
 when occupied by Clotilde, the wife of Clovis, 
 was known as the Palais de la Cite. 
 
 Under the last of the kings of the First Race 
 this palace took on really splendid proportions. 
 
 61 
 
62 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 When Hugues Capet arrived on the throne he 
 abandoned the kingly residence formerly oc- 
 cupied by the Frankish rulers, the Palais des 
 Thermes, and installed his goods and chattels 
 in this Palais de la Cite, which his son Robert 
 had rebuilt under the direction of Enguerrand 
 de Marigny. 
 
 Up to the time of Francis I it remained the 
 preferred residence of the French monarchs, 
 regardless of the grander, more luxuriously dis- 
 posed Louvre, which had come into being. 
 
 Philippe Auguste, by a contrary caprice, would 
 transact no kingly business elsewhere, and it 
 was within the walls of this palace that he mar- 
 ried Denmark's daughter. His successors, Saint 
 Louis, Philippe-le-Hardi, and Philippe-le-Bel did 
 their part in enlarging and beautifying the struc- 
 ture, and Saint Louis laid the foundations of 
 that peerless Gothic gem — La Saint Chapelle. 
 
 From the windows of the Palais de la Cite 
 another Charles assisted at an official massacre, 
 differing little from that of Saint Bartholemew's, 
 which was conducted from the Louvre. 
 
 On the first floor of the Palais de Justice of 
 to-day is the apartment paved in a mosaic of 
 black and white marble, with a painted and 
 gilded wooden vaulting, where Charles V received 
 the Emperor Charles IV and the ^^Roi des Ro- 
 
Palais de la Cite and Touraelles 63 
 
 mains.'* The three monarchs, accompanied by 
 their famihes, here supped together around a 
 great round marble table, a secret supper prolific 
 of an entente cordiale which must have been the 
 forerunner of recent ceremonies of a similar 
 nature in France. 
 
 Known as the Salle de Marbre, this great 
 chamber came later to be the Tribunal where 
 the courts sat. It was only after the death of 
 Charles VI, at the beginning of the fifteenth 
 century, that the Palais de la Cite was given 
 over wholly to the disciples of Saint Yves, the 
 judges, advocates and notaries. It became also 
 the definite seat of the Parliament and took the 
 nomenclature of Palais de Justice, though still 
 inhabited at intermittent intervals by French 
 royalties. One such notable occasion was that 
 when Henry V of England was here married to 
 Catherine de France, and when Henry VI of 
 England took up his temporary residence here 
 as king to the French. 
 
 In the fourteenth century the precincts of the 
 Palais de la Cite — the open courtyard one as- 
 sumes is meant — were invaded by the stalls 
 of small shopkeepers, some of which actually 
 took root in wood and stone and became fixtures 
 to such an extent that the courtyard was known 
 as the Galerie des Merciers. 
 
64 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 The great marble chamber after becoming 
 the meeting place of the Tribunal played a part 
 at times dignified and at others banal. An in- 
 cident is recorded where the clerks and minor 
 court officials danced on the famous marble 
 table and "played farces" with the judicial 
 bench serving as a stage. It was said that, on 
 account of the immoralities which they repre- 
 sented, the authorities were obliged to suppress 
 the performances by law, as they have in recent 
 years the flagrant freedom of the "Quat'z Arts." 
 
 Up to the times of Francis I but few events 
 of importance unrolled themselves within the 
 Palais de la Cite, but in 1618 a violent con- 
 flagration broke out leaving only the round 
 towers of the Conciergerie, the tower and the 
 church, and that part of the main structure which 
 housed the great Salle de Marbre, unharmed. 
 Apropos of this, a joyous rhymester of the time 
 made the following quatrain: 
 
 " Certes ce fut un triste jeu 
 Quand a Paris Dame Justice 
 Pour avoir mange trop d'epice 
 Se mit le Palais tout en feu." 
 
 Jacques Debrosse was charged with rebuild- 
 ing the edifice after the fire and refitted first the 
 Grand Salle, to-day the famous Salle des Pas 
 
Palais de la Cite and Toumelles 65 
 
 Perdus, crowded with the shuffling coming and 
 going crowd of men and women whose business, 
 or no business at all, brings them to this central 
 point for the dissemination of legal gossip. It is 
 a magnificent apartment, and, to no great extent, 
 differs from what it was before the conflagration. 
 
 This Salle consists of two parallel .naves sepa- 
 rated by a range of arcades and lighted by two 
 great circular openings with four round-headed 
 windows at either end. Its attributes are prac- 
 tically the same as they were in 1622. The 
 structure, take it as a whole, may be said to 
 date only from the seventeenth century, but 
 certain it is that the old Palais de la Cite is in- 
 corporated therein, every stone of it, and if its 
 career was humdrum that was the fault of cir- 
 cumstances rather than from any inherent faults 
 of its own. 
 
 The Conciergerie, that inelegant, inconsistent 
 architectural mixture of the ancient and modern, 
 considered apart, though it properly enough is 
 usually considered with the Palais de Justice, 
 was formerly the dwelling or guardhouse of the 
 Concierge of the Palais de la Cite. His post was 
 not merely that of the keeper of the gates; he was 
 a personage at court and was as autocratic as his 
 more plebeian contemporaries of to-day, for the 
 Paris concierge, as we, who have for years lived 
 
66 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 under their despotism well know, is a very dread- 
 ful person. 
 
 In addition to being the governor of the royal 
 dwelling this concierge was the guardian of the 
 royal prisoners. In 1348 he was further invested 
 with the official title of Bailli and the post was, 
 at times, occupied by the highest and the most 
 noble in the land, among others Philippe de 
 Savoie, the friend of Charles VI, and Juvenal 
 des Oursins, the historian of this prince. The 
 first to combine the two functions, that of Bailli 
 and Concierge, was Jacques Coictier, the doctor 
 of Louis XI. 
 
 As a virtual prison the Conciergerie only came 
 to be transformed when Charles V quitted the 
 residence of the Palais de la Cite, and the Con- 
 ciergerie, as such, only figures on the Tournelles 
 registers under date of 1391. 
 
 The fire of the latter part of the eighteenth 
 century destroyed a large part of the building, 
 but enough remained to patch together the most 
 serviceable of Revolutionary prisons, for at one 
 time it held at least twelve hundred poor souls, 
 of whom two hundred and eighty-eight were 
 killed off at one fell blow. 
 
 But one woman among them all actually came 
 to her death within the prison walls. This was 
 La Belle Bouquetiere of the Palais Royal who, 
 
Palais de la Cite and Toumelles 67 
 
 in an access of jealous furor, horribly mutilated 
 a royal guardsman, and for this met a most cruel 
 death by being transfixed to a post and sub- 
 mitting to a trial of ^^le fer et le jeu.^^ In just 
 what manner the punishment was applied one 
 can best imagine for himself. 
 
 The Revolutionary role of the Conciergerie 
 is a thing apart from the purport of this book, 
 hence is not further referred to. 
 
 Going back to the time of Francis I, among 
 the famous prisoners of state were Louis de 
 Berquin, the Comte de Mongomere, the regicides 
 Ravaillac and Damiens, the Marechal d'Ancre, 
 Cartouche, Mandrin and others. To-day, as 
 a prison, the Conciergerie still performs its func- 
 tions acceptably, safeguarding those up for the 
 assizes, and those condemned to death before 
 being sent on their long journey. 
 
 The three great flanking towers of the Con- 
 ciergerie are its chief architectural distinction 
 to-day. That of the left, the largest, is the Tour 
 d' Argent, that of the middle, the Tour Bonchet, 
 and the third, the Tour de Cesar or the Tour 
 de PHorloge. This last is the only one which 
 has preserved its mediaeval crenulated battle- 
 ments aloft. The great clock has been commonly 
 considered the largest timepiece of its kind 
 extantj but it is doubtful if this now holds good 
 
68 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 with railways and insurance companies vying 
 with each other to furnish the hour so legibly 
 that he who runs may read. 
 
 Across the Pont au Change, from the Palais 
 de la Cite, by the Louvre and out into the Fau- 
 bourg Saint Antoine, one comes to the Place des 
 Vosges, the old Place Royale, which occupies 
 almost the same area as was covered by the court- 
 yard of the Palais des Tournelles, so called from 
 its many towers. 
 
 All around the Palais des Tournelles was 
 located a series of splendid hotels prives of the 
 nobility. In one of these, the Hotel de Saint 
 Pol, the king once lodged twenty-two visiting 
 princes of the quality of Dauphin (the eldest 
 son of a ruling monarch), their suites and do- 
 mestics. 
 
 Charles V in his time amalgamated with his 
 royal palace three of these magnificent private 
 dwellings, the Hotel du Petit Muse, the Hotel 
 de I'Abbe de Saint Maur and the Hotel du Comte 
 d'Etampes. 
 
 The palace proper really faced on what is now 
 the Rue Saint Antoine, opposite the Hotel Saint 
 Pol. Its historic and romantic memories of the 
 sword and cloak period of gallantry were many, 
 but the edifice was demolished by the order of 
 Catherine de Medici 
 
Palais de la Cite and Toumelles 69 
 
 In the palace Charles VI was confined, during 
 the period of his insanity, by order of the cruel 
 Isabeau de Baviere. The Duke of Bedford, 
 when regent for the minor Henry VI, lodged 
 here, and upon the expulsion of the English it 
 became the residence of Charles VII. Louis XI 
 and Louis XII each inhabited it, and the latter 
 died within its walls. 
 
 The Palais des Tournelles will go down to 
 history chiefly because of that celebrated jousting 
 bout held in its courtyard on the marriage day 
 of the two princesses, Elizabeth and Marguerite. 
 
 Henri II and the elder princes, his sons, were 
 to ride forth in tournament and break lances, 
 if possible, with all comers. The court, in- 
 cluding Catherine de Medici and the princess 
 Elizabeth, wife of Philippe II, the late husband 
 of Mary Tudor, the two Marguerites and other 
 high personages were seated on a dais upholstered 
 in damascened silk and ornamented with many- 
 coloured streamers. 
 
 The time was July and the morning. At a 
 signal from Catherine music burst forth and 
 the bouts began. 
 
 The king rode forth at the head of his chev- 
 aliers, wearing a suit of golden armour, his 
 sword handle set with jewels, and, in spite of 
 the presence of his wife, his lance flying black 
 
70 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 and white streamers, the colours of Diane de 
 Poitiers, who had lately turned her affections 
 from father unto son. 
 
 A herald proclaimed the opening of the combat, 
 and before night the king had broken the lances 
 of the Dues de Ferrare, de Guise, and de Nemours, 
 and was just about disarming when a masked 
 knight approached from the Faubourg Saint 
 Antoine and challenged the king, who, in spite 
 of being implored to desist by his queen, entered 
 the lists again and was ultimately wounded 
 unto death by the sable knight. 
 
 Henri II expired the same night in a bed- 
 chamber of the Palais des Tournelles, whither 
 he had been carried, at the age of forty-one, 
 the victim of chance, or the wile of the Sieur de 
 Montgomeri, the ancestor of England's present 
 Earl of Eglinton. The captain of the Scotch 
 Guards, Montgomeri, was not immediately pur- 
 sued (he meantime had fled the court), but 
 Catherine de Medici harboured for him a most 
 bitter rancour. Pro and con ran his cause, for 
 he had his partisans, but the Marechal de Matig- 
 non finally caught up with him in Normandy 
 and he was tortured and condemned to death 
 for the crime of lese majeste — beating the king 
 at his own game. 
 
 The widowed queen angrily ordered Diane 
 
Palais de la Cite and Toumelles 71 
 
 de Poitiers from the court, and caused the Palais 
 des Tournelles to be razed. This was her only 
 means of showing her contempt for the woman 
 who had played her royal spouse to his death 
 as the Romans played the gladiators of old; 
 and Tournelles, as a palatial monument of its 
 time, blotted out the rest when it disappeared 
 from view. 
 
 A forest of spirelets soared aloft from the 
 gables and rooftrees of the Palais des Tournelles. 
 There was no spectacle of the time more impos- 
 ing than this sky-line silhouette of a Paris palace; 
 not at Chambord nor Chenonceaux was the 
 spectacle more fine. It was like a fairy castle, 
 albeit that it was in the heart of a great city. 
 
 To the right of the Palais des Tournelles, 
 beyond the Porte Saint Antoine, was the ink- 
 black, frowning donjon of the Bastille, its severity 
 in strong contrast with the more luxurious palaces 
 of the princes which surrounded it not far away. 
 
 The charming Place des Vosges, which occupies 
 the site of Tournelles to-day, is another of Paris's 
 breathing spaces. Well may it be called a royal 
 garden — a park virtually on a diminutive scale 
 — since it was originally known as the Place 
 Royale, under Henri IV. 
 
 With the advent of the gascon Henri de Beam 
 this delightful little unspoiled corner of old Paris 
 
72 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 took on the aspect which it now has. Within 
 this enclosure were the usual garden or park 
 attributes, more or less artificially disposed, 
 but making an ideal open-air playground for 
 the court, shut in from outside surroundings 
 by the outlines of the old palace walls, and not 
 too far away from the royal palace of the 
 Louvre. 
 
 The first and greatest historic souvenir of this 
 garden was a Carrousel given in 1612, by Marie 
 de Medici, two years after the tragic death of 
 Henri IV, celebrating the alliance between France 
 and Spain. Under Richelieu the square be- 
 came known as the Place des Vosges, and, in 
 spite of the law against duelling, which had 
 by this time come into force, it became a cele- 
 brated meeting place for duellists like Ivry, the 
 "Grand' Roue'' or the "VeP Hiver" of to-day. 
 
 It was on May 12, 1627, that the Comte des 
 Chappell killed Bussy d'Amboise on this spot, 
 and left a bloody souvenir, which was only for- 
 gotten by the historians when they had to recount 
 another meeting, this time between the Catholic 
 Due de Guise and the Protestant Coligny 
 d'Andelot. 
 
 '^Monsieur," said the duke, "we will now 
 proceed to settle that little account between 
 our illustrious houses," and with that he drew 
 
Palais de la Cite and Toumelles 73 
 
 his sword and killed Coligny, as if he were but 
 stamping the life out of a caterpillar. 
 
 Now, with all this bloody memory behind, 
 the Place became one of the most elegant resi- 
 dential quarters of the capital, preferred above 
 all by the nobility, the Rohans, the Alegres and 
 Rotroux. 
 
 At No. 21 lived Victor Hugo, just before the 
 Coup d'Etat, in the house first made famous as 
 the habitation of the somewhat infamous Marion 
 Delorme. 
 
 Among other illustrious names who have given 
 a brilliance to these alleyed walks and corridors 
 are to be recalled Corneille, Conde, Saint Vincent 
 de Paul, Moliere, Turenne, Madame de Longue- 
 ville, De Thou, Cinq-Mars, Richelieu, D'Ormes- 
 son, the Prince de Talmon, the Marquis de Tesse 
 and the Comte de Chabanne. 
 
 It is possible that this charming Paris square 
 will remain as ever it has been, for a recent at- 
 tempt of the owner of one of the houses which 
 borders upon it to change the disposition of the 
 facade brought about a law-suit which com- 
 pelled him to respect the procedure which ob- 
 tained in 1605 when it was ordained the Place 
 Royale. 
 
 To prove their rights the civic authorities had 
 recourse to the original plans still preserved in 
 
74 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 the national archives. This is a demonstra- 
 tion of how carefully European nations preserve 
 the v^ritten records of their pasts. 
 
 The decision finally arrived at by the courts 
 — that the Place des Vosges must be kept intact 
 as originally planned — gave joy to the hearts 
 of all true Parisians and archeologists alike. 
 
BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF OLD PARIS 
 
 -"'^^^-^"^^ • - -^ --•- ■'- — - 
 
h 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE OLD LOUVRE AND ITS HISTORY 
 
 A STROLL by the banks of the Seine will review 
 much of the history of the capital, as much of 
 it as was bound up with Notre Dame, the Louvre 
 and the Palais de la Cite (now the Palais de 
 Justice), and that was a great deal, even in mediae- 
 val and Renaissance times. 
 \The life of the Louvre was Paris; the life of 
 Paris that of the nation; and the life of the nation 
 that of the people. This even the Parisians of 
 to-day will tell you. It is scant acknowledg- 
 ment of the provinces to be sure, but what would 
 you ? The French capital is much more the capital 
 of France than London is of England, or Wash- 
 ington of America — leaving politics out of the 
 question. 
 
 Paris before the conquest by the Franks 
 was practically only the Seine-surrounded isle 
 known as Lutetia, and later as "La Cite," and 
 the slight overflow which crept up the slopes of 
 the Montagne de la Sainte Genevieve. From 
 the Chatelet to the Louvre was a damp, murky 
 
 75 
 
76 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 swamp called, even in the moyen-age, Les Cham- 
 peaux, meaning the Little Fields, but swampy 
 ones, as inferred by studying the evolution of 
 the name still further. 
 
 A rapid rivulet descended from Menilmontant 
 and mingled with the Seine somewhere near the 
 Garden of the Tuileries. 
 
 Clovis and his Franks attacked the city op- 
 posite the isle, and, upon the actual achievement 
 of their conquest, threw up an entrenched camp 
 on the approved Roman plan in what is now 
 the courtyard of the old Louvre, and filled the 
 moat with the waters of this rivulet. The en- 
 semble was, according to certain authorities, 
 baptized the Louvre, or Lower, meaning a forti- 
 fied camp. This entrenchment was made neces- 
 sary in order that the Franks might sustain 
 themselves against the Gallo-Roman occupants 
 of Lutetia, and in time enabled them to acquire 
 the whole surrounding region for their own 
 dominion. This the Lower, or Louvre, made 
 possible, and it is well deserved that its name 
 should be thus perpetuated, though actually 
 the origin of the name is in debate, as will be 
 seen by a further explanation which follows. 
 
 Little by little this half -barbaric camp — in 
 contradistinction to the more solid works of the 
 Romans — became a place fort, then a chateau, 
 
The Old Louvre and Its History 77 
 
 then a palace and, finally, as the young lady 
 tourist said, an art museum. Well, at any rate, 
 it was a dignified evolution. 
 ^^ Two Louvres disappeared before the crystal- 
 lization of the present rather irregularly cut gem. 
 From the Merovingians dates the Louvre des 
 Champs, the hostile, militant Louvre, with its 
 high wood and stone tower, familiar only in old 
 engravings. After this the moyen-age Louvre, 
 attributable to Saint Louis and Charles V, with 
 its great tower, its thick walls of stone and its 
 deep-dug moats, came into being. With Francis 
 I came a more sympathetic, a more subtle 
 era of architectural display, a softening of out- 
 lines and an interpolation of flowering gables. 
 It was thus that was born that noble monument 
 known as the New Louvre, which combined all 
 the arts and graces of a fastidious ambition. 
 ( Nothing remains of the old Louverie (to 
 which the name had become corrupted) which 
 Philippe Auguste early in the thirteenth century 
 caused to be turned into an ambitious quad- 
 rangular castle from a somewhat more humble 
 establishment which had evolved itself on the 
 site of the Frankish camp, save the white marble 
 outline sunken in the pavement of the court- 
 yard of the palace of to-day. By destiny this 
 palace, set down in the very heart of Paris, was 
 
78 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 to dominate everything round about. From the 
 date of its birth, and since that time, it has had 
 no rivals among Paris or suburban palaces. 
 Its very situation compelled the playing of an 
 auspicious part, and the Seine flowing sv^iftly 
 by its ramparts added no small charm to the 
 fetes and ceremonies of both the Louvre and the 
 Tuileries. 
 
 ^ Never was a great river so allied with the life 
 of a royal capital; never a stream so in harmony 
 with other civic beauties as is the Seine wath Paris. 
 When Henri II entered Paris after his Sacra- 
 ment he contemplated a water-festival on the 
 Seine, which was to extend from the walls of 
 the Louvre to the towers of Notre Dame, a festival 
 with such elaborate decorations as had never 
 been known in the French capital. 
 
 The kings of France after their Sacrament 
 entered the Louvre by the quay-side entrance, 
 followed by their cortege of gayly caparisoned 
 cavaliers and gilded coaches with personages of 
 all ranks in doublet and robe, cape and doublet. 
 The scintillating of gold lace and burnished coats 
 gave a brilliance which rivalled that of the 
 sun. 
 
 No sooner had the cavalcade entered the gates 
 of the Louvre than it came out again to partici- 
 pate in the day and night festival, which had the 
 
The Old Louvre and Its History 79 
 
 bosom of the Seine for its stage and its bridges 
 and banks for the act drop and the wings. 
 
 The receptions of Ambassadors, the baptisms 
 of royalties, royal marriages and celebrations 
 of victories, or treaties, were all feted in the same 
 manner. 
 
 Napoleon glorified the Peace of Amiens under 
 similar conditions, and there is scarce a chroni- 
 cler of any reign but that recounts the part 
 played by the Seine in the ceremonies of the 
 court of the New and Old Louvre. 
 
 It was amid a setting which lent itself so readily 
 to all this that the Old Louvre, which was rebuilt 
 by Francis I, first came to its glory. 
 ^ The origin of the name Louvre has still other 
 interpretation from that previously given. It 
 seems to be a question of grave doubt among 
 the savants, but because the note is an interest- 
 ing one it is here reproduced. The name may 
 have been derived as well from the word ceuvrej 
 from the Latin opus; it may have been evolved 
 from lupara, or louverie (place of wolves), which 
 seems improbable. It may have had its evolu- 
 tion from either one of these origins, or it may 
 not. 
 
 Anglo-Saxons may be proud of the fact that 
 certain French savants have acknowledged that 
 the name of the most celebrated of all Paris 
 
80 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 palaces is a derivation from a word belonging 
 to their tongue and meaning habitation. This, 
 then, is another version and one may choose 
 that which is most to his liking, or may go back 
 and show his preference for lower, meaning a 
 fortified place. 
 
 N A palace — something more elaborate than 
 a mere habitation — stood on the same site in 
 the twelfth century, a work which, under the ener- 
 gies of Philippe Auguste, in 1204 began to grow 
 to still more splendid proportions, though in- 
 finitesimal one may well conclude as compared 
 with the mass which all Paris knows to-day 
 under the inclusive appellation of "The Louvre." 
 The Paris of Philippe Auguste was already 
 a city of a hundred and twenty thousand in- 
 habitants, with mean houses on every side and 
 little pretense at even primitive comforts or con- 
 veniences. This far-seeing monarch laid hand 
 first on the great citadel tower of the fortified 
 lower, added to its flanking walls and built a 
 circling rampart around the capital itself. It 
 is recounted that the rumbling carts, sinking 
 deep in mud and plowing through foot-deep 
 dust beneath the palace windows, annoyed the 
 monarch so much that he instituted what must 
 have been the first city paving work on record, 
 and commanded that all the chief thoroughfares 
 
The Old Louvre and Its History 81 
 
 passing near the Louvre should be paved with 
 cobbles. This was real municipal improve- 
 ment. He was a Solon among his kind for, 
 since that day, it has been a sine qua non that 
 for the well-keeping of city streets they must be 
 paved, and, though cobblestones have since 
 gone out of fashion, it was this monarch who 
 first showed us how to do it. 
 \ The Louvre of Philippe Auguste was the most 
 imposing edifice of the Paris of its time. To no 
 little extent was this imposing outline due to its 
 great central tower, the maitresse, which was sur- 
 rounded by twenty-three dames dlionneur, with- 
 out counting numberless tourelles. This hydra- 
 towered giant palace was the real guardian of 
 the Paris of mediaevalism, as its successor is 
 indeed the real centre of the Paris of to-day. 
 V The city was but an immense mass of low- 
 lying gable-roofed houses, whose crowning apex 
 was the sky-line of the Louvre, with that of Tour- 
 nelles only less prominent to the north, and that 
 of La Cite hard by on the island where the 
 Palais de Justice and Notre Dame now stand. 
 \ Before the hand of Francis fell upon the Louvre 
 it was but an isolated stronghold — a combined 
 castle, prison and palace, gloomy, foreboding 
 and surrounded by moats and ramparts almost 
 impassable. Philippe Auguste built well and 
 
82 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 made of it an admirable and imposing castle 
 and a place of defence, and a defence it was, 
 and not much more. 
 
 For its time it was of great proportions and of 
 an ideal situation from a strategic point of view; 
 far more so than the isolated Palais de la Cite 
 in the middle of the Seine. 
 
 Four gates led out from the inner courtyard 
 of the Old Louvre: one to the Seine; one to the 
 south, facing Saint Germain I'Auxerrois; another 
 towards the site of the later Tuileries; and the 
 other to about where the Rue Marengo cuts 
 the Rue de Rivoli of to-day. 
 
 With the endorsement given it by Philippe 
 Auguste the Louvre now became the official 
 residence of the kings of the Capetian race, 
 whereas previously they had dwelt but intermit- 
 tently at Paris, chiefly in the Palais de la Cite. 
 
 The monarch, as if to test the efficiency of his 
 new residence as a stronghold, made a dungeon 
 tower, his greatest constructive achievement un- 
 til he built the castle of Gisors, and in the tower 
 imprisoned the Comte de Flandre, whom he 
 had taken prisoner at Bouvines. Louis IX 
 (Saint Louis), in his turn, built a spacious annex 
 to Philippe Auguste's Louvre, to which he attached 
 his name. 
 
 Charles V totally changed the aspect of the 
 
TT 
 
 
 
 
The Old Louvre and Its History 83 
 
 palace from what it had formerly been — half- 
 fortress, half-residence — and made of it a verit- 
 able palace in truth as well as in name, by the 
 addition of numerous dependencies. 
 
 Within a tower which was built during the 
 reign of this monarch, called the Tour de la 
 Librairie, he assembled his royal bibelots and 
 founded what was afterwards known as the 
 Bibliotheque du Louvre, the egg from which 
 was hatched the present magnificently endowed 
 Bibliotheque Nationale in the Rue Richelieu. 
 
 It is related that in 1373 the valet-de-chambre 
 of Charles V made a catalogue of the nine hun- 
 dred and ten volumes which formed this col- 
 lection, an immense number for the time when 
 it is known that his predecessor, Jean-le-Bon, 
 possessed but seven volumes of history and 
 four devotional books as his entire literary 
 treasure. 
 
 This seems to be a bibliographical note of 
 interest which has hitherto been overlooked. 
 Charles V was evidently a man of taste, or he 
 would not have built so well, though all is hear- 
 say, as not a fragment remains of the work upon 
 which he spent his talents and energies. 
 
 From the death of Charles V, in 1364, until 
 1557 the Louvre by some caprice ceased to be 
 a permanent royal residence. At the latter 
 
84 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 epoch the ambitious, art-loving Francis I con- 
 ceived the idea that here was a wealth of 
 scaffolding upon which to graft some of his 
 Renaissance luxuries and, by a process of ^' res- 
 toration" (perhaps an unfortunate word for 
 him to have employed, since it meant the razing 
 of the fine tower built by Charles V), added 
 somewhat to the splendours thereof, though in 
 a fickle moment, as was his wont, allowed a gap 
 of a dozen years to intervene between the out- 
 lining of his project and the terrifically earnest 
 work which finally resulted in the magnificent 
 structure accredited to him, though indeed it 
 meant the demolition of the original edifice. 
 
 It was at this period that Charles V entered 
 into the ambitious part which Francis was to 
 henceforth play in the Louvre, so perhaps the 
 interruption was pardonable. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LOUVRE OF FRAJNCIS I AND ITS SUCCESSORS 
 
 One can attribute the demise of the Old Louvre 
 to the coming of Charles V to Paris in 1539. 
 This royal residence, hastily put in order to re- 
 ceive his august presence, seemed so coldly 
 inconvenient and inhospitable to his host, Fran- 
 cis I, that that monarch decided forthwith 
 upon its complete reconstruction and enlarge- 
 ment. Owing to various combinations of cir- 
 cumstances the actual work of reconstruction 
 was put off until 1546, thus the New Louvre 
 as properly belongs to the reign of Henri II as 
 to that of his father. 
 
 Francis I, more than any other European 
 monarch of his time, or, indeed, before or since, 
 left his mark as an architect of supreme tastes 
 over every edifice with which he came into per- 
 sonal contact. His mania was for building — 
 when it was not for affairs of the heart — and 
 so daring was he that when he could not get an 
 old fabric to remodel he would brave all, as did 
 Louis XIV at Versailles, and erect a dream 
 
 85 
 
86 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 palace in the midst of a desert. This he did 
 at Chambord in the Sologne. At Paris his 
 difficulties were perhaps no less, but he had his 
 materials and his workmen ready at hand. 
 
 Francis's repairs and embellishments to the 
 Old Louvre were by no means perfunctory, but 
 he saw possibilities greater than he was able to 
 perform with the means at hand. He first razed 
 the central tower, or donjon^ and scarce before 
 the departure of his royal guest, was already 
 dreaming of replacing the entire fabric with 
 another which should bear the same name. One 
 has read of the monarch's thoughts when he was 
 awaiting the coming to Paris of his old enemy 
 in the peninsula; how he regretted the moment 
 when he should sally out to meet him and leave 
 his new-found friend, the Duchesse d'Etampes, 
 in spite of her pleadings for him to remain by 
 her. All this is mere historic incident, and 
 has little to do with Francis's art instincts and 
 ambitions. He probably thought this very thing 
 himself when he replied to the importunate 
 lady: ''Duchesse, I must tear myself away with- 
 out more ado; I go to meet my brother monarch 
 at Amboise on the Loire." 
 
 It was Francis I, the passionate lover of art, 
 who collected the first pictures which formed 
 the foundation of the present collections of the 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 87 
 
 Musee National du Louvre. He bought many 
 in foreign parts, and many others were brought 
 from Italy by Italian artists, whom he had com- 
 manded to the capital: Primaticcio brought with 
 him, upon his arrival, more than a hundred 
 antique statues. These art objects were first 
 assembled at Fontainebleau and ornamented 
 the apartments of the king. Among them were 
 Da Vinci's "La Joconde'^ and Raphael's "Holy 
 Family and Saint Michael." 
 \ Henri II, Henri IV, and Louis XIII did little to 
 enrich the art collections of the palace, but Louis 
 XIV charged his minister, Colbert, with numer- 
 ous purchases. In 1661 he bought the fine col- 
 lection left by Cardinal Mazarin, and ten years 
 later purchased the contents of the celebrated 
 gallery belonging to the banker Jacob of Cologne. 
 The state expended for these acquisitions nearly 
 six hundred thousand livres, and received for this 
 sum six hundred paintings and six thousand 
 drawings. 
 
 It was at this period that the royal collections 
 were transferred to Paris, a little before the 
 death of Colbert, when they were placed in the 
 galleries of the Louvre; though it was a hundred 
 years later that a national museum was actually 
 created. This was virtually brought about from 
 the fact that the royal collections were trans- 
 
88 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ported in a great part to Versailles, only to be 
 returned to Paris in 1750, transferred again to 
 Versailles, and ultimately to be returned to 
 Paris under the sheltering wing of the grand 
 old Louvre. 
 
 'The Museum of the Louvre, the Museum 
 National et Central des Arts, is the outgrowth 
 of a Decree of the Convention, dated July 27, 
 1793. It was aided and enriched considerably 
 under Napoleon I, that passionate lover of the 
 beautiful, who, none too scrupulously, would 
 even seek to "make a campaign'* in order to 
 acquire art works for the museum of his 
 capital. 
 
 Many of these abducted art treasures (like 
 the horses of Saint Marc, for instance) were 
 afterwards returned to their original owners, 
 but the nucleus of this unrivaled art museum 
 was chiefly due to the consul and emperor. 
 
 As soon as Charles V had left the Louvre 
 demolition was at once begun by Francis, and 
 in 1 541 an Italian, Serlio, was bidden pre- 
 pare a set of plans for the Renaissance glory 
 that was to be. Serlio, refusing, or debating 
 the price, was cast aside for the Frenchman, 
 Lescot, whose plan was adopted. 
 
 The work can in no way be said to have suf- 
 fered by the change of plans, for though Pierre 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 89 
 
 Lescot was as yet a name unknown in the world 
 of architecture his talents were sufficiently great, 
 magistrate and parliamentary counsellor though 
 he was, to give to Paris what has ever been ac- 
 counted its chief Renaissance glory. 
 
 Work was begun at once, a work which was 
 not interrupted by intrigues of court, of love, 
 of war, nor by the deaths of Francis I nor his 
 successor, Henri II. 
 
 Although the work was begun in an energetic 
 manner it was 1555 before the western wing 
 was ready for the hand of the sculptors, but from 
 this time on, judging from the interpolated mono- 
 grams of Charles IX and Henri IV on the south 
 wing, work progressed less hurriedly. The two 
 other constructions, which were to enclose the 
 quadrangle to the north and east, were com- 
 pleted under such circumstances that there has 
 never been a question as to their period. 
 
 For fifteen years the work went on, when 
 suddenly it was abandoned as were the plans 
 of Lescot. A sole wing, that following the Seine 
 and abutting at right angles against the Pa- 
 vilion de I'Horloge, had resulted. 
 
 The sculptures of its south fa5:ade, as well 
 as certain of its interior decorations, were en- 
 trusted to Jean Goujon (1520-1572), who became 
 a victim of the horrible night of Saint Barthol- 
 
90 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 omew, planned in the same Louvre by the wily 
 Medici. 
 
 Henri II often dwelt over Lescot's plans and 
 devices, and, on one occasion, when the poet 
 Ronsard was present, demanded of the architect 
 the meaning of the decorations surrounding 
 a great mil-de-hoduf window, two kneeling figures, 
 one blowing a trumpet, and the other extend- 
 ing a palm branch. "Victory and Fame," re- 
 plied Lescot. And, in honour of the architect 
 and his sentiment, Ronsard composed his ''Fran- 
 ciade." The detail was actually by Goujon, 
 whose design it was, under the oversight of the 
 master architect. One may see this chef d^ceuvre 
 to-day just above the courtyard portal to the 
 west. 
 
 At the death of Henri II, Catherine de Medici 
 came here to live alone, and built the great ex- 
 tension, which stands to-day and joins the Old 
 Louvre with that portion along the banks of 
 the Seine by the double arch, through which 
 swing the autobusses coming from the Rive 
 Gauche with such a Juggernaut grind that fears 
 for the foundation of the palace are ever upper- 
 most in the minds of those responsible for its 
 preservation. 
 
 It is in this Catherine de Medici portion of 
 the Louvre (1578) that the present Galerie des 
 
The^ Louvre 
 
 
 iti!-^; 
 
 ■^»i4^ 
 
90 Royal Palaces an ' France 
 
 omew, planrx^'"^ ^^^ '^^' - ^^^ '^:>v,-r. "s.v the wily 
 Medici. 
 
 Henri II often dwelt over Lescot's plans and 
 devices, and, on one occiision, when the poet 
 Ronsard was present, demanded of the architect 
 the mean in c' of the decorations surrounding 
 :• LTc-'t a- uf window, two kneeling figures, 
 
 i*t. and the other extend- 
 
 victory and Fame," re- 
 
 i, in honour of the architect 
 
 ntimeni, Ronsard composed his '^Fran- 
 
 ciade.'' The detail was actually by Goujon, 
 
 whose design it wa^^, under the oversight of the 
 
 master ar< )ne may see this chef d^ceuvre 
 
 to-dav just a'rjove 3^^^oiiJ''^ffI^^^ portal to the 
 
 ienri II, Catherine de Medici 
 
 done, and built the great ex- 
 
 ids to-day and joins the Old 
 
 portion along the banks of 
 
 rtc double arch, through which 
 
 'busses coming from the Rive 
 
 ha Juggernaut grind that fears 
 
 of the palace are ever upper- 
 
 oi those responsible for its 
 
 :»iC dc Medici portion of 
 the present Galerie des 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 91 
 
 Antiques is installed, and which is usually thronged, 
 in season and out, with globe-trotting sight- 
 seers who give seldom a thought to its construc- 
 tive elegance and its association with the Medici. 
 
 With the first years of the reign of Charles IX, 
 there is to be remarked a notable slowness of 
 procedure with regard to the construction of 
 the New Louvre. This was brought about 
 chiefly by the conception of the Tuileries and 
 the work which was actually begun thereon. 
 Soon a gigantic idea radiated from the ambi- 
 tious mind of Catherine de Medici. In this con- 
 nection it must be remembered, however, that 
 Catherine, so commonly reviled as " the Italian, '' 
 was not all Italian; French blood flowed through 
 her veins through that of her mother, Madeleine 
 de la Tour d'Auvergne. She came first to France, 
 landing at Marseilles, whence she arrived from 
 Leghorn, and forthwith commenced her journey 
 Parisward, arriving finally at the Louvre as the 
 bride of Prince Henri in the guise of a simple, 
 clever girl, though indeed she was twenty years 
 the elder. 
 
 Now she dreamed of uniting her chateau of 
 the Tuileries with that of the king by a long, 
 connecting gallery. She put action to the thought 
 and under Pierre (II) Chambiges, a relative of 
 the Chambiges of Fontainebleau and Saint Ger- 
 
92 R oyal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 main, the Petite Galerie, a mere means of com- 
 munication between the two chateaux, and not 
 the least to be Hkened to a defensive structure, 
 was begun and work thereon carried out be- 
 tween 1564 and 1571, though it remained for 
 Thibaut Metezeau, in 1595-1596, to carry it on 
 a stage further under Henri IV. 
 
 This architect introduced the notorious mez- 
 zanine, which has so intrigued historians of the 
 Louvre because of the unequal elevations of the 
 various floors, a procedure which was unavoid- 
 able save by recourse to a substitution less to 
 be objected to than the existing fault. Actually 
 the connection with the Tuileries was made by 
 the prolongation of this gallery by the Ducer- 
 ceau brothers in 1595. The work existing to- 
 day, but only in its reconstructed form, is the 
 same as that completed by Napoleon III (1863- 
 1868). 
 
 Charles IX and Henri III, though making 
 the Louvre their residence, practically had no 
 hand in its embellishment. The former gave 
 his energies and ideals full play in the Saint 
 Bartholomew massacres and shot at poor un- 
 fortunates who fled beneath the windows of his 
 apartments on the quay-side of the Louvre. 
 This, if not the chief incident of his association 
 with the fabric, is at least the best remembered 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 93 
 
 one. Henri III, too, led a scandalous life with- 
 in the walls of the Louvre and fled on horse- 
 back, smuggled out a back door, as it were, 
 on a certain May evening in 1588, never more 
 to return, for the Dominican monk Jacques 
 Clement killed him with a knife-thrust before 
 he had got beyond Saint Cloud. 
 
 The accepted tale of the part played by the 
 famous window of the Louvre in the drama of 
 Saint Bartholomew's night is as follows: As 
 the signal tolled from the belfry of Saint Ger- 
 main I'Auxerrois it was answered by another 
 peal from the great bell of the Palais de Justice, 
 where, within a small apartment over the water- 
 gate of the Louvre, the queen and her two sons 
 were huddled together not knowing what might 
 happen next. The multitude streamed by on 
 the quay before the palace, and, finally, amid all 
 the horror of Coligny's murder, and the throw- 
 ing of his body from a window of the Louvre 
 to the street below, Charles IX stood at his win- 
 dow regarding the fleeing Huguenots as so much 
 small game, shooting away at them with an ar- 
 quebuse as they went by, and with an unholy 
 glee, even boasting that he had killed a score 
 of heretics in a quarter of an hour. 
 
 Historians of those exciting times were per- 
 haps none too faithful chroniclers and Charles's 
 
94 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 "excellent shots'' in his "royal hunt," and 
 hideous oaths and threats such as : "We'll have 
 them all, even the women and children," are 
 not details as well authenticated as we would 
 like to have them. Like Rizzio's blood stains 
 they lack conviction. 
 
 ' The ambitious white-plumed Henri de Navarre, 
 when he became Henri IV of France, set about 
 to connect the tentacle which stretched south- 
 ward from the Old Louvre with the Tuileries 
 (a continuation of the project of Catherine de 
 Medici), and, by the end of the sixteenth century, 
 had built a long facade under the advice of the 
 brothers Ducerceau. This work was added to 
 on the courtyard side under the Second Empire, 
 when a reconstruction, more likely a strengthen- 
 ing of underpinning and walls because of their 
 proximity to the swift-flowing waters of the 
 Seine, of the work of Henri IV was undertaken. 
 Joining the Tuileries and this work of Ducer- 
 ceau was the celebrated Pavilion de Flore, a 
 work of the Henri IV period rather than that 
 of Catherine de Medici. 
 
 From the Pavilion de Flore to the Pavilion de 
 Lesdiguieres ran this long gallery of the Ducer- 
 ceau and numerous interstices and unfinished 
 vaults and arches leading towards the Old Louvre 
 were, at this epoch, completed by Metezeau and 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 95 
 
 Dupaira. The chief apartment of this structure 
 became known as the Galerie Henri IV, and 
 was completed in 1608. 
 
 \At the death of Henri IV, Richelieu, who at 
 times builded so well, and who at others was a 
 base destroyer of monuments, demolished that por- 
 tion which remained of the edifice of Charles V. 
 The work of Pierre Lescot was preserved, how- 
 ever, and to give symmetry and an additional 
 extent of available space the rectangle facing 
 Saint Germain PAuxerrois to-day was com- 
 pleted, thus enclosing in one corner of its ample 
 courtyard the foundations of the earlier work 
 whose outlines are plainly traced in the pave- 
 ment that those who view may build anew — if 
 they can — the old structure of Philippe Auguste. 
 In mere magnitude the present quadrangle is 
 something more than four times the extent of 
 the Louvre of the time of Charles V. 
 
 This courtyard of the Louvre is perhaps that 
 spot in all Paris which presents the greatest 
 array of Renaissance art treasures. From ground 
 to sky-line the facades are embroidered by the 
 works from the magic hand of the Siecle Italien, 
 Jean Goujon himself has left his brilliant sou- 
 venirs on all sides, caryatides, festoons, bas- 
 reliefs, statues and colonnades. 
 
 "Enthusiasm and devotion knew no bounds 
 
96 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 among those old craftsmen, but all is well-ordered, 
 regular and correct. "He who mentions the 
 Louvre to a Frenchman gives a greater pleasure 
 than that of Mehemet-Ali when one praises 
 the pyramids." In a way the Louvre is the most 
 magnificent edifice in the universe; "four palaces 
 one piled up on another, une ville entiere.''^ And 
 when the Louvre was linked with the Tuileries 
 in the real, what a splendour it must have been 
 for former generations to marvel at! "Za 
 plus belle et la plus grande chose sous le 
 soleil. " 
 
 This work of aggrandizement of the quad- 
 rangle was carried out by the architect Lemercier 
 on the basis of a project adopted in 1642, and, 
 to a great extent, completed before the arrival 
 of Anne d'Autriche, twenty years later. 
 
 This queenly personage had ideas of her own 
 as to what sort of a residence she would have in 
 Paris, and beyond her personal needs little was 
 done for the moment towards actually linking 
 up the various loose ends, each more or less 
 complete in itself, which now composed the Paris 
 palace of the French monarchs. 
 
 Her son, the king in person if not in power, 
 was not likely to be endowed with instincts which 
 would put him in the rank of the traditional 
 castle or palace builders of his race; it was litera- 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 97 
 
 ture, music and painting which more particularly 
 flourished during his reign, and so the Austrian 
 contented herself at first with merely putting 
 the former apartments of Catherine de Medici 
 into condition for her personal use and building 
 a Salle-de- Spectacle, and — happy thought — a 
 Salle-des-Bains. 
 
 Louis XIV, as he found time, after the war 
 of the Fronde, actually did bethink himself of 
 completing, in a way, the work of his elders, 
 and charged the architect Levau to finish off 
 the north wing, which was done in 1660. A 
 year later the Galerie Henri IV was practically 
 destroyed by fire and rebuilt by Levau, who 
 gave the commission for its interior decoration 
 to Lebrun. 
 
 Soon the south wing was completed, leaving 
 only the gap for the eastern facade which was 
 intended to be the chief entrance to the mass 
 of buildings, which still bore the comprehensive 
 name of ''The Louvre.'* 
 
 For the accomplishment of this facade, the 
 demolition of certain dwellings of the nobility 
 which had clustered around the royal fabric 
 was necessary, and the Hotels du Petit Bourbon, 
 de Villequier, de Chaumont, La Force, De Crequy, 
 de Longueville, and de Choisy fell before the 
 picks of the house-breakers. Levau commenced 
 
98 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 work on the facade at once, and made rapid 
 progress until 1664, when an abrupt order came 
 for him to stop all work. Political conspiracy, 
 graft, if you like, was at work, and Colbert, 
 little favourable towards Levau, made a proposi- 
 tion to the king to open a competition for the 
 design and execution of the facade. Willingly 
 enough, his mind doubtless more occupied with 
 other things, Louis XIV agreed, and a general 
 call was sent out to all French architects to enter 
 the lists. Confusion reigned, and Levau was 
 about to be recalled when Colbert spied an un- 
 rolled parchment in the corner and pounced 
 upon it eagerly as the means of saving him from 
 the dubious efforts of the former incumbent. 
 " It was the "non-professional" plan submitted 
 by a doctor in medicine, one Charles Perrault. 
 Jealous competitors made all sorts of criticisms 
 and objections, the chief contention being that 
 if by any chance an architectural design by a 
 "pill-roller" proved pleasing to the eye it was 
 bound to be impracticable from an economic 
 or constructive point of view, or both. This is 
 often enough true, and it proved to be so in this 
 case, for in spite of a certain amount of advice 
 from an expert Italian builder, who had come 
 to Paris to help the good doctor with his difficult 
 task (for he actually received a commission for 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 99 
 
 the work and completed it in 1674), the facade 
 did not fit the rest of the fabric with which it 
 was intended to join up, and to-day it may be 
 observed by the curious as being several feet out 
 of line with the structure which faces on the 
 Rue de Rivoli. 
 
 ^ Louis XIV practically had no regard for the 
 Louvre and its architectural traditions; his pala- 
 tial garden-city idea, worked out at Versailles, 
 shows what an innovator he was. He allowed 
 the Louvre to be filled up with all sorts of riff- 
 raff, who were often given a lodging there in 
 place of a money payment for some service 
 rendered. The Louvre thus became a sort of 
 genteel poor-house, while king and court spent 
 their time in the more ample country-house 
 behind the Meudon hills. 
 
 X By 1750 the Louvre had become little more 
 than an immense ruin, humbled and desecrated; 
 a veritable orphan. The Marquis de Marigny, 
 Surintendant des Batiments Royaux, obtained 
 the authorization to chase out the parasites and 
 clean up the Augean stable and put things in 
 order as best pleased his esthetic fancy, but 
 only with the early years of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury did the Louvre become a real palace again 
 and worthy of its traditions. 
 From 1803 to 1813 the architects Fontaine 
 
100 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 and Percier were constantly engaged in the 
 work of repairs and additions, and built (for 
 Napoleon I) the gallery which extends from 
 what is now the Place Jeanne d'Arc to the Pavil- 
 ion de Rohan, along the Rue de Rivoli. This 
 detached portion (bound only to the Tuileries) 
 was finally joined to the seventeenth century 
 work of Lemercier under Louis Napoleon in 
 1852. This gallery, the work of "moderns," 
 is no mean example of palace-building, either. 
 It was the work of Visconti and Lefuel, and with 
 the adoption of this plan was finally accomplished 
 the interpolation of that range of pavilions which 
 gives the architecture of the Louvre one of its 
 principal distinctions. Named after the princi- 
 pal ministers of former administrations — Donon, 
 MoUien, Daru, Richelieu, Colbert, Turgot, etc., 
 these pavilions break up what would other- 
 wise be monotonous, elongated facades. 
 
 The inauguration of this last built portion 
 of the palace was held on August 14, 1857, 
 the occasion being celebrated by a banquet 
 given by Napoleon III to all the architects, 
 artists and labourers who had been engaged upon 
 the work. In the same Salle, two years later, 
 which took the name of Salle des Etats, the 
 emperor gave a diner de gala to the generals 
 returning from the Italian campaign. 
 
The Louvre of Francis I lOl 
 
 Still further resume of fact with regard to the 
 main body of the Louvre, as well as with respect 
 to its individual components, will open never- 
 ending vistas and pageants. It is not possible 
 in a chapter, a book or a five-foot shelf to limn 
 all that is even of cursory interest. The well- 
 known, the little-known and the comparatively 
 unknown mingle in varying proportions, accord- 
 ing to the individual mood or attitude. To 
 some the appeal will lie in the vastness of the 
 fabric, to others in the varied casts of characters 
 which have played upon its stage, still others 
 will be impressed with the dramatic incidents, 
 and many more will retain only present-day 
 memories of what they have themselves seen. 
 The Louvre is a study of a lifetime. 
 
 To resume a none too complete chronology, 
 it is easy to recall the following important events 
 which have taken place in the Louvre since the 
 days of Henri III, the period at which only the 
 barest beginnings of the present structure had 
 been projected. 
 
 In 1 59 1 a ghastly procedure took place when 
 four members of the Conseil des Seize were hung 
 in the Salle des Caryatides by orders of the Due 
 de Mayenne. 
 
 Like the horoscope which foretold the death 
 of Henri III, another royal prophecy was cast 
 
102 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 in 1610 that reminds one of that which perhaps 
 had not a little to do with the making away with 
 the last of the Valois princes. 
 
 The Due de Vendome, the son of Henri IV 
 by Gabrielle d'Estrees, handed the king a docu- 
 mentary horoscope signed by an astrologer call- 
 ing himself La Brosse, which warned the king 
 that he would run a great danger on May 14 
 in case he went abroad. 
 
 "La Brosse is an ass," cried the king, and 
 crumpled the paper beneath his feet. 
 . On the day in question the king started out 
 to visit his minister. Sully, at the Arsenal. It 
 was then in turning from the Rue Saint Honore 
 into the Rue de la Ferroniere that the royal coach, 
 frequently blocked by crowds, offered the op- 
 portunity to the assassin Ravaillac, who, jump- 
 ing upon the footboard, stabbed the king twice 
 in the breast. 
 
 \ After having been wounded the king was 
 brought dying to the Louvre. His royal coach 
 drew up beneath the vault through which throngs 
 all Paris to-day searching for a "short cut" 
 from the river to Saint Honore. It was but a 
 short, brief journey to the royal apartments 
 above in the Pavilion de FHorloge, but it must 
 have been an interminable calvary to the gallant 
 Henri de Navarre. The body was received by 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 103 
 
 Marie de Medici in tears, and the Dues de Guise 
 and d'Epernon clattered out the courtyard on 
 horseback to spread the false news that the king 
 had suffered no harm. Fearing the results of 
 too precipitate publishing of the disaster no 
 other course was open. 
 
 A gruesome memory is that the Swiss Guard 
 at the Louvre surreptitiously acquired a ^'quartier^^ 
 of the dismembered body of the regicide and 
 roasted it in a fire set alight beneath the balcony 
 of Marie de Medici as an indication of their 
 faithfulness and loyalty. 
 
 Mt w^as Sully, the king's minister, who ran 
 first up the stairs to acquaint the queen of the 
 tragedy — faithful ever to the interests of his 
 royal master. In spite of this, one of the first 
 acts of Marie de Medici as regent was to drive 
 the Baron de Rosny and Due de Sully away. 
 Such is virtue's reward — sometimes. 
 
 *^L •!« ^U ^ ^U «£« 
 
 ^^ •J* r|* 0j% ^* #^ 
 
 v" Lying on his bed, his face uncovered, clad 
 in white satin and a bonnet of red velvet em- 
 broidered with gold, was all that remained 
 of Henri IV of France and Navarre. Around 
 the bed were nuns and monks from all the 
 monasteries of Paris to keep vigil of his soul." 
 
 So ends the chronicle closing the chapter of the 
 relations of Henri IV with his Paris palace. 
 
104 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ^ No particularly tragic event took place here 
 for some years. Henriette de France, widow 
 of Charles I of England, taking refuge in France 
 from the troublous revolt at home, lived in the 
 Louvre in 1644. She had at first been graciously 
 received by Mazarin, but was finally accorded 
 only the most strict necessities of life, a mere 
 lodging in the Louvre, a modest budget and a 
 restricted entourage. 
 
 In 1662, under Louis XIV, MoHere and his 
 troup, in a theatre installed in the Salle des Cary- 
 atides, gave the first "command" performance 
 on record. The plays produced were, '^Nico- 
 deme" and "Le Docteur Amoureux." 
 
 An "art note'' of interest is that Sylvain Bailly, 
 the first curator of the Musee du Louvre, was 
 born within its precincts in 1736. 
 \ In the dark days of July, 1830, the populace 
 attempted to pillage and sack the palace, but 
 after a bloody reprisal retired, leaving hundreds 
 of dead on the field. The parterre beneath 
 the famous colonnade was their burial place, 
 though a decade later the bodies were exhumed 
 and again interred under the Colonne de Juillet 
 in the Place de la Bastille. 
 
 Le Notre, the gardener of kings, laid out the 
 first horticultural embellishments of the palace 
 surroundings under Louis XIV, and with little 
 
The Louvre of Francis I 105 
 
 change his scheme of decoration lasted until 
 the time of Louis Philippe, who made away with 
 much that was distinctive and excellent. 
 
 Napoleon III came to the front with an im- 
 proved decorative scheme, but the hard flags 
 of to-day, the dusty gravel and the too sparse 
 architectural embellishments do not mark the 
 gardens of the Louvre as being anything remark- 
 able save as a desirable breathing spot for Paris 
 nursemaids and their charges. 
 \The iron gates of the north, south and east 
 sides were put into place only in 1855, and at 
 the Commune served their purpose fairly well 
 in holding the rabble at bay, a rabble to whose 
 credit is the fact that it respected the artistic 
 inheritance enclosed by the Louvre's walls. No 
 work of art in the museums was stolen or de- 
 stroyed, though the library disappeared. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE TUILERIES AND ITS GARDENS 
 
 Z^X 
 
 
 X B ji.L.flii.il ■■BBiii ' I R.| I"!'! iiniiii ^ 
 
 OR.IGrI3SrAXa T=>UA.y<J of ^e. "rTJlLiE.R.IHl& 
 
 No more sentimental interest ever attached 
 itself to a royal French palace than that which 
 surrounded the Tuileries from its inception by 
 Charles IX in the mid-sixteenth century to its 
 extinction by the Commune in 1871. 
 
 -The Palace of the Tuileries is no more, the 
 Commune did for it as it did for the Hotel de 
 Ville and many another noble monument of the 
 capital, and all that remains are the gardens set 
 
 106 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 107 
 
 about with a few marble columns and gilt balls 
 — themselves fragments of former decorative 
 elements of the palace — to suggest what once 
 was the heritage bequeathed the French by the 
 Medici who was the queen of Saint Bartholo- 
 mew's night. 
 
 _It was a palace of giddy gayety that drew its 
 devotees to it only to destroy them. '^Crowned 
 fools who wished to be called kings, and others." 
 Even its stones were chiselled as if with a certain 
 malignancy and fatalism, for they have all dis- 
 appeared, and their history, even, has not been 
 written as large as that of those of many con- 
 temporary structures. 
 
 Of the last five kings to which the Tuileries 
 gave shelter — not counting the Second Em- 
 peror — only one went straightway to the tomb ; 
 one went to the scaffold and three others to exile. 
 A sorry dowry, this, for an inheritor of a palace 
 at once so noble and admirable in spite of its 
 unluckiness. 
 
 With the court followers and the nobility of 
 
 the last days of the monarchy it was the same 
 thing; the Tuileries was but a temporary shelter. 
 The scaffold accounted for many and banish- 
 ment engulfed others to forgetfulness. 
 ^ It was a commonplace at the time to re- 
 peat the warning: '^O! Tuileries! O! Tuileries! 
 
108 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 ^Mad indeed are those who enter thy walls, for 
 ^like Louis XVI, Napoleon, Charles X and Louis 
 Philippe you shall make your exit by another 
 door." 
 
 The origin of the name Tuileries is somewhat 
 ignominiously traced from that of a tile factory 
 which existed here in the heart of Paris, on the 
 banks of the Seine, in the sixteenth century. 
 The property, which comprised a manor-house 
 as well as the tile fields, was known by the name 
 of La Sablonniere, and came to the Marquis 
 Neuville de Villeroy, Superintendent of Finances, 
 who built on the spot a sort of fortified chateau, 
 which, if not of palatial dimensions, was of a 
 palatial prodigality of luxury. 
 
 Louise de Savoie, mother of Francis I, ac- 
 quired the property in 1518 and nine years later 
 gave it to Jean Tiercelin, the Maitre d'Hotel 
 of the dauphin, who later was to become Henri II. 
 
 The lodge, or manor-house, had, by 1564, 
 fallen into so ruinous a state that Catherine 
 de Medici, the widow of Henri II, set about to 
 lay the foundations of a new royal palace. 
 
 Catherine never resided in her projected palace, 
 and in 1566 Charles IX, her son, gave the com- 
 mission to Philibert Delorme to build a palace, 
 "neighbouring upon the Louvre, but not to be 
 connected therewith, on the site of the Tuileries." 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 109 
 
 On July II, work was begun, and the central 
 pavilion and the two extremes were carried up 
 two stories within a year. The central structure 
 was a great circular-domed edifice, enclosing 
 a marvellous Escalier d'Honneur. The fa,gside, 
 preceded by two terraced porticos, was on the 
 courtyard, or garden, between the edifice and 
 the Louvre. It sat back to the present Rue des 
 Tuileries. 
 
 The Tuileries did not become a royal residence 
 for some time after its completion, for Charles IX 
 clung tenaciously to his well-guarded apartments 
 in the Louvre; for the central structure of the 
 Tuileries, because of its lack of comparative 
 height, was hardly as much of a stronghold as 
 he would have liked. 
 
 A contemporary note in connection with 
 Charles IX and the Tuileries is found in Ron- 
 sard's ^^Epitre a Charles /X." 
 
 '* J'ay veu trop de magons 
 Bastir les Tuileries, 
 Et en trop de fagons 
 Faire les momeries." 
 
 Work on the edifice so auspiciously planned 
 by Delorme was practically discontinued dur- 
 ing the reign of Henri III, owing to lack of funds. 
 
 The Renaissance of Delorme, BuUant, Lescot, 
 
110 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 each of whom had a hand in the building of the 
 Tuileries, expressed certain characteristic phases 
 of architectural art in the reigns of Francis I 
 and Henri II. The reign of Charles IX was 
 only another phase of that long reign of Catherine 
 de Medici, and architectural influences continued 
 to follow along the same reminiscent Italian 
 lines, particularly with reference to such edifices 
 as the Medici herself caused to be built. In 
 the dedication of Philibert Delorme's ^^Traite 
 d* Architecture^^ he expressed himself thus with 
 regard to the Tuileries: 
 
 "Madame, I see from day to day with an 
 increasing pleasure the interest that your Majesty 
 takes in architecture. The palace which you 
 have built at Paris near the Pont Neuf and the 
 Louvre is, according to its disposition, excellent 
 and admirable to the extent that it pleases me 
 beyond measure." 
 
 After Delorme considerable changes were made 
 and successfully carried out under the archi- 
 tects Ducerceau, Duperac, Levau and Dorbay. 
 
 A distinct feature of the work of Delorme 
 was his use of the column ornamented through- 
 out its length, which, as he says in his written 
 works, he first employed in the ^^ Palais de la 
 Majeste de la Royne-Mere a Paris. ''^ 
 ^Of the ability of Delorme there is no diversity 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens ill 
 
 of opinion to-day, nor was there in his time. 
 Besides the Tuileries he has to his credit the 
 Chateau d'Anet, the Chateau de Saint Maur, 
 that of Meudon — built for the Cardinal de 
 Lorraine, — and his important additions to the 
 Chateau de la Muette and the Chateaux of Saint 
 Germain, Madrid and Fontainebleau. 
 
 As might be supposed Catherine de Medici 
 professed a great admiration for Delorme and 
 recompensed his talents with a royal generosity, 
 even nominating him as Abbe of the Convent 
 of Saint Eloi de Noyon, a fact which caused the 
 poet Ronsard to evolve a political satire: ''La 
 Truelle Crossee. " 
 
 At the same time that she was building the 
 Tuileries Catherine de Medici caused additions 
 to be made to the Louvre; at least she undertook 
 the completion of the unfinished portion, which 
 had been left for other hands to do. 
 
 VThe first historic souvenir which stands out 
 prominently with regard to the Palais des Tuil- 
 eries is the fete given four days before the fate- 
 ful Saint Bartholomew's night. It was the mar- 
 riage fete of the gallant Henri de Beam, King of 
 Navarre, and the wise and witty Marguerite 
 de Valois. 
 
 Henri IV, coming to the throne a quarter of 
 a century after the admirable first year's work 
 
112 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 on the Tuileries had been completed, found 
 that little had been done towards making it a 
 really habitable place. It had been hurriedly 
 finished off to the second story, and had served 
 well enough for a temporary residence, or as an 
 overflow establishment where balls and fetes 
 might be given without crowding, but to the 
 ambitious Henri IV nothing would do but that 
 the pavilions should be bound together with a 
 more imposing ligature, and that the Pavilion 
 de Flore should in turn be linked up with the 
 Louvre by a gallery. 
 
 Under Louis XIII this latter really came to a 
 conclusion according to the plans of the architect 
 Ducerceau, but the inspiration of making the 
 Louvre and the Tuileries one was due to Henri IV. 
 ' Under Louis XIV and Louis XV the palace 
 in its still attenuated form was scarcely more 
 than a rambling lodging, utterly lacking any 
 of the noble apartments with which it was after- 
 wards endowed. The court at this time prac- 
 tically made Versailles its headquarters. Neither 
 of the above-mentioned monarchs made aught 
 but cursory visits to the Tuileries and left its 
 occupancy to officers of the household and minis- 
 ters of state. 
 
 It was in the reign of Louis XV that the Floren- 
 tine artist, Servandoni, who was at the same 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 113 
 
 time an eminent architect, a remarkable painter 
 and a maestro of a musician, organized in the 
 Palais des Tuileries the Theatre des Machines, 
 the first installed at Paris, and there came the 
 Comedie Fran^iaise, the Opera and the Bouffes 
 (the Comedie Italienne) and gave command 
 performances before the court. 
 
 When the French resolved that Louis XVI 
 should live in Paris, the Palais des Tuileries 
 was actually offered him, but it was a rather 
 shabby place of royal residence so far as its 
 interior appointments were concerned, though 
 in all ways appealing when viewed from with- 
 out. Considerable repairs and embellishments 
 were made, but warring factions did much to 
 make difficult any real artistic progress. 
 
 ' With the advent of Louis XVI there came a 
 contrast to gayety and freedom from care in royal 
 hearts and heads. On October 5 Louis XVI 
 and the royal family hid themselves behind 
 barred doors, the convention taking up its sittings 
 under the same roof and forthwith passing an 
 act which allowed the completion of the palace 
 according to the plans of Vignon at an expense 
 of three hundred thousand livres. An almost 
 entire transformation took place, the money 
 being seemingly well spent, and the structure 
 now first took its proper place among the monu- 
 mental art treasures of the capital. 
 
114 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ,, A dramatic incident took place at the great 
 gate of the Tuileries, which faced the court- 
 yard, when, on May 28, 1795, the populace 
 surged in waves against its sturdy barrier. The 
 Deputy Feraud met them at the steps. "You 
 may enter only over my dead body," he said. 
 No reply was made but to crack his skull, be- 
 head the trunk and carry the head aloft on a 
 pike to the very Tribune where Boissy d'Anglas 
 was presiding. 
 
 The Salle de Spectacle of the Tuileries was, 
 even at this period, the largest auditorium of 
 its kind in Europe, having eight thousand stalls 
 and boxes, which gave a seating capacity of con- 
 siderably more than that number of persons. 
 ' In 1793 this playhouse, of which the parquet 
 occupied the ground floor of the Pavilion de 
 Marsan, underwent a strange metamorphosis 
 when it became the legislative hall for the Na- 
 tional Convention. All the names and em- 
 blems showing forth in its decorations and in- 
 dicative of its ancient rule were changed into 
 Republican devices and symbols. The Pavilion 
 de Marsan was called the Pavilion de PEgalite, 
 the Pavilion du Centre became the Pavilion de 
 rUnite and the Pavilion de Flore the Pavilion 
 de la Liberte, where was lodged the Committee 
 of Public Safety. 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 115 
 
 The Hall of the Convention, according to reports 
 of the time, was an appalling mixture of grandeur 
 and effeminacy with respect to its architectural 
 lines. Surrounding that portion where the legisla- 
 tors actually sat was the great amphitheatre 
 which for three years was occupied by a curious, 
 vociferous public, more demonstrative, even, than 
 those that had attended the former theatrical 
 representations in the same apartment. 
 \ From the opening of the National Convention 
 to the reaction of "Thermidor" it is estimated 
 that more than three million people assisted at 
 what they rightly, or wrongly, considered as a 
 "spectacle" staged only for their amusement. 
 \ By the time Napoleon had come into power 
 the Tuileries was hardly habitable, and before 
 taking up his residence he was obliged to make 
 immediate and extensive transformations. 
 \ On February 19, 1800, Napoleon, still First 
 Consul, left the Palais de Luxembourg and took 
 up his residence in the Tuileries, the Third Consul, 
 Lebrun, being lodged in the Pavilion de Flore, 
 in the "Petite Appartement, " which Marie An- 
 toinette had fitted up for her temporary accom- 
 modation when in town. Lebrun, however, gave 
 up his lodging to the Pope when the Pontiff came 
 to Paris at Napoleon's orders. Consul Cam- 
 baceres, however, refused to shelter himself 
 
116 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 beneath the roof of the Tuileries, and indicated 
 a preference for the magnificent Hotel d'El- 
 bceuf, which was accommodatingly put at his 
 disposition. 
 
 Napoleon entered the Tuileries in state, pre- 
 ceded and followed by an imposing cortege. 
 At the gate of the Carrousel the consuls alighted 
 from their carriages, and were received by the 
 Consular Guard. On their arrival the consuls 
 read the following inscription posted at the 
 entrance: "On August loth monarchy in France 
 was forever abolished; it will never be restored." 
 By the 20th of February the inscription had 
 disappeared. Besides, orders were given to 
 cut down the two liberty trees which had been 
 planted in the courtyard. On August 10 a 
 large quantity of cannon shot had been lodged 
 in the facade of the Tuileries, and around the 
 shot were written these words: ^^ Tenth of Au- 
 gust." The cannon balls disappeared, as well 
 as the inscriptions, when the Arc de Triomphe 
 was erected on the Place du Carrousel. 
 
 This alteration gave great satisfaction. It 
 was important for the tranquillity of France that 
 the new government should inherit rather the 
 sword of Charlemagne than the guillotine of 
 Marat. 
 
 The imperial court soon displayed its splendour 
 
Salle des Marechaux, Tuileries 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 117 
 
 and magnificence in the Palais des Tuileries, as 
 a foregone conclusion anticipated. 
 ' In a gorgeous and imposing Salle du Trone 
 one might have seen in the deep casement of the 
 central window, standing up, their hats off, 
 the group of the Corps Diplomatique, the mem- 
 bers of which, loaded with decorations, ensigns, 
 and diamonds, trembled in the presence of the 
 Little Corporal of other days; on the other 
 side, the host of the Princes of the Rhine Con- 
 federation — all the personages that Germany, 
 Russia, Poland, Italy, Denmark, Spain, all 
 Europe, in one word, England excepted, had 
 sent to Paris. 
 
 It is needless to say that the wedding reception 
 of Napoleon and Marie Louise at the Tuileries 
 was celebrated with unusual magnificence. An- 
 other event, on account of its peculiar moment, 
 strongly excited the enthusiasm of the French. 
 On March 20, 181 1, at seven o'clock in the 
 morning, the first salute of cannon announced 
 that the empress had given birth to a child, the 
 future Aiglon, the King of Rome. 
 V After Napoleon's occupancy of the Tuileries 
 it again served the monarch under the Empire, 
 the Restoration, under Louis Philippe and under 
 the Second Empire. The palace of unhappy 
 memory saw successively the fall of Napoleon, 
 
118 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 the entry of Louis XVIII, the file-by of the Allies, 
 the flight of Louis XVIII, of Charles X, Louis 
 Philippe and Napoleon III. 
 
 Up to the time of the Second Empire the Tuil- 
 eries preserved, more or less, its original in- 
 terior arrangement, and, to a great extent, the 
 decorations with which it had been embellished 
 under Louis XIV, Louis XVI, and Napoleon I. 
 
 The Pavilion de Flore, at the juncture of the 
 Tuileries and the Louvre of Henri IV, was prac- 
 tically rebuilt during the Second Empire, but 
 it followed closely the contemporary designs 
 of the adjoining building. Here are quartered 
 executive offices of the Prefecture de la Seine. 
 That portion facing the Pont Royal contains a 
 series of fine sculptures by Carpeaux, the sole 
 modern embellishments of this nature to be seen 
 in or on a Paris palace. 
 
 'y As the Commune mob was fleeing before the 
 army of Versailles a conflagration broke out in the 
 Tuileries and soon the whole edifice was in flames. 
 Within what may have been the briefest interval 
 on record for a conflagration of its size the Tuileries 
 was but a smoking pile of half-calcined stones. 
 
 The Tuileries had another brief day of glory 
 when the Prince President, Louis Napoleon, 
 entered its gates, coming straight from his in- 
 auguration at Notre Dame. 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 119 
 
 The cannon at the Hotel des Invahdes blazed 
 out a welcome and every patriot Republican 
 shouted: '^Vive Napoleon!" They little knew, 
 little cared perhaps, that he would some day 
 become the Second Emperor. 
 
 The throng poured forth from the cathedral 
 after the Domine Salvum and the benediction, 
 the clergy leading the way, followed by the presi- 
 dent and his attendants. The orchestra played 
 a lively march, and the great bell in the tower 
 boomed forth a glorious peal. 
 
 ^t^ >1^ *if^ ^j^ ^t^ %^ ^^ *^ 
 
 «^ ^^ ^^ ^* *^ ^* 'J* '^ 
 
 The president's carriage drew up before the 
 gates of the Tuileries and he entered the great 
 apartment where a reception was given to various 
 public and military bodies. Between seven and 
 eight thousand naval and military officers paid 
 their respects, and about half a battalion of the 
 army saluted, among them two Mamelukes. 
 While this ceremony was going on, the Place du 
 Carrousel was occupied by several squadrons 
 of cavalry and the inner courtyards were prac- 
 tically infantry camps. The government was 
 taking no chances at the beginning of its career. 
 The reception lasted until well on towards even- 
 ing, when a banquet of four hundred covers was 
 laid and partaken of by the invited guests. 
 
 The last days of the Tuileries may be said to 
 
120 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 have commenced with that eventful September 3, 
 1870, at five o'clock in the afternoon, when the 
 Empress Eugenie received a telegraphic despatch 
 from Napoleon III announcing his captivity 
 and the defeat of Sedan. It was the overthrow. 
 
 The evening and the night were calm; the 
 masses, as yet, were unaware of the fatal news 
 the journals would publish on the morrow. The 
 following day was Sunday; the weather superb; 
 the disaster was finally announced and the masses 
 thronged from all parts to the Place de la Con- 
 corde, where a squadron of Cuirassiers barred 
 the bridge leading to the Palais Bourbon where 
 the deputies were in session. 
 
 On the arrival of the news the empress had 
 called in General Trochu, the Military Governor 
 of Paris, and asked him if he could guarantee 
 order. He replied in the afiirmative. Some 
 hours later a group of deputies came to the em- 
 press and counselled her to sign, not an abdica- 
 tion, but a momentary renunciation of her powers 
 as regent. Eugenie refused point-blank. 
 
 The throng, passing by the left bank, had 
 arrived at the Chamber of Deputies, and the 
 formal sitting became a revolutionary one. At 
 three o'clock the imperial dynasty was pro- 
 claimed as at an end, and a provisionary govern- 
 ment installed. Henri Rochefort, the present 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 121 
 
 editor of the ^^ Intransingeant^^^ was delivered 
 from the prison of Sainte Pelagie and made a 
 member of the government. 
 
 By this time the mob which had invaded the 
 Place de la Concorde became menacing. The 
 cry, "Aux Tuileries," first launched by the street 
 gamins, soon became the slogan of the crowd. 
 To say it was to do it; the great iron gates were 
 closed, but in default of a protecting force of 
 arms it was an easy matter to scale them. 
 
 Behind the curtained windows of the palace 
 the empress witnessed the assault and murmured 
 to her ladies-in-waiting: "It is then finished." 
 She turned towards the Prince de Metternich 
 and the Chevalier Nigra, and, in the voice of a 
 suppliant, demanded: ^^Que me ccnisillez vous?^^ 
 
 "You must leave at once, Madame; in a moment 
 the palace will be invaded." 
 
 The empress became resigned and accompanied 
 by Madame Le Breton, Metternich and Nigra 
 started for the Pavilion de Flore, passing through 
 the Galerie de Musee and the Galerie d'Apol- 
 lon, finally leaving by the gate of the Louvre, 
 which is opposite Saint Germain FAuxerrois. 
 ' The empress was at last out of the palace, 
 but not yet out of danger. A band of mani- 
 festants, making for the Hotel de Ville and shout- 
 ing: ''Vive la Republique," recognized the em- 
 
122 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 press, but she mounted an empty fiacre with 
 Madame Le Breton, and giving the driver the 
 first address that entered her mind thus escaped 
 further indignities, and perhaps danger. Finally 
 she found a refuge with Doctor Evans, the Ameri- 
 can dentist living in the Avenue Malakoff, from 
 whose house she left for England on the follow- 
 ing day. 
 
 This is the Frenchman's point of view of one 
 of the picturesque incidents of history. It dis- 
 poses of the legend that the empress left the 
 Tuileries in the carriage of Doctor Evans, but 
 this cannot be helped, with due regard for the 
 consensus of French opinion. Doctor Evans 
 was a family friend, besides being the dentist 
 who cared for the imperial teeth, and it is not 
 going beyond the truth to state that the fortunate 
 American acquired not a little of his vogue and 
 wealth by his association with Napoleon III and 
 his family. 
 
 By this time the populace had invaded the 
 palace and cursed with indignities unmention- 
 able the marble halls, and the furnishings in 
 general, and pillaged such portable property as 
 pleased the individual fancies of the spoilsmen, 
 j After the signing of the Peace Treaty by the 
 Bordeaux Assembly, which now represented the 
 governmental head, and Thiers had become presi- 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 123 
 
 dent, that worthy would do away with the can- 
 non of which the National Guard still held pos- 
 session in their garrison on the Butte of Mont- 
 martre. The orders which he sent forth came 
 to be the signal for another outbreak on the 
 part of the populace. On March 18 the Com- 
 mune was proclaimed and Citoyen Dardelle, 
 an old African hunter, was appointed military 
 governor of the Tuileries. Whatever this indi- 
 viduaPs military qualifications may have been, 
 he delivered himself to the enjoyment of a high 
 and dissolute life in his luxurious apartments 
 in the palace; a fact which was speedily made 
 note of by the still restless populace. 
 
 The Citoyen Rousselle, a member of the Com- 
 munal Government, had the idea of organizing 
 a series of popular concerts in the gardens of 
 the Tuileries for the profit of the wounded in 
 the late friction. 
 
 Hung on the walls, at the entrance of each 
 apartment was a placard which read: '^Fellow 
 men, the gold with which these walls were built 
 was earned by your sweat." "To-day you are 
 coming to your own." "Remain faithful to your 
 trust and see to it that the tyrants enter never 
 more." 
 
 During one of these public concerts a poem 
 of Hegesippe Moreau was read which termi- 
 
124 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 nated as follows, and set the populace aflame. 
 
 ******** 
 
 "Et moi j'applaudirai ; ma jeuneusse engourdie 
 Se rechauffera a ce grand incendie." 
 
 He referred to the burning of the former abode 
 of emperors and kings as a sort of sacrifice to 
 the common good. The public had held itself 
 in hand very well up to this moment, but ap- 
 plauded the verses vociferously. The last of 
 the concerts was held on May 21, the same day 
 as the Army of Versailles entered Paris. Night 
 came, and with it the raging, red flames spring- 
 ing skywards from the roof of the Tuileries. 
 ^ In a few moments the flames had enyeloped 
 the entire building. All the forces that it was 
 possible to gather had been ordered upon the 
 scene, but they were unable to save the old palace, 
 and by one o'clock in the morning it was but a 
 mass of smoking ruins. The Communards had 
 done their work well. Before leaving its pre- 
 cincts they had sprinkled coal oil over every 
 square metre of carpet, window-hangings and 
 tapestries, and the slow-match was not long in 
 passing the fire to its inflammable timber. The 
 library of the Louvre was destroyed, but the 
 museums, galleries and their famous collections 
 fortunately escaped. 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 125 
 
 \ For a dozen years the lamentable ruins of the 
 old palace of the Tuileries reared their singed 
 walls, a witness and a reproach to the tempestu- 
 osity of a people. Finally, in 1882, Monsieur 
 Achille Picard undertook their removal for thirty- 
 three thousand francs, and within a year not a 
 vestige, not an unturned stone remained in its 
 original place as a witness to this chapter of 
 Paris history. 
 
 Two porticos of the Pavilion de PHorloge, 
 originally forming a part of the Tuileries, have 
 been re-erected on the terrace of the Orangerie, 
 facing the Place de la Concorde. 
 
 There remain but two survivors of the late 
 imperial sway in France, the Empress Eugenie 
 who lives in England, and Emile Olivier, 'H^homme 
 au coeur leger^^^ who lives at Saint Tropez in 
 the Midi. 
 
 A Paris journalist a year or more ago, while 
 sitting among a little coterie of literary and 
 artistic folk at Lavenue's famous terrace-cafe, 
 recounted the following incident clothed in most 
 discreet language, and since it bears upon the 
 Tuileries and its last occupants it is repeated 
 here. 
 
 \ "Last night beneath the glamour of a Septem- 
 ber moon I saw a black shadow silently creep 
 out from beneath the gloom of the arcades of 
 
126 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 the Rue de Rivoli just below the Hotel Continen- 
 tal. It crossed the pavement and passed within 
 the railings of the gardens opposite, one of the 
 gates to which, by chance or prearranged design, 
 was still open. It moved slowly here and there 
 upon the gravelled walks and seated itself upon 
 a solitary bench as if it were meditating upon 
 the splendid though sad hours that had passed. 
 Was it a wraith; was it Eugenie, late empress 
 of the French?'' 
 
 To have remembered such a dream of fancy 
 for forty long years one must have been endowed 
 with superhuman courage, or an inexplicable 
 conscience. 
 
 The Rue des Pyramides, which has been pro- 
 longed to the banks of the Seine, will give those 
 of the present generation who have never seen 
 the Tuileries an exact idea of its location. If 
 it still existed the facade of the palace would 
 front upon this street. 
 
 The most moving history of the detailed hor- 
 rors of the Commune, particularly with reference 
 to the part played by the Tuileries therein, is 
 to be found in Maxime Ducamp's ^^ Les Dernier s 
 Convulsions de Paris. "^^ 
 
 \One relic of the Tuileries left unharmed found 
 a purchaser in a Roumanian prince, at a public 
 sale held as late as 1889. This was the ornately 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 127 
 
 beautiful iron gate which separated the Cour 
 du Carrousel from the Cour des Tuileries. Rou- 
 manian by birth, French at heart and Parisian 
 by adoption, this wealthy amateur, for a trifle 
 over eight thousand francs, became the owner of 
 a royal souvenir which must have cost five hun- 
 dred times that sum. 
 
 \ The eastern front of the Tuileries opened into 
 a courtyard formed under the direction of the 
 first Napoleon. It was separated from the Place 
 du Carrousel by a handsome iron railing with 
 gilt spear-heads extending the whole range of 
 the palace. From this court there were three 
 entrances into the Place du Carrousel, the central 
 gate corresponding with the central pavilion of the 
 palace, the other two having their piers surmounted 
 by colossal figures of victory, peace, history and 
 France. A gateway under each of the lateral gal- 
 leries also communicated on the north with the Rue 
 de Rivoli, and on the south with the Quai du 
 Louvre. The Place du Carrousel was named in 
 honour of a tournament held upon the spot by Louis 
 XIV in 1662. It communicated on the north with 
 the Rue Richelieu and the Rue de I'Echelle, and 
 on the south with the Pont Royal and the Pont du 
 Carrousel. To-day in the square stands the trium- 
 phal arch erected by Napoleon in 1806, after the 
 designs of Percier and Fontaine. 
 
128 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ' The newly laid-out and furbished-up gardens 
 make the Place du Carrousel even more attractive 
 than it was when set about with flagged areas, 
 gravelled walks and paved road ways, and, while 
 the monumental and architectural accessories 
 excel the horticultural embellishments in quan- 
 tity, the general effect is incomparably finer at 
 present than anything known before. 
 "^ Plans for rebuilding the Place du Carrousel 
 provide for a division into three distinct parts, 
 three grand pelouses^ a boulingrins a la Franfais, 
 or lawns of a circumscribed area, according to 
 the best traditions of Le Notre, a border of flowers 
 and a few decoratively disposed clumps of flower- 
 ing shrubs, the whole combined in such a way 
 that the perspective and vista down the Champs 
 Elysees will in no manner suffer. The architect- 
 landscapist, M. Redon, who has been charged 
 with the work, has drawn his inspiration from 
 a series of unexecuted designs of Le Notre which 
 have recently been brought to light from the 
 innermost depths of the national archives. It 
 was a safe way of avoiding an anachronism, 
 and this time a government architect has chosen 
 well his plan of execution. 
 
 In later years the question of the reembellish- 
 ment of the Garden of the Tuileries has ever 
 been before the public, but little has actually 
 
The Tuileries and its Gardens 129 
 
 been changed save the remaking of certain 
 garden plots, the planting of a few shrubs or the 
 placing of a few statues. 
 
 -^ The Garden of the Tuileries has a superficial 
 area of 232,632 square metres. It is the most 
 popular of all open spaces in the capital to the 
 Parisian who would take his walks abroad not 
 too far from the centre of things. The chief 
 curiosity of the garden is the celebrated chest- 
 nut tree which burst into flower on the day 
 of Napoleon's arrival from Elba — March 20. 
 The precocious tree has ever been revered by 
 the Bonapartists since, though the tree has never 
 performed the trick the second time. 
 
 Statues innumerable are scattered here and 
 there through the garden and give a certain 
 sense of liveliness to the area. Some are by 
 famous names, others by those less renowned, 
 but as a whole they make little impression on 
 one, chiefly, perhaps, because one does not come 
 to the Garden of the Tuileries to see statues. 
 
 To the left and right are the terraces, first 
 laid out by the celebrated Le Notre. Like 
 the hanging gardens of Babylon, they overlook 
 a lower level of parterres, gravelled walks and 
 ornamental waters. Along the Rue de Rivoli 
 is the Terrasse de I'Orangerie, and on the side 
 of the river is the Terrasse de la Marine. 
 
130 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 According to the original plans of Le Notre 
 the garden was set down as five hundred toises in 
 length, and one hundred and sixty-eight toises 
 in width, the latter dimension corresponding to 
 that of the facade of the palace. 
 
 ^ Along the shady avenues of this admirable city 
 garden of to-day an enterprising concessionaire 
 has won a fortune by renting out rush-bottomed 
 chairs to nursemaids, retired old gentlemen 
 with red ribbons in their buttonholes, and trip- 
 pers from across the channel. It is a perfectly 
 legitimate enterprise and a profitable one it would 
 seem, and has been in operation considerably 
 more than half a century. 
 
 It was from the Gardens of the Tuileries in 
 1784 that took place Blanchard's celebrated 
 ascension in Montgolfier's balloon and brought 
 forth the encomium from the British Royal Soci- 
 ety that the body was not in the least surprised 
 that a Frenchman should have solved the prob- 
 lem of "volatability.'' The French monarch, 
 more practical, was so mightily pleased with 
 the success of the experiment that he bestowed 
 upon the author the sum of four hundred thou- 
 sand francs from his treasury to be used for the 
 perfection of the art. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE PALAIS CARDINAL AND THE PALAIS ROYAL 
 
 With the Louvre and the Tuileries the Palais 
 Royal shares the popular interest of the traveller 
 among all the monuments of Paris. No other 
 edifice evokes more vivid souvenirs of its historic 
 past than this hybrid palace of Richeheu. One 
 dreams even to-day, of its sumptuousness, its 
 legends, its amusing and extravagant incidents 
 which cast a halo of romantic interest over so 
 many illustrious personages. So thoroughly 
 Parisian is the Palais Royal in all things that 
 it has been called ^'the Capital of Paris." 
 
 Not far from the walled and turreted strong- 
 hold of the old Louvre rose the private palaces, 
 only a little less royal, of the Rambouillets, the 
 Mercoeurs and other nobles of the courtly train. 
 They lived, too, in almost regal state until Armand 
 du Plessis de Richelieu came to humble their 
 pride, by fair means or foul, by buying up or 
 destroying their sumptuous dwellings, levelling 
 off a vast area of land, and, in 1629, commencing 
 work on that imposing pile which was first known 
 
 131 
 
132 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 as the Palais Cardinal, later the Palais d' Orleans, 
 then as the Palais de la Revolution and finally as 
 the Palais Royal. 
 
 It was near, yet far enough away from the royal 
 residence of the Louvre not to be overshadowed 
 by it. The edifice enclosed a great square of 
 ground laid out with symmetrically planted trees 
 and adorned with fountains and statues. 
 ( From the great central square four smaller 
 courts opened out to each of the principal points 
 of the compass; there were also, besides the living 
 rooms, a chapel, two theatres, ballrooms, bou- 
 doirs and picture galleries, all of a luxury never 
 before dreamed of but by kings. 
 
 The main entrance was in the Rue Saint 
 Honore, and over its portal were the graven arms 
 of Richelieu, surmounted by the cardinal's hat 
 and the inscription: "Palais Cardinal." Like 
 his English compeer, Wolsey, Richelieu's ardour 
 for building knew no restraint. He added block 
 upon block of buildings and yard upon yard to 
 garden walls until all was a veritable labyrinth. 
 Finally the usually subservient Louis saw the 
 condition of things; he liked it not that his minister 
 should dwell in marble halls more gorgeous than 
 his own. As a matter of policy the Cardinal 
 ceased to build more and at his death, as if to 
 atone, willed the entire property to his king. 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 133 
 
 ■ As the Palais Cardinal, the edifice was sub- 
 jected to many impertinent railleries from the 
 public which, as a whole, was ever antagonistic 
 to the ^^ Homme Rouge.^^ They did not admit the 
 right of an apostolic prelate of the church to 
 lodge himself so luxuriously when the very pre- 
 cepts of his religion recommended modesty and 
 humility. Richelieu's contemporaries did not 
 hesitate to admire wonderingly all this luxury of 
 life and its accessories, and Corneille, in the 
 ^^Menteur " (1642), makes one of the principal 
 characters say: 
 
 " Non, I'univers ne peut rien voir d'egal 
 Aux superbes dehors du Palais Cardinal; 
 Toute une ville entiere avec pompe batie, 
 Semble d'un vieux fosse par miracle sortie, 
 Et nous fais presumer a ses superbes toits 
 Que tous ses habitants sont des dieux ou des rois." 
 
 \ The ground plan of the Palais Cardinal was 
 something unique among city palaces. In the 
 beginning ground values were not what they are 
 to-day in Paris. There were acres upon acres of 
 greensward set about and cut up with gravelled 
 walks, great alleyed rows of trees, groves without 
 number and galleries and colonnades innumerable. 
 Without roared the traffic of a great city, a less 
 noisy traffic than that of to-day, perhaps, but still 
 
134 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 a contrasting maelstrom of bustle and furor as 
 compared with the tranquillity within. 
 
 After the edifice was finished it actually fell 
 into disuse, except for the periodical intervals 
 when the Cardinal visited the capital. At other 
 times it was as quiet as a cemetery. Moss grew 
 on the flags, grass on the gravelled walks and 
 tangled shrubbery killed off the budding flowers 
 of the gardens. 
 
 Richelieu's last home-coming, after the execu- 
 tion of Cinq-Mars at Lyons, was a tragic one. 
 The despot of France, once again under his own 
 rooftree, threw himself upon his bed surrounded 
 by his choicest pictures and tapestries, and paid 
 the price of his merciless arrogance towards all 
 men — and women — by folding his wan hands 
 upon his breast and exclaiming, somewhat uncon- 
 vincingly:. *'Thus do I give myself to God." As 
 if recalling himself to the stern reality of things he 
 added: '^I have no enemies but those of State." 
 
 \In a robe of purple silk, supported by pillows 
 of the finest down and covered with the rarest of 
 laces, he rigidly straightened himself out and 
 expired without a shudder, with the feeling that 
 he was well beyond the reach of invisible foes. 
 But before he died Richelieu received a visit from 
 his king in person. This was another token of 
 his invincible power. 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 135 
 
 Thus the Palais Royal was evolved from the 
 Palais Cardinal of Richelieu. Richelieu gave 
 the orders for its construction to Jacques Lemer- 
 cier immediately after he had dispossessed the 
 Rambouillets and the Mercceurs, intending at 
 first to erect only a comparatively modest town 
 dwelling with an ample garden. Vanity, or some 
 other passion, finally caused to grow up the mag- 
 nificently proportioned edifice which was called 
 the Palais Cardinal instead of that which was 
 to be known more modestly as the Hotel de 
 Richelieu. 
 
 \ Vast and imposing, but not without a certain 
 graceful symmetry, the Palais Royal of to-day is 
 a composition of many separate edifices divided 
 by a series of courts and gardens and connected 
 by arcaded galleries. The right wing enclosed 
 an elaborate Salle de Spectacle while that to the 
 left enclosed an equally imposing chamber with 
 a ceiling by Philippe de Champaigne, known 
 as the Galerie des Hommes Illustres, and further 
 ornamented with portraits of most of the court 
 favourites of both sexes of the time. The archi- 
 tectural ornamentation of this gallery was of the 
 Doric order, most daringly interspersed with 
 moulded ships' prows, anchors, cables and what 
 not of a marine significance. 
 ^ In 1636, divining the attitude of envy of many 
 
136 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 of the nobility who frequented his palace, Riche- 
 lieu — great man of politics that he was — made 
 a present of the entire lot of curios to Louis XIII, 
 but undertaking to house them for him, which he 
 did until his death in 1642. 
 
 ■ At the death of Louis XIII the Palais Cardinal, 
 which had been left to him in its entirety by the 
 will of Richelieu, came to Anne d'Autriche, the 
 regent, who, with the infant Louis XIV and 
 the royal family, installed herself therein, and 
 from now on (October 7, 1642), the edifice be- 
 came known as the Palais Royal. 
 
 I Now commenced the political role of this sump- 
 tuous palace which hitherto had been but the 
 Cardinal's caprice. Mazarin had succeeded 
 Richelieu, and to escape the anger of the Fron- 
 deurs, he, with the regent and the two princes, 
 Louis XIV and the Due d'Anjou, fled to the 
 refuge of Saint Germain-en-Laye. 
 
 \In company with Mademoiselle de Montpen- 
 sier, who had been rudely awakened from her 
 slumbers in the Luxembourg, they took a coach 
 in the dead of night for Saint Germain. It was 
 a long and weary ride; the Pavi du Roi was then, 
 as now, the most execrable suburban highroad 
 in existence. 
 
 When calm was reestablished Mazarin refused 
 to allow the regent to take up her residence 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 137 
 
 again in the old abode of Richelieu and turned 
 it over to Henriette de France, the widow of 
 Charles I, who had been banished from England 
 by Cromwell. 
 
 -Thirty odd years later Louis XIV, when he 
 was dreaming of his Versailles project, made a 
 gift of the property to his nephew, Philippe 
 d'Orleans, Due de Chartres. Important recon- 
 structions and rearrangements had been carried 
 on from time to time, but nothing so radical as 
 to change the specious aspect of the palace of 
 the CardinaPs time, though it had been consider- 
 ably enlarged by extending it rearward and an- 
 nexing the Hotel Danville in the present Rue 
 Richelieu. Mansart on one occasion was called 
 in and built a new gallery that Coypel decorated 
 with fourteen compositions after the ^nid of 
 Virgil. 
 
 \ Under the regency the Salon d' Entree was 
 redecorated by Oppenard, and a series of mag- 
 nificent fetes was organized by the pleasure- 
 loving queen from the Austrian court. Riche- 
 lieu's theatre was made into an opera-house, and 
 masked balls of an unparalleled magnificence 
 were frequently given, not forgetting to mention 
 — without emphasis however — suppers of a 
 Pantagruelian opulence and lavish orgies at which 
 the chronicles only hint. 
 
138 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 In 1 66 1, Monsieur, brother of the king, took 
 up his official residence in the palace, enlarged 
 it in various directions and in many ways trans- 
 formed and improved it. Having become the 
 sole proprietor of the edifice and its gardens, by 
 Letters Patent of February, 1692, the Due d'Or- 
 leans left this superb property, in 1701, to his son 
 the too famous regent, Philippe d' Orleans, whose 
 orgies and extravagances rendered the Palais 
 Royal notorious to the utmost corners of Europe. 
 
 \The first years of the eighteenth century were 
 indeed notorious. It was then that Palais Royal 
 became the head-centre for debauch and abandon. 
 It is from this epoch, too, that date the actual 
 structures which to-day form this vast square of 
 buildings, at all events their general outline is 
 little changed to-day from what it was at that 
 time. 
 
 ^ If the regent's policy was to carry the freedom 
 and luxury of Richelieu's time to excess, replacing 
 even the edifices of the Cardinal with more elabo- 
 rate structures, his son Louis (i 723-1 752) sought 
 in his turn to surround them with an atmosphere 
 more austere. 
 
 \ A disastrous fire in 1 763 caused the Palais 
 Royal to be rebuilt by order of Louis Philippe 
 d' Orleans, the future Philippe-Egalite, by the 
 architect Moreau^ who carried out the old tra- 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 139 
 
 ditions as to form and outline, and considerably 
 increased the extent and number of the arcades 
 from one hundred and eighty to two hundred 
 and seven. These the astute duke immediately 
 rented out to shopkeepers at an annual rental 
 of more than ten millions. This section was 
 known characteristically enough as the Palais 
 Marchand, and thus the garden came to be sur- 
 rounded by a monumental and classic arcade of 
 shops which has ever remained a distinct feature 
 of the palace. 
 
 "^ A second fire burned out the National Opera, 
 which now sought shelter in the Palais Royal, 
 and in 1781 the Theatre des Varietes Amusantes 
 was constructed, and which has since been made 
 over into the home of the Comedie Fran^aise. 
 yThe transformations imposed by Philippe-Ega- 
 lite were considerable, and the famous chestnut 
 trees, which had been planted within the court- 
 yard in the seventeenth century by Richelieu, were 
 cut down. He built also the three transverse 
 galleries which have cut the gardens of to-day 
 into much smaller plots than they were in Riche- 
 lieu's time. In spite of this there is still that 
 pleasurable tranquillity to be had therein to-day, 
 scarcely a stone's throw from the rush and turmoil 
 of the whirlpool of wheeled traffic which centres 
 around the junction of the Rue Richelieu with the 
 
140 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Avenue de F Opera. It is as an oasis in a tur- 
 bulent sandstorm, a beneficent shelf of rock in a 
 whirlpool of rapids. The only thing to be feared 
 therein is that a toy aeroplane of some child will 
 put an eye out, or that the more devilish diaholo 
 will crack one's skull. 
 
 Under the regency of the Due Philippe d' Or- 
 leans the various apartments of the palace were- 
 the scenes of scandalous goings-on, which were 
 related at great length in the chronicles of the 
 time. It was a very mixed world which now 
 frequented the purlieus of the Palais Royal. Men 
 and women about town jostled with men of 
 affairs, financiers, speculators and agitators of all 
 ranks and of questionable respectability. Mi- 
 lords, as strangers from across the Manche came 
 first to be known here, delivered themselves to 
 questionable society and still more questionable 
 pleasures. It was at a little later period that 
 the Due de Chartres authorized the establishment 
 of the cafes and restaurants which for a couple 
 of generations became the most celebrated ren- 
 dezvous in Paris — the Cafe de Foy, the Cafe de 
 la Paix, the Cafe Carrazzo and various other 
 places of reunion whose very names, to say noth- 
 ing of the incidents connected therewith, have 
 come down to history. 
 
 ;It was the establishment of these public ren- 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 141 
 
 dezvous which contributed so largely to the 
 events which unrolled themselves in the Palais 
 Royal in 1789. This "Eden de I'Enfer/* as it 
 was known, has in late years been entirely recon- 
 structed; the old haunts of the Empire have gone 
 and nothing has come to take their place. 
 
 Then came another class of establishments 
 which burned brilliantly in the second rank and 
 were, in a way, political rendezvous also — the 
 Cafe de Chartres and the Cafe de Valois. Of 
 all these Palais Royal cafes of the early nine- 
 teenth century the most gorgeous and brilliant 
 was the Cafe des Mille Colonnes, though its 
 popularity was seemingly due to the charms of 
 the maitresse de la maison, a Madame Romain, 
 whose husband was a dried-up, dwarfed little 
 man of no account whatever. Madame Romain, 
 however, lived well up to her reputation as being 
 ^' incontestablement la plus jolie jemme de Parish 
 By 1824 the fame of the establishment had be- 
 gun to wane and in 1826 it expired, though the 
 ^^ Almanack des Gourmands ^^ of the latter year said 
 that the proprietor was the Very of limonadiers, 
 that his ices were superb, his salons magnificent — 
 and his prices exorbitant. Perhaps it was the 
 latter that did it! 
 
 Another establishment, founded in 181 7, was 
 domiciled here, the clients being served by ''oda- 
 
142 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 lisques en costume oriental ^ tres seduisantes.^^ This 
 is quoted from the advertisements of the day. 
 The cafe was called the Cafe des Circassiennes, 
 and there was a sultane, who was the presiding 
 genius of the place. It met with but an indifferent 
 success and soon closed its doors despite its sup- 
 posedly all-compelling attractions. 
 
 Tn the mid-nineteenth century a revolution 
 came over the cafes of Paris. Tobacco had in- 
 vaded their precincts; previously one smoked 
 only in the estaminets. Three cafes of the Palais 
 Royal resisted the innovation, the Cafe de la 
 Galerie d' Orleans, the Cafe de Foy and the Cafe 
 de la Rotonde. To-day, well, to-day things are 
 different. 
 
 'The Theatre du Palais Royal of to-day was 
 the Theatre des Marionettes of the Comte de 
 Beaujolais, which had for contemporaries the 
 Fantoches Italiens, the Ombres Chinoises and the 
 Musee Curtius, perhaps the first of the wax- 
 works shows that in later generations became 
 so popular. The Palais Royal had now become 
 a vast amusement enterprise, with side-shows 
 of all sorts, theatres, concerts, cafes, restaurants, 
 clubs, gambling-houses and what not — all pay- 
 ing rents, and high ones, to the proprietor. 
 
 In the centre of the garden, where is now the 
 fountain and its basin, was a circus, half under- 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 143 
 
 ground and half above, and there were innumer- 
 able booths and kiosks for the sale of foolish 
 trifles, all paying tribute to the ground landlord. 
 
 ^ Gaming at the Palais Royal was not wholly 
 confined to the public gambling houses. During 
 the carnival season of 1777 the gambling which 
 went on in the royal apartments became notorious 
 for even that profligate time : in one night the Due 
 de Chartres lost eight thousand livres. Louis 
 XVI, honest man, took all due precautions to 
 reduce this extravagance, but was impotent. 
 
 V Between the courtyard fountain and the northern 
 arcade of the inner palace was placed the famous 
 Cannon du Palais Royal, which, by an ingenious 
 disposition, was fired each day at midday by the 
 action of the sun's rays. All the world stood 
 around awaiting the moment when watches might 
 be regulated for another twenty-four hours. 
 
 ' The celebrated Abbe Delille, to whom the 
 beauties of the gardens were being shown, de- 
 plored the lack of good manners on the part of 
 the habitues and delivered himself of the follow- 
 ing appropriate quatrain: 
 
 " Dans ce jardin tout se rencontr^e 
 Excepte Tombrage et les fleurs; 
 Si I'on y deregle ses moeurs 
 Du moins on y regie sa montre." 
 
 The Galerie de Bois was perhaps the most 
 
144 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 disreputable of all the palace confines. It was 
 a long, double row of booths which only dis- 
 appeared when Louis-Philippe built the glass- 
 covered Galerie d' Orleans. 
 
 Up to the eve of the Revolution the Palais 
 Royal enjoyed the same privileges as the Temple 
 and the Luxembourg, and became a sort of refuge 
 whereby those who sought to escape from the 
 police might lose themselves in the throng. The 
 monarch himself was obliged to ask permission 
 of the Due d' Orleans that his officials might pur- 
 sue their police methods within the outer walls. 
 ' It was July 12, 1789. The evening before, 
 Louis XVI had dismissed his minister, Neckar, 
 but only on Sunday, the 12th, did the news get 
 abroad. At the same time it was learned that the 
 regiment known as the Royal AUemand, under 
 the orders of the Prince de Lambesc, had charged 
 the multitude gathered before the gates of the 
 Tuileries. Cries of ''A Mort!" '^Aux Armes!'' 
 "Vengeance!" were hurled in air from all sides. 
 
 At high noon in the gardens of the Palais Royal, 
 on the 13th, as the midday sun was scorching the 
 flagstones to a grilling temperature, the sound of 
 a tiny cannon shot smote the still summer air 
 with an echo which did not cease reverberating 
 for months. The careless, unthinking prom- 
 enaders suddenly grew grave, then violently 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 145 
 
 agitated and finally raving, heedlessly mad. A 
 young unknown limb of the law, Camille Des- 
 moulins, rushed bareheaded and shrieking out 
 of the Cafe de Foy, parted the crowd as a ship 
 parts the waves, sprang upon a chair and ha- 
 rangued the multitude with such a vehemence 
 and conviction that they were with him as one 
 man. 
 
 \ 'Citizens," he said, ''I come from Versailles 
 * * * It only remains for us to choose our 
 colours. Quelle coiileur voulez vous? Green, the 
 colour of hope; or the blue of Cincinnati, the 
 colour of American liberty and democracy." 
 
 ^'Nous avons assez delihere! Deliberate further 
 with our hands not our hearts ! We are the party 
 the most numerous: To arms!" 
 \ On the morrow, the now famous 14th of July, 
 the Frenchman's "glorious fourteenth," the peo- 
 ple rose and the Bastille fell. 
 • Revolutionary decree, in 1793, converted the 
 palace and its garden into the Palais et Jardin 
 de la Revolution, and appropriated them as 
 national property. Napoleon granted the palace 
 to the Tribunal for its seat, and during the 
 Hundred Days Lucien Bonaparte took up his 
 residence there. In 1830 Louis Philippe d'Orleans 
 gave a great fete here in honour of the King of 
 Naples who had come to the capital to pay his 
 
146 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 respects to the French king. Charles X, assist- 
 ing at the ceremony as an invited guest, was 
 also present and a month later came again to 
 actually inhabit the palace and make it royal once 
 more. 
 
 The table herewith showing the ramifications of 
 the Bourbon Orleans family in modern times is 
 interesting — all collateral branches of the gene- 
 
 
 under JVoLpofeon ^i'rs&r 
 
 alogical tree sprouting from that of Louis Philippe. 
 The heraldic embellishments of this family tree 
 offer a particular interest in that the armorial 
 blazonings are in accord with a decree of the 
 French Tribunal, handed down a few years since, 
 which establishes the right to the head of the 
 house to bear the ecu plein de France — d'azur 
 a trois fleurs de lys d^or, thus establishing the 
 Orleans legitimacy. 
 

 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 147 
 
 \ The Republic of 1848 made the palace the 
 headquarters of the Cour des Comptes and of 
 the Etat Major of the National Guard. Under 
 Napoleon III the Palais Royal became the 
 dwelling of Prince Jerome, the uncle of the 
 emperor. Later it served the same purpose 
 for the son of Prince Napoleon. It was at this 
 epoch that the desecration of scraping out the 
 blazoned lys and the chipping off the graven 
 Bourbon arjnoiries took place. Whenever one 
 or the other hated Bourbon symbol was found, 
 eagles, phcenix-like, sprang up in their place, only 
 in their turn to disappear when the Republican 
 device of '48 (now brought to light again). 
 Liberie, Egalite, Fraternite — replaced them. 
 
 During the Commune of 1870 a part of the 
 left wing and the central pavilion suffered by 
 fire, but restorations under the architect, Cha- 
 brol, brought them back again to much their orig- 
 inal outlines. Through all its changes of tenure 
 and political vicissitudes little transformation 
 took place as to the ground plan, or sky-line 
 silhouette, of the chameleon palace of cardinal, 
 king and emperor, and while in no sense is it 
 architecturally imposing or luxurious, it is now, 
 as ever in the past, one of the most distinctive 
 of Paris 's public monuments. 
 
 To-day the Palais Royal proper may be said 
 
148 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 to face on Place du Palais Royal, with its prin- 
 cipal entrance at the end of a shallow courtyard 
 separated from the street by an iron grille and 
 flanked by two unimposing pavilions. The prin- 
 cipal facade hides the lodging of the Conseil 
 d'Etat and is composed of but the ground floor, 
 a story above and an attic. 
 \The Aile Montpensier, which follows on from 
 the edifice which houses the Comedie Franjaise, 
 was, until recently, occupied by the Cour des 
 Comptes. The Aile de Valois fronts the street 
 of that name, and here the Princes d' Orleans 
 and King Jerome made their residence. To- 
 day the same wing is devoted to the uses of the 
 Under Secretary for the Beaux Arts. 
 
 It is not necessary to insist on, nor reiterate, 
 the decadence of the Palais Royal. It is no 
 longer the "capitol of Paris," and whatever its 
 charms may be they are mostly equivocal. It is 
 more a desert than an oasis or a temple de la 
 volupte, and it was each of these things in 
 other days. Its priestesses and its gambling 
 houses are gone, and who shall say this of itself 
 is not a good thing in spite of the admitted void. 
 
 The mediocrity of the Palais Royal is apparent 
 to all who have the slightest acquaintance with the 
 architectural orders, but for all that its transition 
 from the Palais du Cardinal, Palais Egalite, 
 
Palais Cardinal and Palais Royal 149 
 
 Palais de la Revolution and Palais du Tribimat 
 to the Palais Royal lends to it an interest that 
 many more gloriously artistic Paris edifices quite 
 lack. 
 
 There is a movement on foot to-day to resur- 
 rect the Palais Royal to some approach to its 
 former distinction, which is decidedly what it has 
 not been for the past quarter of a century. Satir- 
 ical persons have demanded as to what should 
 be made of it. a velodrome or a skating-rink, 
 but this is apart from a real consideration of 
 the question for certain it is that much of its 
 former charm can be restored to it without turn- 
 ing it into a Luna Park. It is one of the too few 
 Paris breathing-spots, and as such should be 
 made more attractive than it is at the present 
 time. 
 " It was sixty years ago, when Louis Philippe 
 was the legitimate owner of the Palais Royal, its 
 galleries, its shops, its theatre and its gardens, 
 that it came to its first debasement. ^'One went 
 there on tip-toe, and spoke in a whisper," said a 
 writer of the time, and one does not need to be 
 particularly astute to see the significance of the 
 remark. 
 
 It was Alphonse Karr, the ecrivmn-jardiniery 
 who set the new vogue for the Palais Royal, but 
 his interest and enthusiasm was not enough to 
 
150 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 resurrect it, and so in later years it has sunk lower 
 and lower. The solitude of the Palais Royal 
 has become a mockery and a solecism. It is 
 virtually a campo santo, or could readily be made 
 one, and this in spite of the fact that it occupies 
 one of the busiest and noisiest quarters of the 
 capital, a quadrangle bounded by the Rues Valois, 
 Beaujolais, Montpensier and the Place du Palais 
 Royal. 
 
 The moment one enters its portal the simile 
 accentuates and the hybrid shops which sell such 
 equivocal bric-a-brac to clients of no taste and 
 worse affectations carry out the idea of a cloister 
 still further, for actually the clients are few, and 
 those mostly strangers. One holds his breath 
 and ambles through the corridors glad enough 
 to escape the bustle of the narrow streets which 
 surround it, but, on the other hand, glad enough 
 to get out into the open again. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LUXEMBOURG, THE ELYSEE AND THE 
 PALAIS BOURBON 
 
 The kings and queens of France were not 
 only rulers of the nation, but they dominated 
 the life of the capital as well. Upon their crown- 
 ing or entry into Paris it was the custom to com- 
 mand a gift by right from the inhabitants. In 
 1389 Isabeau de Baviere, of dire memory, got 
 sixty thousand cour mines d^or, and in 1501, and 
 again in 1504, was presented with six thousand 
 and ten thousand livres parisis respectively. 
 
 The king levied personal taxes on the inhabit- 
 ants, who were thus forced to pay for the privilege 
 of having him live among them, those of the 
 professions and craftsmen, who might from time 
 to time serve the royal household, paying the 
 highest fees. 
 
 It was during the period of Richelieu's ministry 
 that Paris flowered the most profusely. The 
 constructions of this epoch were so numerous 
 and imposing that Corneille in his comedy *'Le 
 Menteur," first produced in 1642, made his 
 characters speak thus: 
 
 151 
 
152 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 Dorante: Paris semble k mes yeux un pays de roman 
 ******* 
 
 En superbes palais a change ses buissons 
 ******* 
 
 Aux superbes dehors du palais Cardinal 
 
 Tout la ville entiere, avec pomp batie 
 ******* 
 
 In 1 701, Louis XIV divided the capital into 
 twenty quartiers, or wards, and in 1 726-1 728 
 Louis XV built a new city wall; but it was only 
 with Louis XVI that the faubourgs were at last 
 brought within the city limits. Under the Em- 
 pire and the Restoration but few changes were 
 made, and with the piercing of the new boule- 
 vards under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann 
 the city came to be of much the same general 
 plan that it is to-day. 
 
 \In the olden time, between the Palais de la 
 Cite and the Louvre and the Palais des Tour- 
 nelles, extending even to the walls of Charenton, 
 was a gigantic garden, a carpet embroidered 
 with as varied a colouring as the tapis d^ orient of 
 the poets, and cut here and there by alleys which 
 separated it into little checker-board squares. 
 
 Within this maze was the celebrated Jardin 
 Dedalus that Louis XI gave to Coictier, and above 
 it rose the observatory of the savant like a signal 
 tower of the Romans. This centered upon what 
 is now the Place des Vosges, formerly the Place 
 Royale. 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 153 
 
 To-day, how changed is all this "intermediate, 
 indeterminate" region! How changed, indeed! 
 There is nothing vague and indeterminate about 
 it to-day. 
 
 The earliest of the little known Paris palaces 
 was the Palais des Thermes. It may be dis- 
 missed almost in a word from any consideration 
 of the royal dwellings of Paris, though it was 
 the residence of several Roman emperors and 
 two queens of France. A single apartment 
 of the old palace of the Romans exists to-day 
 — the old Roman Baths — but nothing of the 
 days of the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, who 
 founded the palace in honour of Julian who was 
 proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers in 360 a.d. 
 The Prankish monarchs, if they ever resided 
 here at all, soon transferred their headquarters 
 to the Palais de la Cite, the ruins falling into the 
 possession of the monks of Cluny, who built 
 the present Hotel de Cluny on the site. 
 ' Of all the minor French palaces the Luxem- 
 bourg and the Elysee are the most often heard 
 of in connection with the life of modern times. 
 The first is something a good deal more than an 
 art museum, and the latter more than the residence 
 fo the Republican president, though the guide- 
 book makers hardly think it worth while to write 
 down the facts. 
 
154 Roy al Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The Palais du Luxembourg has been called 
 an imitation of the Pitti Palace at Florence, but, 
 beyond the fact that it was an Italian conception 
 of Marie de Medici's, it is difficult to follow the 
 suggestion, as the architect, Jacques Debrosse, 
 one of the ablest of Frenchmen in his line, simply 
 carried out the work on the general plan of the 
 time of its building, the early seventeenth century. 
 
 Its three not very extensive pavilions are joined 
 together by a colonnade which encloses a rather 
 foreboding flagged courtyard, a conception, or 
 elaboration, of the original edifice by Chalgrin, 
 in 1804, under the orders of Napoleon. The 
 garden front, though a restoration of Louis 
 Philippe, is more in keeping with the original 
 Medici plan; that, at any rate, is to its credit. 
 
 To-day the Luxembourg, the Republican Palais 
 du Senat, is but an echo of the four centuries 
 of aristocratic existence which upheld the name 
 and fame of its first proprietor, the Due de^iney- 
 Luxembourg, Prince de Tigry, who built it in 
 the sixteenth century. From 1733 to 1736 Hie 
 palace underwent important restorations and 
 the last persons to inhabit it before the Revolu- 
 tion were the Duchesse de Brunswick, the Queen 
 Dowager of Spain and the Comte de Provence, 
 brother of Louis XVI, to whom it had been given 
 by Letters Patent in 1779. 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 155 
 
 In 1 791 the Convention thought so little of 
 it that they made it a prison, and a few years 
 later it was called again the Palais du Directoire, 
 and, before the end of the century, the Palais 
 du Consulat. This was but a brief glory, as 
 Napoleon transferred his residence in accordance 
 with his augmenting ambitions, to the Tuileries 
 in the following year. 
 
 By 1870 the edifice had become known as the 
 
 / Palais du Senat, then as the headquarters of the 
 
 '^ Prefecture of the Seine, and finally, as to-day, 
 the Palais du Luxembourg, the seat of the French 
 Senate and the residence of the president of that 
 body. 
 
 The principal public apartments are the Library, 
 the *^ Salle des Seances, '^ the "Buvette" — for- 
 merly Napoleon's *^ Cabinet de Travail," the 
 *^ Salle des Pas Perdus" — formerly the "Salle 
 du Trone," the Grand Gallery and the apart- 
 ments of Marie de Medici. The chapel is 
 modern and dates only from 1844. 
 
 ^ The Palais du Petit Luxembourg is the official 
 residence of the president of the Senate and 
 
 , dates also from the time of Marie de Medici. 
 The picture gallery is housed in a modern struc- 
 ture to the west of the Petit Luxembourg. 
 
 The facade of the Palais du Senat is not al- 
 together lovely and has little suggestion of the 
 
156 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 
o 
 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 157 
 
 daintiness of the Petit Luxembourg, but, for all 
 that, it presents a certain dignified pose and 
 the edifice serves its purpose well as the legisla- 
 tive hall of the upper house. 
 
 The gardens of the Luxembourg form another 
 of those favourite Paris playgrounds for nurse- 
 maids and their charges. It is claimed that 
 the children are all little Legitimists in the Luxem- 
 bourg gardens, whereas they are all Red Re- 
 publicans at the Tuileries. One has no means 
 of knowing this with certainty, but it is assumed; 
 at any rate the Legitimists are a very numerous 
 class in the neighbourhood. Another class of 
 childhood to be seen here is that composed of 
 the offsprings of artists and professors of the 
 Latin quarter, and of the active tradesmen of 
 the neighbourhood. They come here, like the 
 others, for the fresh air, to see a bit of greenery, 
 to hear the band play, to sail their boats in the 
 basins of the great fountain and enjoy themselves 
 generally. 
 
 One notes a distinct difference in the dress 
 and manners of the children of the gardens of 
 the Luxembourg from those of the Tuileries 
 and wonders if the breach will be widened further 
 as they grow up. 
 
 The Jardin du Luxembourg is all that a great 
 city garden should be, ample, commodious, 
 
158 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 decorative and as thoroughly typical of Paris 
 as the Pont Neuf. Innumerable, but rather 
 mediocre, statues are posed here and there be- 
 tween the palace and the observatory at the end 
 of the long, tree-lined avenue which stretches 
 off to the south, the only really historical monu- 
 ment of this nature being the celebrated Fontaine 
 de Medicis by Debrosse, the architect of the 
 palace. It was a memorial to Marie de Medici. 
 
 While one is in this quarter of Paris he has 
 an opportunity to recall a royal memory now 
 somewhat dimmed by time, but still in evidence 
 if one would delve deep. 
 
 As a matter of fact, royalty never had much 
 to do with this hybrid quarter of Paris, though, 
 indeed, its past was romantic enough, bordering 
 as it does upon the real Latin Quarter of the 
 students. Bounded on one side by the immense 
 domain of the Luxembourg, it stretched away 
 indefinitely beyond Vaugiraud, almost to Clamart 
 and Sceaux. 
 
 At No. 27 Boulevard Montparnasse is an elab- 
 orate seventeenth house-front half hidden by 
 the "modern style" flats of twentieth century 
 Paris. This relic of the grand siecle, with its 
 profusion of sculptured details, was the house 
 bought by Louis XIV about 1672 and given to 
 the "widow Scarron," the "young and beauti- j 
 
 i 
 
158 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 tasss 
 
 (iecorative and as than 
 
 mediocre, statues are 
 
 tween the 
 
 : ileal of Paris 
 
 c, but rather 
 
 re and there be- 
 
 . vatory at the end 
 
 which stretches 
 
 historical monu- 
 
 celebrated Fontaine 
 
 he architect of the 
 
 '\.si to Marie de Medici. 
 
 aarter of Paris he has 
 
 to ixcaii a royal memory now 
 
 cd by time^ but still in evidence 
 
 acive deep. 
 
 - ' *^ royalty never had much 
 
 nnnrter of Paris, though, 
 
 u, iib^pk^^-d^mflm^lrJi-'aA^h, bordering 
 
 • ^^oes upon the real latin Quarter of the 
 
 one side by the immense 
 ^.i^rrr }f strctched away 
 
 >, t^ >."l rwy 
 
 indefinite!} 
 
 • vwV;.;! to Clamart 
 
 and Seep ' 
 
 
 ^ At X ^ ........ . .,.„ 
 
 an elab- 
 
 . nteenth h- 
 
 nt half hidden by 
 
 :;^odern s^vh^' 
 
 'h century 
 
 'Thh 
 
 with its 
 
 
 iouse 
 
 
 given to 
 
 
 ;ung and beauti 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 159 
 
 ful widow of the court," as a recompense for 
 the devotion with which she had educated the 
 three children of the Marquise de Montespan, 
 who, in 1673, were legitimatized as princes of 
 the royal house — the Due de Maine, the Comte 
 de Vexin and Mademoiselle de Mantes. 
 
 \ Madame Scarron, who became in time Madame 
 de Maintenon, the ^'vraie reine du roij^^ died in 
 1 7 19, and the house passed to La Tour d'Auvergne. 
 On this same side of the river are the Palais 
 de V Institut and the Palais Bourbon. The 
 Palais de 1' Institut, or Palais Mazarin, is hardly 
 to be considered one of the domestic establish- 
 ments, the dwellings of kings, with which con- 
 temporary Paris was graced. It was but a crea- 
 tion of Mazarin, the minister, on the site of 
 the Hotel de Nesle, and was first known as the 
 Palais des Quatre Nations, where were educated, 
 at the expense of the Cardinal, sixty young men 
 of various nationalities. 
 
 '^ The old chapel has since been transformed 
 into the *' Salle des Seances" of the Institut de 
 France, the Five French Academies. The black, 
 gloomy fa^iade of the edifice, to-day, in spite of 
 the cupola which gives a certain inspiring dignity, 
 is not lovely, and tradition and sentiment alone 
 give it its present interest, though it is undeniably 
 picturesque. 
 
160 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 An inscription used to be on the pedestal of 
 
 one of the fountains opposite the entrance which 
 
 read: 
 
 " Superbe habitant du desert 
 En ce lieu, dis moi, que fais tu 
 — Tu le vois a mon habit vert 
 Je suis membre de Pinstitut." 
 
 If the inscription were still there it would save 
 the asking of a lot of silly questions by strangers 
 who pass this way for the first time. The Palais 
 de r Institut is one of the sights of Paris, and its 
 functions are notable, though hardly belonging 
 to the romantic school of past days, for at present 
 poets often make their entree via Montmartre's 
 ''Chat Noir, " or are elected simply because 
 some other candidate has been '^blackbouled.^^ 
 
 Still following along the left bank of the Seine 
 one comes to the Palais Bourbon, the Chambre 
 des Deputes, as it is better known. This edi- 
 fice, where now sit the French deputies, was built 
 by Girardini for the Dowager Duchesse de Bour- 
 bon in 1722, and, though much changed during 
 various successive eras, is still a unique variety of 
 architectural embellishment which is not uncouth, 
 nor yet wholly appealing. Napoleon remade 
 the heavily imposing facade, so familiar to all 
 who cross the river by the Pont de la Concorde, 
 but its grimness is its charm rather than its grace. 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 161 
 
 The structure cost its first proprietor twenty 
 million or more francs, and since it has become 
 national property the outlay has been constant. 
 Everything considered it makes a poor showing; 
 but its pseudo- Greek facade, were it removed, 
 would certainly be missed in this section of Paris. 
 
 The principal apartments are the "Salle des 
 Pas Perdus," the 
 "Salle des Se- 
 ances,'' and the 
 " Salle des Confer- 
 ences" — where, 
 in 1830, the Due 
 d'Orleans took 
 the oath as king 
 of France. 
 X A recent dis- 
 covery has been 
 made in the lum- 
 ber room of this 
 old Palais Bour- 
 bon, where deputies howl and shout and make 
 laws as noisily as in any other of the world's 
 parliaments. 
 
 This particular "find" was the throne con- 
 structed in 1 81 6 for Louis XVIII, with its upholster- 
 ing of velvet embroidered with the golden fleur-de- 
 lis. The records tell that this throne also served 
 
 of t6e 
 T=>AI-AJ3 — ©OU^CBON 
 
162 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Louis Philippe under the Second Empire, and also 
 was used under the Monarchy of July. It was after 
 the momentous "Quatre Setembre" that it was 
 finally relegated to the garret, but now, as a histori- 
 cal souvenir of the first rank, it has been placed 
 prominently where all who visit the Palais Bour- 
 bon may see it. 
 
 ^The history of the Palais de FElysee has not 
 been particularly vivid, though for two centuries 
 it has played a most important part in the life 
 of the capital. In later years it has served weU 
 enough the presidential dignity of the chief 
 magistrate of the French Republic and is thus 
 classed as a national property. Actually, since 
 its construction, it has changed its name as often 
 as it has changed its occupants. Its first occu- 
 pant was its builder, Louis d'Auvergne, Comte 
 d'Evreux, who built himself this great town 
 house on a plot of land which had been given 
 him by Louis XV. Apparently the young man 
 had no means of his own for the construction 
 of his luxurious city dwelling, for he refilled his 
 coffers by marriage with the rich daughter of 
 the financier Crozat. 
 
 The new-made countess's mother-in-law ap- 
 parently never had much respect for her son's 
 choice as she forever referred to her as "the 
 little gold ingot." 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 163 
 
 ^ "The ingot" served to construct the palace, 
 however, though at the death of its builder, soon 
 after, it came into the proprietorship of La Pom- 
 padour, who spent the sum of six hundred and 
 fifty thousand livres in aggrandizing it. It be- 
 came her town house, whither she removed 
 when she grew tired of Versailles or Bagatelle. 
 ^History tells of an incident in connection with 
 a fete given at the Palais de T Elysee by La Pom- 
 padour. It was at the epoch of the ^^bergeries 
 a la Watteau.^' The blond Pompadour had the 
 idea of introducing into the salons a troop of 
 living, sad-eyed sheep, combed and curled like 
 the poodles in the carriages of the fashionables 
 in the Bois to-day. The quadrupeds, greatly 
 frightened by the flood of light, fell into a panic, 
 and the largest ram among them, seeing his 
 duplicate in a mirror, made for it in the tradi- 
 tional ram-like manner. He raged for an hour 
 or more from one apartment to another, followed 
 by the whole flock, which committed incalcul- 
 able damage before it could be turned into the 
 gardens. Such was one of the costly caprices 
 of La Pompadour. She had many. 
 
 La Pompadour's brother, the Marquis de 
 Menars et de Marigny, continued the work of 
 embellishment of the property up to the day 
 when Louis XV bought it as a dwelling for the 
 
164 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ambassadors to his court. Its somewhat re- 
 stricted park, ornamented with a grotto and a 
 cascade, was at this time one of the curiosities 
 of the capital. 
 
 In 1773, the financier Beau j on bought the 
 property from the king and added considerably 
 to it under the direction of the architect Boullee, 
 who also re-designed the gardens. Thanks to 
 Beaujon, the wonderful Gobelins of to-day were 
 hung upon the walls, and many paintings by 
 Rubens, Poissin, Van Loo, Von Ostade, Murillo, 
 Paul Potter and Joseph Vernet were added. 
 
 The death of the financier brought the prop- 
 erty into the hands of the Duchesse de Bourbon, 
 the sister of Louis Philippe, and the mother of 
 the Due d' Enghien, who died so tragically at 
 Vincennes a short time after. The duchess 
 renamed her new possession Elysee-Bourbon 
 and there led a very retired and sad life among 
 surroundings so splendid that they merited a 
 more gay existence. 
 
 At the Revolution the palace became a national 
 property, and, under the Consulate, was the scene 
 of many popular fetes, it having been rented 
 to a concern which arranged balls and other 
 entertainments for the pleasure of all who could 
 afford to pay. Its name was now the Hameau 
 de Chantilly, and, considering that the entrance 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 165 
 
 tickets cost but fifteen sous — including a drink 
 — it must have proved a cheap, satisfying and 
 splendid amusement for the people. 
 
 This state of affairs lasted until 1805, when 
 Murat bought it and here held his little court 
 up to his departure for Naples, when, in grate- 
 fulness for past favours, he gave it to Napoleon. 
 The emperor greatly loved this new abode, which 
 he rechristened the Elysee-Napoleon. 
 
 After his defeat at Waterloo Napoleon, limp- 
 ing lamely Parisward, down through the Forests 
 of Compiegne and Villers-Cotterets, sought in 
 the Elysee-Napoleon the repose and rest which 
 he so much needed, the throng meanwhile prom- 
 enading before the palace windows, shouting 
 at the tops of their voices "Vive I'Empereur!" 
 though, as the world well knew, his power had 
 waned forever; the eagle's wings were broken. 
 The throng still crowded the precincts of the 
 palace, but the emperor fled secretly by the 
 garden gate. 
 
 ^ On the return of the Duchesse de Bourbon 
 from Spain the magnificent structure became 
 again the Elysee- Bourbon. The duchess ceded 
 the palace to the Due and Duchesse de Berry 
 but, at the duke's death, in 1820, his widow 
 abandoned it. 
 
 Some time after it was occupied by the Due 
 
166 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 de Bordeaux, and, in 1830, it became one of the 
 long list of establishments whose maintenance 
 devolved upon the Civil List, though it remained 
 practically uninhabited all through the reign of 
 Louis Philippe. 
 
 ^ In 1848, the National Assembly designated 
 the palace as the official residence for the presi- 
 dents of the French Republic. Three years 
 after, on the night of the first of December, as 
 the last preparations were being made by Louis 
 Bonaparte for the Coup d' Etat and the final 
 strangling of the young republic, the residence 
 of the president was transferred to the Tuileries, 
 and the palace of the Faubourg Saint Honore 
 was again left without a tenant, and served only 
 to give hospitality from time to time to passing 
 notables. 
 
 \ After the burning of the Tuileries, and the 
 coming of the Third Republic, the Elysee Palace 
 again became the presidential residence, and so 
 it remains to-day. 
 
 One of the most notable of modern events 
 connected with the Elysee Palace was the diner 
 de ceremonie offered by the president of the 
 Republic and Madame Fallieres to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Roosevelt in April, 19 10. The dinner was served 
 in the ''Grand Salle des Fetes" and the music 
 which accompanied the repast was furnished 
 
Luxembourg, Elysee, Palais Bourbon 167 
 
 by the band of the Garde Republicain, beginning 
 with the national anthem of America and finish- 
 ing with that of France. Never had a private 
 citizen, a foreigner, been so received by the first 
 magistrate of France. The toast of President 
 Fallieres was as follows: '^Before this repast 
 terminates I wish to profit by the occasion offered 
 to drink the health of Monsieur Theodore Roose- 
 velt, an illustrious man, a great citizen and a 
 good friend of France and the cause of peace. 
 I raise my glass to Madame Roosevelt who may 
 be assured of our respectful and sympathetic 
 homage, and I am very glad to be able to say 
 to our guests that we count ourselves very for- 
 tunate in being allowed to meet them in person 
 and show them this mark of respect." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 VINCENNES AND CONFLANS 
 
 ViNCENNES is to-day little more than a dull, 
 dirty Paris suburb; if anything its complexion is 
 a deeper drab than that of Saint Denis, and to 
 call the Bois de Vincennes a park "somewhat 
 resembling the Bois de Boulogne," as do the 
 guidebooks, is ridiculous. 
 
 In reality Vincennes is nothing at all except a 
 memory. There is to-day little suggestion of 
 royal origin about the smug and murky surround- 
 ings of the Chateau de Vincennes; but never- 
 theless, it once was a royal residence, and the 
 drama which unrolled itself within its walls was 
 most vividly presented. A book might be written 
 upon it, with the following as the chapter head- 
 ings: "The Royal Residence," "The Minimes of 
 
 168 
 
Vincennes and Conflans 169 
 
 the Bois de Vincennes," "Mazarin at Vincennes," 
 ^'The Prisoners of the Donjon," "The Fetes of 
 the Revolution," "The Death of the Due d'Eng- 
 hien," "The Transformation of the Chateau and 
 the Bois." 
 
 Its plots are ready-made, but one has to take 
 them on hearsay, for the old chateau does not 
 open its doors readily to the stranger for the 
 reason that it to-day ranks only as a military 
 fortress, and an artillery camp is laid out in 
 the quadrangle, intended, if need be, to aid in 
 the defence of Paris. This is one of the things 
 one hears about, but of which one may not have 
 any personal knowledge. 
 
 The first reference to the name of Vincennes 
 is in a ninth century charter, where it appears 
 as Vilcenna. The foundation of the original 
 chateau-fort on the present site is attributed to 
 Louis VII, who, in 1164, having alienated a part 
 of the neighbouring forest in favour of a body of 
 monks, built himself a suburban rest-house under 
 shelter of the pious walls of their convent. 
 
 Philippe Auguste, too, has been credited with 
 being the founder of Vincennes ; but, at all events, 
 the chateau took on no royal importance until 
 the reign of Saint Louis, who acquired the habit 
 of dispensing justice to all comers seated beneath 
 an oak in the nearby Forest of JoinviUe, 
 
170 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The erection of the later chateau was begun by 
 Charles, Comte de Valois, brother of Philippe- 
 le-Bel; and it was completed by Philippe VI of 
 Valois, and his successor, Jean-le-Bon, between 
 the years 1337 and 1370, when it became an 
 entirely new manner of edifice from what it had 
 been before. It was in this chateau that was 
 born Charles V, to whom indeed it owes its com- 
 pletion in the form best known. 
 
 To-day, the outlines of the mass of the Chateau 
 de Vincennes are considerably abbreviated from 
 their former state. Originally it was quite regu- 
 lar in outline, its walls forming a rectangle flanked 
 by nine towers, the great donjon which one sees 
 to-day occupying the centre of one side. The 
 chapel was begun in the reign of Francois I and 
 terminated in that of Henri II. Its coloured glass, 
 painted by Jean Cousin from the designs of 
 Raphael, is notable. 
 
 The chapel at Vincennes, with the Saint 
 Chapelle of the Palais de Justice at Paris, ranks 
 as one of the most exquisite examples extant of 
 French Gothic architecture. It was begun in 
 1379, but chiefly it is of the sixteenth century, 
 since it was only completed in 1552. This chapel 
 of the sixteenth century, and the two side wings 
 flanking the tower of the reign of Louis XIV, 
 make the Chateau de Vincennes a most precious 
 
Vincennes and Conflans 171 
 
 specimen of mediaeval ecclesiastical and military 
 architecture. If Napoleon had not cut down the 
 height of the surrounding walls the comparison 
 would be still more favourable. In the reproduc- 
 tion of the miniature from the Book of Hours of 
 the Due de Berry given herein one sees the per- 
 fect outlines of the fourteenth century edifice. 
 
 In later years, Louis XIII added considerably 
 to the existing structure, but little is now to be 
 seen of that edifice save the great tower and the 
 chapel. 
 
 Charles IX, whose royal edict brought forth 
 the bloody night of Saint Bartholomew in 1572, 
 fell sick two years later in the Chateau de Vin- 
 cennes. Calling his surgeon, Ambroise Pare, 
 to his side he exclaimed: "My body burns with 
 fever; I see the mangled Huguenots all about 
 me; Holy Virgin, how they mock me; I wish. 
 Pare, I had spared them." And thus he died, 
 abhorring the mother who had counselled him 
 to commit this horrible deed. 
 
 The donjon of Vincennes was carried to its 
 comparatively great height that it might serve as 
 a tower of observation as well as a place of last 
 retreat if in an attack the outer walls of the for- 
 tress should give way. Here at Vincennes a cer- 
 tain massiveness is noted in connection with the 
 donjon, though the actual ground area which it 
 
172 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 covers is not very great; it was not like many- 
 donjons of the time, which were virtually smaller 
 chateaux or fortresses enclosed within a greater. 
 
 Vincennes, in comparison with many other 
 contemporary edifices, possessed a certain regu- 
 larity of outline which was made possible by its 
 favourable situation. When others were of fantastic 
 form, they were usually so built because of the 
 configuration of the land, or the nature of the soil. 
 But here the land was flat, and, though the edifice 
 and its dependencies covered no very extended 
 area, they followed rectangular lines with abso- 
 lute precision. 
 
 As its walls were of a thickness of three metres, 
 it was a work easy of accomplishment for Louis 
 XI to turn the chateau into a Prison of State, 
 a use to which the first chateau had actually been 
 put by the shutting up in it of Enguerrand de 
 Marigny. Henri IV, in 1574, passed some soli- 
 tary hours and days within its walls, and Mira- 
 beau did the same in 1777. The Due d'Enghien, 
 under the First Empire, before his actual death 
 by shooting, suffered sorely herein, while resting 
 under an unjust suspicion. 
 
 Ini8i4-i8i5 the chateau became a great arsenal 
 and general storehouse for the army. It was at- 
 tacked by the Allies and besieged twice, but in 
 vain. It was defended against the armies of 
 
;_ JTm;;?^., 
 
 
 :?S^ 
 
 Chateau de Vincennes 
 
Vincennes and Conflans 173 
 
 Blucher by the Baron Daumesnil. Summoned 
 to surrender his charge, "Jambe de Bois" (so 
 called because he had lost a leg the year be- 
 fore) replied: "I will surrender when you sur- 
 render to me my leg." A statue to this brave 
 warrior is within the chateau, and commem- 
 orates further the fact that he capitulated only 
 on terms laid down by himself out of his humane 
 regard for the lives of friends and foes. 
 
 The ministers of Charles X, in 1830, had cause 
 to regret the strength of the chateau walls; and 
 Barbes, Blanqui and Raspail, in 1848, and vari- 
 ous Republicans, who had been seized as dan- 
 gerous elements of society after the Coup d'Etat 
 of 1 85 1, also here found an enforced hospitality. 
 The Chateau de Vincennes had become a second 
 Bastille. 
 
 The incident of the arrest and death of the Due 
 d'Enghien is one of the most dramatic in Napole- 
 onic history. The scene was Vincennes. Louis 
 Antoine Henri de Bourbon, son of the Prince 
 de Conde, born at Chantilly in 1772, became, 
 without just reason, suspected in connection with 
 the Cadoudal-Pichegreu plot, and was seized by 
 a squadron of cavalry at the Schloss Ettenheim in 
 the Duchy of Baden and conducted to Vincennes. 
 Here, after a summary judgment, he was shot at 
 night in the moat behind the guardhouse. The 
 
174 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 obscurity of the night was so great that a Hghted 
 lantern was hung around the neck of the un- 
 fortunate man that the soldiers might the better 
 see the mark at which they were to shoot. 
 
 Napoleon confided to Josephine, who repeated 
 the secret to Madame de Remusat, that his poHtical 
 future demanded a coup d'Etat. On the morn- 
 ing of the execution, the emperor, awakening at 
 five o'clock, said to Josephine: *^By this time the 
 Due d'Enghien has passed from this life." 
 
 The rest is history — of that apologetic kind 
 which is not often recorded. 
 
 In the chapel at Vincennes a commemorative 
 tablet was placed, by the orders of Louis XVIII, 
 in 1816, to mark the death of the young duke. 
 
 The Bois de Vincennes is not the fashionable 
 parade ground of the Bois de Boulogne. On the 
 whole it is a sad sort of a public park, and not at 
 all fashionable, and not particularly attractive, 
 though of a vast extent and possessed of a pro- 
 foundly historic past of far more significance 
 than that of its sweet sister by the opposite gates 
 of Paris. 
 
 It contains ten hundred and sixty-nine hectares 
 and was due originally to Louis XV, who sought 
 to have a sylvan gateway to the city from the east. 
 Under the Second Empire the park was con- 
 siderably transformed, new roads and alleys 
 
A Hunt under the Walls of Vincennes 
 
 From a Fourteenth Century J^rtnt 
 
Vincennes and Conflans 175 
 
 traced, and an effort made to have it equal more 
 nearly the beauty of the more popular Bois de 
 Boulogne. It occupies the plateau l3ang between 
 the Seine and the bend in the Marne, just above 
 'the junction of the two rivers. 
 
 There are some forty kilometres of roadway 
 within the limits of the Bois de Vincennes, and a 
 dozen kilometres or more of footpaths; but, since 
 the military authorities have taken a portion for 
 their own uses as a training ground, a shooting 
 range and for the Batteries of La Faisanderie and 
 Gravelle, it has been bereft of no small part of its 
 former charm. There are three lakes in the Bois, 
 the Lac de Sainte Mande, the Lac Daumesnil 
 and the Lac de Gravelle. 
 
 A near neighbour of Vincennes is Conflans, 
 another poor, rent relic of monarchial majesty. 
 The Chateau de Conflans was situated at the 
 juncture of the Seine and Marne, but, to-day, 
 the immediate neighbourhood is so very unlovely 
 and depressing that one can hardly believe that 
 it ever pleased any one's fancy, least of all that 
 of a kingly castle builder. 
 
 Banal dwellings on all sides are Conflans' chief 
 characteristics to-day; but the old royal abode 
 still lifts a long length of roof and wall to mark 
 the spot where once stood the Chateau de Con- 
 flans in all its glory. 
 
176 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Conflans was at first the country residence of 
 the Archbishops of Paris, and Saint Louis fre- 
 quently went into retreat here. When Phihppe- 
 le-Bel acquired the property, he promptly gave it 
 to the Comtesse d'Artois who made of it one of 
 the ^^ plus beaux castels du temps. " She decorated 
 its long gallery, the portion of the edifice which 
 exists to-day in the humble, emasculated form 
 
 of a warehouse of some sort, in memory of her 
 husband Othon. Here the countess held many 
 historic receptions and ceremonies during which 
 kings and princes frequently partook of her hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 After the death of the countess, the French 
 king made his residence at Conflans, and Charles 
 VT, when dauphin, was also lodged here that he 
 might be near the capital in case of events which 
 
Vincennes and Conflans 177 
 
 might require his presence. A contemporary 
 account mentions the fact that his valet de chambre 
 was killed by lightning at Conflans while serving 
 his royal master. 
 
 Conflans was the preferred suburban residence 
 of the Princes and the Dues de Bourgogne, and 
 Philippe-le-Hardi there organized his tourneys 
 and his passes d'armes with great eclat, on one 
 occasion alone offering one hundred and fifteen 
 thousand livres in prizes to the participants. 
 
 This castle, for it was more castle than palace, 
 was reputed one of the most magnificent in the 
 neighbourhood of the Paris of its time, surrounded 
 as it was with a resplendent garden and a forest 
 in miniature, really a part of the Bois de Vin- 
 cennes of to-day, where roamed wild boar and 
 wolves which furnished sport of a kingly kind. 
 
 The view from the terrace of the chateau must 
 have been wonderfully fine, the towers and roof- 
 tops of old Paris being silhouetted against the set- 
 ting sun, its windows dominating the swift-flowing 
 current of the two rivers at the foot of the fortress 
 walls. 
 
 The greatest event of history enacted under 
 the walls of Conflans was the battle and the treaty 
 which followed after, between Louis XI and the 
 Comte de Charolais, in 1405. 
 
 Commynes recounts the battle as follows: "Four 
 
178 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 thousand archers were sent out from Paris by the 
 king, who fired upon the castle from the river 
 bank on both sides/' 
 
 Bows and arrows were hardly effective weapons 
 with which to shoot down castle walls, but strag- 
 glers who left themselves unprotected were from 
 time to time picked off on both sides and much 
 carnage actually ensued. Finally a treaty of 
 peace was arranged, by which, at the death of 
 Charles-le-Temeraire, according to usage, Louis 
 XI absorbed the proprietary rights in the castle 
 and made it a Maison Royale, bestowing it upon 
 one of his favourites. Dame Gillette Hennequin. 
 
 The kings of France about this time developed 
 a predilection for the chateaux on the banks of 
 the Loire, and Conflans was offered for sale in 
 1554. Divers personages occupied it from that 
 time on, the Marechal de Villeroy, the Connetable 
 de Montmorency and, for a brief time. Cardinal 
 Richelieu. 
 
 It was in the Chateau de Conflans that was 
 planned the foundation of the French Academy; 
 here Moliere and his players first presented "La 
 Critique de I'Ecole des Femmes"; and here, also, 
 was held the marriage of La Grande Mademoiselle 
 with the unhappy Lauzan. 
 
 At the end of the reign of Louis XIV Fr. de 
 Harlay-Chauvallon, Archbishop of Paris, bought 
 
Vincennes and Conflans 179 
 
 the property of Richelieu, and, with the aid of 
 Mansart and Le Notre, considerably embellished 
 it within and without. Madame de Sevigne, in 
 one of her many published letters, writes of the 
 splendours which she saw at Conflans at this 
 epoch. 
 
 Saint-Simon, the court chronicler, mentions 
 that the gardens were so immaculately kept that 
 when the Archbishop and "La Belle" Duchesse 
 de Lesdiguieres used to promenade therein they 
 were followed by a gardener who, with a rake, 
 sought to remove the traces of each footprint as 
 soon as made. 
 
 Later, the Cardinal de Beaumont, the persecutor 
 of the Jansenists, resided here. 
 
 " Notre archeveque est a Conflans 
 C'est im grand solitaire 
 C'est un grand so 
 C'est un grand so 
 C'est un grand solitaire." 
 
 The above verse is certainly banal enough, but 
 the cardinal himself was a drble, so perhaps it is 
 appropriate. At any rate it is contemporary with 
 the churchman's sojourn at Conflans. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 rONTAINEBLEAU AND ITS FOREST 
 
 ORIOINAX- PL. AN OF FOlvITAlNElBt^-EAU 
 
 Of all the French royal palaces Fontainebleau 
 is certainly the most interesting, despite the 
 popularity and accessibility of Versailles. It 
 is moreover the cradle of the French Renaissance. 
 Napoleon called it the Maison des Siecles, and 
 the simile was just. 
 
 After Versailles, Fontainebleau has ever held 
 the first place among the suburban royal palaces. 
 The celebrated "Route de Fontainebleau" of 
 history was as much a Chemin du Roi as that 
 which led from the capital to Versailles. Ver- 
 
 180 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 18 1 
 
 sailles was gorgeous, even splendid, if you will ; but 
 it had not the unique characteristics, nor winsome- 
 ness of Fontainebleau, nor ever will have, in the 
 minds of those who know and love the France 
 of monarchial days. 
 
 Not the least of the charm of Fontainebleau 
 is the neighbouring forest so close at hand, a few 
 garden railings, not more, separating the palace 
 from one of the wildest forest tracts of modern 
 France. 
 
 The Forest of Fontainebleau is full of memories 
 of royal rendezvous, the carnage of wild beasts, 
 the ^^vraie image de la guerre ^^^ of which the 
 Renaissance kings were so inordinately fond. 
 
 It was from the Palace of Fontainebleau, too, 
 chat bloomed forth the best and most whole- 
 some of the French Renaissance architecture. 
 It was the model of all other later residences of 
 its kind. It took the best that Italy had to offer 
 and developed something so very French that 
 even the Italian workmen, under the orders 
 of Francois I, all but lost their nationality. Vasari 
 said of it that it ^'rivalled the best work to be 
 found in the Rome of its time.'' 
 
 A charter of Louis-le-Jeune (Louis VII), dated 
 at Fontainebleau in 1169, attests that the spot 
 was already occupied by a mats on royale which, 
 according to the Latin name given in the docu- 
 
182 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ment, was called Fontene Bleaudi, an etymol- 
 ogy not difficult to trace when what we know 
 of its earlier and later history is considered. 
 
 Actually this jontaine belle eau is found to-day 
 in the centre of the Jardin Anglais, its basin 
 and outlet being surrounded by the conven- 
 tional stone rim or border. After its discovery, 
 according to legend, this fountain became the 
 rendezvous of the gallants and the poets and 
 painters and the "sweet ladies" so often referred 
 to in the chronicles of the Renaissance. Rosso, 
 the painter, perpetuated one of the most celebrated 
 of these reunions in his decorations in the Galerie 
 Francois I in the palace, and Cellini represented 
 the fair huntress Diana, amid the same sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Under Louis-le-Jeune in 1169 was erected, 
 in the Cour du Donjon, the chapel Saint-Saturnin, 
 which was consecrated by Saint Thomas ^ Becket, 
 then a refugee in France. 
 
 Philippe Auguste and Saint Louis inhabited 
 the palace and Philippe-le-Bel died here in 13 14. 
 From a letter of Charles VII it appears that 
 Isabeau de Baviere had the intention of greatly 
 adding to the existing chateau because of the 
 extreme healthfulness of the neighbourhood. The 
 work was actually begun but seemingly not car- 
 ried to any great length. 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 183 
 
 Such was the state of things when Francois I 
 came into his own and, because of the supreme 
 beauty of the site, became enamoured of it and 
 began to erect an edifice which was to outrank 
 all others of its class. The king and court made 
 of Fontainebleau a second capital. It was a 
 model residence of its kind, and gave the first 
 great impetus to the Renaissance wave which 
 rose so rapidly that it speedily engulfed all France. 
 
 Aside from its palace and its forest, Fontaine- 
 bleau early became a noble and a gracious town, 
 thanks to the proximity of the royal dwelling. 
 In spite of the mighty scenes enacted within its 
 walls, the palace has ever posed as one of the 
 most placid and tranquil places of royal residence 
 in the kingdom. 
 
 All this is true to-day, in spite of the coming 
 of tourists in automobiles, and the recent estab- 
 lishment of a golf club with the usual appurte- 
 nances. Fontainebleau, the town, has a com- 
 plexion quite its own. Its garrison and its little 
 court of officialdom give it a character which 
 even to-day marks it as one of the principal 
 places where the stranger may observe the French 
 dragoon, with casque and breastplate and boots 
 and spurs, at quite his romantic best, though 
 it is apparent to all that the cumbersome, if 
 picturesque, uniform is an unwieldy fighting 
 
184 Roy al Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 costume. There was talk long ago of suppress- 
 ing the corps, but all Fontainebleau rose up in 
 protest. As the popular chanson has it: ^^Lais- 
 sez les dragons a leur Maire.'*^ This has become 
 the battle cry and so they remain at Fontainebleau 
 to-day, the envy of their fellows in the service, 
 and the glory of the young misses of the boarding 
 schools, who each Saturday are brought out in 
 droves to see the sights. 
 
 Many descriptions of Fontainebleau have been 
 written, but the works of Poirson, Pfnor and 
 ChampoUion-Figeac are generally followed by 
 most makers of guidebooks, and, though useful, 
 they have perpetuated many errors which were 
 known to have been doubtful even before their 
 day. 
 
 The best account of Fontainebleau under 
 Francois I is given in the manuscript memoir 
 of Abbe Guilbert. Apparently an error crept 
 into this admirable work, too, for it gives the date 
 of the commencement of the constructions of 
 Francois as 15 14, whereas that monarch only 
 ascended the throne in 151 5. The date of the 
 first works under this monarch was 1528, accord- 
 ing to a letter of the king himself, which began: 
 *'We, the court, intend to live in this palace and 
 hunt the ^hetes rousses et noirs qui sont dans 
 la joret.^ " 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 185 
 
 An account of Francois I and his "young 
 Italian friends" makes mention of the visit of 
 the king, in company with the Duchesse d'fetampes, 
 to the studio of Serlio who was working des- 
 perately on the portico of the Cour Ovale. 
 He found the artist producing a '^ melody of 
 plastic beauty, garbed as a simple workman, 
 his hair matted with pasty clay." He was stand- 
 ing on a scaffolding high above the ground when 
 the monarch mounted the ladder. Up aloft 
 Francois held a conference with his beloved 
 workman and, descending, shouted back the 
 words: "You understand, Maitre Serlio; let it 
 be as you suggest." After the porticos, Serlio 
 decorated the Galerie d'Ulysse which has since 
 disappeared owing to the indifference of Louis 
 XV and the imbecility of his friends; and always 
 it was with Francois: "You understand, Maitre 
 Serlio; it is as you wish." The motij may have 
 been Italian, but the impetus for the work was 
 given by the esprit of the French. 
 
 The defeated monarch was not able to bring 
 away from Padua any trophies of war; but he 
 brought plans of chateaux, and gardens as well. 
 He did more: he took the very artists and crafts- 
 men who had produced many of the Italian 
 masterpieces of the time. 
 
 The tracing of the gardens at Fontainebleau, 
 
186 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 practically as they exist to-day, was one of Francois 
 I's greatest pleasures. In their midst, on the 
 shores of the Etang aux Carpes, was erected a 
 tiny rest-house where the royal mistresses might 
 come to repose and laugh at the jests of Triboulet. 
 
 The edifice of Francois I is of modest propor- 
 tions and of perfect unity; but it is with difficulty 
 that it presents its best appearance, overpowered 
 as it is by the heavier masses of the time of Henri 
 IV, and suffering as it does because of the elimina- 
 tions of Louis XIV and Louis XV when they 
 made their additions to the palace. 
 
 Under the Convention, later on, Fontaine- 
 bleau's palace again suffered. Under the Con- 
 sulate it became a barracks and a prison, and 
 finally, not less terrible, were the restorations 
 of Napoleon and Louis Philippe. A castle may 
 sometimes suffer less from a siege than from a 
 restoration. 
 
 From every point of view, however, Fontaine- 
 bleau remains an architectural document of the 
 most profound interest and value, and, from 
 the tourists' point of view, it is the most appealing 
 of all European palaces of this or any other age. 
 The expert, the artist and the mere curiosity- 
 seeker all unite in their admiration in spite of 
 the fact that the fabric has been denuded of many 
 of its original beauties. 
 

 ^ 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 187 
 
 First, this royal dwelling is of the most ample 
 and effective proportions; second, it possesses 
 a remarkable series of luxurious apartments; 
 third, it still contains some of the finest exam- 
 ples of furniture and furnishings of Renaissance 
 and Napoleonic times; and, in addition, there is 
 also to be seen that admirable series of paintings 
 which represent the School of Fontainebleau. 
 With such an array of charms what does it matter 
 if the unity of the Renaissance masterpiece of 
 Francois I is qualified by later interpolations? 
 General impression is the standard by which 
 one judges the workmanship of a noble monu- 
 ment, and here it is good to an extraordinary 
 degree. 
 
 The palace of to-day sits at one end of the 
 aristocratic little town of Fontainebleau. Be- 
 yond is the forest and opposite are many hotels 
 which depend upon the palace as the source 
 from which they draw their livelihood. 
 
 The principal entrance to the palace opens 
 out from the Place Solferino and gives access 
 immediately to the Cour du Cheval Blanc of 
 Chambiges, which, since that eventful day in 
 Napoleonic history nearly a hundred years ago, 
 has become better known as the Cour des Adieux. 
 At the rear rises the famous horse-shoe stair, 
 certainly much better expressed in French as 
 
188 Eoyal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 the Escalier en Fer a Cheval, from which the 
 emperor took his farewell of his '^Vieux Grog- 
 nards" lined up before him, biting savagely at 
 their moustaches to keep down their emotions. 
 
 This Cour du Cheval Blanc acquired its name 
 from a plaster cast of Marcus Aurelius's cele- 
 brated steed which was originally placed here 
 under a canopy or baldaquin held aloft by colon- 
 nettes. The moulds for this work were brought 
 from Venice by Primaticcio and Vignole, but 
 it was never cast' in bronze and the statue itself 
 disappeared in 1626. The courtyard, however, 
 still kept the name until the last of Napoleonic 
 days. 
 
 As a Napoleonic memory this Cour des Adieux 
 shares popularity with the famous Cabinet of 
 the Empire suite of apartments where Napoleon 
 signed his abdication. Certainly most visitors 
 will carry away the memory of these words as 
 among the most vivid souvenirs of Fontainebleau. 
 
 " Le 5 Avril, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte signa 
 son abdication sur cette table dans le cabinet 
 de travail du Roi, le deuxieme apres la 
 chambre a coucher a Fontainebleau,'* 
 
 The abdication itself (the document) is now 
 exposed in the Galerie de Diane, transformed 
 lately into the Library. 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 189 
 
 On the right is the Aile Neuf, built by Louis XV, 
 for the housing of his officers, on the site of the 
 Galerie de Ulysse, originally one of the most 
 notable features of the palace of Francois I. 
 Opposite is the sober alignment of the Aile des 
 Ministres, and still farther to the rear are the 
 Pavilion des Aumoniers, or de V Horloge ; the 
 Chapelle de la Trinite; the Pavilion des Armes; 
 the Pavilion des Peintres; the Pavilion des Poels; 
 the Galerie des Fresques; and, finally, the Pavil- 
 ion des Reines-Meres. All of these details are 
 of the period of Francois I save the last, which 
 was an interpolation of Louis XIV. 
 
 The Fer a Cheval stairway, however, most 
 curious because of the difficulties of its con- 
 struction, dates from the time of Louis XIII, 
 and replaces the stairs built by Philibert Delorme. 
 The tennis court, just before the Pavilion de 
 I'Horloge, dates only from Louis XV. 
 
 The imposing entrance court is a hundred 
 and twelve metres in width by a hundred and 
 fifty-two metres in length, and to see it as it was 
 originally, before the destruction of the Galerie 
 d'Ulysse, one must imagine it as closed in by a 
 series of small pavilions with their frontons of 
 colonnettes preceded only by a staircase and 
 two drawbridges crossing the moat, which at 
 that time surrounded the entire confines of the 
 
190 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 palace. The moat is to-day surrounded, where 
 it still exists, by a balustrade, due to the rather 
 shabby taste of Louis XV. 
 
 An inner courtyard, known as the Cour de la 
 Fontaine, is incomparably of finer general design 
 than the entrance court, and the Cour Ovale, 
 absolutely as Henri IV left it, is finer still. At 
 the foot of this latter court is the Baptistry where 
 were baptised, in 1606, the three "Enfants de 
 France," the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII; 
 the Princesse Elizabeth, afterwards the Queen 
 of Spain; and the Princesse de Savoie. 
 
 The Cour Ovale is practically of the pro- 
 portions of the ancient Manor of Fontaine Belle 
 Eau, built by Robert le Pieux. There, too, 
 Philippe Auguste, Saint Louis, Philippe-le-Bel, 
 Charles V and Charles VII frequently resided. 
 Francois I had no wish that this old manor should 
 entirely disappear and preserved its old donjon, 
 a relic which has since gone the way of many 
 another noble fane. There are several other 
 notable courts or gardens, the Cour des Offices, 
 the Jardin de Diane, the Orangerie, the Cour 
 des Princes, etc. 
 
 All the original gardens were laid out anew 
 by Louis XIV, and that of Diane underwent a 
 considerable change at the hands of Napoleon, 
 who also laid out a Jardin Anglais on the site 
 
Salle du Throne, Fontainebleau 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest I9l 
 
 of the ancient Jardin des Pins, where originally 
 sprang into being the rippling Fontaine Beleau, 
 or Belle Eau, which gave its name to the palace, 
 the forest and the town. 
 
 The park, as distinct from the great expanse 
 of surrounding forest, is a finely shaded range 
 of alleys, due chiefly to Henri IV, who cut the 
 great canal of ornamental water and ordained 
 the general arrangement of its details. 
 
 The principal curiosity of the park is the 
 famous Treille du Roy, or the King's Grape 
 Vine, which, good seasons and bad, can be counted 
 on to give three thousand kilos of authentic 
 chasselaSj grapes of the finest quality. One 
 wonders who gets them: Ou s^en vont les raisins 
 du roil This is an interrogation that has been 
 raised more than once in the French parliament. 
 
 In general, the aspect of the exterior of the 
 Palais de Fontainebleau, the walls themselves, 
 the Cours, the alleyed walks are chiefly reminis- 
 cent of the early art of the Renaissance. Fran- 
 5:ois I is, after all, more in evidence than 
 the Henris or the Napoleons. Within, the same 
 is true in general, though to a less degree. The 
 Renaissance is maitresse within and without; 
 the other moods are wholly subservient to her 
 grace. 
 
 There is hardly an apartment in all the world 
 
192 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 of palaces in France, or beyond the frontiers, 
 to rank with the great Galerie Francois I at 
 Fontainebleau, though indeed its proportions 
 are modest and its lighting defective to-day, for 
 Louis XV blocked up all the windows on one 
 side. It remains, however, one of the richest 
 examples of the Franco-Italian decoration of 
 its era, though somewhat tarnished by the heed- 
 lessness of Charles X. 
 
 Never were there before, nor since, its era 
 such mythological wall-paintings as are here 
 to be seen. The aspirants for the Prix de Rome 
 protest each year against such subjects being 
 set them for their concours, but their judges, 
 recalling how effective such examples are, are 
 insistent. The best examples of the School of 
 Fontainebleau are a distinct variety of French 
 painting. The veriest dabbler in art can say 
 with Michelet: ''There is no reminiscence of 
 anything Italian therein." 
 
 Frankly, these works were the product of 
 secondary artists and their pupils. Leonardo 
 da Vinci, too old to do anything more than direct, 
 saw himself succeeded by Del Sarto, Rosso and 
 Primaticcio. Cellini may have contributed, too, 
 but his labours were doubtless blotted out to a 
 great extent by the orders of the all-powerful 
 Duchesse d'Etampes who feared his competition 
 
;:::::::::::;;.-xi 
 
 r</:--^. i-f -■:■ 
 
 Cl-PHERor" HENRI n u«<9 23IAME.«?« "POITIERS 
 
 FOJNrT-.A.II>JE.E>L^E.AU 
 
Pontainebleau and its Forest 193 
 
 with her protege, Primaticcio. One of the masters 
 of this coterie was Nicolo delP Abbate, better 
 known, perhaps, for his work3 painted at Bologna 
 than for his frescoes at Fontainebleau. 
 
 The Galerie Henri II is notable also for its 
 decorations, the harmonious juxtaposition of 
 sculpture and painting, and, although ^'restored" 
 in late years, presents an astonishing pristine 
 vigour. This apartment ranks with the Galerie 
 Francois I, all things considered, as one of the 
 chief show apartments of the palace. Its length 
 is thirty metres, its breadth ten, with five ample 
 round-headed windows letting in a flood of light 
 on either side, one set giving on the Cour Ovale, 
 and the other on the Parterre and the magnificent 
 facade of the Porte Doree. The ceiling is broken 
 up into octagonal caissons^ their depths alter- 
 nately laid with gold or silver, bearing the mono- 
 gram of the monarch and his devise. The par- 
 quet is laid in divisions reproducing the design 
 of the ceiling. On either side the walls are 
 wainscoted in oak similarly emblazoned in gold 
 and silver, with the initials of Diane de Poitiers, 
 and of her admirer, Henri, everywhere interlaced. 
 Again, a colossal monogram reproduces itself 
 in the chimney-piece with the frescoes of Nicolo 
 deir Abbate, and fifty figures of mythological 
 gods and heroes decorate the window casings. 
 
194 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The chapel dates chiefly from the time of 
 Hem-i IV, the altar and numerous embellish- 
 ments belonging to later reigns. 
 
 A certain sentiment, not a little real beauty, 
 and much unauthenticated history attach them- 
 selves to the Salon Louis XIII, the Salle du 
 Trone, the Apartment of Madame de Maintenon, 
 those of Napoleon I, of Pope Pius VII and of 
 Marie Antoinette. 
 
 The Galerie de Diane is little reminiscent of 
 the day of the huntress, being a reconstitution 
 under the First Empire, though its decorations 
 date from the Restoration, and the ceiling, and fur- 
 niture, apparently of the best of Renaissance 
 times, are merely copies made by Louis Philippe, 
 who did not hesitate, on another occasion, to blue- 
 wash the Salon de Saint Louis, and who hung 
 worthless third-rate paintings, which even pro- 
 vincial museums of the meanest rank have since 
 refused to house, in the admirably decorated 
 apartments of the period of Francois and Henri. 
 
 Fontainebleau, to-day, is but a memory of 
 what it was, a memory by no means fragmentary, 
 by no means complete; but all sufficient. 
 
 Of later years there is actually little to single 
 out in the way of remarkable additions or restora- 
 tions. Under the Second Empire the Galerie 
 Francois I was repainted, some false antiquities 
 
CHE.IVIINE.E1 S>e ^^REIIIME 
 'F^ O NT TW I IM EIBL-E: AU 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 195 
 
 added as furnishings, and various ranges of books 
 were stored away in the Galerie de Diane, having 
 been brought from the chapel which had ceased 
 to serve as the Library. This apartment was 
 now refitted as a chapel, and, to supplant six 
 wall paintings which had been removed. Napoleon 
 III ordered seven canvases from the painter 
 Schopin, illustrating the life of Saint Saturnin. 
 
 Finally, the Salle de Spectacle completes the 
 modern additions, and, while gaudily striking, 
 is scarcely above the taste of a gilded cafe in some 
 pompous Prefecture. 
 
 Henri IV was the creator of the park of the 
 palace, which extended as far as the village of 
 Avon and absorbed all the Seigneurie de Mont- 
 ceau, of which Mi-Voie (the dairy of Catherine 
 de Medici) occupied a part. The acquisition 
 of the Seigneurie was made in 1609. Across it 
 was cut a ^^ grand canal" in imitation of that 
 already possessed by the Chateau de Fleury. 
 It was a great rarity as a garden accessory, and 
 was more than a quarter of a league long and 
 forty metres wide. Bassompierre said in his 
 memoirs that Henri IV made him a wager that 
 it could be filled with water in two days. It 
 actually took eight. 
 
 To the north of the park, Henri IV built, 
 under the name of La Menagerie, what he called 
 
196 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 a maison de plaisance, but which was really the 
 forerunner of the animal house at Versailles. 
 
 To all these works of Henri IV in the gardens 
 at Fontainebleau is attached the name of Francine. 
 There were two brothers of the name, Thomas 
 and Alexandre, and it was the latter who chiefly 
 occupied himself with the Parterre, the Chaus- 
 see and the Grand Canal at Fontainebleau. 
 In the Jardin de la Reine he erected the celebrated 
 Fontaine de Diane which finally gave its name 
 to the garden itself. The fountain was designed 
 by Barthelemy Prieur, and was cast in 1603. 
 The original bronzes are now in the Louvre, 
 those seen at Fontainebleau to-day being later 
 works (1684). 
 
 The Forest of Fontainebleau is a dozen leagues 
 in circumference, and of an area of nearly thirty- 
 five thousand acres. Its beauty, its natural 
 beauty, is unrivalled. Rocks, ravines, valleys, 
 patriarchal oaks and beeches, plains, woods, 
 glades, meadows, lawns and cliffs, all are here. 
 Its population of stag and deer was practically 
 exterminated during the Revolution of 1830, 
 but nevertheless it sustained its reputation as a 
 great hunting-ground for long afterwards. 
 
 The Royal Hunt invariably centered at La 
 Croix du Grand Veneur, a notable landmark 
 of the forest even now^ at the intersection of four 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 197 
 
 magnificent forest roads. Its name comes from 
 a legend of a spectral black huntsman who was 
 supposed to haunt the forest, and who appeared 
 for the last time, in reality or imagination, to 
 Henri IV shortly before his assassination. 
 
 In 1854, one of the last and most gorgeous 
 of Fontainebleau hunts was given by Louis 
 Napoleon. The emperor spent lavishly for the 
 equipment of the hunt, and granted liberal stipends 
 to the attendants that they might caparison 
 themselves with some semblance of picturesque 
 dignity; horses and dogs were furnished and 
 cared for on the same liberal scale. 
 
 The costuming of a hunting party under such 
 conditions was not the least appealing of its 
 picturesque elements. Three-cornered hats, gold 
 lace, knee breeches, silk stockings and other 
 costly properties, when provided for a single 
 special occasion, as they were in this case, were 
 apt to suggest the life of centuries long gone 
 by rather than that of modern times. 
 
 The Forest of Fontainebleau can best be 
 briefly described as a rendezvous for tourists and 
 "trippers," and as a vast open-air studio for 
 the youthful emulators of "the men of Barbison." 
 
 Historic, romantic and artistic memories and 
 realities are on every hand; the march of time 
 and progress has not dimmed them, nor thinned 
 
198 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 them out; the Forest of Fontainebleau remains 
 to-day the best known and most dehghtful extent 
 of wildwood in all the world. 
 
 The chief of the well-known names associated 
 with the Forest of Fontainebleau, and one which 
 will never die, is that of Denecourt, called also 
 the '^Sylvain de la Foret," a mythological appella- 
 tion which came from his abounding knowledge 
 of its devious ways and byways. It was in 1841 
 that Denecourt began his original studies and 
 catalogued its every stone and tree. He in- 
 vented names and gave a historical setting to 
 many a picturesque and romantic site which 
 might not have been known at all had it not 
 been for his enthusiasm. 
 
 After the vogue of Denecourt all the world 
 followed in his footsteps until the Parisian knew 
 as well the Longue Rocher, the Gorges d'Apre- 
 mont and the Gorge de Franchard as he did 
 the Rue de la Paix or the Champs Elysees. Dene- 
 court's great work, ^^ Promenades dans la Fork 
 de Fontainebleau,''^ appeared in 1845, and if 
 he is to be criticised for letting his fancy run 
 away with him now and then, and for the opera 
 bouff e nomenclature of many of the caves and mares 
 and chenes and ''fairy-bowers'* and ''tables of 
 kings," he at least has enabled a curious public to 
 become better acquainted with this great forest. 
 
Pontainebleau and its Forest 199 
 
 The flora of the Forest of Fontainebleau is 
 remarkably varied ; Denecourt gives seventy varie- 
 ties of plants and flowers which grow and prop- 
 agate here naturally, to which are to be added 
 a great number of nondescript vines, lichens 
 and vegetable mosses. 
 
 Of the trees the list extends from the imposing 
 and sometimes gigantic oaks, elms, beeches, and 
 willows to shrubs and heather growth of the 
 most humble species. 
 
 A score or more of the most commonly known 
 feathered tribes people the forest to-day with 
 almost the same freedom of life and abundance 
 as in monarchial times. The songsters are all 
 there, from the robin to the nightingale; as well 
 as the partridge and the celebrated indigenous 
 grouse. 
 
 Previous to 1830 the forest was well supplied 
 with big game, deer and wild boar without num- 
 ber; but, in later times, as was but natural, these 
 have been greatly thinned out. Rabbits and 
 hares, to say nothing of foxes and the like, were 
 formerly so abundant that, under Louis Philippe, 
 it was necessary to carry out what was practically 
 a war of extermination. To-day they exist, of 
 course, but in no great numbers. 
 
 Another sort of publicity has been given the 
 Forest of Fontainebleau by its association with 
 
200 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 the painters of the thirties. Theodore Rous- 
 seau, in 1836, lived at Barbison, which at that 
 time was but a hamlet of a few houses, with no 
 encumbering hotels, garages and merry-go-rounds 
 as to-day. 
 
 A certain Pere Ganne kept a sort of a lodging 
 house where artists were made welcome at an 
 exceedingly modest price. Not only the really 
 famous and much exploited painters of the time 
 gained fortunes here, but those of a more con- 
 servative school, who never rose to really great 
 distinction, also drew much of their inspiration 
 from the neighbourhood, among them Hamon, 
 Boulanger and Celestin Nanteuil. 
 
 Without having to go far to hunt up their 
 subjects, the Forest of Fontainebleau lying near 
 Barbison offered to painters much that was not 
 available within so small a radius elsewhere. 
 
 Diaz was here already when, in 1849, Jacque 
 and Millet arrived upon the scene, and at more 
 or less frequent intervals, and for more or less 
 lengthy stays, there came Corot, Dupre and 
 Daubigny. 
 
 Just what the Barbison school produced in 
 the way of painting all the world knows to-day, 
 but these men were originally the target of every 
 prejudiced critic of the Boulevards and the 
 Faubourgs. The present day has brought its 
 
o 
 
 «K4 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 Ho 
 
Fontainebleau and its Forest 201 
 
 reward and appreciation, though it is the dealers 
 who have profited — the men are dead. 
 
 In memory of the fame brought to this httle 
 corner of the forest in general, and to Barbison 
 in particular, there was placed (in 1894), at the 
 entrance to the village, a bronze medallion show- 
 ing the heads of Millet and Rousseau. It was 
 a delicate way of showing appreciation for the 
 talents of those two great men who actually 
 founded a new school of painting. 
 
 At the other end of the forest is the little village 
 of Marlotte, also a haven for many painters of 
 a former day, and no less so for those of to-day. 
 The old forest in three quarters of a century 
 has seen itself reproduced on canvas in all its 
 moods. No painter ever lived, nor could all the 
 painters that ever lived, exhaust its infinite variety. 
 Hebert in his " Dictionnaire de la Foret de Fon- 
 tainebleau" says, rightly enough, that, with 
 the coming of the men of Fontainebleau and 
 its ^^ artist-villages,'^^ the classic type of "Paysage 
 dTtalie" has disappeared from the Salon Cata- 
 logues. 
 
 Art amateurs and the common people alike 
 made the reputation of Fontainebleau; the mere 
 "trippers" were brought thither by Denecourt, 
 but the real forest lovers were those who were 
 attracted by the masterpieces of the painters. 
 
202 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The town of Fontainebleau has changed some- 
 what under this double influence. At Fontaine- 
 bleau itself are two monuments in memory of 
 painters who have passed away. One of these 
 is to the memory of Decamps, who was killed 
 by a fall from his horse while riding in the forest; 
 it is a simple bust, the work of Carrier-Belleuse. 
 The other is of Rosa Bonheurwho died at Thomery, 
 a little village on the southern border of the 
 forest, in 1902; it is an almost life-size bull from 
 a small model by the artist herself and surmounts 
 a pedestal which also bears a medallion of the 
 artist. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 BY THE BANKS OF THE SEINE 
 
 On the highroad to Saint Germain one passes 
 innumerable historic monuments which suggest 
 the generous part that many minor chateaux 
 played in the court life of the capital of old. 
 
 To-day, Maisons, La Muette and Bagatelle are 
 mere names which serve the tram lines for roof 
 signs and scarcely one in a thousand strangers 
 gives them a thought. 
 
 The famous Bois de Boulogne and its immediate 
 environment have for centuries formed a delicious 
 verdant framing for a species of French country- 
 house which could not have existed within the 
 fortifications. These luxurious, bijou dwellings, 
 some of them, at least, the caprices of kings, 
 others the property of the new nobility, and still 
 others of mere plebeian kings of finance, are in a 
 class quite by themselves. 
 
 Perhaps the most famous of these is the cele- 
 brated Bagatelle, within the confines of the Bois 
 itself. The Chateau de Bagatelle was built in a 
 month, thus meriting its name, by the Comte 
 
 203 
 
204 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 d'Artois, the future Charles X, as a result of a wager 
 with Marie Antoinette. On its facade it originally 
 bore the inscription: ^^Parva sed apta^^ — ^^ small 
 but convenient." 
 
 
 liPAsTAz >"" " ' 
 
 Bagatelle occupied a corner of the royal domain 
 and, after its completion, was sold to the Marquise 
 de Monconseil, in 1747, who gave to this princely 
 suburban residence a dignity worthy of its origin. 
 Then came La Pompadour on the scene, the petite 
 bourgeoise who, by the nobility acquired by the 
 donning of a court costume and marriage with 
 the Sieur Normand d'Etioles, usurped the right 
 
By the Banks of the Seine 205 
 
 to sit beside duchesses and be presented to the 
 queen, if not as an equal, at least as the maitresse 
 of her spouse, the king. 
 
 There is a legend about a meeting between 
 La Pompadour and the king at Bagatelle, a meet- 
 ing in which she established herself so firmly in 
 the graces of the monarch that on the morrow she 
 formed a part of the entourage at Versailles. 
 
 After having come into the possession of the 
 heirs of Sir Richard Wallace, Bagatelle finally 
 became the property of the State. 
 
 It is in the Chateau de Bagatelle that is to be 
 installed the ^'Musee de la Parole" — "The 
 Museum of Speech." The French, innovators 
 ever, plan that Bagatelle shall become a sort of 
 conservatory of the human voice, and here will 
 be classed methodically the cylinders and disks 
 which have recorded the spoken words of all sorts 
 and conditions of men. 
 
 In this Musee de la Parole will be kept phono- 
 graphic records of all current dialects in France, 
 the argot of the Parisian lower classes, etc., etc. 
 
 Up to the present the evolution of the speech 
 of man has ever been an enigma. No one knows 
 to-day how Homer or Virgil pronounced their 
 words, and Racine and Corneille, though of a time 
 less remote, have left no tangible record of their 
 speech. Monsieur Got of the Comedie Fran- 
 
206 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 ^aise believes that Louis XIV pronounced ^^Moi,^^ 
 ''le Roi'' as ''Moue'' 'He Roue'') and thus he 
 pronounced it in a speech which has been recorded 
 in wax and is to form a part of the collection at 
 Bagatelle. 
 
 The Polo Grounds of Bagatelle, between the 
 chateau and the Seine as it swirls around the He 
 de la Folie, are to-day better known than this 
 dainty little Paris palace; but Bagatelle will 
 some day come to its own again. 
 
 Neuilly bounds the Bois de Boulogne on the 
 north, and has little of a royal appearance to-day, 
 save its straight, broad streets. 
 
 There is a royal incident connected with the 
 Pont de Neuilly which should not be forgotten. 
 It came about in connection with the return of 
 Henri IV from Saint Germain in company with 
 the queen and the Due de Vendome. They were 
 in a great coach drawn by four horses which in- 
 sisted on drinking from the river in spite of the 
 efforts of the coachman to prevent them. 
 
 The carriage was overturned and the royal 
 party barely escaped being drowned. One of 
 the aids who accompanied them recounted the 
 fact that the impromptu bath had cured the 
 king's toothache which he had acquired over a 
 rather hasty meal just before leaving the palace. 
 "Had I witnessed the adventure," said the Mar- 
 
By the Banks of the Seine 207 
 
 quis de Verneuil, ^^I should have proposed the 
 toast: 'Le Roi Boit!' " As a result of this in- 
 cident a new bridge was constructed, though it 
 was afterwards replaced by the present stone 
 structure over which a ceaseless traffic rushes in 
 and out of Paris to-day. It was this present 
 bridge over which Louis XV was the first to pass 
 on September 22, 1772. 
 
 The Chateau de Neuilly was a favourite subur- 
 ban residence of Louis Philippe. It was here 
 that a delegation came to offer him the crown, and, 
 after he had become king, he was pleased to still 
 inhabit it and actually spent considerable sums 
 upon its maintenance. When the Revolution of 
 1848 broke out, the sovereign took refuge at 
 Neuilly and, when besieged by the multitude, 
 took flight in the night of February 26 and 
 left his chateau in the hands of a band of ruffians 
 who pillaged it from cellar to garret, finally set- 
 ting it on fire. It burned like a pile of brushwood, 
 and it is said that more than a hundred drunken 
 desperados perished when its walls fell in. This 
 was the tragic end of the Chateau de Neuilly. 
 
 By a decree of the president of the later Re- 
 public the Orleans princes were obliged to sell all 
 their French properties and the park of the 
 Chateau de Neuilly was cut up into morsels 
 and lots were sold to aU comers. Thus was 
 
208 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 born that delightful Paris suburb, with the broad, 
 shady avenues and comfortable houses, with 
 which one is familiar to-day. The aristocratic 
 Pare de Neuilly, with Saint James, is the only 
 tract near Paris where one finds such lovely 
 gardens and such fresh, shady avenues. 
 
 Another quarter of Neuilly possesses a history 
 worthy of being recounted. The district known 
 as Saint James derived its name from a great 
 suburban property which in 1775 belonged to 
 Baudart de Saint James. He created a property 
 almost royal in its appointments, its gardens hav- 
 ing acquired an extraordinary renown. When 
 he became a bankrupt a throng of persons visited 
 the property not so much with a view to purchase 
 as out of curiosity. A writer of the time says 
 of this LucuUus that he was the envy of all Paris. 
 He died soon after his ruin, from chagrin, and 
 in apparent poverty, which seemingly established 
 his good faith with his creditors. Under the 
 First Empire the domain was bought by, or for, 
 the Princesse Borghese, who here gave many bril- 
 liant fetes at which the emperor himself frequently 
 assisted. On the occasion of the marriage of 
 Napoleon to Marie Louise a series of fetes took 
 place here which evoked the especially ex- 
 pressed encomiums of the emperor. 
 
 In 181 5 Wellington made it his headquarters 
 
By the Banks of the Seine 209 
 
 and here had his first conference with Blucher. 
 Upon WelHngton quitting Saint James the prop- 
 erty was pillaged by the Iron Duke's own troops 
 and actually demolished by the picks and axes of 
 the soldiery. 
 
 Near the Passy entrance of the Bois is La 
 Muette, a relic of a royal hunting-lodge which 
 took its name from the royal pack of hounds 
 (meute) which was formerly kept here. 
 
 The Chateau de la Muette was the caprice of 
 Francois I, who, when he came to Paris, wished 
 to have his pleasures near at hand, and, being 
 the chief partisan of the hunt among French 
 monarchs, built La Muette for this purpose. 
 
 The Chateau de la Muette is thus classed as 
 one of the royal dwellings of France though 
 hardly ever is it mentioned in the annals of to-day. 
 
 Rebuilt by Charles IX, from his father's more 
 modest shooting box, La Muette became the 
 centre of the court of Marguerite de Navarre, 
 the first wife of Henri IV; after which it served 
 as the habitation of the dauphin, who became 
 Louis XIII. 
 
 During the regency, Philippe d' Orleans took 
 possession of the chateau until the enthronement 
 of Louis XV. The latter here established a 
 little court within a court, best described by the 
 French as: ^'ses plaisirs prives.'*^ It was this 
 
210 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 monarch who rebuilt, or at least restored, the 
 chateau, and brought it to the state in which one 
 sees it to-day. 
 
 In 1783 Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the 
 court took up a brief residence here to assist at 
 the aerostatic experiences of De Rosier, and in 
 1787, ceasing to be a royal residence. La Muette 
 was offered for sale after first having been stripped 
 of its precious wainscotings, its marbles and the 
 artistic curiosities of all sorts with which it had 
 been decorated. The chateau itself now became 
 the property of Sebastian Erard, who bought it 
 for the modest price of two hundred and sixty 
 thousand francs. 
 
 Somewhat farther from Paris, crossing the 
 peninsula formed by the first of the great bends 
 of the Seine below the capital, is Chatou which 
 has a royal reminder in its Pavilion Henri IV, 
 or Pavilion Gabrielle, which the gallant, love- 
 making monarch built for Gabrielle d'Estrees. 
 Formerly it was surrounded by a vast park and 
 must have been almost ideal, but to-day it is sur- 
 rounded by stucco, doll-house villas, and un- 
 appealing apartments, until only a Gothic portal, 
 jutting from a row of dull house fronts, suggests 
 the once cosy little retreat of the lovely Gabrielle. 
 
 The height of Louveciennes, above Bougival, 
 closes the neck of the peninsula and from it a vast 
 
By the Banks of the Seine 211 
 
 panorama of the silvery Seine and its coteaux 
 stretches out from the towers of Notre Dame on 
 one hand to the dense forest of Saint Germain 
 on the other. 
 
 The original Chateau de Louveciennes was the 
 property of Madame la Princesse de Conti, but 
 popular interest lies entirely with the Pavilion 
 du Barry, built by the architect Ledoux under the 
 orders of Louis XV. 
 
 Du Barry, having received the chateau as a gift 
 from the king, sought to decorate it and reembel- 
 lish it anew. Through the ministrations of a 
 certain Drouais, Fragonard was commissioned 
 to decorate a special pavilion outside the cha- 
 teau proper, destined for the ^^ collations du Roi.^^ 
 
 The subject chosen was the ^' Progres de P Amour 
 dans le Cceur des Jeunes Filles." Just where 
 these panels are to-day no one seems to know, 
 but sooner or later they will doubtless be dis- 
 covered. 
 
 Fragonard's famous "Escalade," or "Ren- 
 dezvous," the first of the series of five proposed 
 panels, depicted the passion of Louis XV for du 
 Barry. The shepherdess had the form and fea- 
 tures of that none too scrupulous feminine beauty, 
 and the ^^berger gallanV^ was manifestly a portrait 
 of the king. 
 
 Perhaps these decorations at Louveciennes were 
 
212 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 elaborations of these smaller canvases. It seems 
 quite probable. 
 
 Sheltered snugly against the banked-up Forest 
 of Saint Germain, on the banks of the Seine, 
 is Maisons-Laffitte. Maisons is scarcely ever 
 mentioned by Parisians save as they comment 
 on the sporting columns of the newspapers, for 
 horse-racing now gives its distinction to the 
 neighbourhood, and the old Chateau de Maisons 
 (with its later suffix of Laffitte) is all but for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Francois Mansart built the first Chateau de 
 Maisons on a magnificent scale for Rene de Long- 
 ueil, the Superintendent of Finance. In a later 
 century it made a most effectual appeal to another 
 financier, Laffitte, the banker, who parcelled out 
 the park and stripped the chateau. 
 
 For a century, though, the chateau belonged to 
 the family of its founder, and in 1658 the sur- 
 rounding lands were made into a Marquisate. 
 In 1 67 1, on the day of the death of Philippe, Due 
 d'Anjou, Maisons may be said to have become 
 royal for the court there took up its residence. 
 Later, the Marquis de Soyecourt became the 
 owner and Voltaire stayed here for a time; in fact 
 he nearly died here from an attack of smallpox. 
 
 In 1778 the property was acquired by the 
 Comte d'Artois and the royal family of the 
 
By the Banks of the Seine 213 
 
 time were frequent guests. The king, the queen 
 and each of the princes all had their special 
 apartments, and if Louis XVI had not been too 
 busy with other projects, more ambitious ones, 
 there is little doubt but that he would have given 
 Maisons an eclat which during all of its career 
 it had just missed. At the Revolution it was sold 
 as National Property and the proceeds turned 
 into public coffers. 
 
 With the Empire the chateau became more 
 royalist than ever. Marechal Lannes became 
 its proprietor, then the Marechal de Montebello, 
 who here received Napoleon on many occasions. 
 With the invasion of 1815 the village was devas- 
 tated, but the chateau escaped, owing to its having 
 been made the headquarters of the invading 
 allies. After this, in 181 8, the banker Laffitte 
 came into possession. He exercised a great hos- 
 pitality and lived the life of an opulent bourgeois, 
 but he destroyed most of the outbuildings and 
 the stables built by Mansart, and cut up the great 
 expanse of park which originally consisted of five 
 hundred hectares. His ideas were purely com- 
 mercial, not the least esthetic. 
 
 The scheme of decoration within, as without, is 
 distinctly unique. Doric pilasters and columns 
 support massive cornices and round-cornered 
 ceilings, with here and there antique motives and 
 
214 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 even Napoleonic eagles as decorative features. 
 To-day all the apartments are deserted and sad. 
 The finest, from all points of view, is that of the 
 Salle-a- Manger, though indeed some of the motives 
 are but plaster reproductions of the originals. 
 The chimney-piece, however, is left, a pure bijou, 
 a model of grace, more like a pagan altar than a 
 comparatively modern mantel. The oratory is 
 in the pure style of the Empire, and the stairway, 
 lighted up by a curiously arranged dome-lantern, 
 gives a most startling effect to the entrance ves- 
 tibule. 
 
 In general the design of Maisons is gracious, 
 not at all outre, though undeniably grandiose ; too 
 much so for a structure covering so small an area. 
 The Cour d'Honneur gives it its chief exterior 
 distinction and the two pavilions have a certain 
 grace of charm, when considered separately, which 
 the ensemble somewhat lacks. The surroundings, 
 had they not been ruthlessly cut up into building 
 lots for over-ambitious Paris shopkeepers, would 
 have added greatly to the present appearance 
 of the property. As it is, the near-by race-course 
 absorbed the orchard, the pelouse and many of 
 the garden plots. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MALMAISON AND MARLY 
 
 Out from Paris, by the cobbly Pave du Roi, 
 which a parental administration is only just now 
 digging up and burying under, just beyond the 
 little suburban townlet of Rueil (where the Em- 
 press Josephine and her daughter Hortense lie 
 buried in the parish church), one comes to Mal- 
 maison of unhappy memory. It is not imposing, 
 palatial, nor, architecturally, very worthy, but it 
 is one of the most sentimentally historic of all 
 French monuments of its class. 
 
 Since no very definite outlines remain of any 
 royal historical monument at Rueil to-day the 
 tourist bound towards Versailles by train, tram or 
 road, gives little thought to the snug little suburb 
 through which he shuffles along, hoping every 
 minute to leave the noise, bustle and cobble- 
 stones of Paris behind. 
 
 Rueil is deserving of more consideration than 
 this. According to Gregory of Tours the first race 
 of kings had a "pleasure house" here, and called 
 the neighbourhood Rotolajum. Not always did 
 
 215 
 
216 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 these old kings stay cooped up in a fortress in the 
 Isle of Lutetia. Sometimes they went afield for 
 a day in the country like the rest of us, and to 
 them, with their slow means of communication 
 and the bad roads of their day, Rueil, scarce a 
 dozen miles from Notre Dame, seemed far away. 
 
 Childerbert I, son of Clovis, is mentioned as 
 having made a protracted sojourn at Rueil, and 
 whatever may have existed then in the way of a 
 royal residence soon after passed to the monks 
 of Saint Denis, who here fished and hunted and 
 lived a life of comfort and ease such as they could 
 hardly do in their fortress-abbey. They, too, 
 required change and rest from time to time, and, 
 apparently, when they could, took it. 
 
 The Black Prince burned the town and all its 
 dependencies in 1346, and only an unimportant 
 village existed when Richelieu thought to build a 
 country-house here on this same charming site 
 which had so pleased the first French monarchs. 
 Richelieu did his work well, as always, and built an 
 immense chateau, surrounded by a deep moat 
 into which were turned the swift-flowing waters 
 of the Seine. A vast park was laid out, in part 
 in the formal manner and in part as a natural 
 preserve, and the neighbourhood once more 
 became frequented by royalty and the nobles 
 of the court. 
 
Malmaison and Marly 217 
 
 Richelieu bequeathed the property to his niece, 
 the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, and Louis XIV became 
 a frequent dweller there — as a visitor, but he 
 did not mind that. Louis XIV was sometimes a 
 monarch, sometimes a master, and sometimes a 
 "family friend," to put it in a noncommittal 
 manner. 
 
 The Revolution nearly made way with the prop- 
 erty and the Due de Massena, a few years after- 
 wards, reestablished it after a fashion, but spec- 
 ulating land-boomers came along in turn and 
 royal memories meaning nothing to them the 
 property was cut up into streets, avenues and 
 house lots. 
 
 The Chateau de Malmaison, which is very near 
 Rueil, is in quite a different class. Its history 
 comes very nearly down to modern times. The 
 memory of Malmaison is purely Napoleonic. Its 
 historical souvenirs are many, but its actual ruins 
 have taken on a plebeian aspect of little appeal in 
 these later days. 
 
 In 1792 Malmaison was sold as a piece of na- 
 tional merchandise to be turned into ecus, and a 
 certain Monsieur Lecouteux de Canteleu, hav- 
 ing the ready cash and a disposition to live under 
 its roof, took over the proprietorship for a time. 
 It was he who sold it to Josephine Beauharnais, 
 and it was she who gave it a glory and splendour 
 
218 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 which it had never before possessed, gave it its 
 complete fame, in fact. 
 
 Napoleon himself, as First Consul, was pas- 
 sionately fond of the place, but by the time he 
 had become emperor, because of unhappy memo- 
 ries, perhaps, for he had them at times, came 
 rarely to this charming suburban chateau. 
 
 It was at Malmaison that began the good for- 
 tune of Josephine, and it was at Malmaison that 
 it flickered out like the dying flame of a candle. 
 
 In a beating rain, on Saturday, December i6, 
 1809, Josephine quitted the Tuileries, her eyes 
 still red with the tears from that last brief inter- 
 view. She arrived at Malmaison at the end of 
 a lugubrious day, when the whole place was en- 
 veloped in a thick fog. She passed the night 
 almost alone in this great house where she had 
 previously been so happy. She could hardly, 
 however, have been more sad than Napoleon was 
 that same night. He had shut himself up in his 
 cabinet, remorseful and alone. 
 
 The Sunday following was hardly less melan- 
 choly, for it was then Josephine learned that Mal- 
 maison had been endowed with an income of 
 two millions for its upkeep, and that her per- 
 sonal belongings and the furnishings of her fa- 
 vourite apartments were already on the way thither 
 from the Tuileries. The wound was not even 
 
■?*::':':^fv:^::^?^?i^*;^'^v:-^v-:rVS^ >^j.i>!^l-^Wgtf 
 
 1 - ,■;■.', 
 
 Cfmteau tk Malmauon 
 
2iS Eoyal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 which it had never before jx^ssessed, gave it its 
 complete fame, in fact. 
 
 Napoleon himself, as First Consul, was pas- 
 sionately fond of the place, but by the time he 
 had become emperor, because of unhappy memo- 
 ries, perhaps, for he had them at times, came 
 rarely to this charming suburban chateau. 
 
 It was at Malmaison that began the good for- 
 tune of Josephine, and it was at Malmaison that 
 it flickered out like the dying flame of a candle. 
 
 In a beating rain, on Saturday, December i6, 
 1809, Josephine quitted the Tuiieries, her eyes 
 still red with the tears from that last brief inter- 
 view. She arrived at Malmaison at the end of 
 
 a lugubrious ^ v^ ^^^^MfCP^'^''^^'^^^^''' 
 veloped in a thick fog. She passed the night 
 almost alone in this great house where she had 
 previously been so happy. She could hardly, 
 however, have httn more sad than Napoleon was 
 that same night. He had shut himself up in his 
 cabinet, remorseful and alone. 
 
 The Sunday following was hardly less melan- 
 choly, for it was then Josephine learned that Mal- 
 maison had been endowed with an income of 
 two milhons for its upkeep, and that lier per- 
 sonal belongings and the furnishings of her fa- 
 vourite apartments were already on ihc wa^^ thither 
 from the Tuiieries, The wound was riot even 
 

Malmaison and Marly 219 
 
 then allowed to heal, for she learned that Napo- 
 leon had ordained that she was to receive the visits 
 of the court as if she were still empress. 
 
 Napoleon had already written his former spouse 
 to the effect that he would give much to see her, 
 but that he did not feel sufficiently sure of him- 
 self to permit of it. This historic letter closed 
 thus; ^' Adieu J Josephine, bonne nuit, si tu doutais 
 de moij tout sera hien indigne.^^ 
 
 On the 17th of December Napoleon actually 
 did come to Malmaison to see her from whom 
 he was officially separated. Josephine had con- 
 fided to Madame de Remusat, her lady-in-waiting, 
 "It almost seems as if I were dead, and only 
 possessed of the faculty of remembering the 
 past." 
 
 In this Malmaison, so full of souvenirs of other 
 days, Josephine was obliged to content herself, 
 for on January 12, 1810, the religious marriage 
 of Josephine and Napoleon was annulled auto- 
 matically because, as was claimed, it had not 
 been celebrated with the necessary formalities. 
 
 Here at Malmaison Josephine even surrounded 
 herself with the most intimate souvenirs of Na- 
 poleon: a lounging chair that he was wont to 
 occupy stood in its accustomed place; his bed 
 was always made; his sword hung upon the wall; 
 his pen was in his inkwell; a book was open on 
 
220 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 his desk and his geographical globe — his famous 
 mappemond — was in its accustomed place. 
 
 Princes passing through Paris came to Mal- 
 maison to salute the former empress, and she 
 allowed herself to become absorbed in her green- 
 houses and her dairy, the direction of her house, 
 her receptions and her petite cour. 
 
 In time all came to an end. When Napoleon 
 returned to Paris in 1815 he interrogated the 
 doctor who had cared for Josephine during the 
 illness which terminated in her death the year 
 before and asked him: "Did she speak of me at 
 the last?'' The doctor replied: "Often, very 
 often." With emotion Napoleon replied simply: 
 ^^ Bonne femme: bonne Josephine elle m^aimeit 
 vraiment.^^ 
 
 After Waterloo Napoleon himself retired to 
 Malmaison, which had become the property of 
 Josephine's children, Eugene and Hortense, and 
 closed himself up in the room where she died, 
 the library which he occupied when triumphant 
 First Consul. 
 
 Here he lived five mortal days of anguish pre- 
 ceding his departure for Rochefort on that 
 agonizing exile from which he never returned. 
 
 After the divorce Josephine preserved the 
 property as her own particular residence, and in 
 1814 received there the celebrated visit of the 
 
Malmaison and Marly 221 
 
 allied sovereigns. History tells of a certain boat 
 ride which she took on a neighbouring lake in 
 company with the Emperor Alexander which is 
 fraught with much historic sentiment. It was 
 this imprudent excursion, in the cool of a May 
 evening, that caused the death of the former 
 empress three days later. It was from this bijou 
 of a once royal abode that Napoleon launched 
 his famous proclamation to the army which the 
 arrogant Fouche refused to have printed in 
 the ^' Moniteur Officieiy Upon this Napoleon 
 sent the Due de Rovigo to Paris for his pass- 
 ports and the necessary orders which would en- 
 able him to depart in peace. The next moment 
 he had changed his mind, and he changed it again 
 a few moments afterwards. As the result of the 
 Prussians' advance on Paris by the left bank of 
 the Seine Napoleon was obliged to accept the 
 inevitable, and with the words of General Becker 
 ringing in his ears: ^^ Sire, tout est pret,^'' he crossed 
 the vestibule and entered the gardens amid a 
 painful calm on his part, and an audible weeping 
 by his former fellows in arms who were lined 
 up to do him honour. He embraced Hortense 
 passionately, and saluted all the personages of 
 his party with a sympathy and emotion unbeliev- 
 able. With an eternal adieu and a rapid step 
 down the garden walk to the driveway, he at last 
 
222 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 entered the carriage which was awaiting him and 
 was driven rapidly away. Some days after the 
 AlHes pillaged and sacked Malmaison. Its chief 
 glory may be said to have departed with the 
 Corsican. 
 
 Under the Restoration, Prince Eugene had a 
 sort of "rag sale" of what was left. The lands 
 which Josephine had bought of Lecouteaux 
 were sold to the highest bidder and the exotic 
 shrubs and plants to any who would buy, the pic- 
 tures to such connoisseurs as had the price, those 
 that were left being sent to Munich. A Swedish 
 banker now came on the scene (1826) and bought 
 the property — the chateau and the park — which 
 he preserved until his death twenty years later. 
 Then it went to Queen Christina, and was ulti- 
 mately purchased by Napoleon III. 
 
 In October, 1870, during the siege of Paris, 
 General Ducrot sought to make a reconnoissance 
 by way of Malmaison, and so weak was his pro- 
 ject that the equipages of the King of Prussia 
 and his Etat Major invested the environs and 
 made the property their official headquarters. 
 
 Near by is a fine property called "Les Bruy- 
 eres," a royal estate of Napoleon III. It was 
 created and developed by the emperor and was 
 always referred to as a Pare Imperial. 
 
 Perhaps the most banal of all the royal souvenirs 
 
Malmaison and Marly 223 
 
 around Paris is that gigantic mill-wheel known as the 
 Machine de Marly, down by the Seine a few miles 
 beyond Malmaison, just where that awful cobble- 
 stoned roadway begins to climb up to the plateau on 
 which sits the chateau of Saint Germain and its park. 
 
 Because it is of unesthetic aspect is no reason 
 for ignoring the famous Machine de Marly, the 
 great water-hoisting apparatus first established 
 in the reign of Louis XIV to carry the waters of 
 the Seine to the ponds and fountains of Versailles. 
 
 It was a creation of a Liegois, named Renne- 
 quin Sualem, who knew not how to read or write, 
 but who had a very clear idea of what was wanted 
 to perform the work which Louis XIV demanded. 
 For a fact the expense of the erection of the 
 *^ Machine," and the cost of keeping its great 
 wheels turning, were so great that it is doubtful 
 if it was ever a paying proposition, but that was 
 not a sine qua non so far as the king's command 
 was concerned. It had cost millions of livres 
 before its wheels first turned in 1682, and, if the 
 carpenter Brunet had not come to the rescue to 
 considerably augment the volume of water raised 
 (by means of compressed air), it is doubtful if there 
 would ever have been enough water for the foun- 
 tains of Versailles to play even one day a year, as 
 they do now every happy Sunday, to the delight of 
 the middle-class Parisian and the droves of Cook- 
 
224 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ites who gaze on them with wonder-opened eyes. 
 
 The water was led from the Machine de Marly 
 to Versailles by a conduit of thirty-six arches 
 where, upon reaching a higher level than the gar- 
 dens, it flowed by gravity to the fountains and 
 basins below. This aqueduct was six hundred 
 and forty-three metres long, and twenty-three 
 metres high. It was a work which would have 
 done credit to the Romans. 
 
 A far greater romantic sentiment attaches itself 
 to the royal chateau of Marly-le-Roi than to the 
 utilitarian ^^ Machine, " by which the suburb is 
 best known to-day. 
 
 The history of Marly-le-Roi appears from the 
 chronicles the most complicated to unravel of 
 that of any of the kingly suburbs of old Paris, 
 though in the days of the old locomotion a town- 
 let twenty-six kilometres from the capital was 
 hardly to be thought of as a suburb. 
 
 Marly-le-Roi, at any rate, with Marly-le-Bourg 
 and Marly-le-Chatel, was a royal dwelling from 
 the days of Thierry III (678). The neighbour- 
 ing region had been made into a countship by 
 the early seventeenth century, and Louis XIV 
 acquired it as his right in exchange for Neuphle- 
 le-Chateau in 1693, incorporating it into the 
 domain of Versailles. 
 
 By this time it had become known as Marly- 
 
Malmaison and Marly 225 
 
 le-Roi, in distinction to the other bourgs, and 
 the king built a chateau-royal, variously known 
 as the Palais and the Ermitage. For a fact it 
 was neither one thing nor the other, according to 
 accepted definition, but rather a group of a dozen 
 dependent pavilions distributed around a central 
 edifice, the whole straggling off into infinite and 
 manifestly unlovely proportions. It was as the 
 sun surrounded by the zodiac. 
 
 Isolated on a monticule by the river bank the 
 chateau overlooked its brood of small pavilions, 
 which in a way formed an entresol^ or foyer, lead- 
 ing to the Pavilion Royal. All were connected 
 by iron trellises, en berceau, and the effect must 
 have been exceedingly bizarre; certainly theatrical. 
 
 The four faces of these pavilions were frescoed, 
 and balustrades and vases at the corners were 
 the chief architectural decorations. 
 
 The royal pavilion consisted within of four 
 vestibules on the ground floor, each leading to 
 a grand apartment in the centre. In each of the 
 four angles was a "self-contained" apartment 
 of three or four rooms. What this royal abode 
 lacked in beauty it made up for in convenience. 
 
 Each of the satellite pavilions was occupied by 
 a high personage at court. The Chapel and the 
 Corps de Garde were detached from the chateau 
 proper, and occupied two flanking wings. 
 
226 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The plans of the "Palais-Chateau-Ermitage'* 
 of Marly-le-Roi were from the fertile brain of 
 Mansart, and were arranged with considerable 
 ingenuity, if not taste, generously interspersed 
 with lindens and truly magnificent garden plots. 
 There was even a cascade, or rather a tumbling 
 river (according to the French expression), for 
 it fell softly over sixty-three marble steps, forming 
 a sort of wrinkled sheet of water, which must 
 indeed have been a very charming feature. It 
 cost a hundred thousand ecus to merely lead the 
 water up to it. The expenses of the Pavilion 
 de Marly, in the ten years from 1680 to 1690, 
 amounted to 4501279 livres, 12 sols, 3 denier s. 
 From this one may well judge that it was no 
 mean thing. 
 
 The. honour of being accounted a person of 
 Marly in those times was accredited as a great 
 distinction, for it went without saying in that case 
 one had something to do with affairs of court, 
 though one might only have been a "furnisher.'^ 
 To be a courtier of Louis XIV, or to be a pen- 
 sionnaire at Versailles, could hardly have carried 
 more distinction. 
 
 The court usually resided at Marly from Wed- 
 nesday until Saturday, and as "the game" was 
 the thing it is obvious that the stakes were high. 
 
 The vogue of the day was gaming at table, and 
 
Malmaison and Marly 227 
 
 Marly, of all other suburban Paris palaces, was 
 an ideal and discreet place for it. "High play 
 and midnight suppers were the rule at Marly." 
 This, one reads in the court chronicle, and further 
 that: "The royal family usually lost a hundred 
 thousand ecus at play at each visit . " One " gentle- 
 man croupier" gained as much as three thousand 
 louis at a single sitting. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon was the real ruler of 
 Marly in those days; she had appropriated the 
 apartments originally intended for the queen, 
 from which there was a private means of com- 
 munication to the apartments of the king, and 
 another forming a sort of private box, overlook- 
 ing the royal chapel. 
 
 Little frequented by Louis XV, and practically 
 abandoned by Louis XVI, the palace at Marly 
 was sold during the Revolution, after which it 
 was stripped of its art treasures, many of which 
 adorn the gardens of the Tuileries to-day; the 
 great group of horses at the entrance to the Champs 
 Elysees came from the watering place of Marly. 
 
 Actually, the royal pavilion at Marly has been 
 destroyed, and there remain but the most frag- 
 mentary, unformed heaps of stones to tell the tale 
 of its ample proportions in the days of Louis 
 XIV and de Maintenon. 
 
 The park is to-day the chief attraction of the 
 
228 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 neighbourhood, like the one at Saint Cloud, 
 which it greatly resembles. Across the park lies 
 the great highway from the capital to Versailles, 
 over which so many joyous cavalcades were wont 
 to amble or gallop in the days of gallantry. The 
 pace is not more sober to-day, but gaily caparisoned 
 horses and gaudy coaches have given way to red 
 and yellow '^Rois des Beiges," the balance lying 
 distinctly in favour of the former mode of convey- 
 ance, so far as picturesqueness is concerned. 
 
 The Foret de Marly is very picturesque, but of 
 no great extent. Formerly it enclosed many 
 shooting-boxes belonging to the nobles of the 
 court, of which those of Montjoie and Desert de 
 Retz were perhaps the most splendid. 
 
 On the Versailles road was the Chateau de 
 Clagny, a royal maison de plaisance, of an attrac- 
 tive, but trivial, aspect, though its architecture 
 was actually of a certain massiveness. Its gar- 
 dens and the disposition of its apartments pleased 
 the king's fancy when he chose to pass this way, 
 which was often. He is said to have personally 
 spent over two million francs on the property. 
 It must have been of some pretensions, this little 
 heard of Chateau de Clagny, for in a single year 
 ten thousand livres were expended on keeping 
 the gardens. To-day it is non-existent. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SAINT CLOUD AND ITS PARK 
 
 The historic souvenirs of Saint Cloud and its 
 royal palace are many and varied, though scarcely 
 anything tangible remains to-day of the fabric 
 so loved by Francis I and Henri II, and which 
 was, for a fact, but a magnificent country-house, 
 originally belonging to the Archbishops of Paris. 
 
 To-day the rapid slopes of the hillsides of 
 Saint Cloud are peopled with a heterogeneous 
 mass of villas of what the Parisian calls the 
 ''coquette" order, but which breathe little of 
 the spirit of romance and gallantry of Renais- 
 sance times. Saint Cloud is simply a "discreet'' 
 Paris suburb, and the least said about it, its 
 villas and their occupants to-day, the better. 
 
 The little village of Saint Cloud which is half- 
 hidden in the Forest of Rouvray, was sacked 
 and burned by the English after the battle of 
 Poitiers, and then built up anew and occupied 
 by the French monarchs in the reign of Charles 
 VI. It was he who built the first chateau de 
 plaisance here in which the royal family might live 
 
 229 
 
230 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 near Paris and yet amid a sylvan environment. 
 
 After this came the country-house of the Arch- 
 bishops of Paris that Henri II, when he tired 
 of it, tore down and erected a villa in the pseudo- 
 Italian manner of the day, and built a four- 
 teen-arch stone bridge across the Seine, which 
 was a wonder of its time. 
 
 The banker Gondi, after huddling close to 
 royalty, turned over an establishment which 
 he had built to Catherine de Medici, who made 
 use of it whenever she wished to give a country 
 fete or garden party. By this time the whole 
 aspect of Saint Cloud was royal. 
 
 It was within this house that the unhappy, 
 and equally unpopular, Henri III was cut down 
 by the three-bladed knife of the monk Jacques 
 Clement. The incident is worth recounting 
 briefly here because of the rapidity with which 
 history was made by a mere fanatical knife- 
 thrust. With the death of Henri III came the 
 extinction of the House of Valois. 
 
 As the king sat in the long gallery of the palace 
 playing at cards, on August i, 1589, his cloak 
 hanging over his shoulder, a little cap with a 
 flower stuck in it perched over one ear, and 
 suspended from his neck by a broad blue ribbon 
 a basketful of puppies, an astrologer by the name of 
 Osman was introduced to amuse the royal party. 
 
St. Cloud and Its Park 231 
 
 "They tell me you draw horoscopes," re- 
 marked the king. 
 
 "Sire, I will tell yours, if you will, but the 
 heavens are unpropitious. " 
 
 *^U ^U ^f %^ >ltf %S^ ml0 
 
 1* *y» fj* *J» r^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 "Just over Meudon is a star which shines 
 very brightly," continued the astrologer, "it 
 is that of Henri de Navarre. But look, your 
 Majesty, another star burns brilliantly for a 
 moment and then disappears, mayhap it is your 
 own." 
 
 "If ever a man had a voice hoarse with blood 
 it is that astrologer," said the king. "Away 
 with him." 
 
 "If the Valois Henri doesn't die before the 
 setting of another sun, I'll never cast horoscope 
 more," said the astrologer as he was hustled 
 across the courtyard and out into the highroad. 
 
 As he left, a man in a monk's garb begged to 
 be admitted to the king's presence. It was 
 Jacques Clement, the murderous monk, a wily 
 Dominican, bent on a mission which had for 
 its object the extinction of the Valois race. 
 
 While the king was reading a letter which 
 the monk had presented the latter stabbed him 
 deep in the stomach. 
 
 Swooning, the king had just time to cry out: 
 *^Ha! le mechant moine: II m^a tue, qu^on le tue.^^ 
 
232 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The murderer in turn was struck down forth- 
 with and his body, thrown from the windows 
 of the palace, was ecartele by four white horses, 
 which is the neat French way of saying '^ drawn 
 and quartered." 
 
 It was an imposing cortege which wound down 
 from the heights of Saint Cloud and followed 
 the river bank to Saint Germain, Poissy and 
 thence to Compiegne, conveying all that was 
 mortal of Henri III, the least popular of all the 
 race of Valois. Following close behind the 
 bier were Henri IV and his suite, the favourites 
 d'Epernon, Laschant, Dugastz and an impres- 
 sive soldiery. 
 
 After the death of Henri III, Henri de Navarre, 
 who played a not unpicturesque part in the 
 funeral ceremonies, installed himself in a neigh- 
 bouring property known as the Maison du Til- 
 let. Thus it is seen that the royal stamp 
 of the little bourg of Saint Cloud was never 
 wanting — not until the later palace and most 
 of the town were drenched with kerosene and set 
 on fire by the Prussians in 1871. 
 
 The "Maison de Gondi" came, by a process 
 of acquisition, and development, in time, to be 
 the royal palace of Saint Cloud. Its overloaded 
 details of Italian architecture were brightened 
 up a bit by the surroundings planned and exe- 
 
St. Cloud and its Park 233 
 
 cuted by the landscapist Le Notre and the Hfe 
 of the court in its suburban retreat took on a 
 real and genuine brilliance which under the 
 restraint of the gloomy walls of the Louvre and 
 Paris streets could hardly have been. 
 
 The brightest light shining over Saint Cloud 
 at this time was the radiance shed by the brilliant 
 Henriette d'Angleterre. Her reign as a social 
 and witty queen of the court was brief. She 
 died at the age of twenty-six, poisoned at the 
 instigation of the Chevalier de Lorraine whom 
 she had caused to be exiled. This was the com- 
 mon supposition, but Louis XIV was afterwards 
 able to prove (?) his brother innocent of the 
 crime. 
 
 The gazettes of the seventeenth century re-- 
 count many of the fetes given at Saint Cloud 
 by Monsieur on the occasion of his marriage 
 to the Princesse Palatine in 1671. One of the 
 most notable of these was that given for Louis XIV, 
 wherein the celebrated cascades — an innova- 
 tion of Le Notre — were first brought to view. 
 
 Mansart was called in and a great gallery 
 intended for fetes and ceremonies was con- 
 structed, and Mignard was given the commis- 
 sion for its decorations. 
 
 Monsieur died within the walls of the palace 
 to which he had added so many embellishments, 
 
234 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 as also did his second wife. Three royalties 
 dead of ambition, one might well say, for their 
 lives were neither tranquil nor healthful. They 
 went the pace. 
 
 The regent journeyed out from Paris to this 
 riverside retreat to receive the Tzar Peter in 
 1 71 7, and in 1752 Louis Philippe d'Orleans 
 set about to give a fete which should obscure 
 the memory of all former events of a like nature 
 into oblivion. How well he succeeded may be 
 a matter of varying opinion, for the French have 
 ever been prodigally lavish in the conduct of such 
 affairs. At all events the occasion was a notable 
 one. 
 
 The predilection of royalty for Saint Cloud 
 was perhaps not remarkable, all things con- 
 sidered, for it was, and is, delightfully environed, 
 and about this time the Due d' Orleans secretly 
 married the Marquise de Montesson and installed 
 her in a habitation the ^^ plus simple ^^^ a mere 
 shack, one fancies, costing six millions. The 
 nouveau riche of to-day could scarcely do the 
 thing with more eclat. 
 
 The Revolution took over the park of Saint 
 Cloud and its appurtenances and donated them 
 to the democracy — "for the pleasure of the 
 people, " read the decree. 
 
 On the eighteenth Brumaire, the First Re- 
 
St. Cloud and Its Park 235 
 
 public blinked itself out in the Palais de Saint 
 Cloud, and the Conseil de Cinq Cents installed 
 itself therein under the Directoire. Bonaparte, 
 returning from Egypt, arrived at Saint Cloud 
 just as Lemercier was dissolving the Conseil. 
 Seeing trouble ahead he commanded Murat to 
 clear the chamber by drawn bayonets. He 
 kept his light shining just a bit ahead of the 
 others, did Napoleon. His watchword was in- 
 itiative. Deputies clambered over each other 
 in their haste to escape by stairway, door and 
 window, and Bonaparte saw himself Consul 
 without opposition — for ten years — for life. 
 
 The royal residences were put at Napoleon's 
 disposition and he wisely chose Saint Cloud 
 for summer; Saint Cloud the cradle of his powers. 
 As a restorer and rebuilder of crumbling monu- 
 ments Napoleon was a master, as he was in the 
 destructive sense when he was in the mood, 
 and changes and additions were made at Saint 
 Cloud which for comfort and convenience put it 
 in the very front rank of French royal residences. 
 
 In March, 1805, Pope Pius VII baptised, 
 amid a grand pomp and ceremony, in the chapel 
 of the palace, the son of Louis Bonaparte, and 
 five years afterwards (April i, 18 10), the same 
 edifice saw the religious marriage of Napoleon 
 with Marie Louise. 
 
236 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 On March 31, 18 10, a strange animation 
 dominated all the confines of the palace. It 
 was the occasion of the celebration of Napoleon's 
 civil marriage with Marie Louise. They did 
 not enter the capital until three days later for 
 the ceremonial which united the daughter of 
 the emperors who were descendants of the Roman 
 Caesars, to the ' 'Usurper," who was now for the 
 first time to rank with the other crowned heads 
 of Europe. 
 
 The cortege which accompanied their majes- 
 ties from Saint Cloud to Paris was a pageant 
 which would take pages to describe. The reader 
 of these lines is referred to the impassioned pages 
 of the works of Frederic Masson for ample details. 
 
 A hundred thousand curiosity seekers had 
 come out from Paris and filled the alleys of the 
 park to overflowing. Music and dancing were 
 on every hand. Mingled with the crowd were 
 soldiers of all ranks brilliantly clad in red, blue 
 and gold. "These warriors were a picturesque, 
 obtrusive lot," said a chronicler; "after having 
 invaded Austria they acclaim the Austrian." 
 
 In 181 5 the capitulation of Paris was signed 
 at Saint Cloud. The gardens were invaded 
 by a throng which gave them more the aspect 
 of an intrenched camp than a playground of 
 princes. A brutal victor had climbed booted 
 
St. Cloud and Its Park 237 
 
 and spurred into the bed of the great Napoleon 
 and on arising pulled the bee-embroidered dra- 
 peries down with him and trampled them under 
 foot. Was this a proper manifestation of victory ? 
 
 At this period another great fete was given 
 in the leafy park of Saint Cloud, a fete which 
 French historians have chiefly passed over silently. 
 The host on this occasion was the Prince of 
 Schwartzenburg; the principal guests the foreign 
 sovereigns, gloating over the downfall of the 
 capital. 
 
 Louis XVIII, after removing the traces of 
 this desolate invasion, took up his residence 
 here on June i8, 1817, and in the following 
 year built the stables and the lodgings of the 
 Gardes du Corps. In 1820 the chapel begun 
 by Marie Antoinette was finished and the Jardin 
 du Trocadero constructed. 
 
 Charles X in his brief reign built, on the site 
 of an old Ursulin convent, further quarters in- 
 tended for the personnel of the court. The en- 
 semble ever took on an increasing importance. 
 At this time were laid out the gardens between 
 the cascades and the river, which, to some slight 
 extent, to-day, suggest the former ample magnif- 
 icence of the park as it faced upon the river. 
 Leading through this lower garden was the 
 Avenue Roy ale extending to the chateau. 
 
238 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Saint Cloud for Charles X, in spite of his first 
 interest therein, could have been but an un- 
 happy memory for here he signed the abdication 
 which brought about his fall. He left his palace 
 at Saint Cloud on July 30, 1830, at three o'clock 
 in the morning, just as day was breaking through 
 the mists of the valley. He succumbed, the 
 last of the Bourbons, on the same spot on which 
 Henri IV, as chief of the house, had first been 
 saluted as king. 
 
 Louis Philippe divided his time between Neuilly 
 and Saint Cloud, and lent his purse and his en- 
 thusiasm to elaborating to a very consider- 
 able extent both the palace and its surroundings. 
 
 Napoleon III made Saint Cloud his preferred 
 summer residence, and was actually beneath 
 the palace roof when the Prussian horde com- 
 menced its march on the capital of Clovis. He 
 left Saint Cloud on July 27, to take personal 
 command of the Army of the Rhine at Metz. 
 
 As did Charles X, Napoleon III ceased to be 
 sovereign of the French by enacting the final 
 scene in his royal career in the Palais de Saint 
 Cloud. Never again was the palace to give 
 shelter to a French monarch. The empress 
 left precipitately after the disaster of Woerth, 
 and two months after the torch of arson made a 
 ruin of all the splendour of the palace and its 
 
St. Cloud and Its Park 239 
 
 dependencies. The inhabitants of the little city, 
 which had grown up around the confines of the 
 palace, fled in refuge to Versailles during the 
 armistice. Scarcely an old house was preserved 
 in all the town. 
 
 Among the chefs d'oeuvres of art which perished 
 in the flames were the fine works of Mignard 
 
 — above all, the magnificent Galerie d'Apollon 
 
 — the paintings of LeMoyne, Nacret, Leloir, 
 the marines of Joseph Vernet and innumerable 
 objects of art which had been gathered together 
 for the embellishment of Saint Cloud by the 
 later monarchs. Some few treasures were saved 
 by the care of the Crown Prince of Prussia, 
 and some vases, chairs and statues were ap- 
 propriated and packed off across the Rhine as 
 the plunder of war. 
 
 The park of Saint Cloud to-day contains 
 nearly four hundred hectares, the public park 
 and the ^^ preserve." From it spreads out one 
 of the loveliest panoramas in the neighbourhood 
 of Paris, alleyed vistas leading seemingly to 
 infinity, with a sprinkling of statues still flanking 
 the Jardin du Trocadero. 
 
 From the town one enters the park through 
 a great iron gate from the Place Royale, or by 
 the Avenue du Chateau, which lands one on 
 the terraces where once stood the royal palace. 
 
240 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 From Ville d'Avray and from Sevres there 
 are also entrances to the great park, while to 
 the latter runs an avenue connecting the '^ pre- 
 serve" of Saint Cloud with the wilder, more 
 rugged Bois de Meudon. 
 
 Actually the surroundings of Saint Cloud's 
 great park are the least bit tawdry. Here and 
 there are booths and tents selling trashy souve- 
 nirs, and even more unpleasant-looking articles 
 of food and drink, while fringing the river, and 
 some of the principal avenues approaching the 
 cascade, are more pretentious restaurants and 
 eating houses which are royal in name and their 
 prices if nothing else. 
 
 The cascades are for the masses the chief 
 sight of Saint Cloud to-day. Historical souvenir 
 plays little part in the minds of those who only 
 visit a monumental shrine to be amused, and so 
 the falling waters of Saint Cloud's cascade, 
 like the gushing torrents of Versailles' fountains, 
 are the chief incentives to a holiday for tens of 
 thousands of small Paris shopkeepers who do not 
 know that a royal palace was ever here, much 
 less that it had a history. 
 
 There is an upper and a lower cascade, an arti- 
 ficial water ingeniously tumbled about accord- 
 ing to the conception of one Lepaute, an archi- 
 tect of the time of the reign of Louis XIV. 
 
The Cascades at Saint Cloud 
 
St. Cloud and Its Park 241 
 
 Mansart designed the architectural attributes 
 of the lower cascade and scores considerably 
 over his colleague. Circular basins and canals 
 finally lead the water off to a still larger basin 
 lower down where it spouts up into the air to a 
 height of some forty odd metres at a high pres- 
 sure. This is the official description, but it is 
 hard to get up any sympathy or enthusiasm 
 over the thing, either considered as a work of 
 art or as a diversion. Frankly, then. Saint 
 Cloud's chief charm is its site and its dead and 
 half -forgotten history. The "Tramp Abroad" 
 and "Rollo" and "Uncle George" knew it better 
 than we, because in those days the palace existed 
 in the real, whereas we take it all on faith and 
 regret (sometimes) that we did not live a couple 
 of generations ago. 
 
 Bellevue, on the banks of the Seine, just be- 
 fore reaching Saint Cloud, owes its origin (a 
 fact which the great restaurant of the Pavilion 
 Bleu has made the most of in its advertisements), 
 to a caprice of Madame de Pompadour. She 
 liked the point of view (as do so many diners 
 on the restaurant terrace to-day), and built a 
 ^^ rendezvous-chateau^^ on the hillside, a half- 
 way house, as it were, where Louis XV might 
 be at his ease on his journeyings to and from 
 the capital. 
 
242 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The Pompadour was able to borrow a force 
 of eight hundred workmen from the king for as 
 long as was necessary to carry out her ambitious 
 projects at Bellevue and on November 25, 1750, 
 she had a house-warming in her modest villa 
 (demolished in 1794) and pendit la cremaillere 
 with a ceremony whose chief entertainment 
 was the dancing of a ballet significantly entitled 
 ''L'Amour Architect." 
 
 Neighbouring upon Saint Cloud is a whole 
 battery of hallowed, historical spots associated 
 with the more or less royal dwellings of the French 
 monarchs and their favourites. It was but a 
 comparatively short distance to Versailles, to 
 Saint Germain, to Maintenon and to Ram- 
 bouillet, and the near-by Louveciennes was liter- 
 ally strewn with the most charming country- 
 houses, which, in many cases, kings paid for 
 and made free use of, though indeed the accounts 
 for the same may not have appeared in the public 
 budgets, at least not under their proper names. 
 
 At the summit of the hill which gives the town 
 its name was a chateau belonging originally to 
 Madame la Princesse de Conti, and opposite 
 the railway station of to-day, with its prosaic 
 and unlovely surroundings, was a magnificent 
 property belonging to Marechal Magnan, and 
 the Pavilion du Barry, built by the architect 
 
St. Cloud and Its Park 243 
 
 Ledoux to the orders of Louis XV, who would 
 provide a convenient nest in the neighbourhood 
 of Saint Cloud for his latest favourite. To-day 
 the pavilion exists in name, somewhat disfigured 
 to be sure, but still reminiscent of its former 
 rather garish outlines, so on the whole it cannot 
 be said to have suffered greatly from an esthetic 
 point of view. The property came finally to be 
 included as a part of the estate of Pierre Laffitte, 
 though still known, as it always has been, as the 
 Pavilion du Barry. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 VERSAILLES: THE GLORY OF FRANCE 
 
 " Glorieuse, monumentale et monotone 
 La jagade de pierre efjrite, au vent qui passe 
 Son chapiteau friable et sa guirlande lasse 
 En face du pare jaune ou s'accoude Vautomne. 
 
 «J> ^U ^L0 ^^ «J^ *^ 
 
 Mais le soleil, aux vitres d'or qu'il incendie 
 
 Y semhle rallumer interieurement 
 
 Le sursautj chaqtie soir, de la Gloire engourdiJ\ 
 
 These lines of Henri de Regnier explain the 
 aspect of the Versailles of to-day better than any 
 others ever written. 
 
 Versailles is a medley of verdure, a hierarchy 
 of bronze and a forest of marble. This is an 
 expression full of anomalies, but it is strictly 
 applicable to Versailles. Its waters, jets and 
 cascades, its monsters, its Tritons and Valhalla 
 of marble statues set off the artificial background 
 in a manner only to be compared to a stage setting 
 — a magnificent stage setting, but still palpably 
 unreal. 
 
 Yes, Versailles is sad and grim to-day; one 
 
 244 
 
Versailles: The Glory of Prance 245 
 
 hardly knows why, for its memories still live, and 
 the tangible evidences of most of its great splen- 
 dour still stand. 
 
 " Void tes ijs en cone et tes tritons joufjlus 
 Tes jar dins composes oil Louis ne vient plus, 
 Et ta pompe arbor ant les plumes et les casques. ^^ 
 
 It is not possible to give here either an archi- 
 tectural review or a historical chronology of Ver- 
 sailles; either could be made the raison d^etre 
 for a weighty volume. 
 
 The writer has confined himself merely to a 
 more or less correlated series of patent facts and 
 incidents which, of itself, shows well the futility 
 of any other treatment being given of a subject 
 so vast within the single chapter of a book. 
 
 The history of Versailles is a story of the people 
 and events that reflected the glory and grandeur 
 of the Grand Monarque of the Bourbons and 
 made his palace and its environs a more sublime 
 expression of earthly pomp than anything which 
 had gone before, or has come to pass since. 
 
 Versailles, after its completion, became the 
 perfect expression of the decadence and de- 
 moralization of the old regime. It can only be 
 compared to the relations between du Barry and 
 the young Marie Antoinette, who was all that was 
 contrary to all for which the former stood. 
 
246 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 That the court of Louis XV was artificially 
 brilliant there is no doubt. It was this that made 
 it stand out from the sombre background of the 
 masses of the time. It was a dazzling, human 
 spectacle, and Versailles, with its extravagant, 
 superficial charms, carried it very near to the 
 brink of ruin, though even in its most banal 
 vulgarities there was a certain sense of ambitious 
 sincerity. The people of the peasant class lived 
 as animals, "black, livid and scorched by the 
 sun." The sense of all this penetrated readily 
 even to Versailles, so that La Pompadour or Louis, 
 one or the other of them, or was it both together, 
 cried out instinctively: ^^ Apres nous le deluged 
 
 The intricacies of the etiquette of the daily life 
 of the king, his follies and fancies, made the his- 
 tory of Versailles the most brilliant of that of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — certainly 
 it was the most opulent. The manners of the 
 time were better than the morals, and if good 
 taste in art and architecture had somewhat fallen 
 there is no doubt but that a charming fantasy 
 often made up for a lack of estheticism. 
 
 The story of the palace, the park, the king and 
 his court are so interwoven that no resume of the 
 story of one can ignore that of any of the others. 
 The king and court present themselves against 
 this background with an intimacy and a clearness 
 
Versailles: The Glory of France 247 
 
 which is remarkable for its appeal to one's curios- 
 ity. It is a long, long day of life which begins 
 with the petit lever and only ends with the grand 
 coucher. 
 
 If there was ever a Castle of Indolence and 
 Profligacy it was Versailles, though indeed it is 
 regarded as the monarchy's brilliant zenith. 
 The picture is an unforgetable one to any who 
 have ever read its history or seen its stones. 
 
 In the year 1650, Martial de Lomenci, one of 
 the ministers of Charles IX, was the Seigneur 
 of Versailles, but at the will of Catherine de 
 Medici he was summarily strangled that she 
 might get possession of the property and make a 
 present of it to her favourite, Albert de Gondi, 
 Marechal de Retz. 
 
 About 1625 Louis XIII had caused a small 
 hunting pavilion to be built near by and, by de- 
 grees, acquiring more land took it into his head to 
 erect something more magnificent in the way of 
 a country-house, though the real conception of a 
 suburban Paris palace only came with Louis XIV. 
 
 Levau, the latter's architect, made the neces- 
 sary alterations to the structure already existing, 
 and little by little the more magnificent project 
 known in its completed form to-day was evolved. 
 War not being actually in progress, or imminent, 
 great bodies of soldiery were set at work with 
 
248 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 pick and shovel, and at one time thirty thousand 
 had laid aside their sabres and muskets for the 
 more peaceful art of garden-making under the 
 direction of Le Notre. 
 
 In three decades the sum total of the chief roll 
 of expenses of the palace and its dependencies 
 reached eighty-one million, one hundred and fifty- 
 one thousand, four hundred and fourteen livres, 
 nine sols and two denier s. It is perhaps even 
 more interesting to know that of this vast sum 
 more than three millions went for marble, twenty- 
 one millions for masonry, two and a half mil- 
 lions for the rougher woodwork and a like sum 
 for marquetry. Other additional ^^ trifling" em- 
 bellishments of Versailles and the Trianon dur- 
 ing the same period counted up another six mil- 
 lion and a half. 
 
 The expense of these works was enormous 
 on all sides. Water being required for the pur- 
 pose of supplying the fountains it was proposed 
 that the waters of the Eure should be turned from 
 their original bed and made to pass through Ver- 
 sailles, and the enterprise was actually begun. 
 Beyond the gardens was formed the Little Park, 
 about four leagues around, and beyond this lay 
 the Great Park, measuring twenty leagues around 
 and enclosing several forest villages. The total 
 expenses of these works may never have been 
 
Versailles: The Glory of France 249 
 
 exactly known, but they must have been immense, 
 that is certain, and have even been estimated at 
 as much as one billion francs. The works were 
 so far completed in 1664 that the first Versailles 
 fete was given to consecrate the palace. In honour 
 of this event Moliere composed "La Princesse 
 d'Elide." 
 
 The improvements, however, were continued, 
 and in 1670, Levau, dying, was succeeded by his 
 nephew, Jules Hardouin Mansart, who wished 
 to destroy the chateau of Louis XIII and erect 
 one uniform building. Louis XIV, out of respect 
 to his father, would not allow Mansart's project 
 to be carried out and therefore alterations were 
 only made in the court by surrounding it on the 
 western side with the magnificent buildings now 
 forming the garden front. The southern wing 
 was subsequently added for the accommodation 
 of the younger members of the royal family. 
 In 1685 the northern wing was erected to meet 
 the requirements of the attaches of the court. 
 The chapel was commenced in 1699 and finished 
 in 1710. 
 
 Louis XIV took up his residence in the palace 
 in 1 68 1 with Madame de Montespan, and, thirty- 
 five years afterwards, died there, the reigning 
 favourite then being Madame de Maintenon. 
 During this time Versailles was the theatre of 
 
250 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 many extraordinary scenes. Louis XV was born 
 here but did not take up his residence here until 
 after he was of age. Here it was that his favourites 
 Madame de Chateauroux, Madame de Pompa- 
 dour and Madame du Barry found themselves 
 most at home. It was under the direction of 
 this monarch that the theatre was built in the 
 northern wing, and was formally opened on the 
 occasion of the marriage of the dauphin, Louis 
 XVI, in 1770. 
 
 Towards the end of the reign of Louis XV a 
 new wing and pavilion were added on the northern 
 side of the principal court, and it was proposed to 
 build across the court a new front in the same 
 uniform style. The idea could not be carried out 
 in consequence of the troublous times of Louis 
 XVI and, the enormous estimated expense. The 
 Revolution intervened and Versailles remained 
 closed until it was reopened by the first Napoleon, 
 who, however, was unable to take up his residence 
 in it on account of his frequent campaigns* afield. 
 
 At the Restoration Louis XVIII, as the repre- 
 sentative of the ancient monarchy, wished to 
 make Versailles the seat of the court, but was de- 
 terred from doing so by the appalling previous 
 expense. During the reigns of both Napoleon 
 and Louis XVIII considerable sums were ex- 
 pended in its refurbishing so that it was not wholly 
 
Versailles: The Glory of Prance 251 
 
 a bygone when finally the French authorities 
 made of it, if not the chief, at least the most 
 popular monument historique of all France. 
 
 And yet the aspect of Versailles is sadly weary- 
 ing. To-day Versailles is lonely; one is haunted 
 by the silence and the bareness, if not actual 
 emptiness. Only once in seven years does the 
 old palace take on any air of the official life of the 
 Republic, and that is when the two legislative 
 bodies join forces and come to Versailles to vote 
 for the new president. For the rest of the time 
 it is deserted, save for the guardians and visitors, 
 a memory only of the splendours imagined and 
 ordained by Louis XIV. 
 
 For nearly a century the master craftsmen of 
 a nation conspired to its beatification, and cer- 
 tainly for gorgeousness and extravagance Versailles 
 has merited any encomiums which have ever 
 been expended upon it. It was made and remade 
 by five generations of the cleverest workers who 
 ever lived, until it took supreme rank as the great- 
 est storehouse of luxurious trifles in all the world. 
 
 One wearies though of the straight lines and 
 long vistas of Versailles, the endless repetition of 
 classical motives, which, while excellent, each in 
 its way, do pall upon one in an inexplicable fash- 
 ion. It possesses, however, a certain dignity 
 and grace in every line. This is a fact which 
 
252 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 one can not deny. It is expressive of — well, of 
 nothing but Versailles, and the part it played 
 in the life of its time. 
 
 The millions for Versailles were obtained in 
 ways too devious and lengthy to follow up here. 
 Even Louis XIV began to see before the end the 
 condition into which he had led the nation, though 
 he punished every one who so much as hinted at 
 his follies. Vauban, ^^the hero of a hundred 
 sieges," published a book on the relations between 
 the king and court and the tax-paying masses 
 and was disgraced forever after, dying within 
 a few months of a broken heart that he should 
 have been so impotent in attempting to bring 
 about a reform. 
 
 The life of the king at Versailles had little of 
 privacy in it. From his rising to his going to 
 bed he was constantly in the hands of his valets 
 and courtiers, even receiving ambassadors of 
 state while he was still half hidden by the heavy 
 curtains of his great four-poster. They had 
 probably been waiting hours in the Salon de 
 rOeil de Boeuf before being admitted to the 
 kingly presence. 
 
 It was at this period that Michael Chamillard, the 
 Minister of War, introduced billiards into France 
 by the way of Versailles. He played with Louis 
 XIV and pleased him greatly, but Chamillard 
 
Versailles: The Glory of France 253 
 
 was no statesman, as history and the following 
 lines from his epitaph point out. 
 
 " Ci git le jameux Chamillard 
 De son Roy le pronotaire 
 Qui jut un Jieros an hillard 
 Un zero dans le Minis tere.^^ 
 
 This apartment of the Oeil de Boeuf was the 
 ancient Cabi du Conseil. It is a wonderfully 
 decorated apartment, and its furnishings, beyond 
 those which are actually built into the fabric, are 
 likewise of a splendour and good taste which it 
 is to be regretted is not everywhere to be noted in 
 the vast palace of Louis XIV. The garnishings 
 of the chimney-piece alone would make any great 
 room interesting and well furnished, and the 
 great golden clock, finely chiselled and brilliantly 
 burnished, is about the most satisfactory French 
 clock one ever saw, marking, as it does, in its 
 style, the transition between that of Louis XIV 
 and Louis XV. 
 
 Versailles, in many respects, falls far short 
 to-day of the ideal; its very bigness and bareness 
 greatly detract from the value of the historic 
 souvenir which has come down to us. Changes 
 could undoubtedly be made to advantage, and 
 to this point much agitation has lately been 
 directed, particularly in cutting out some of the 
 
254 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 recently grown up trees which have spoiled the 
 classic vistas of the park, and the removal of those 
 ugly equestrian statues which the Monarchy of 
 July erected. 
 
 Versailles only came under Napoleon's cur- 
 sory regard for a brief moment. He hardly 
 knew whether he would care to make his home 
 here or not, but ordered his architects to make 
 estimates for certain projects which he had con- 
 ceived and when he got them was so staggered 
 at their magnitude that he at once threw over 
 any idea that he may have had of making it his 
 dwelling. 
 
 The Revolution had stripped the palace quite 
 bare; no wonder that the emperor balked at the 
 cost of putting it in order. Napoleon may have 
 had his regrets for he made various allusions 
 to Versailles while exiled at Saint Helena, but 
 then it was too late. 
 
 Louis Philippe took a matter-of-fact view of 
 the possible service that the vast pile might render 
 to his family and accordingly spent much money 
 in a great expanse of gaudy wall decorations 
 which are there to-day, thinking to make of it a 
 show place over which might preside the genius 
 of his sons. 
 
 These acres of meaningless battle-pieces, Al- 
 gerian warfare and what not are characteristic 
 
Versailles: The Glory of France 255 
 
 of the ''Citizen- King '* whose fondness for red 
 plush, green repp and horsehair sofas was nota- 
 ble. What he did at Versailles was almost 
 as great a vandalism against art as that wrought 
 by the Revolution. 
 
 Last scene of all: — Under Lebrun's magnif- 
 icent canopied ceiling, where the effigy of Louis 
 XIV is being crowned by the Goddess of Glory, 
 and the German eagle sits on a denuded tree 
 trunk screaming in agony and beating his wings 
 in despair, William of Prussia was proclaimed 
 Emperor of United Germany. It was almost 
 as great an indignity as France ever suffered; 
 the only greater was when the Prussians marched 
 through the Arc de Triomphe de I'Etoile. That 
 was, and is, the Frenchman's — the Parisian's, 
 at all events — culminating grief. 
 
 The apartment referred to is the Grand Galerie 
 des Glaces (or Galerie Louis XIV), which is 
 accredited as one of the most magnificently ap- 
 pointed rooms of its class in all the world. It 
 is nearly two hundred and fifty feet in length, 
 nearly forty feet in width, and forty-three feet 
 in height. It is lighted by seventeen large arched 
 windows, which correspond with arched niches 
 on the opposite wall filled with mirrors — hence 
 the name. 
 
 Sixty Corinthian columns of red marble with 
 
256 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 bases and capitals of gilt bronze fill up the inter- 
 vening wall spaces. The vaulted ceiling by Le- 
 brun is divided into eighteen small compart- 
 ments and nine of much larger dimensions, in 
 which are allegorically represented the principal 
 events in the history of Louis XIV, from the 
 Peace of the Pyrenees to that of Nymeguen. 
 
 It was in this splendid apartment that Louis 
 XIV displayed the grandeur of royalty in its 
 highest phase and such was the luxury of the times, 
 such the splendour of the court, that its immense 
 size could hardly contain the crowd of courtiers 
 that pressed around the monarch. 
 
 Several splendid fetes took place in this great 
 room, of which those of the marriage of the Due 
 de Bourgogne in 1697 and that given on the 
 arrival of Marie Antoinette were the most brilliant. 
 
 Following are three pen-pictures of this historic 
 palace. 
 
 The Versailles of Long Ago. It was to 
 Versailles that the Grand Roi repaired after his 
 stern chase of the Spaniards across Flanders; 
 through the wood of Saint Germain and over 
 those awful cobblestones which Parisians know 
 so well to-day rolled the gilded carrosse of the 
 king. He had already been announced by a 
 runner who had also brought news of the latest 
 victory. Courtiers and populace alike crowded 
 
Versailles: The Glory of France 257 
 
 the streets of the town in an effort to acquire a 
 good place from which to see the arrival of the 
 king. Intendants and servitors were giving orders 
 on all sides, frequently contradictory, and garden- 
 ers were furbishing up the alleyed walks and 
 flower beds in readiness for Sa Majeste Louis 
 Quatorze and all his little world of satellites. A 
 majestic effervescence bubbled over all, and the 
 bourgeoisie enjoyed itself hugely, climbing even 
 on roof-tops and gables in the town without the 
 palace gates. 
 
 The Roi Soleil came at last to his ^^well-beloved 
 city of Versailles." ^^He arrived in a cloud of 
 golden dust,'* said a writer of the time, and any 
 who have seen Versailles blazing and treeless 
 in the middle of a long, hot summer, will know 
 what it was like on that occasion. 
 
 Cannons roared, and the sound of revelry 
 and welcoming joy was everywhere to be heard. 
 
 The Versailles of Yesterday. The lu- 
 gubrious booming of cannons came rolling over 
 the meanderings of the Seine from the capital. 
 The hard-heads of Paris would understand noth- 
 ing; they would make flow never-ceasing rivers 
 of blood. The national troops were well-nigh 
 impotent; it was difficult to shoot down your own 
 flesh and blood at any time; doubly so when your 
 native land has not yet been evacuated by a ven- 
 
258 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 turesome enemy. It was the time of the Com- 
 mune. Traffic at Versailles was of that inten- 
 sity that circulation was almost impossible. In 
 spite of a dismal April rain the tow^n was full of 
 all sorts and conditions of men. The animation 
 of the crowd was feverish, but it was without joy. 
 A convoy of prisoners passed between two lines 
 of soldiers with drawn bayonets. They were 
 Frenchmen, but they were Communards. It was 
 but a moment before they were behind the barred 
 doors of the barracks which was to be their prison, 
 packed like a troop of sheep for the slaughter. 
 Versailles itself, the palace and the town, were 
 still sad. The rain still fell in torrents. 
 
 The Versailles of To-day. Roses, begonias, 
 geraniums, the last of a long hot summer, still shed 
 their fragrant memories over the park of Ver- 
 sailles. In the long, sober alleys a few leaves had 
 already dropped from the trees above, marking 
 the greensward and the gravel like a tapis 
 d' orient, red and green and gold. 
 
 Flora and Bacchus in their fountains seemed 
 less real than ever before, more sombre under the 
 pale, trickling light through the trees. A few 
 scattered visitors were about, sidling furtively 
 around the Trianon, the Colonnade and the 
 Bosquet d^Apollon; and the birds of the wood 
 were even now bethinking of their winter pil- 
 
Versailles: The Glory of France 259 
 
 grimage. Versailles was still sad. The last rays 
 of the setting sun shot forth reflected gold from 
 the windows of the chateau and soon the silver 
 blue veil of a September twilight came down 
 like a curtain of gauze. 
 
 Versailles, the Versailles of other days, is gone 
 forever. Who will awaken its echoes in after 
 years? When will the Trianon again awake 
 with the coquetries of a queen? When will the 
 city of the Roi Soleil come again into its own 
 proud splendour ? 
 
 The sun has set, the great iron gates of the 
 courtyard are closed, the palace and all therein 
 sleeps. 
 
 ^' Alton nous en dHci: laissons la place aux 
 ombres. ^^ 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE GARDENS OF VERSAILLES AND THE 
 TRIANONS 
 
 Versailles without its court of marble, its 
 fountains, its gardens and its park, and the at- 
 tendant Grand and Petit Trianons, would hardly 
 have the attraction that it has to-day. 
 
 The ensemble is something of more vast and 
 varied extent than is to be seen elsewhere, though 
 its aspect has somewhat changed from what it 
 was of old, and the crowds of Sunday and holiday 
 visitors give the courts and alleyed walks some- 
 what the aspect of a modern amusement resort. 
 
 The gardens of Versailles were but the fram- 
 ing of a princely dwelling created to respond 
 to the requirements of a court which was at- 
 tempting to do things on a grand scale. Every- 
 thing was designed with most magnificent out- 
 lines; everything was royal, in all verity — archi- 
 tecture, garden-making, fetes, receptions and 
 promenades. What setting, then, could have 
 been more appropriate to the life of the times? 
 
 Versailles, the town, had never prospered, 
 
 260 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 261 
 
 and has never proved sufficiently attractive to 
 become a popular suburb; and, though to-day 
 it passed the mark of half a hundred thousand 
 population, it never would have existed at all 
 had it not been for the palace of Louis XIV. 
 
 Were it not for the palace and its attributes, 
 Versailles would have absolutely no memories 
 for visitors, except such as may have lunched 
 well at the Hotel des Reservoirs or the Hotel 
 du Trianon. That is not everything, to be sure; 
 but it is something, even when one is on an his- 
 toric pilgrimage. 
 
 Even in the day of Louis XVI the popular 
 taste was changing and Versailles was con- 
 temptuously referred to as a world of automota, 
 of cold, unfeeling statuary and of Noah's Ark 
 trees and forests. There was always a certain 
 air of self-satisfaction about it, as there is, to-day, 
 when the Parisian hordes come out to see the 
 waters play, and the sight-seers marvel at the 
 mock splendour and the scraps of history doled 
 out for their delectation by none-too-painstaking 
 guardians. 
 
 In spite of all this, no sober-minded student of 
 art or history will ever consider Versailles, the 
 palace and the park, as other than a superb and a 
 spectacular demonstration of the taste of the times 
 in which it was planned, built and lived in. 
 
262 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Versailles was begun in 1624 by Louis XIII, 
 who built here a humble hunting-lodge for the 
 disciples of Saint Hubert of whom he was the 
 royal head. So humble an erection was it that 
 the monarch referred to it simply as a ^^ petite 
 maison,^^ and paid for it out of his own pocket, 
 a rare enough proceeding at that epoch. 
 
 The critical Bassompierre called it a ^^chetif 
 chateau j^^ and Saint-Simon referred to it as a 
 "house of cards." Manifestly, then, it was no 
 great thing. It was, however, a comfortable 
 country-house, surrounded by a garden and a 
 more ample park. 
 
 It was not Lemercier, the presiding genius 
 of the Louvre at this time, but an unknown 
 by the name of Le Roy, whom Louis XIII chose 
 as his architect. 
 
 Boyceau traced the original parterres with a 
 central basin at a crossroads of two wide avenues. 
 Each of the four compartments thus made was 
 ornamented with broderies and trimmed hedges, 
 and the open spaces were ingeniously filled with 
 parti-coloured sands, or earth. A parterre of 
 flowers immediately adjoined the palace and 
 rudimentary alleys and avenues stretched off 
 towards the wood. Although designed by Boy- 
 ceau, this work was actually executed by his 
 nephew, Jacques de Menours, who, with diffi- 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 263 
 
 culty, collected his pay. His books of account 
 showed that in five years, from 1631 to 1636, 
 he had drawn but once a year a sum varying 
 from fifteen hundred to four thousand livres 
 while in the same period the king had spent 
 on the rest of the work at Versailles two hundred 
 and thirty-eight thousand livres, thirty-two sols, 
 six deniers, nearly one million one hundred 
 thousand francs of the money of to-day. 
 
 The first of the outdoor embellishments of 
 the palace at Versailles is the great Cour Royale, 
 or the Cour d'Honneur, which opens out behind 
 the long range of iron gates facing upon the 
 Place d'Armes. At the foot of this entrance 
 court is an extension called the Cour de Marbre. 
 This Cour de Marbre, on January 5, 1757, was 
 the scene of the infamous attack on Louis XV 
 by Damiens, just as the king was starting out 
 for the Trianon. 
 
 A thick redingote saved the king's life; but 
 for ^'ihis mere pin-prick," according to Vol- 
 taire, the monarch went immediately to bed, 
 and five times in succession sought absolution 
 for his sins. Sins lay heavy even on royal heads 
 in those days. 
 
 Damiens was but a thick-witted, superstitious 
 valet, who, more or less persecuted by the noble 
 employers with whom he had been in service 
 
264 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 at various times, sought to avenge himself, not 
 on them, but on their king, as the figurehead 
 of all that was rotten in the social hierarchy. 
 Louis, heretofore known as the "Bien Aime,'' 
 had become suddenly unpopular because of 
 the disastrous war against England and Ger- 
 many, and his prodigal dissipation of public 
 moneys. 
 
 Stretching out behind the palace are the famous 
 gardens, the parterres^ the tapis vert, the foun- 
 tains and the grand canal, with the park of the 
 Trianons off to the right. 
 
 Good fortune came to Louis XIV when he 
 found Andre Le Notre, for it was he and no other 
 who traced the general lines of the garden of the 
 Versailles which was to be. He laid a generous 
 hand upon the park and forest which had sur- 
 rounded the manor of Louis XIII, and extended 
 the garden to the furthermost limits of his in- 
 genuity. Modifications were rapid, and from 
 1664 the parterres and the greensward took on 
 entirely new forms and effects. The Parterre 
 des Reservoirs became the Parterre du Nord, 
 and an alley of four rows of lindens enclosed 
 the park on all sides. The Parterre ^ Fleurs, 
 or the Jardin du Roy, between the chateau and 
 the Orangerie, was laid out anew. 
 
 By the following year the park began to take 
 
•^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 •s 
 
 •^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■^ 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 265 
 
 on the homogeneity which it had hitherto lacked. 
 The great Rondeau, as it was called, and which 
 became later the Bassin du Dragon, was exca- 
 vated, and the Jardin Bas, or the Nouveau Par- 
 terre, with an oval depression, was also planned. 
 
 At one end of the park was the celebrated 
 Menagerie du Roy, where the rare and exotic 
 animals collected by the monarch had "a palace 
 more magnificent than the home of any other 
 dumb animals in the world.'' This was the 
 first period of formal garden construction at 
 Versailles, and it was also the period when the 
 first great impetus was given to sculptural decora- 
 tion. 
 
 In 1679, following a journey in Italy, Le Notre 
 took up again the work on the gardens at Ver- 
 sailles, devoting himself to the region south of the 
 palace which hitherto had been ignored. This 
 was Le Notre's most prolific period. 
 
 The creations at Versailles can be divided 
 into two distinct epochs, that before 1670 and 
 that coming after. After Le Notre's generous 
 design, the king and queen were seemingly never 
 satisfied with the endless plotting and planting 
 which was carried on beneath the windows of 
 the palace, and in many instances changed the 
 colour schemes and even the outlines of Le Notre's 
 original conceptions. 
 
266 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The Versailles of to-day is no longer the Ver- 
 sailles of Louis XIII, so far as the actual dis- 
 position of details goes. Then there was very 
 little green grass and much sand and gravel, a 
 scheme of decoration which entered largely into 
 the seventeenth century garden. This refers 
 principally to the general effect, for Le Notre 
 made much use of the enclosing battery of lindens, 
 chestnuts and elms of a majestic and patriarchal 
 grandeur which have since been cut and re- 
 placed by smaller species of trees, or not replaced 
 at all. 
 
 No sooner were the ornamental gardens planned 
 at Versailles than the Potager du Roy, or fruit 
 and vegetable garden, was created. This same 
 garden exists to-day with almost its former out- 
 lines. Here a soil sufficiently humid, and yet 
 sufficiently well drained, contributed not a little 
 towards the success of this most celebrated of 
 all kitchen gardens the world has known. 
 
 The work of installing a further system of 
 artificial drainage was immediately begun, and 
 the Eaux des Suisses was created, to take the 
 place of a former stagnant pool near by. Un- 
 doubtedly it was a stupendous work, like all the 
 projects launched with regard to Versailles, but, 
 like the others, it was brought to a speedy and 
 successful conclusion. The details of the history 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 267 
 
 of this royal vegetable garden are fully set forth 
 in a work published in 1690 by the son of the 
 designer, the Abbe Michel de la Quintinye, in 
 two bulky volumes. ''It was meet that a royal 
 vegetable garden should have been designed 
 by a 'Gentleman Gardener/" said the faithful 
 biographer in his foreword, and as such the man 
 and the work are to be considered here. 
 
 The work was accomplished by the combined 
 efforts of a gracious talent and the expenditure 
 of much money, put at La Quintinye's disposi- 
 tion by his royal master, who had but to put his 
 hand deep into the coffers of the royal treasury 
 to draw it forth filled with gold. Critics have 
 said that La Quintinye's ability stopped with 
 the preparation of the soil, and with the design 
 of the garden, rather than with the actual cultiva- 
 tion, but at all events it was he who made the 
 garden possible. 
 
 La Quintinye adopted Arnauld d'Andilly's 
 method of planting fruit trees en espalier by 
 training them against a wall-like background, 
 and to accomplish this divided the garden plot, 
 which covered an area of eight hectares (twenty 
 acres), into a great number of subdivisions en- 
 closed by walls, in order to multiply to as great 
 an extent as possible the available space to be 
 used for the espaliers. Again, these same walls 
 
268 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 served to shelter certain varieties which were 
 planted close against them. If this Potager 
 du Roy was not actually the first garden of its 
 class so laid out, it was certainly one of the most 
 extensive and the most successful up to that 
 time. 
 
 The great terraces of at least two metres in 
 width surrounded the central garden, leaving 
 a free area for the latter which approximated 
 three hectares. 
 
 These terraces were divided into twenty-eight 
 compartments, forming nine distinct varieties 
 of gardens. 
 
 The celebrated gardener of Louis XIV sought 
 not only to obtain fruits and vegetables of a 
 superior quality and an abundant quantity, but 
 was the first among his kind to produce early 
 vegetables, or primeurs, in any considerable 
 quantity, and, by a process of forced culture, he 
 was able to put upon the table of the monarch 
 asparagus in December, lettuce in January, 
 cauliflower in March and strawberries in April. 
 All these may be found at the Paris markets 
 to-day, and at these seasons, but the growing of 
 primeurs for the Paris markets has become a 
 great industry since the time it was first begun at 
 Versailles. 
 
 Of asparagus La Quintinye said, "It is a 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 269 
 
 vegetable that only kings can ever hope to eat." 
 The Potager du Roy was begun in 1678, and 
 completed in 1683. It cost, all told, one million 
 one hundred and seventy thousand nine hundred 
 and eighty-three livres of which four hundred 
 and sixty-seven thousand three hundred and sixty- 
 four went for constructions in brick and stone, 
 walls, enclosures and drains. Its annual main- 
 tenance (1685) amounted to twenty thousand 
 nine hundred and ninety-nine livres. The effort 
 proved one of great benefit to its creator, for 
 La Quintinye, at the completion of this work, 
 received further commissions of a like nature 
 from the Prince de Conde, the Due de Montansier, 
 Colbert, Fouquet and others. 
 
 So great a marvel was this vegetable garden 
 at Versailles that it was the object of a pilgrimage 
 of the Doge of Venice in 1685, and of the Siamese 
 ambassadors in the following year. The garden 
 has been preserved as an adjunct to Versailles 
 up to the present day. For two centuries its 
 product went to the '^Service de Bouche" of the 
 chief of state, that is, the royal dinner table; 
 but in 1875 the Minister of Agriculture installed 
 there the French National Horticultural College, 
 which to-day, with a widened scope, has admitted 
 ornamental plants and trees to this famous gar- 
 den. Nevertheless the general outlines have been 
 
270 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 preserved, though certain of the terraces have 
 disappeared, as well as many of the walls of the 
 original enclosure, thus reducing the number 
 of garden plots; in fact but sixteen distinctly 
 defined gardens remain, including the Clos aux 
 Asperges. 
 
 The general lines of the garden design of Le 
 Notre and Boyceau at Versailles are to be noted 
 to-day, but if anything the maintenance of the 
 gardens is hardly the equal of what it was in the 
 time of Louis XIV and a seeming disaster has 
 fallen upon Versailles as these lines are being 
 written. 
 
 The military authorities have set aside, as a 
 site for an aerostation camp, some twenty-five 
 acres of the park near Rocquencourt. This 
 is one of the loveliest parts, shaded by magnif- 
 icent trees which, presumably, will have to be 
 sacrificed, since, if left standing, they would 
 certainly interfere with maneuvering with mili- 
 tary aeroplanes, dirigibles and balloons. 
 
 At a time when deforestation is recognized 
 to be one of the greatest dangers that menace 
 a country's prosperity, one of its consequences 
 being such inundations as those which recently 
 devastated Paris and the Seine valley, it is re- 
 grettable that the forest surrounding Versailles 
 should be depleted. 
 
JARDIK POTAGER DU ROV AVERSAILiLES(XX CENTURV; 
 
 The Pota^er du Roy, Versailles 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 271 
 
 Furthermore, the reahzation of the project 
 means a loss of revenue to the state which at 
 present derives some sixty thousand francs a 
 year from the farming lease of this portion of 
 the park. 
 
 Therefore, for material considerations, as well 
 as because Versailles and its surroundings should 
 be preserved intact as a noble relic of one of the 
 grandest periods of French history, one of the 
 most beautiful creations of French genius, the 
 project attributed to the military authorities is 
 short-sighted. To diminish the attractions of 
 Versailles would certainly prove an unwise policy, 
 as the stream of tourists, which is the chief source 
 of profit to Versailles and its population, would 
 inevitably be diverted to some other channel. 
 
 Only a short time ago a Societe des Amis de 
 Versailles was created for the purpose of safe- 
 guarding its artistic and natural beauties. The 
 government gave the organization its approba- 
 tion and there is something delightfully ironical 
 in the fact that the military authorities of the same 
 government are planning to destroy what the 
 society, fathered by the Ministere des Beaux 
 Arts, was formed to preserve. 
 
 Another modern aspect of the park of Ver- 
 sailles was noted during the late winter when, 
 after a sharp freeze, all the youth of Paris had 
 
272 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 seemingly gone out to Versailles for the skating 
 only to be met by a freshly-posted notice which 
 read: 
 
 Defense 
 
 De Patiner Par 
 
 Arrete du 17 Decembre, 1849 
 
 These signs were posted here and there about 
 the park, in the courtyard, on the postern gate, 
 on trees, everywhere. The authorities were 
 bound that there should be no flagrant violation 
 of the order of 1849. 
 
 "You see," said one of the park guardians, 
 ^^c'est defendu; but as we are only two and the 
 crowd is very large we can do nothing." This 
 was evident. Thousands overran the Grand 
 Canal, which at its greatest depth was scarcely 
 more than a yard to the bottom, and so, despite 
 of monarchial decree, Republican France still 
 skates on the ornamental waters of Versailles 
 when occasion offers. 
 
 '^N^oubliez pas le petit balayeur^ sHl vous 
 plait, ^^ was as often heard as *^Allez vous-en,^^ 
 
 On the whole it was rather a picturesque 
 sight. A thick haze hung over the now white 
 "Tapis Vert," and the nude figures of the Bassin 
 d'ApoUon were clothed in a mantle of snow, 
 while the white-robed statues of the Allee Royale, 
 
^5: 
 
 o 
 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 273 
 
 one could well believe, shivered as one passed. 
 
 The fountains of Versailles, the ^'Grands 
 Eaux'' and "Petits Eaux," which shoot their 
 jets in air '^semi-occasionally" for the benefit 
 of Paris's ^^good papas" and their children, 
 are distinctly popular features, and of an artistic 
 worth neither less nor greater than most garden 
 accessories of the artificial order. The fact 
 that it costs something like ten thousand francs 
 to '^play" these fountains seems to be the chief 
 memory which one retains of them in operation, 
 unless it be the crowds which make the going 
 and coming so uncomfortable. 
 
 The Orangerie lies just below the terrace of 
 the Parterre du Midi, and a thousand or more 
 non-bearing orange trees are scattered about. 
 They are descendants of fifteenth century ances- 
 tors, it is claimed — but doubtfully. 
 
 The great basin of water known as the Eaux 
 des Suisses was excavated by the Swiss Guard 
 of Louis XIV to serve the useful purpose of 
 irrigating the Potager du Roy, and as a decora- 
 tive effect of great value to that part of the garden 
 upon which faces the fourteen-hundred-foot front 
 of the palace. 
 
 Still farther off towards the Bois de Satory, 
 after crossing the Tapis Vert, lie the famous 
 Bassins de Latone and Apollon, the Bassin du 
 
274 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Miroir and, finally, the Grand Canal, with one 
 transverse branch leading to the Menagerie 
 (now the government stud-farm) and the other 
 to the Trianons. 
 
 The satellite palaces known as the Grand 
 and Petit Trianons are, like the Palace of Ver- 
 sailles itself, of such an abounding historical 
 interest that it were futile to attempt more than 
 a mere intimation of their comparative rank 
 and aspect. 
 
 The rather sprawling, one-story, horseshoe- 
 shaped villa built by Louis XIV for Madame 
 de Maintenon, and known as the Grand Trianon, 
 was an architectural conception of Mansart's. 
 
 It is worth remarking that the Grand Trianon, 
 to-day, is in a more nearly perfect state than it 
 has been for long past, for the restorations lately 
 made have removed certain interpolations mani- 
 festly out of place. 
 
 It is due to M. de Nolhac, the Conservateur 
 du Musee de Versailles, that this happy amel- 
 ioration has been brought about and that Man- 
 sart's admirable work is again as it was in the 
 days of Madame de Maintenon and those of the 
 later Napoleon I. 
 
 In spite of all this the Trianon of to-day 
 is not what it was in the eighteenth century. 
 "Madame de Maintenon," said de Musset, 
 
'^!^im^-;x .:v^''^-w>'^«sim^m^y^'^: 
 
 
 i-ier'-i: '.- ' • ^^-^iCi*----?:-" 
 
 The Fountain of Neptune, Versailles 
 
274 R oyal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Miroir and, finally, the Grand Canal, with one 
 transverse branch leading to the Menagerie 
 (now the government stud-farm) and the other 
 to the Trianons. 
 
 The satellite palaces known as the Grand 
 and Petit Trianons are, like the Palace of Ver- 
 sailles itself, of such an abounding historical 
 interest that it were futile to attempt more than 
 a mere intimation of their comparative rank 
 and aspect. 
 
 The rather sprawling, one-story, horseshoe- 
 shaped villa built by Louis XIV for Madame 
 de Maintenon, and known as the Grand Trianon, 
 was an architectural conception of Mansart's. 
 
 #!§^^tIf^¥fflteBnf tflS?Tm\3^ Trianon, 
 to-day, is in a more nearly perfect state than it 
 has been for long past, for the restorations lately 
 made have removed certain interpolations mani- 
 festly out of place. 
 
 It is due to M. de Nolhac, the Conservateur 
 du Musee de Versailles, that this happy amel- 
 ioration has been brought about and that Man- 
 sart'S admirable work is again as it was in the 
 days of Madame de Maintenon and those of the 
 later Napoleon I. 
 
 In spite of all this the Trianon of to-<iay 
 is not what it was in the eighteenth cent ■'> 
 ** Madame de Maintenon," said de ^^ . 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 275 
 
 "made of Versailles an oratory, but La Pompa- 
 dour turned it into a boudoir.'^ He also called 
 the Trianon: "a tiny chateau of porcelain." 
 It was, too, the boudoir of Madame de Mon- 
 tespan. 
 
 Louis XV, too, 'built, or furnished, discreet 
 boudoirs of this order on every hand. More 
 than one great gallery in which his elders had 
 done big things he divided and subdivided into 
 minute apartments and papered the walls, or 
 painted them, all colours of the rainbow, or hung 
 them with silks or velvets. 
 
 "Don't you think my little apartment shows 
 good taste," he asked one day of the Comtesse 
 de Seran at Versailles. 
 
 "Not at all," she replied, "I would much 
 rather that the walls were hung in blue." 
 
 That particular apartment was in rose, but, 
 since blue was the favourite colour of the monarch, 
 the reply was but flattering. The next time 
 that his friend, the Comtesse, appeared on the 
 scene the apartment had all been done over in 
 blue. 
 
 The monarch soon began to turn his attention 
 to the gardens. Bowers, labyrinths and vases 
 and statues were inexplicably mixed as in a maze. 
 He began to have the ^^ gout pastoral ^^^ his biogra- 
 pher has said, a vogue that Madame du Barry 
 
276 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 and Marie Antoinette came in time to push to 
 its limits. 
 
 The king was too ready to admire all that 
 was suggested, all that was offered, and the ulti- 
 mate effect was — well, it was the opposite of 
 what he hoped it to be, though doubtless he did 
 not realize it. 
 
 In the garden of the Grand Trianon is a great 
 basin with a cascade flowing down over a sort 
 of a high altar arrangement in red and white 
 marble called the Buffet de FArchitecture, and 
 evolved by Mansart. This architect certainly 
 succeeded much better with his purely architec- 
 tural conceptions than he did with interpolated 
 decorative elements intended to relieve a formal 
 landscape. 
 
 The Petit Trianon, the pride of Louis XV, 
 was designed by the architect Gabriel, and its 
 reigning goddess was Marie Antoinette. Souve- 
 nirs of the unhappy queen are many, but the 
 caretakers are evidently bored with their duties 
 and hustle you through the apartments with 
 scant ceremony that they may doze again un- 
 disturbed in their corners. 
 
 The garden of the Petit Trianon is a veritable 
 Jardin Anglais, that is, the decorative portion, 
 where sweeps and curves, as meaningless as 
 those one sees on banknotes and no more decora- 
 
O 
 
 
The Gardens of Versailles 
 
 277 
 
 tive, are found in place of the majestic lines of 
 the formal garden when laid out after the French 
 manner. 
 
 The Hameau, where is the dairy where the 
 queen played housewife and shepherdess, is 
 just to the 
 rear of this 
 bijou palace 
 and looks 
 stagy and un- 
 real enough 
 to be the 
 wings and 
 back-drop of 
 a pastoral 
 play. 
 
 Near Ver- 
 sailles was 
 the Chateau 
 de Clagny, 
 with a gar- 
 den laid out 
 
 by Le Notre, quite the rival of many better known. 
 Of it Madame de Sevigne wrote: ^^It is the 
 Palais d'Armide; you know the manner of Le 
 Notre; here he has done his best." 
 
 The Couvent des Recollettes, just across the 
 Bois de Satory, was built by Louis XIV out of 
 
278 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 regard for the religieux whom he displaced from 
 an edifice which stood upon a plot which was 
 actually needed for the palace gardens. The 
 Chateaux of Noisy and Molineaux were also 
 afiiliated with Versailles. 
 
 The rest of the surroundings and accessories 
 of Versailles are mere adjunctive details of those 
 chief features here mentioned. To catalogue 
 them even would be useless since they are all 
 set down in the guidebooks. 
 
CHAPTER X\TI 
 
 SAINT GERMAIN-EN-LAYE 
 
 Saint Germain has not the popularity of 
 Versailles, nor the charm of Fontainebleau, but 
 it is more accessible than either, and, if less known 
 and less visited by the general mass of tourists, 
 it is all the more delightful for that. 
 
 Saint Germain, the chateau, the town and 
 the forest, possess a magnificent site. Behind 
 is a wooded background, and before one are the 
 meanderings of the Seine which in the summer 
 sunlight is a panorama which is to be likened to 
 no other on earth. Across the river bottom 
 run the great tree-lined roadways, straight as 
 the proverbial flight of the arrow, while on the 
 horizon, looking from the celebrated terrace, one 
 sees to-day the silhouetted outline of Paris with 
 the Tour Eiffel and the dome of the Sacre Coeur 
 as the culminating points. 
 
 The town itself is ugly and ill-paved, and 
 heavy-booted dragoons make a hideous noise 
 as they clank along to and from the cavalry 
 barracks all through the day and night. Neither 
 
 279 
 
280 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 are scorching automobiles making their ways 
 to Trouville and Dieppe over the *' Route des 
 Quarante Sous'^ a pleasant feature. One can 
 
 •SAIMT* GELRJvIAIJMcI^ 
 
 ignore all these things, however, for what is left is 
 of a superlative charm. 
 
 Saint Germain-en-Laye in the first stages of 
 French history was but a vast extent of forest 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 281 
 
 which under Charlemagne came to the possession 
 of the monks of the Abbaye de Saint Germain- 
 des-Pres. The first royal palace here was built 
 by King Robert in the tenth century, practically 
 upon the site of the present edifice. In the 
 eleventh century there came into being another 
 royal dwelling, and in the twelfth century Lou is- 
 le- Gros built a chateau-fort as a protection to 
 the royal residence and monastery. This did 
 not prevent the Black Prince from very nearly 
 burning them down on one of his bold raids, 
 but by 1367, Charles V re-erected the ^^casteV^ 
 of Saint Germain-en-Laye. 
 
 The English, by coercion, induced a monk 
 of a neighbouring establishment at Nanterre 
 to deliver up a set of false keys by which the 
 great gates of the castle were surreptitiously 
 opened, and, for a time, the descendants of 
 the Conqueror held possession. 
 
 The establishment of Charles V in no way 
 satisfying the artistic ambitions of Francis I, 
 that monarch gave the task of reconstruction 
 to the architect Pierre Chambiges, in 1539, pre- 
 serving only the Saint Chapelle of Saint Louis 
 and the donjon. 
 
 The building must have gone forward with an 
 extreme rapidity for at the architect's death, in 1544, 
 it had reached nearly the level of the rooftop. 
 
282 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Chambiges' successor was his son-in-law, Guil- 
 laume Guillain, who, without changing the primi- 
 tive plan, completed the work in 1548. 
 
 Saint Germain, above the first story, is es- 
 sentially a construction of bricks, but the effect 
 is even now, as Chambiges originally intended, 
 an edifice with its main constructive elements 
 of lower sustaining walls and buttresses of stone 
 binding together the slighter fabric, or filling, 
 above. Although it is Renaissance through and 
 through. Saint Germain shows not the slightest 
 reminiscence of anything Italian and must be 
 considered entirely as an achievement of French 
 genius. 
 
 This edifice of Francis I was more a fortress 
 than a palace in spite of its decorative features, 
 and Henri II, desiring something more of a 
 luxurious royal residence, began what the his- 
 torians and savants know as the Chateau Neuf 
 — the palace of to-day which stands high on the 
 hill overlooking the winding Seine, to which se- 
 ducing stream the gardens originally descended 
 in terraces. 
 
 Chiefly it is to Henri IV that this structure 
 owes its distinction, for previously work went 
 on but intermittently, and very slowly. Henri 
 rV brought the work to completion and made 
 the chateau his preferred and most prolonged 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 283 
 
 place of residence, as indeed did his successor. 
 
 It is the Chateau Neuf of the time of Henri IV 
 which is to-day known as the Palais de Saint Ger- 
 main-en-Laye. Of the Vieux Chateau only some 
 fragmentary walls and piles of debris, the Pavilion 
 Henri IV, and, in part, the old royal chapel remain. 
 
 Actually the structure of to-day includes that 
 part of the Hotel du Pavilion Henri IV which 
 is used as a restaurant. 
 
 Henri IV and Louis XIII gave Saint Germain 
 its first great eclat as a suburban place of so- 
 journ, and from the comings and goings of the 
 court of that time there gradually grew up the 
 present city of twenty thousand inhabitants; 
 not all of them of courtly manners, as one learns 
 from a recollection of certain facts of contem- 
 porary modern history. 
 
 During the days when Mazarin actually held 
 the reins of state the court was frequently at 
 Saint Germain. Louis XIV was born here, and 
 until Versailles and Marly came into being he 
 made it his principal dwelling. 
 
 It was in one of the magnificent apartments, 
 too, midway between the angle turrets of the 
 facade, Louis XIII ended his unhappy exist- 
 ence in 1642. His own private band of musicians 
 played a "De Profundis" of his own composi- 
 tion to waft his soul on its long journey. 
 
284 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The chroniclers describe one of the monarches 
 last conversations as follows: ^'When they trans- 
 port my body to Paris after my soul has flown, 
 Laporte, remember that place where the road 
 turns under the hill; it is a rough road, Laporte, 
 and will surely shake my bones sadly if the driver 
 does not go slowly." 
 
 Those who have journeyed out from Paris 
 to Saint Germain by road in this later century 
 will appreciate the necessity for the admonition. 
 
 Louis XIV, unlike Louis XIII, detested Saint 
 Germain beyond words, because the towers of 
 the Abbaye de Saint Denis, where he was destined 
 one day to be buried, were visible from the ter- 
 race. Louis XV was not so particular for he 
 was so morbid that he even loved, as he claimed 
 himself, the scent of new-made graves. 
 
 The arrival of Anne d'Autriche and the royal 
 family at Saint Germain during the war of the 
 Fronde was one of the most dramatic incidents 
 of the period. They had travelled half the night, 
 coming from the Palais Royal only to find a palace 
 awaiting them which was unheated and un- 
 furnished though the time was mid- January. 
 Always drear and gaunt it was immeasurably 
 so on this occasion. Mazarin had made no 
 provision for the queen's arrival; there were 
 neither beds, tables nor linen in their proper 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 285 
 
 places, no servants, no attendants of any kind, 
 only the guardians of the palace. The queen 
 was obliged to take rest from her fatigue on a 
 folding camp bedstead, without covering of any 
 kind. The princes fared no better, actually 
 sleeping on the floor. 
 
 There were plenty of mirrors and much gold 
 gingerbread on the walls and ceilings, but no 
 furniture. The personal belongings which the 
 court had brought with them were few. No 
 one had a change of clothing even; those worn 
 one day were washed the next. However the 
 queen good-naturedly smiled through it all. 
 She called it ^'an escapade which can hardly 
 last a week." 
 
 All Paris was by this time crying "Vive la 
 Fronde ^^: "Mart a Mazarin:''^ but it proved 
 to be something more than a little affair of a week, 
 as we now know. 
 
 At this period, when Anne d'Autriche was 
 practically a prisoner at Saint Germain, the 
 picture made by the old chateau against its 
 forest background was undeniably more im- 
 posing than that which one sees to-day. The 
 glorious forest was not then hidden by rows 
 of banal rooftops, and the dull drabs of barracks 
 and prisons. 
 
 In the warm spring mornings the glittering 
 
286 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 fa5:ade of the chateau was brilHant as a diamond 
 against its setting, and the radiating avenues 
 of the park leading from the famous terrace 
 stretched out into infinite vistas that were most 
 alluring. This effect, fortunately, is not wholly 
 lost to-day. 
 
 At night things were as idyllic as by day. The 
 queen and her ladies, relieved of the dreary pres- 
 ence of the king who still remained at Paris, 
 revelled in an unwonted freedom. Concerts, 
 suppers and dances were the rule and moon- 
 light cavalcades to the heart of the forest, or 
 promenades on foot the length of the terrace, 
 and by some romantically disposed couples far 
 beyond, gave a genuine ''begone, dull care" 
 aspect to court life which was not at all possible 
 in the capital. 
 
 The following picture, taken from a court 
 chronicle, might apply as well to-day if one 
 makes due allowance for a refulgence of myriad 
 lamps gleaming out Parisward as night draws in. 
 
 ''It is a rare moonlight night. The queen 
 and her ladies have emerged late on the stately 
 terrace of Henri IV which borders upon the 
 forest and extends for nearly a league along the 
 edge of the height upon which stands the chateau. 
 
 "The queen and her brother-in-law, Gaston, 
 Due d' Orleans, have seated themselves some- 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 287 
 
 what apart from the rest beside the stone balus- 
 trade which overlooks the steep descent to the 
 plain below. Vineyards line the hillside and 
 the Seine flows far beneath, the fertile river- 
 bottom rich with groves and orchards, villas 
 and gardens. Still more distant sweeps away 
 the great plain wrapped in dark shadows punc- 
 tuated here and there with great splotches of 
 moonlight. Of the great city beyond (the Paris 
 of to-day, whose myriad glow-worm lights actually 
 do lend an additional charm) not a vestige is to 
 be seen. Scarcely a lantern marks the existence 
 of a living soul in the vast expanse below, but 
 the moon, high in the heavens, plots out the entire 
 landscape with a wonderful impressiveness, and 
 the stars topping the forest trees to the rear 
 and the heights which rise on the distant horizon 
 lend their quota of romanticism, and, as if by 
 their scintillations, mark the almost indiscernible 
 towers of the old Abbey of Saint Denis to the 
 left. 
 
 " 'Oh, what a lovely night,' said the queen 
 to her companion. Again it is the old chronicler 
 who speaks. 'Can the world ever appear so 
 calm and peaceful elsewhere?' " 
 
 This Terrasse de Henri IV, so called, is one 
 of the most splendid and best-known terraces 
 in Europe, and is noted for its extent as well 
 
288 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 as for its marvellous point of view, the whole 
 panorama Parisward being spread out before 
 one as if on a map, a view which extends from 
 the Chateau de Maisons on the left to the Aque- 
 duct de Marly and the heights of Louveciennes 
 on the right, including the Bois de Vesinet, Mont 
 Valerian, Montmartre and the whole Parisian 
 panorama as far as the Coteaux de Montmorency. 
 
 This terrace, too, was the project and con- 
 struction of Le Notre in 1672. It is two and a 
 half kilometres in length and thirty metres in 
 width, upheld by a stone retaining wall which 
 is surmounted by a balustrade. It extends from 
 the Pavilion Henri IV to a gun battery well within 
 the confines of the forest. Entrance from the 
 precincts of the palace is by the great ornamental 
 iron gateway known as the Grille Royale, from 
 which an alleyed row of lindens leads to the 
 heart of the forest. 
 
 The record of another merry party at Saint 
 Germain is that which recounts that summer 
 evening when the king and court scuttled about 
 the park enjoying themselves as only royalty 
 can — when some one else pays the bills. The 
 terrace, the gravelled walks and the alleyed 
 paths of the forest all led to charming and dis- 
 creet rendezvous. 
 
 So preoccupied was every one on this particular 
 
The Valley of the Seine, from the Terrace 
 at Saint Cermain 
 
288 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 as for its marvellous point . sew, the whole 
 panorama Parisward being spread out before 
 one as if on a map, a view whicli extends from 
 the Chateau de Maisons on the left to the Aque- 
 duct de Marly and the heights of J .ouveciennes 
 on the right, including the Bois de Vesinet, Mont 
 Valerian, Montmartre and the whole Parisian 
 panorama as far as the Coteaux de Montmorency. 
 
 This terrace, too, was the project and con- 
 struction of Le Notre in 1672. It is two and a 
 half kilometres in length and thirty metres in 
 width, upheld by a stone retaining wall which 
 is surmounted by a balustrade. It extends from 
 the Pavilion Henri IV to a gun battery well within 
 tl^i^9i^r^^Tieh^n(^e§R^\f^SaW^e3#?m the 
 precincts of tl;\\j^f^Qe^j^j^^v^e great ornamental 
 iron gateway known as the Grille Royale, from 
 which an alleyed row of lindens leads to the 
 heart of the forest. 
 
 The record of another merry party at Saint 
 Germain is that which recounts that summer 
 evening when the king and court scuttled about 
 the park enjoying themselves as only royalty 
 can — when some one el-ie pays the bills. The 
 terrace, the gravelled walks antJ the alleyed 
 paths of the forest all led to charming and dis- 
 creet rendezvous. 
 
 So preoccupied was every uul uii ibis particular 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 289 
 
 occasion that the merry-makers had hardly a 
 thought for their king, who, left to his own devices, 
 sought out four maids of honour gossiping in a 
 bower, and, taking the mischief-loving Lauzan 
 into his confidence, pried upon them in the am- 
 bush of the night. They were gossiping over 
 the dancers at the ball of the night before when 
 one of them proclaimed her fancy for the agility 
 and grace of the king above all others. It was 
 the first expression of ^'La Valliere" since she 
 had come timidly to court. The rest is an idyll 
 which is found set forth in all the history books 
 at considerable length, and at this particular 
 moment it was a genuine idyll, for the king 
 had not then become the debauched roue that 
 he was in later life. 
 
 After Anne d'Autriche, Henriette, the widow 
 of Charles I of England, found at Saint Germain 
 a comfortable and luxurious refuge. 
 
 From 1 66 1 onward Louis XIV made frequent 
 visits to Saint Germain and was so taken with the 
 charms of the neighbourhood and the immediate site 
 that he conjured six and a half million francs out of 
 his Civil List, in addition to his regular stipend, for 
 the upkeep of this palace alone. This was robbery : 
 modern graft pales before this; candelabra by the 
 pound and writing tables by the square yard were 
 known before the days of machine politicians. 
 
290 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 James II of England, in 1688, found a hospit- 
 able refuge at Saint Germain, thanks to Louis 
 XIV, and died within the palace walls in 1701, 
 as did his wife, Maria d'Este, in 1718. 
 
 Louis XV and Louis XVI gave Saint Germain 
 scarce a thought, and under the Empire it became 
 a cavalry school, and later, under the Restora- 
 tion, sinking lower still, it merited only the de- 
 nomination of a barracks. Its culminating fall 
 arrived when it was turned into a penitentiary. 
 
 Napoleon III, with finer instincts, here in- 
 stalled a museum, and restorations and rebuild- 
 ing having gone on intermittently since that 
 time the palace has now taken on a certain 
 pretence to glory. Practically the palace in its 
 present form is a restoration, not entirely a new 
 building, but a rebuilding of an old one, first 
 begun under the competent efforts of the archi- 
 tect Eugene Millet, who sought to reestablish 
 the edifice as it was under Francis I. The great 
 tower has been preserved but the corner pavilions 
 of the period of Louis XIV have been demolished 
 in accord with the carrying out of this plan. 
 
 For forty years Saint Germain has been in a 
 state of restoration, and like the restoration of 
 Pierrefonds it has swallowed up fantastic sums. 
 The western facade has been rebuilt from the 
 chapel to the entrance portal and the last of 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 291 
 
 Mansart's pavilions, which he built to please 
 either his own fancy or that of Louis XIV, have 
 been demolished. Mansart himself made way 
 with the old totirelles and the balustrade which 
 rounded off the angles of the walls of the main 
 buildings and substituted a series of heavy, 
 ugly maisonettes^ more like the bastions of a 
 fortress than any adjunct to a princely dwelling. 
 
 The courtyard of the chateau is curiously 
 disposed; "so that it may receive the sun at all 
 times," was the claim of its designer. It, too, 
 has been brought back to the state in which it 
 was originally conceived and shorn of its encum- 
 bering outhouses and odds and ends which 
 served their purposes well enough when it was 
 a barracks or a prison, but which were a desecra- 
 tion to anything called by so dignified a name 
 as a chateau or a palace. This courtyard is to-day 
 as it was when the lords and ladies in the train of 
 Charles IX strolled and even gambolled therein. 
 
 The Chapelle de Saint Louis (1240) is in every 
 way remarkable, especially with respect to its 
 great rose-window, which was found by Millet 
 to have been walled up by Louis XIV. 
 
 The military museum of to-day, which is en- 
 closed by the palace walls, possesses a remark- 
 able collection of its kind, but has no intimate 
 lien upon the history of the palace, 
 
292 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 The parterre before the palace is cut off from 
 the forest of Saint Germain by three ornate 
 iron gates. It was relaid, a transformation from 
 designs originally conceived in 1676, by Le 
 Notre, modified in 1750 and much reduced in 
 size and beauty in the nineteenth century, though 
 later enlarged by taking three hectares of ground 
 from the forest and turning them into the ac- 
 cepted form of an English garden. 
 
 A peninsula of a superficial area of over ten 
 thousand acres snugly enfolded in one of the 
 great horseshoe bends of the Seine contains 
 the Foret de Saint Germain. A line drawn 
 across the neck of the peninsula from Saint Ger- 
 main to Poissy, following the Route de Poissy, 
 completely cuts off this tongue of land which 
 is as wild and wooded to-day as in the times of 
 Francis, the Henris and the Louis. 
 
 The routes and allees of the forest are traced 
 with regularity and precision, and historians 
 have written them down as of a length of nearly 
 four hundred leagues, a statement which a glance 
 at any map of the forest will well substantiate. 
 
 High upon its plateau sits this historic wild- 
 wood, for the most part of a soil dry and sandy, 
 with here and there some great mamelon (Druidi- 
 cal or Pagan, as the case may be) rising some- 
 what above the average leveL Francis I, hunts- 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 293 
 
 man and lover of art and nature, did much to 
 preserve this great forest, and Louis XIV in his 
 time developed its system of roads and paths, 
 '^ chiefly to make hunting easy," says history, 
 though it is difficult to follow this. At all events 
 the forest remains to-day the most extensive 
 unspoiled breathing-spot of its class near Paris. 
 
 Within this maze of paths and alleys are many 
 famed historic spots, the Chene Saint Fiacre, 
 the Croix de Noailles, the Croix Saint Simon, 
 the Croix du Main (erected in 1709 in honour 
 of the son of Louis XIV), the Etoile des Amazones, 
 the Patte d'Oie, the Chene du Capitaine and 
 many more which are continually referred to 
 in the history of the palace, the forest of Saint 
 Germain-en-Laye, and of the Abbaye de Poissy. 
 
 The forest is not wholly separated from the 
 mundane world for occasionally a faint echo 
 of the Rouen railway is heard, a toot from a 
 river tug-boat bringing coal up-river to Paris, 
 the strident notes of automobile horns, or that 
 of a hooting steam-tram which scorches along 
 the principal roadway over which state coaches 
 of kings and courtiers formerly rolled. The 
 contrast is not particularly offensive, but the 
 railway threatens to make further inroads, so 
 one hardly knows the future that may be in 
 store for the partriarch oaks and elms and chest- 
 
294 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 nuts which make up this secular wildwood. 
 Their ages may not in all cases approach those 
 of the great Fontainebleau trees, and in point 
 of fact the forest is by no means as solitary, nor 
 ever was. One of the most celebrated, cer- 
 tainly one of the most spectacular, duels of history 
 took place in the park at Saint Germain-en- 
 Laye. 
 
 Gui Chabot de Jarnac lived a prodigal and 
 profligate life at the expense — it was said — 
 of the favours of the Duchesse d'Etampes. The 
 dauphin, Henri, making an accusation, deemed 
 wholly uncalled for, a ^^duel judiciaire^^ took 
 place, with La Chataigneraie as the dauphin's 
 substitute as adversary of de Jarnac who sought 
 no apology but combat. 
 
 It was because Henri meantime had become 
 king and issued his first Letters Patent to his 
 council concerning the ^^duel judiciaire,^^ where- 
 by he absolved himself of the right to partake, 
 that he appointed his dear friend Francois de 
 Vivonne, "Seigneur de la Chataigneraie," to play 
 the role for him. 
 
 Unfortunately the young man could not justify 
 by victory the honour of his king and before the 
 monarch and the assembled court he was laid 
 low by his adversary. 
 
 This was one of the last of the ^^ duels judici- 
 
Saint Germain-en-Laye 295 
 
 aires ^^ in France. What Saint Louis and Philippe- 
 le-Bel had vainly sought to suppress, the pro- 
 cedure having cost at least a hundred thousand 
 livres, was practically accomplished by Henri II 
 by a stroke of the pen. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MAINTENON 
 
 Out from Paris, on the old Route d'Espagne, 
 running from the capital to the frontier, down 
 which rolled the royal corteges of old, lie Main- 
 tenon and its famous chateau, some sixty odd 
 kilometres from Paris and twenty from Ram- 
 bouillet. 
 
 Just beyond Versailles, on the road to Main- 
 tenon, lies the trim little townlet of Saint Cyr, 
 known to-day as the West Point of France, the 
 military school founded by Napoleon I giving 
 it its chief distinction. 
 
 Going back into the remote past one learns 
 tliat the village grew up from a foundation of 
 Louis XIV, who bought for ninety-one thousand 
 livres "a chateau and a convent for women," 
 that Madame de Maintenon might establish 
 a girls' school therein. She reserved an apart- 
 ment for herself, and one suspects indeed that 
 it was simply another project of the Widow Scar- 
 ron to have a place of rendezvous near the 
 capital. Certainly under the circumstances, tak- 
 
 296 
 
Maintenon 
 
 297 
 
 ing into consideration the good that she was 
 doing for orphaned girls, she might at least have 
 been allowed the 
 right of a roof to 
 shelter her when 
 she wished. She 
 was absolutely dom- 
 inant within, though 
 never actually in 
 residence for any 
 length of time. It 
 was here that "Es- 
 ther '' and "Athalie, " 
 which Racine had 
 composed expressly 
 for Madame de 
 Maintenon's pensionnaires, were produced for 
 the first time. 
 
 When not actually living at Saint C)t it was 
 Madame de Maintenon's custom to come hither 
 from Paris each day, arriving between seven 
 and eight in the morning, passing the day and 
 returning to town for the evening, much as a 
 celebrated American millionaire journalist, whose 
 country-house overlooks the famous convent gar- 
 den, does to-day. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon actually went into 
 retirement at Saint Cyr upon the death of Louis 
 
298 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 XIV, and for four years, until her death, never 
 left it. She died from old age, rather than from 
 any grave malady, in this "Maison d'Education, " 
 which she had inaugurated, and was buried in the 
 chapel, beneath an elaborate tomb which the Due 
 de Noailles, who married her niece, caused to be 
 erected. The tomb was destroyed during the 
 Revolution and the " Maison Royale de Saint Cyr, " 
 of which nothing had been changed since its 
 foundation, was suppressed, the edifice itself being 
 pillaged and the remains of Madame de Maintenon 
 sadly profaned, finally to be recovered and de- 
 posited again in the chapel where a simple black 
 marble slab marks them in these graven words : 
 
 Cy-Git Madame De Maintenon 
 1635-1719-1836 
 
 Napoleon I established the Ecole Militaire 
 at Saint Cyr, from which are graduated each 
 year more than four hundred subaltern officers. 
 
 The ancient gardens of Madame de Main- 
 tenon's time now form the ^Xhamps de Mars," 
 or drill ground, of the military school. 
 
 South from Saint Cyr runs the "great inter- 
 national highroad, the old Route Royale of the 
 monarchy. It rises and falls, but mostly straight 
 as the flight of the crow, until it crosses the great 
 National Forest of Rambouillet. Following the 
 
Maintenon 299 
 
 valley of the Eure almost to its headwaters it 
 finally comes to Maintenon, a town of a couple 
 of thousand souls, whose most illustrious in- 
 habitant was that granddaughter of Theodore- 
 Agrippa d'Aubigne, named Fran^ioise, and who 
 came in time to be the Marquise de Maintenon. 
 
 The Chateau de Maintenon was royal in all 
 but name. The Tresorier des Finances under 
 Louis XI, Jean Cottereau (a public ofhcial who 
 made good it seems, since he also served in the 
 same capacity for Charles VIII, Louis XII, and 
 Francis I), had a single daughter, Isabeau, who, 
 in 1526, married Jacques d'Angennes, who at 
 the time was already Seigneur de Rambouillet. 
 
 As a dot this daughter acquired the lands of 
 Maintenon. The property was afterwards sold 
 to the Marquis de Villeray, from whom Louis 
 XIV bought it in 1674 and disposed of it as a 
 royal gift to Fran^oise d'Aubigne, the fascinator 
 of kings, who was afterwards to become (in 
 1688) Madame La Marquise de Maintenon. 
 
 This ambitious woman subsequently married 
 her niece to the Due d'Ayen, son of the Marechal 
 de Noailles, and as a marriage portion — or 
 possibly to avoid unpleasant consequences — 
 turned over the property of Maintenon to the 
 young bride and her husband to whose family, 
 the Noailles, it has ever since belonged. 
 
300 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 To-day the Due and Duchesse de Noailles 
 make lengthy stays in this dehghtful seigneurial 
 dwelling, and since the apartments are full to 
 overflowing of historical souvenirs of their family 
 it may be truly said that their twentieth century 
 life is to some considerable extent in accord with 
 the traditions of other days. 
 
 The existence of this princely residence is an 
 agreeable reminder of the life of luxury of the 
 olden time albeit certain modernities which we 
 to-day think necessities are lacking. 
 
 Maintenon is certainly one of the most beauti- 
 ful so-called royal chateaux of France, if not by 
 its actual importance at least by many of the 
 attributes of its architecture, the extent of the 
 domain and the history connected therewith. 
 It bridges the span between the private chateau 
 and those which may properly be called royal. 
 
 In the moyen-age Maintenon was a verita- 
 ble chateau-fort, forming a quadrilateral edifice 
 flanked by round towers at three of its angles, 
 and at the fourth by a great square mass of a 
 donjon, all of which was united by a vast ex- 
 panse of solidly built wall which possessed all 
 the classic attributes of the best military archi- 
 tecture of its time. Entrance was only over a 
 deep moat spanned by a drawbridge. 
 
 Jean Cottereau made his acquisition of the 
 
Chateau de Maintenon 
 
Maintenon 30i 
 
 domain towards 1490 and immediately planned 
 a new scheme of being for the old fortress which, 
 according to a more esthetic conception, would 
 thus be brought into the class of a luxurious 
 residential chateau. He destroyed the courtines 
 which attached the great donjon to the rest 
 of the building, and opened up the courtyard 
 so that it faced directly upon the park. He 
 ornamented sumptuously the window framings, 
 the dormer windows, and the turrets, and framed 
 in the entrance portal with a series of sculptured 
 motives which he also added to the entrance 
 to the great inner stairway. In short it was 
 an enlargement and embellishment that was 
 undertaken, but so thoroughly was it done that 
 the edifice quite lost its original character in the 
 process. Like all the chateaux built at this 
 epoch Maintenon was no longer a mere fortress, 
 but a palatial retreat, luxurious in all its ap- 
 pointments, and shorn of all the manifest militant 
 attributes which it had formerly possessed. 
 
 The shell was there, following closely the 
 original outlines, but the added ornamentation 
 had effectually disguised its primordial existence. 
 Living rooms needed light and air, while a for- 
 tress or quarters for troops might well be ordained 
 on other lines. The Renaissance livened up 
 considerably the severe lines of the Gothic cha- 
 
302 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 teaux of France, and though invariably the marks 
 of the transition are visible to the expert eye it 
 is also true, as in the case of Maintenon, that 
 there is frequently a homogeneousness which 
 is sufficiently pleasing to effectually cover up any 
 discrepancies which might otherwise be apparent. 
 The warrior aspect is invariably lost in the transi- 
 tion, and thus a Renaissance residential chateau 
 enters at once into a different class from that of 
 the feudal fortress regardless of the fact that 
 such may have been its original status. 
 
 The armorial device of Jean Cottereau — 
 three unlovely lizards blazoned on a field of 
 silver — is still to be seen sculptured on the two 
 towers flanking the entrance portal which to- 
 day lacks its old drawbridge before mentioned. 
 Surrounding the edifice is a deep, unhealthful, 
 mosquito-breeding moat which is all a mediaeval 
 moat should be, but which is actually no great 
 attribute to the place considering its disadvan- 
 tages. One wonders that it is allowed to exist 
 in so stagnant a condition, as the running waters 
 of the near-by Eure might readily be made use 
 of to change all this. The site of the chateau 
 at the confluence of the Eure and the Voise is 
 altogether charming. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon did much to make 
 the property more commodious and convenient 
 
Maintenon 303 
 
 and built the great right wing which binds the 
 donjon to the main corps de logis. Her own 
 apartments were situated in the new part of the 
 palace. She also built the gallery which leads 
 from the Tour de Machicoulis to the pointed 
 chapel, which was a construction of the time 
 of Cottereau, an accessory which every self- 
 respecting country-house of the time was bound 
 to have. It was by this gallery that the open 
 tribune in the little chapel was reached, thus 
 enabling Louis XIV to pass readily to mass 
 while he was so frequent a visitor at that period 
 when, at Maintenon, he was overseeing the con- 
 struction of his famous aqueduct. 
 
 Maintenon has had the honour, too, to count 
 among its illustrious guests Racine, who came 
 at the request of Madame de Maintenon, and 
 here wrote ^^ Esther" and ^^Athalie" which were 
 later produced at Saint Cyr by Madame de Main- 
 tenon's celebrated band of '^Demoiselles." 
 
 Louis XIV was not the last of royal race to 
 accept the Chateau de Maintenon^s hospitality 
 for the unhappy Charles X was obliged to ask 
 shelter of its chatelain for himself and fleeing 
 family. They arrived a little after midnight 
 of a hot August night, slept as well as possible 
 in the former apartments of Madame de Main- 
 tenon, and attended mass in the chapel on the fol- 
 
304 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 lowing morning. The monarch then discharged 
 the royal guard and the "hundred Swiss" and 
 gave up, defeated at the game of playing monarch 
 against the will of the people. 
 
 One enters the Cour d^Honneur by a great 
 portal of the time of Louis XIV. Immediately 
 before one is the principal facade, with its towers 
 of brick and its slender little turrets framing 
 in so admirably the entrance door. This facade 
 is of the fifteenth century and on the tympan 
 of the dormer windows one may still see the 
 monogram of its builder, Cottereau. The draw- 
 bridge has been made way with, and the turrets 
 over the portal have been bound together by a 
 diminutive balcony of stone, which, while a mani- 
 fest superfluity, is in no way objectionable. 
 
 Under the entrance vault are doors on either 
 side giving access to the living apartments of 
 the rez-de-chaussee. In the inner courtyard is 
 to be found the most exquisite architectural 
 detail of the whole fabric, the tower which en- 
 closes the monumental stairway, to which entrance 
 is had by a portal which is a veritable Gothic 
 jewel. In the tympan of this portal, as in the 
 dormer windows, is the device of Jean Cottereau, 
 except in this case it is much more elaborate 
 — a Saint Michel and the dragon, surrounded 
 by a *^ semis de coquilles^^ bearing the escutcheons 
 
Maintenon 305 
 
 of the chatelain — d' argent a lezards de sable. 
 
 At the left of this stairway tower is the principal 
 courtyard facade, supported by four arcades, 
 pierced with great windows and surmounted by 
 two fine dormer windows, all in the style of 
 Louis XII, of which the same effects to be ob- 
 served at Blois and in the Hotel d'Alluye are 
 contemporary. 
 
 At the left of the inner court is the wing built 
 by Cottereau which terminates in a great round 
 tower, while to the right is that erected by Madame 
 de Maintenon ending at the donjon. Directly 
 opposite is a magnificent vista over the canal 
 of ornamental water framed on either side by 
 patriarchal trees and having as a background 
 the silhouette of the arches of the famous aque- 
 duct which was to lead the waters of the Eure to 
 Versailles. 
 
 The interior of the chateau is not less remark- 
 able than the exterior. Entering by the tower 
 portal one comes at once to that magnificent 
 grand escalier which is accounted one of the 
 wonders of the French Renaissance. 
 
 The Salle a Manger of to-day was the old- 
 time Salle des Gardes. It is garnished with a 
 fine wainscoting and panels of Cordovan leather. 
 The Chambre a Coucher of Louis XIV, to the 
 left, is to-day the Salon, and here are to be seen 
 
306 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 portraits of Louis XIV, Louis XII, Francis I, 
 Henri IV, and Louis XIII. 
 
 A tiny rotunda contains a statue of Henri IV 
 as a child, and portraits of Madame de Maintenon 
 and Louis XIV in their youth. A portrait 
 gallery of restrained proportions contains effigies 
 of Madame de Maintenon and her niece Mademoi- 
 selle d'Aubigne, the Due de Penthievre, the 
 Comtesse de Toulouse, the Due de Noailles, 
 the Duchesse de Villars and the Duchesse de 
 Chaumont. 
 
 The show-piece of the chateau, albeit of recent 
 construction, is known variously as the "Grand 
 Galerie" and the "Longue Galerie. '' Its decora- 
 tions are due to the Due de Noailles, the father 
 of the present proprietor. Virtually it is a por- 
 trait gallery of the Noailles family, going back 
 to the times of the Crusaders and coming down 
 to the twentieth century. 
 
 The apartments of Madame de Maintenon 
 form that portion of the chateau which has the 
 chief sentimental interest. In an ante-chamber 
 is a chaise a porteurs once having belonged to 
 the Marquise, and her portrait by Mignard. 
 Cordovan leather is hung upon the walls, and 
 the restored sleeping-room is hung with a canopy 
 and separated from the rest of the apartment 
 by a balustrade in bois dore. Above the chimney- 
 
Aqueduct of Louis XIV at Maintenon 
 
306 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 portraits of Louis XIV, Louis XIT, Francis I, 
 Henri IV, and Louis XIII. 
 
 A tiny rotunda contains a statue of Henri IV 
 as a child, and portraits of Madame de Maintenon 
 and Louis XIV in their youth. A . portrait 
 gallery of restrained proportions contains effigies 
 of Madame de Maintenon and her niece Mademoi- 
 selle d'Aubigne, the Due de Penthievre, the 
 Comtesse de Toulouse, the Due de Noailles, 
 the Duchesse de Villars and the Duchesse de 
 Chaumont. 
 
 The show-piece of the chateau, albeit of recent 
 construction, is known variously as the "Grand 
 
 Galerie ' ' and the ' Lonsue; GaJene. ' \ Its .decora- 
 tions are due to tne Due de IS'oaines, me father 
 
 of the present proprietor. Virtually it is a por- 
 trait gallery of the Noailles family, going back 
 to the times of the Crusaders and coming down 
 to the twentieth century. 
 
 The apartments of Madame de Maintenon 
 form that portion of the chateau which has the 
 chief sentimental interest. In an ante-chamber 
 is a chaise a porteurs once having l)elonged to 
 the Marquise, and her portrait by Mignard. 
 Cordovan leather is hung upon the walls, and 
 the restored sleeping-room is hung with a canopy 
 and separated from the rest of the apartment 
 by a balustrade in bois dore. Above the chimney- 
 
Maintenon 307 
 
 piece is a portrait of Louis XIV, after Rigaud, 
 and, finally, the oratory is ornamented by a 
 series of elegant sculptures in wood and a magnif- 
 icent Boule coffer. 
 
 In the left wing is found a beautiful chapel 
 of the fifteenth century, which is very pure in 
 style. It is decorated with a series of Renaissance 
 wood panels of the finest workmanship. The 
 coloured glass of the windows is of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 The rebuilt monumental stairway connects 
 directly with a passage leading to the entrance 
 portico which opens on the garden terrace before 
 the parterre. 
 
 The park of Maintenon is in every way ad- 
 mirable, with its pelouse, its great border of trees, 
 its waterways and more than thirty bridges. 
 Jean Cottereau himself planned the first vege- 
 table and fruit garden, or potager, the same whose 
 successor is the delight of the dwellers at Main- 
 tenon to-day. 
 
 The parterre^ the Grand Canal and the two 
 avenues of majestic trees were due to the concep- 
 tion of Le Notre, and their effect, as set off by 
 the alleyed forest background and the pillars 
 of the aqueduct of Louis XIV, is something 
 unique. 
 
 The gardens at Maintenon were perhaps not 
 
308 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Le Notre's most famous work but they followed 
 the best traditions of their time, and because 
 of their vast expanse of ornamental water were, 
 in a way, quite unequalled. 
 
 Ambling off towards the forest is a great avenue 
 flanked with high overhanging shade trees known 
 as the Allee Racine. It gets its name from the 
 fact that the dramatist was wont to take his walks 
 abroad in this direction and woo the muse 
 while he was a guest of Madame de Maintenon. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 RAMBOUILLET AND ITS FOREST 
 
 Rambouillet is one of the most famous of 
 the minor royal chateaux of France. Built under 
 the first of the monarchies, in the midst of the vast 
 forest of Yveline, it has always formed a part 
 
 309 
 
310 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 of the national domain. Even now, under Re- 
 publican France, it is still the scene of the hunts 
 organized for visiting monarchs, and, within the 
 last half dozen years alone, the monarchs of Spain 
 and Belgium, Italy and England have shot hares 
 and stags and pheasants in company with a Re- 
 publican president. 
 
 The occasions have lacked the picturesque 
 costumes of the disciples of Saint Hubert in other 
 times; but the huntsman still winds his horn to 
 the same traditional tune and the banquets given 
 in the chateau on such occasions are, in no small 
 measure, an echo of what has gone before. 
 
 It was in the old chateau of Rambouillet that 
 Francis I died. In the month of March, 1547, 
 Francis, coming from Chambord in the south, 
 crossed the "accursed bridge" and arrived at 
 the foot of the ivy-grown donjon which one sees 
 to-day, the last remaining relic of the mediaeval 
 fortress. For a year the monarch had led a 
 wandering life, revisiting all the favourite haunts 
 of his kingdom, and, though scarce turned fifty, 
 was prematurely aged and gray. 
 
 He was lifted tenderly from his royal coach, and 
 by the winding stair, carried slowly to his apart- 
 ments on the second floor, overlooking the three 
 canals and the "accursed bridge" and the tangled 
 forest beyond. 
 
Rambouillet and its Forest 31 1 
 
 Jacques d'Angennes, to whose ancestors Ram- 
 bouillet one day belonged, acted as host to his 
 royal master and cared for him as a brother, but 
 Francis was dispirited, and growing weaker every 
 moment. He complained bitterly of the death 
 of his favourite son from the plague, and of that 
 of the gay monarch across the channel, his old 
 friend, Henry VIII of England. 
 
 He was restless and wished to move on to Saint 
 Germain, but his condition made that impos- 
 sible. After a feeble attempt to rouse himself 
 for a hunt in the forest, he took to his bed again, 
 with the admonition to his friend d'Angennes, 
 who never left him: ''I am dying, send for my 
 son, Henri." 
 
 The prince joined the mourners around the 
 royal bedside and heard his father's confession 
 thus: "My son, I have sinned greatly; I have 
 been led away by my passions; follow that which 
 I have done that is accredited good, and ignore 
 the evil; above all, cherish France; be good to 
 my people." 
 
 That was all except the final counsel to "be- 
 ware of the Guises; they are traitors." After 
 that he spoke no more. Francis I, the gallant, 
 art-loving monarch, the father of the Renaissance 
 in France, was dead. 
 
 In 1562, Catherine de Medici, accompanied 
 
312 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 by her son Charles IX, here awaited the results 
 of the momentous battle of Dreux. In 1588, 
 Henri III, fleeing Paris after the ^^journee des 
 barricades^ ^ came here to rest, and so fatigued 
 was he on his arrival that he went to bed '^tout 
 hotte:' 
 
 The son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montes- 
 pan came into possession of ''the palace and 
 lands" and in his honour the property was made, 
 in spite of its limited area, a Duche-Pairie. 
 
 Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, as 
 was but natural, because of its proximity to Main- 
 tenon and to Paris, frequently honoured Ram- 
 bouillet with their presence; and, a little later, 
 Louis XV and the beautiful Comtesse de Toulouse 
 followed suit. 
 
 The Due de Penthievre, to whom the property 
 had by this time descended, at the instance of 
 Louis XVI, ceded to that monarch the domain 
 of Rambouillet. 
 
 Louis XVI built vast commons and outbuild- 
 ings, all with some architectural pretence, to 
 house the appanage of the royal hunt, and also 
 built the Laiterie de la Reine and the model farm 
 where, in 1786, he established the first national 
 sheepfold. 
 
 To-day this is the famous Ecole de Bergers, where 
 is quartered the largest flock of moutons a laine 
 
Laiterie de la Reine, RaruhouUlet 
 
Rambouillet and its Forest 313 
 
 (merino sheep) in France, they having been 
 brought chiefly from Spain. 
 
 The Laiterie de la Reine was a tiny sandstone 
 temple with interior fittings chiefly of white 
 marble, and with a great, round centre-table, and 
 smaller tables in each corner, equally of marble, 
 as becomes a hygienically fitted dairy. It was 
 restored by Louis Napoleon during the Second 
 Empire, and is stiU to be seen in all its pristine 
 glory. 
 
 In addition, Louis XVI had at Rambouiflet a 
 private domain of a considerable extent which 
 only the Constitution of 1791 united to the Civil 
 List. This property, except the palace, the park 
 and the forest, was sold later by the State. The 
 Imperial Civil List, formed in 1805 by Napoleon, 
 included these dependencies specifically, and the 
 emperor frequently hunted in the neighbouring 
 forest, though, compared to his predecessors, 
 he had little time to devote to that form of sport. 
 Here, too, was signed, in 1810, the decree which 
 united Holland with the Empire. 
 
 Rambouillet has fallen sadly since the Revolu- 
 tion. A decree of the Representants du Peuple^ 
 of October 14, 1793, provided that '^the furnish- 
 ings of this palace, heretofore royal, shall be sold." 
 Under the Consulate and Empire a certain citizen, 
 Trepsat by name, received an injury in protect- 
 
314 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 ing Napoleon in an attack and, as recompense, 
 was made the official Architect and Conservator 
 of the Palace of Rambouillet. 
 
 Hardly had Trepsat entered upon his functions 
 when he suggested the demolition of the chateau. 
 Napolean hesitated, but finally partially agreed, 
 insisting, however, that enough should be left 
 to form a comfortable hunting-lodge. Trepsat 
 would have torn down all and rebuilt anew. 
 Napoleon made an appointment with his archi- 
 tect to visit the property and discuss the matter 
 in detail the following year (1805), but at that 
 moment he was campaigning in Austria, so the 
 interview was not held. This was Trepsat's 
 chance, and he found a pretext to overthrow the 
 entire east wing, but was stopped before he was 
 able to further carry out his ignorant act of 
 vandalism. Trepsat was severely reprimanded 
 by the emperor himself, and was ordered to put 
 things back as he found them. "Even the most 
 battered and sickly architect who ever lived 
 could hardly have had a worse inspiration,'' said 
 Napoleon. Trepsat, be it recalled, had lost a 
 leg. 
 
 The restoration was commenced, but Trepsat, 
 committing one fault after another, and finally 
 juggling with the accounts, was obliged to take 
 on a collaborator by the name of Famin, a young 
 
Rambouillet and its Forest 315 
 
 pensionnaire of the Academie des Beaux Arts, 
 recently returned from Rome. It was he who 
 saved Rambouillet from utter destruction. 
 
 The apartments of Napoleon, which were those 
 given over to public functions in the time of the 
 Comte de Toulouse, had been, and were, most 
 luxuriously appointed. That which shows most 
 clearly the imprint of the imperial regime is the 
 curious Salle de Bains which was in direct com- 
 munication with the study, or Cabinet de Travail. 
 
 It might have been a room in a Pompeian 
 house so classic wxre its lines and decorations. 
 There was a series of medallions painted on the 
 wall representing portraits of members of the 
 imperial family. These were chiefly portraits 
 of the female sex, and Napoleon, the first time 
 he entered his bath, in an excess of modesty and 
 fury cried out: '^Who is the ass that did this 
 thing?" Immediately they were painted out, 
 and, for the sum of nine hundred and fifty francs, 
 another artist was found who filled the frames 
 of the medallions with sights and scenes asso- 
 ciated less intimately with Napoleonic history. 
 
 Under the Empire the architect Famin was 
 commissioned to furnish a series of architectural 
 embellishments to the gardens of Rambouillet. 
 Various stone statues were added and an octagon 
 pavilion on the He des Roches was restored and 
 
316 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 redecorated. Two great avenues were cut through 
 the parterre^ and, as if fearing indiscretions on 
 the part of his entourage, the emperor caused 
 to be planted long rows of lindens and tulip 
 trees, which were again masked by two rows of 
 poplars. The peloux of the Jardin Fran^ais 
 were reestablished and the curves and sweeps 
 of the paths of the Jardin Anglais laid out anew. 
 
 This ancient government property, arisen anew 
 from its ruins, now bore the name of the Pavilion 
 du Roi de Rome, after the son of Napoleon. 
 The Ecuries, or stables, which had been built 
 by Louis XVI, were transformed into kennels, 
 and various "posts," or miniature shooting- 
 boxes, were distributed here and there through 
 the park. 
 
 Under the Restoration the transformation of 
 the chateau, which had been projected ever since 
 the time of Louis XVI, undertaken and then 
 abandoned by Napoleon, was again commenced, 
 but on a less ambitious scale than formerly. 
 Chiefly this transformation consisted of opening 
 up windows, thus making practically a new 
 facade. It was not wholly a happy thought, 
 and the spirit of economy of Louis XVIII, no 
 less, perhaps, than other motives, arrested this 
 mutilation and the architect was discharged 
 from his functions. 
 
 i 
 
^^ 
 
 
 ■"'^'^'»#4%... 
 
 Chateau de Rambonillet 
 
Rambouillet and its Forest 317 
 
 Again the hand of fate fell hard upon Ram- 
 bouillet and its definite eclipse as a royal abode 
 came with the abdication of Charles X. The 
 abdication was actually signed at Rambouillet, 
 and here, in the same Salle du Conseil, the dau- 
 phin renounced the throne in favour of the young 
 Due de Bordeaux. 
 
 It was at Rambouillet that Charles X passed 
 those solemn last days before the abdication. 
 He had been unmercifully harassed at Paris and 
 sought a quiet retreat, '^not too far from the 
 Tuileries," where he might repose a moment 
 and take counsel. In view of later events this 
 was significant; perhaps it was significant at the 
 time, for the king speedily repented his abdica- 
 tion. It was too late, for he had classed as rebels 
 all the royalists who would have accepted the 
 ^^ infant king" as their monarch, even though 
 the following Revolution prevented this. 
 
 It was on the third of August that the commission- 
 ers, deputies of the Provisionary Government, were 
 brought before the king at Rambouillet. They an- 
 nounced that twenty-five thousand armed Parisians 
 were marching on the chateau to compel him to quit 
 his kingdom. It was not a matter for debate, and at 
 nine o'clock on the same night the monarch gave as- 
 sent to being conducted to Cherbourg, where he em- 
 barked upon his fatal exile. 
 
318 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 After 1830, with a business-like instinct, the 
 authorities rented the property for twelve years 
 to the Baron Schickler, and, at the end of the 
 Revolution of 1848, its career became more 
 plebeian still; it was rented to a man who converted 
 the palace into an elaborately appointed road- 
 house, and the lawns and groves into open-air 
 restaurants and dancing places. 
 
 Under the Gouvernement du Juillet the cha- 
 teau, the park and the forest were removed from 
 the Civil List, and entered upon the inventory 
 of the Administration des Domaines. 
 
 Under the Second Empire Rambouillet ap- 
 peared again on the monarchial Civil List. Na- 
 poleon III came here at times to hunt, but not 
 to live, and of his rare appearances at the chateau 
 but little record exists. Since 1870 Rambouillet 
 has belonged to the Republican Government, 
 and, since royalties no longer exist in France, 
 Republican chiefs of state now take the lead in 
 Rambouillet's national hunts. 
 
 The property, as it stands to-day, is divided 
 readily into four distinct parts, the palace, the 
 parterre, the Jar din Anglais and the park. The 
 grove of lindens is rem^arkable in every respect, 
 the ornamental waters are gracious and of vast 
 extent, and the Laiterie and the Ferme are de- 
 cidedly models of their kind; but the Chau- 
 
Rambouillet and its Forest 3i9 
 
 miere des Coquillages, a rustic summer-house 
 of rocks and shells and questionable debris of 
 all sorts, is hideous and unworthy. 
 
 Not the least of the charming features of the 
 park is the great alley of Louisiana cypresses, 
 one of the real sights, indeed, perfecting the 
 charm of the great body of water to the left of 
 the chateau. 
 
 Of the structure which existed in the four- 
 teenth century, the chateau of Rambouillet re- 
 tains to-day only a great battlemented tower, 
 and some low-lying buildings attached to it. 
 Successive enlargements, restorations and muti- 
 lations have changed much of the original aspect 
 of the edifice, and modern structures flank and 
 half envelop that which, to all eyes, is manifestly 
 ancient. The debris of the old fortress, which 
 was the foundation of all, adds its bit to the con- 
 glomerate mass of which the chief and most 
 imposing elements are the two tall corps de logis 
 in the centre. 
 
 Within, a rather banal Salle de Bal is shown 
 as the chief feature, but it is conventionally 
 unlovely enough to be passed without emotion, 
 save that its easterly portion takes in the cabinet^ 
 or private apartment, where Charles X signed 
 his abdication. Adjoining this is the bedroom 
 occupied by that monarch, and a dining-room 
 
320 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 which also served His Majesty, and which is 
 still used by the head of the government on 
 ceremonious occasions. Its decorative scheme 
 is of the period of Louis XV. 
 
 The Salle de Conseil is of the period of Charles 
 X, and has some fairly imposing carved wain- 
 scotings showing in places the monograms of 
 Marie Sophie and the Comtesse de Toulouse. 
 
 A great map, or plan, of the Forest of Ram- 
 bouillet covers the end wall, and, if not esthetically 
 beautiful, is at least useful and very interesting. 
 
 It was executed under Louis XVI and doubt- 
 less served its purpose well when the hunters 
 gathered after a day afield and recounted anec- 
 dotes of their adventures. 
 
 There is another apartment on the ground 
 floor which is known as the Salle a Manger des 
 Rendezvous de Chasse, whose very name ex- 
 plains well its functions. 
 
 The Cabinet de Travail of Marie Antoinette 
 and the Salle de Bain of Napoleon have some- 
 thing more than a mere sentimental interest; 
 they were decidedly practical adjuncts to the 
 royal palace. 
 
 Napoleon's bath took the form of a rather 
 short, deep pool. Its fresco decorations, as seen 
 to-day — replacing that family portrait gallery 
 which Napoleon caused to be painted out — 
 
Rambouillet and its Forest 321 
 
 are after the pseudo-antique manner and repre- 
 sent bird's-eye views of various French cities and 
 towns, while a series of painted armorial trophies 
 decorates the ceiling. 
 
 On the second floor are the apartments occupied 
 by the Duchesse de Berry and those of the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme. 
 
 In the great round tower is the circular apart- 
 ment where Francis I breathed his last. It is this 
 great truss-vaulted room that most interests 
 the visitor to Rambouillet. 
 
 On the ground floor is another Salle de Bain, 
 quite as theatrically disposed as that of Na- 
 poleon. Its construction was due to the Comte 
 de Toulouse whose taste ran to Delft tiles and 
 polychrome panels, framing two imposing marines, 
 also worked out in tiles. 
 
 The parterre^ extending before the main build- 
 ing, is of an ampleness scarcely conceivable until 
 once viewed. It is purely French in design and 
 is of the epoch of the tenancy of the Comte de 
 Toulouse. Before the admirably grouped lindens 
 was a boathouse, and off in every direction ran 
 alleys of acacias, while here and there tulip beds, 
 rose gardens and hedges of rhododendrons flanked 
 the very considerable ornamental waters. This 
 body of water, in the form of a trapezoid, is di- 
 vided by four grass-grown islets and separates 
 
322 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 the Jardin Anglais from the Jardin Fran5:ais. 
 One of the islets is known as the He des Roches 
 and contains the Grotte de Rabelais, so named 
 in honour of the Cure of Meudon, when he was 
 presented at Rambouillet by the Cardinal du 
 Bellay. It was on this isle that were given those 
 famous fetes in honour of the ^' beaux esprits^* 
 who formed the assiduous cortege of Catherine 
 de Vivonne, mythological, pagan and outre. 
 
 The Jardin Anglais at Rambouillet is the final 
 expression of the species in France. Designed 
 under the Due de Penthievre, it was restored 
 and considerably enlarged by Napoleon and, 
 following the contours of an artificial rivulet, it 
 fulfils the description that its name implies. 
 
 More remote, and half hidden from the pre- 
 cincts of the chateau, are the Chaumiere and 
 the Ermitage and they recall the background of 
 a Fragonard or a Watteau. It is all very ^^ stagy" 
 — but, since it exists, can hardly be called unreal. 
 
 The park proper, containing more than twelve 
 hundred hectares, is one of the largest and most 
 thickly wooded in France. Between the par- 
 terre and the French and English garden and the 
 park lie the Farm and the Laiterie de la Reine, 
 the caprice of Louis XVI when he would content 
 Marie Antoinette and give her something to think 
 about besides her troubles. Napoleon stripped 
 
Rambouillet and its Forest 323 
 
 it of its furnishings to install them, for a great part, 
 at Malmaison, for that other unhappy woman — 
 Josephine. Later, to give pleasure to Marie 
 Louise, he ordered them brought back again to 
 Rambouillet, but it was to Napoleon III that 
 the restoration of this charming conceit was due. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Rambouillet was the 
 famous Chateau de Chasse, or royal shooting- 
 box, which Louis XV was fond of making a place 
 of rendezvous. 
 
 On the banks of the Etang de Pourras stood 
 this Chateau de Saint Hubert, named for the 
 patron saint of huntsmen, and within its walls 
 was passed many a happy evening by king and 
 courtiers after a busy day with stag and hound. 
 
 The hunt in FraTice was perhaps at the most 
 picturesque phase of its existence at this time. 
 The hunt of to-day is but a pale, though bloody, 
 imitation of the real sport of the days when mon- 
 archs and their seigneurs in slashed doublet 
 and hose and velvet cloaks pursued the deer of 
 the forest to his death, and knew not the maitre 
 d^equipage of to-day. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 • CHANTILLY 
 
 Chantilly, because of its royal associations, 
 properly finds its place in every traveller's French 
 itinerary. Not only did Chantilly come to its 
 great glory through royal favour, but in later 
 years the French government has taken it under 
 its wing, the chateau, the stables and the vast 
 park and forest, until the ensemble is to-day 
 as much of a national show place as Versailles 
 or Saint Germain. It is here in the marble 
 halls, where once dwelt the Condes and the 
 Montmorencys, that are held each year the ex- 
 aminations of the French Academie des Beaux 
 Arts. And besides this it is a place of pilgrimage 
 for thousands of tourists who, as a class, for a 
 couple of generations previously, never got farther 
 away from the capital than Saint Cloud. 
 
 Many charters of the tenth century make 
 mention of the estates of Chantilly, which at 
 that time belonged to the Seigneurs of Senlis. 
 The chateau was an evolution from a block - 
 Jiouse, or fortress, erected by Catulus in Gallo- 
 
 324 
 
Chantilly 
 
 325 
 
326 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Roman times and four centuries later it remained 
 practically of the same rank. In the fourteenth 
 century the chateau was chiefly a vast fortress 
 surrounded by a water defence in the form of 
 an enlarged moat by means of which it was able 
 to resist the Bourguignons and never actually 
 fell until after the taking of Meaux by the English 
 king, Henry V. 
 
 Jean II de Montmorency, by his marriage 
 with Marguerite d'Orgemont, came to be the 
 possessor of the domain, their son, in turn, be- 
 coming the heir. It was this son, Guillaume, 
 who became one of the most brilliant servitors 
 of the monarchs Louis XI, Louis XII, and Francis 
 I, and it was through these friends at court that 
 Chantilly first took on its regal aspect. 
 
 In turn the celebrated Anne de Montmo- 
 rency, Connetable de France, came into the 
 succession and finding the old fortress, albeit 
 somewhat enlarged and furbished up by his 
 predecessor, less of a palatial residence than 
 he would have, separated the ancient chateau- 
 fort from an added structure by an ornamental 
 moat, or canal, and laid out the pelouse, parterres 
 and the alleys of greensward leading to the forest 
 which make one of the great charms of Chantilly 
 to-day. 
 
 Here resided, as visitors to be sure, but for 
 
Statue of Le Notre, Chantilly 
 
Chantilly 327 
 
 more or less extended periods, and at various 
 times, Charles V, Charles IX and Henri IV, 
 each of them guests of the hospitable and am- 
 bitious Montmorencys. 
 
 Chantilly passed in 1632 to Charlotte, the 
 sister of the last Marechal de Montmorency, 
 the wife of Henri II, Prince de Conde, the mother 
 of the Grand Conde, the Prince de Conti and 
 the Duchesse de Longueville. 
 
 With the Grand Conde came the greatest 
 fame, the apotheosis, of Chantilly. This noble 
 was so enamoured of this admirable residence 
 that he never left it from his thoughts and dec- 
 orated it throughout in the most lavish taste 
 of his time, destroying at this epoch the chateau 
 of the moyen-age and the fortress. These were 
 the days of gallant warriors with a taste for pretty 
 things in art, not mere bloodthirsty slaughterers. 
 
 On the foundations of the older structures 
 there now rose an admirable pile (not that which 
 one sees to-day, however), embellished by the 
 surroundings which were evolved from the brain 
 of the landscape gardener, Le Notre. The 
 Revolution made way with this lavish structure 
 and with the exception of the Chatelet, or the 
 Petit Chateau (designed by Jean Bullant in 1560, 
 and remodelled within by Mansart) the present- 
 day work is a creation of the Due d'Aumale, 
 
328 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 the heir to the Condes' name and fame, to whom 
 the National Assembly gave back his ancestral 
 estates which had in the meantime come into 
 the inventory of royal belongings through the 
 claims established by the might of the Second 
 Empire. 
 
 Back to the days of the Grand Conde one 
 reads of an extended visit made by Louis XIV 
 to his principal courtier. It was at an expense 
 of two hundred thousand ecus that the welcom- 
 ing fete was accomplished. Madame de Sevigne 
 has recounted the event more graphically than 
 any other chronicler, and it would be presump- 
 tion to review it here at length. The incident 
 of Vatel alone has become classic. 
 
 To the coterie of poets at Rambouillet must 
 be added those of Chantilly; their sojourn here 
 added much of moment to the careers and rep- 
 utations of Boileau, Racine, Bourdaloue and 
 Bossuet. It was the latter, who, in the funeral 
 oration which he delivered on the death of the 
 Prince de Conde, said: 
 
 "Here under his own roof one saw the Grand 
 Conde as if he were at the head of his armies, a 
 noble always great, as well in action as in re- 
 pose. Here you have seen him surrounded by 
 his friends in this magnificent dwelling, in the 
 shady alleys of the forest or beside the purling 
 
Chantilly 329 
 
 waters of the brooks which are silent neither 
 day nor night." 
 
 The Grand Conde died, however, at Fontaine- 
 bleau. The heir, Henri- Jules de Bourbon, did 
 his share towards keeping up and embellishing 
 the property, and to him was due that charming 
 wildw^ood retreat known as the Pare de Sylvie. 
 
 Louis-Henri de Bourbon, Minister of Louis XV 
 at the commencement of his reign, had gained 
 a fabulous sum of money in the notorious ^^Law^s 
 Bank" affair, and, with a profligate and prod- 
 igal taste in spending, lived a life of the grandest 
 of grand seigneurs at Chantilly, to which, as his 
 donation to its architectural importance, he 
 contributed the famous Ecuries, or stables. To 
 show that he was persona grata at court he gave 
 a great fete here for Louis XV and the Duchesse 
 du Barry. 
 
 The last Prince de Conde but one before 
 the Revolution built the Chateau d'Enghien in 
 the neighbourhood, and sought to people the 
 Pare de Sylvie with a rustic colony of thatched 
 maisonettes and install his favourites therein in 
 a weak imitation of what had been done in the 
 Petit Trianon. The note was manifestly a false 
 one and did not endure, not even is its echo 
 plainly audible for all is hearsay to-day and no 
 very definite record of the circumstance exists. 
 
330 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 Chantilly in later times has been a favourite 
 abode with modern monarchs. The King of 
 Denmark, the Emperor Joseph II and the King 
 of Sweden were given hospitahty here, and much 
 money was spent for their entertainment, and 
 much red and green fire burned for their amuse- 
 ment and that of their suites. 
 
 The Revolution's fell blow carried off the 
 principal parts of the Conde's admirable con- 
 structions and it is fortunate that the Petit Cha- 
 teau escaped the talons of the ''Bande Noire." 
 Immediately afterwards the Chateau d'Enghien 
 and the Ecuries were turned over to the uses of 
 the Minister of War, and the authorities of the 
 Jardin des Plantes were given permission to 
 transplant and transport anything which pleased 
 their fancy among the exotics which had been 
 set out by Le Notre in Chantilly's famous par- 
 terres. 
 
 Under the imperial regime the Foret de Chan- 
 tilly was given in fee simple to Queen Hortense, 
 though all was ultimately returned to the Conde 
 heirs after the Restoration. It was at this period 
 that Chantilly received the visit of Alexander, 
 Emperor of Russia, and the historian's account 
 of that visit makes prominent the fact that dur- 
 ing the periods of rain it was necessary that an 
 umbrella be carried over the imperial head as 
 
Chantilly 331 
 
 he passed through the corridors of the palace 
 from one apartment to another. 
 
 The host of the emperor died here in 1818 
 and his son, spending perhaps half of his time 
 here, cared little for restoration and spent all 
 his waking hours hunting in the forest, returning 
 to the Petit Chateau only to eat and sleep. 
 
 The Due de Bourbon added to the flanking 
 wings of the Petit Chateau and cleaned up the 
 debris which was fast becoming moss-grown, 
 weed encumbered and altogether disgraceful. 
 The moats were cleaned out of, their miasmatic 
 growth and certain of the grass-carpeted par- 
 terres resown and given a semblance of their 
 former selves. 
 
 Some days after the Revolution of 1830 the 
 Prince de Conde died in a most dramatic fashion, 
 and his son, the Due d'Enghien, having been 
 shot at Vincennes under the Empire, he willed 
 the Due d'Aumale and his issue his legal de- 
 scendants forever. 
 
 Towards 1840 the Due d'Aumale sought to 
 reconstruct the splendours of Chantilly, but a 
 decree of January 22, 1852, banished the entire 
 Orleans family and interrupted the work when 
 the property was sold to the English bankers, 
 Coutts and Company, for the good round sum 
 of eleven million francs, not by any means an 
 
332 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 extravagant price for this estate of royal aspect 
 and proportions. The National Assembly of 
 1872 did the only thing it could do in justice to 
 tradition — bought the property in and decreed 
 that it be restored to its legitimate proprietor. 
 
 It was as late as 1876 that the Due d'Aumale 
 undertook the restoration of the Chatelet and 
 the rebuilding of the new chateau which is seen 
 to-day. The latter is from the designs of Henri 
 Daumet, member of the Institut de France. 
 
 In general the structure of to-day occupies 
 the site of the moyen-age chateau but is of quite 
 a different aspect. 
 
 The Due d'Aumale made a present of the 
 chateau and all that was contained therein to 
 the Institut de France. From a purely sordid 
 point of view it was a gift valued at something 
 like thirty-five million francs, not so great as 
 many new-world public legacies of to-day, but 
 in certain respects of a great deal more artistic 
 worth. 
 
 The mass is manifestly imposing, made up as it 
 is, of four distinct parts, the Eglise, dating from 
 1692, the Ecuries, the Chatelet — or Petit Chateau, 
 and the Chateau proper — the modern edifice. 
 
 Before the celebrated Ecuries is a green, vel- 
 vety pelouse which gives an admirable approach. 
 The architecture of the Ecuries is of a heavy 
 
Chantilly 333 
 
 order and the sculptured decorations actually 
 of little esthetic worth, representing as they 
 do hunting trophies and the like. Before the 
 great fountain one deciphers a graven plaque 
 which reads as follows: 
 
 Louis Henri de Bourbon 
 
 Prince de Conde 
 
 Fut Construire Cette Ecurie 
 
 1 701 — 1784. 
 
 Within the two wings may be stabled nearly 
 two hundred horses. The Grand Ecuries at 
 Chantilly are assuredly one of the finest ex- 
 amples extant of that luxuriant art of the eight- 
 eenth century French builder. Luxurious, ex- 
 cessively ornate and overpowering it is, and, for 
 that reason, open to question. The work of the 
 period knew not the discreet middle road. It was 
 of Chantilly that it was said that the live stock was 
 better lodged than its masters. The architect of 
 this portion of the chateau was Jean Aubert, one 
 of the collaborators of Jules Hardouin Mansart. 
 
 The characteristics of Chantilly, take it as 
 a whole, the chateau, the park and the forest, 
 are chiefly theatrical, but with an all-abiding 
 regard for the proprieties, for beyond a certain 
 heaviness of architectural style in parts of the 
 chateau everything is of the finely focussed rel- 
 
334 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 ative order of which the French architect and 
 landscape gardener have for ages been past 
 masters. 
 
 The real French garden is here to be seen 
 almost at its best, its squares and ovals of grassy- 
 green apportioned off from the mass by gravelled 
 walks and ornamented waters. The "tapis 
 d'orienV^ effect, so frequently quoted by the 
 French in v^Titing of such works, is hardly ex- 
 celled elsewhere. 
 
 All this shocked the mid-eighteenth century 
 English traveller, but it was because he did not, 
 perhaps could not, understand. Rigby, "the 
 Norwich alderman'' as the French rather con- 
 temptuously referred to this fine old English 
 gentleman, said frankly of Chantilly: "All this 
 has cost dear and produced a result far from 
 pleasing." He would have been better pleased 
 doubtless with a privet or box hedge and an 
 imitation plaster rockery, things which have 
 never agreed with French taste, but which were 
 the rule in pretentious English gardens of the 
 same period. Rigby must indeed have been a 
 " grmcheaUj^^ as the French called him, for this 
 same up-country gentleman said of Versailles: 
 "Lovely surrounding country but palace and 
 park badly designed." Versailles is not that, 
 whatever else its faults may be. 
 
Chantilly 335 
 
 Chantilly is more than a palace, it is a museum 
 of nature, a hermitage of art and of history. 
 The fantasy of its tourelles, its lucarnes and its 
 pignons are something one may hardly see else- 
 where in such profusion, and the fact that they 
 are modern is forgotten in the impression of the 
 general silhouette. 
 
 The adventurer who first built a donjon on 
 the Rocher de Chantilly little knew with what 
 seigneurial splendour the site was ultimately 
 to be graced. From a bare outpost it was trans- 
 formed, as if by magic, into a Renaissance palace 
 of a supreme beauty. The Due d'Aumale said 
 in his '^Acte de Donation de Chantilly": ''It 
 stands complete and varied, a monument of 
 French art in all its branches, a history of the 
 best epochs of our glory." 
 
 Among all the palatial riches neighbouring 
 upon Paris, not forgetting Versailles, Compiegne, 
 Fontainebleau, Pierrefonds and Rambouillet, 
 Chantilly, by the remarkable splendour of its 
 surroundings, its situation and the artistic treas- 
 ures which it possesses, is in a class by itself. 
 It is a class more clearly defined by the historic 
 souvenirs which surround it than any other 
 contemporary structure of this part of France. 
 
 Its corridors and gravelled walks and the long 
 alleys of the park and forest may not take on 
 
336 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 the fete-like aspect which they knew in the eight- 
 eenth century, but they are not sohtary Hke 
 those of Fontainebleau and Rambouillet, nor 
 noisily overrun like those of Versailles or Saint 
 Germain. 
 
 The ornamental waters which surround the 
 Chateau de Chantilly are of a grand and nearly 
 unique beauty. It is a question if they are not 
 finer than the waters of Versailles, indeed they 
 preceded them and may even have inspired 
 them. 
 
 The Chatelet, the chateau proper and the 
 chapel form a group quite distinct from the 
 Ecuries. The Cour d'Honneur is really splendid 
 and one hardly realizes the juxtaposition of 
 modernity. The pavilion attributed to Jean Bul- 
 lant, the western facade, the ancient Petit Chateau, 
 the Grand Vestibule, the Grand Escalier and the 
 Gallerie des Cerfs and a dozen other apartments 
 are of a rare and imposing beauty, though losing 
 somewhat their distinctive aspect by reason of 
 the objets de musee distributed about their walls 
 and floors. 
 
 One of the landscape gems of Chantilly is 
 the Pelouse, a vast esplanade of greensward 
 now forming, in part, the celebrated race track 
 of Chantilly. Sport ever formed a part of the 
 outdoor program at Chantilly, but that of to- 
 
Chateau de Chantilly 
 
Chantilly 337 
 
 day is just a bit more horsey than that of old, 
 a good deal less picturesque and assuredly more 
 vulgarly banal as to its cachet than the hunts, 
 the tourneys and courses of the romantic age. 
 
 Thousands come to Chantilly to wager their 
 coin on scrubs and dark horses ridden by third- 
 rate ^^warned-ofT" jockeys from other lands, 
 but probably not ten in ten thousand of the 
 lookers on at the Grand Prix du Jockey Club 
 in May ever make the occasion of the spring 
 meeting an opportunity for visiting the fine old 
 historic monument of the Condes. 
 
 The ^^ Races" of Chantilly may be given a 
 further word in that they are an outgrowth of 
 a foundation by the Due d' Orleans in 1832. 
 The track forms a circuit of two thousand metres, 
 and occupies quite the best half of the Pelouse, 
 closed in on one side by the thick-grown Foret 
 de Chantilly and flanked, in part, on the other 
 by the historic Ecuries, with the Tribune, or 
 grand stand, just to the south. 
 
 Many tourists arrive at Chantilly by auto, 
 stop brusquely before the Grande Grille, rush 
 through the galleries of the chateau, do ^^cent 
 pas^^ in the park, give a cursory glance at the 
 stables and are off; but more, many more, with 
 slower steps and saner minds, drink in the charms 
 which are offered on all sides and consider 
 
338 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 the time well spent even if they have paid "Boule- 
 vard Prices" at the Restaurant du Grand Conde 
 for their dejeuner. 
 
 It has been said that a museum is a reunion 
 of objets cfart brought about by a methodical 
 grouping, either chronologically or categorically. 
 The Due d'Aumale's Musee de Chantilly is 
 more an expression of personal taste. He col- 
 lected what he wished and he arranged his col- 
 lections as suited his fancy. 
 
 The famous Musee de Chantilly, which is 
 the lodestone which draws most folk thither, 
 so admirably housed, was a gift of the Due 
 d'Aumale who, for the glory of his ancestors, 
 and the admiration of the world, to say nothing 
 of his own personal satisfaction, here gathered 
 together an eclectic collection of curious and 
 artistic treasures, certainly not the least interest- 
 ing or valuable among the great public collec- 
 tions in France. The effect produced is some- 
 times startling, a Messonier is cheek by jowl 
 with a Baron Gros, a Decamps vis a vis to a 
 Veronese, and a Lancret is bolstered on either 
 hand by a Poussin and a Nattier. Amid all 
 this disorder there is, however, an undeniable, 
 inexplicable charm. 
 
 There are three distinct apartments worth, 
 more than all the others, the glance of the hurried 
 
Chantilly 339 
 
 visitor to the Musee Conde at Chantilly. In 
 the first, the Santuario, is the Livre d'Heures 
 of Etienne Chevalier, by Jean Fouquet, con- 
 sidered as the most important relic of primitive 
 French art extant. 
 
 The Cabinet des Gemmes comes second, and 
 here is the celebrated ^^Diamant Rose, '^ called 
 the Grand Conde. 
 
 Finally there is the Galerie de Psyche, with 
 forty-four coloured glass windows, executed for 
 the Connetable de Montmorency in 1 541 -1542. 
 
 The great collection of historical and artistic 
 treasures stowed away within the walls of Chan- 
 tilly the Due d'Aumale selected himself in order 
 to associate his own name with the glorious 
 memory of the Condes, who were so intimately 
 connected with the chateau. 
 
 The Due sought to recover such of the former 
 furnishings of the chateau as had been dissipated 
 during the Revolution whenever they could be 
 heard of and could be had at public or private 
 sale. 
 
 In this connection a word on Chantilly lace 
 may not be found inapropos. The Chantilly 
 lace of to-day, it is well to recall, is a mechanically 
 produced article of commerce, turned out by 
 the running mile from Nottingham, England, 
 though in the days when Chantilly's porcelains 
 
340 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 rivalled those of Sevres it was purely a local 
 product. One may well argue therefore that 
 the bulk of the Chantilly lace sold in the shops 
 of Chantilly to-day is not on a par with the ad- 
 mirable examples to be seen in the glass cases 
 of the museum. 
 
 A wooded alley leading to the great park 
 runs between the main edifice and the Chateau 
 d'Enghien, a gentle incline descending again 
 to the sunken gardens in a monumental stair- 
 way of easy slope, the whole a quintessence of 
 much that is best of the art of the landscape 
 gardener of the time. 
 
 To the left extends the vast Jardin Anglais 
 — a veritable French Jardin Anglais. Let not 
 one overlook the distinction: On conventional 
 lines it is pretty, dainty and pleasing, but the 
 species lacks the dignified formality of the Italian 
 garden or the ingenious arrangement of the 
 French. Its curves and ovals and circles are 
 annoying after the lignes droites and the right 
 angles and the hroderies of the French variety. 
 
 The Foret de Chantilly covers two thousand 
 four hundred and forty-nine hectares and ex- 
 tends from the Bois de Herivaux on one side to 
 the Foret de Senlis on the other. The rendez- 
 vous-de-chasse was, in the old days, and is to-day 
 on rare occasions, at the Rond Point, to which 
 
Chantilly 341 
 
 a dozen magnificent forest roads lead from all 
 directions, that from the town being paved with 
 Belgian blocks, the dread of automobilists, but 
 delightful to ride over in muddy weather. The 
 Route de Connetable, so called, is well-nigh 
 ideal of its kind. It launches forth opposite 
 the chateau and at its entrance are two flanking 
 stone lions. It is of a soft soil suitable for horse- 
 back riding, but entirely unsuited for wheeled 
 traffic of any kind. 
 
 Another of the great forest roads leads to the 
 Chateau de la Reine Blanche, a diminutive 
 edifice in the pointed style, with a pair of svelte 
 towers coiffed candle-snuffer fashion. Tradi- 
 tion, and very ancient and somewhat dubious 
 tradition, attributes the edifice as having be- 
 longed to Blanche de Navarre, the wife of Philippe 
 de Valois. Again it is thought to have been a 
 sort of royal attachment to the Abbaye de Royau- 
 mont, built near by, by Saint Louis. This quaintly 
 charming manor of minute dimensions was a 
 tangible, habitable abode in 1333, but for genera- 
 tions after appears to have fallen into desuetude. 
 A mill grew up on the site, and again the walls 
 of a chateau obliterated the more mundane, 
 work-a-day mill. The Due de Bourbon restored 
 the whole place in 1826 that it might serve him 
 and his noble friends as a hunting-lodge. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 compi:6gne and its forest 
 
 One of the most talked of and the least visited 
 of the minor French palaces is that of Com- 
 piegne. The archeologists coming to Compiegne 
 first notice that all its churches are ^'malorien- 
 teesy It is a minor point with most folk, but 
 when one notes that its five churches have their 
 high altars turned to all points of the compass, 
 instead of to the east, it is assuredly a fact to be 
 noticed, even if one is more romantically inclined 
 than devout. 
 
 Through and through, Compiegne, its palace, 
 its hotel-de-ville, its forest, is delightful. Old 
 and new huddle close together, and the art nouveau 
 decorations of a branch of a great Parisian de- 
 partment store flank a butcher's stall which looks 
 as though it might have come down from the 
 times when all trading was done in the open air. 
 
 Compiegne's origin goes back to the antique. 
 It was originally Compendium, a Roman station 
 situated on the highway between Soissons and 
 Beauvais. A square tower, Caesar's Tower, 
 
 342 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest. 
 
 343 
 
 gave a military aspect to the walled and fortified 
 station, and evidences are not wanting to-day 
 to suggest with what strength its fortifications 
 were endowed. 
 
 €^^ 
 
 1' ^^^^ ■ 
 
 a' Honneur :SV>J^ V 
 
 Place d'Apmes 
 
 It was here that the first Frankish kings built 
 their dwelling, and here that Pepin-le-Bref re- 
 ceived the gracious gift of an organ from the 
 
344 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 Emperor Constantine, and here, in 8;^^, that an 
 assembly of bishops and nobles deposed Louis- 
 le-Debonnaire. 
 
 Charles-le-Chauve received Pope Jean VIII 
 in great pomp in the palace at Compiegne, and 
 it was this Pope who gave absolution to Louis- 
 le-Begue, who died here but a year after, 879. 
 The last of the Carlovingians, Louis V (le-Faine- 
 ant), died also at Compiegne in 987. 
 
 The city is thus shown to have been a favourite 
 place of sojourn for the kings of the Franks, 
 and those of the first and second races. As 
 was but obvious many churchly councils were 
 held here, fourteen were recorded in five cen- 
 turies, but none of great ecclesiastical or civil 
 purport. 
 
 The city first got its charter in 11 53, but the 
 Merovingian city having fallen into a sort of gal- 
 loping decay Saint Louis gave it to the Domini- 
 cans in 1260, who here founded, by the orders 
 of the king, a Hotel Dieu which, in part, is the 
 same edifice which performs its original func- 
 tions to-day. 
 
 The first great love of Compiegne was ex- 
 pressed by Charles V, who rebuilt the palace of 
 Charles-le-Chauve in a manner which was far 
 from making it a monumental or artistically 
 disposed edifice. It was originally called the 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 345 
 
 Louvre, from the Latin word opis {Vxuvre)^ 
 a word which was applied to all the chateaux- 
 forts of these parts. The same monarch did 
 better with the country-houses which he after- 
 wards built at Saint Germain and Vincennes; 
 perhaps by this time he had grown wise in his 
 dealings with architects. 
 
 Like all the little towns of the Valois, Com- 
 piegne abounds in souvenirs of the Guerre de 
 Cent Ans, Jeanne d'Arc, Louis XIV, Louis XV, 
 Napoleon I and Napoleon III, and as its monu- 
 ments attest this glory, so its forest, one of the 
 finest in France, awakens almost as many his- 
 torical memories. 
 
 Wars and rumors of war kept Compiegne in 
 a turmoil for centuries, but the most theatrical 
 episode was the famous ^^ sortie^ ^ made by Jeanne 
 d'Arc when she was attempting to defend the 
 city against the combined English and Bur- 
 gundian troops. It was an episode in which 
 faint heart, perhaps treason, played an unwel- 
 come part, for while the gallant maid was tak- 
 ing all manner of chances outside the gates the 
 military governor, Guillaume de Flavy, ordered 
 the barriers of the great portal closed behind 
 her and her men. 
 
 Near the end of the Pont de Saint Louis Jeanne 
 d'Arc fell into the hands of the besiegers. An 
 
346 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 archer from Picardy captured her single handed, 
 and, for a round sum in silver or in kind, turned 
 her over to her torturer, Jean de Luxembourg. 
 A statue of the maid is found on the public *' Place, " 
 and the Tour Jeanne d'Arc, a great circular 
 donjon of the thirteenth century, is near by. 
 Another souvenir is to be found in the ancient 
 Hotel de Boeuf, at No. 9 Rue de Paris, where the 
 maid lodged from the eighteenth to the twenty- 
 third of August, 1429, awaiting the entry of 
 Charles VII. 
 
 With the era of Francis I that gallant and 
 fastidious monarch came to take up his residence 
 at Compiegne. He here received his "friend 
 and enemy," Charles V, but strangely enough 
 there is no monument in Compiegne to-day 
 which is intimately associated with the stay 
 here of the art-loving Francis. He preferred, 
 after aU, his royal manor at Villers-Cotterets 
 near by. There was more privacy there, and it 
 formed an admirable retreat for such moments 
 when the king did not wish to bask in publicity, 
 and these moments were many, though one 
 might not at first think so when reading of his 
 affairs of state. There were also affairs of the 
 heart which, to him, in many instances, were 
 quite as important. This should not be for- 
 gotten. 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 347 
 
 In 1624 a treaty was signed at Compiegne 
 which assured the alliance of Louis XIII with 
 the United Provinces, and during this reign the 
 court was frequently in residence here. In 1631 
 Marie de Medici, then a prisoner in the palace, 
 made a notable escape and fled, doomed ever 
 afterwards to a vagabond existence, a terrible 
 fall for her once proud glory, to her death in a 
 Cologne garret ten years later. 
 
 In 1635 the Grand Chancellor of Sweden 
 signed a treaty here which enabled France to 
 mingle in the affairs of the Thirty Years' War. 
 
 During the Fronde, that "Woman's War," 
 which w^as so entirely unnecessary, Anne d'Aut- 
 riche held her court in the Palace of Compiegne 
 and received Christine de Suede on certain oc- 
 casions when that royal lady's costume was of 
 such a grotesque nature, and her speech so che- 
 valeresque, that she caused even a scandal in a 
 profligate court. Anne d'Autriche, too, left Com- 
 piegne practically a prisoner; another menage 
 a trots had been broken up. 
 
 The most imposing event in the history of 
 Compiegne of which the chronicles tell was the 
 assembling of sixty thousand men beneath the 
 walls by Louis XIV, in order to give Madame 
 de Maintenon a realistic exhibition of "playing 
 soldiers." At all events the demonstration was 
 
348 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 a bloodless one, and an immortal page in Saint- 
 Simon's ^'Memoires" consecrates this gallantry 
 of a king in a most subtle manner. 
 
 Another fair lady, a royal favourite, too, came 
 on the scene at Compiegne in 1769 when Madame 
 du Barry was the principal artiste in the great 
 fete given in her honour by Louis XV. She was 
 lodged in a tiny chateau (built originally for 
 Madame de Pompadour) a short way out of 
 town on the Soissons road. 
 
 Du Barry must have been a good fairy to Com- 
 piegne for Louis XV lavished an abounding 
 care on the chateau and, rather than allow the 
 architect, Jacques Ange Gabriel, have the free 
 hand that his counsellors advised, sought to 
 have the ancient outlines of the former struc- 
 ture on the site preserved and thus present 
 to posterity through the newer work the two 
 monumental facades which are to be seen to-day. 
 The effort was not wholly successful, for the 
 architect actually did carry out his fancy with 
 respect to the decoration in the same manner 
 in which he had designed the Ecole Militaire 
 at Paris and the two colonnaded edifices facing 
 upon the Place de la Concorde. 
 
 This work was entirely achieved when Louis 
 XVI took possession. This monarch, in 1780, 
 caused to be fitted up a most elaborate apartment 
 
Compiegne and Its Forests 349 
 
 for the queen (his marriage with Marie An- 
 toinette was consecrated here), but that indeed 
 was all the hand he had in the work of building 
 at Compiegne, which has practically endured 
 as his predecessor left it. The Revolution and 
 Consulate used the chateau as their fancy willed, 
 and rather harshly, but in 1806 its restoration 
 was begun and Charles IV of Spain, upon his 
 dethronement by Napoleon, was installed therein 
 a couple of years later. 
 
 The palace, the park and the forest now became 
 a sort of royal appanage of this Spanish monarch, 
 which Napoleon, in a generous spirit, could well 
 afford to will him. He lived here some months 
 and then left precipitately for Marseilles. 
 
 Napoleon affected a certain regard for this 
 palatial property, though only occupying it at 
 odd moments. He embellished its surroundings, 
 above all its gardens, in a most lavish manner. 
 Virtually, all things considered, Compiegne is 
 a Palais Napoleonien, and if one would study 
 the style of the Empire at its best the thing may 
 be done at Compiegne. 
 
 On July 30, 1 814, Louis XVIII and Alexander 
 of Russia met at Compiegne amid a throng of 
 Paris notabilities who had come thither for the 
 occasion. 
 
 Charles X loved to hunt in the forest of Com- 
 
350 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 piegne. In 1832, one of the daughters of Louis- 
 PhiHppe, the Princesse Louise, was married to 
 the King of the Belgians in this palace. 
 
 From 1852 to 1870 the palace and its grounds 
 were the scenes of many imperial fetes. 
 
 Napoleon III had for Compiegne a particular 
 predilection. The prince-president, in 1852, in- 
 stalled himself here for the autumn season, and 
 among his guests was that exquisite blond beauty, 
 Eugenie Montijo, who, the year after, was to 
 become the empress of the French. Faithful 
 to the memory of his uncle, by reason of a ro- 
 mantic sentiment, the Third Napoleon came 
 frequently to Compiegne; or perhaps it was be- 
 cause of the near-by hunt, for he was a passionate 
 disciple of Saint Hubert. It was his Versailles! 
 
 The palace of Compiegne as seen to-day pre- 
 sents all the classic coldness of construction of 
 the reign of Louis XV. Its lines were severe and 
 that the building was inspired by a genius is 
 hard to believe, though in general it is undeniably 
 impressive. Frankly, it is a mocking, decadent 
 eighteenth century architecture that presents itself, 
 but of such vast proportions that one sets it down 
 as something grand if not actually of surpassing 
 good taste. 
 
 In general the architecture of the palace pre- 
 sents at first glance a coherent unit, though in 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 351 
 
 reality it is of several epochs. Its furnishings 
 within are of different styles and periods, not 
 all of them of the best. Slender gold chairs, 
 false reproductions of those of the time of Louis 
 XV, and some deplorable tapestries huddle close 
 upon elegant "bergeres^^ of Louis XVI, and sofas, 
 tables and bronzes of master artists and crafts- 
 men are mingled with cheap castings unworthy 
 of a stage setting in a music hall. A process of 
 adroit eviction will some day be necessary to 
 bring these furnishings up to a consistent plane 
 of excellence. 
 
 One of the facades is nearly six hundred feet 
 in length, with forty-nine windows stretching 
 out in a single range. It might be the front of 
 an automobile factory if it were less ornate, or 
 that of an exposition building were it more beauti- 
 ful. In some respects it is reminiscent of the 
 Palais Royal at Paris, particularly as to the 
 entrance colonnade and gallery facing the Louvre. 
 
 The chief beauty within is undoubtedly the 
 magnificent stairway, with its balustrade of 
 wrought iron of the period of Louis XVI. The 
 Salle de Spectacle is of a certain Third Empire- 
 Louis Napoleon distinction, which is saying that 
 it is neither very lovely nor particularly plain, 
 simply ordinary, or, to give it a French turn 
 of phrase, vulgar. 
 
352 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 One of the most remarkable apartments is 
 the Salle des Cartes, the old salon of the Aides 
 de Camp, whose walls are ornamented with 
 three great plans showing the roads and by- 
 paths of the forest, and other decorative panels 
 representing the hunt of the time of Louis XV. 
 
 The Chambre a Coucher of the great Napoleon 
 is perhaps the most interesting of all the smaller 
 apartments, with its strange bed, which in form 
 more nearly resembles an oriental divan than 
 anything European. Doubtless it is not un- 
 comfortable as a bed, but it looks more like a 
 tent, or camp, in the open, than anything es- 
 sentially intended for domestic use within doors. 
 After the great Napoleon, his nephew Napoleon 
 III was its most notable occupant, though it 
 was last slept in by the Tzar Nicholas II, when 
 he visited France in 1901. 
 
 The sleeping-room of the Empress Eugenie 
 is fitted up after the style of the early Empire 
 with certain interpolations of the mid-nineteenth 
 century. The most distinct feature here is the 
 battery of linen coffers which Marie Louise 
 had had especially designed and built. The 
 Salon des Dames d'Honneur, with its double 
 rank of nine "scissors chairs," the famous tab- 
 ourets de cour, lined up rigidly before the canape 
 on which the empress rested, is certainly a re- 
 
Napoleon s Bedchamber, Compiegne 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 353 
 
 markable apartment. This was the decor of 
 convention that Madame Sans Gene rendered 
 classic. 
 
 Like all the French national palaces Com- 
 piegne has a too abundant collection of Sevres 
 vases set about in awkward corners which could 
 not otherwise be filled, and, beginning with the 
 vestibule, this thing is painfully apparent. 
 
 The apartments showing best the Napoleonic 
 style in decorations and furnishings are the 
 Salon des Huissiers, the Salle des Gardes, the 
 Escalier d'Apollon, the Salle de Don Quichotte 
 
 — which contains a series of designs destined 
 to have served for a series of tapestries intended 
 to depict scenes in the life of the windmill knight 
 
 — the Galerie des Fetes, the Galerie des Cerfs, 
 the Salle Coypel, the Salle des Stucs and the 
 Salon des Fleurs, through which latter one ap- 
 proaches the royal apartments. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, or, more exactly, 
 between 1502 and 15 10, was constructed Com- 
 piegne's handsome Hotel de Ville, one of the 
 most delightful architectural mixtures of Gothic 
 and Renaissance extant. It is an architectural 
 monument of the same class as the Palais de 
 Justice at Rouen or the Hotel Cluny at Paris. 
 Its frontispiece is marvellous, the rez-de-chaussee 
 less gracious than the rest perhaps, but with the 
 
354 Royal Palaces and Parks of Prance 
 
 first story blooming forth as a gem of magnif- 
 icent proportions and setting. Between the four 
 windows of this first story are posed statuesque 
 effigies of Charles VII, Jeanne d'Arc, Saint 
 Remy and Louis IX. In the centre, in a niche, 
 is an equestrian statue of Louis XII, who reigned 
 when this monument was being built. A balus- 
 trade a jour finishes off this story, which, in turn, 
 is overhung with a high, peaked gable, and above 
 rise the belfry and its spire, of which the great 
 clock dates from 1303, though only put into 
 place in 1536. The only false note is sounded 
 by the two insignificant, cold and unlovely wings 
 which flank the main structure on either side. 
 It is a sixteenth century construction unrivalled 
 of its kind in all France, more like a Belgian 
 town-hall belfry than anything elsewhere to 
 be seen outside Flanders, but it is not of the 
 low Spanish-Renaissance order as are so many 
 of the imposing edifices of occidental and orien- 
 tal Flanders. It is a blend of Gothic and Renais- 
 sance, and, what is still more rare, the best of 
 Gothic and the best of Renaissance. Above 
 its facade is a civic belfry, flanked by two slender 
 towers. Within the portal-vestibule rises a monu- 
 mental stairway which must have been the in- 
 spiration of many a builder of modern opera- 
 houses. 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 355 
 
 Opposite the Hotel Dieu is the poor, rent 
 relic of the Tour de Jeanne d'Arc, originally 
 a cylindrical donjon of the twelfth century, 
 wherein "La Pucelle" was imprisoned in 1430. 
 
 Between the palace and the river are to be 
 seen many vestiges of the mediaeval ramparts 
 of the town, and here and there a well-defined 
 base of a gateway or tower. Mediaevalism is 
 rampant throughout Compiegne. 
 
 The park surrounding the palace is quite 
 distinct from the wider radius of the Foret de 
 Compiegne. It is of the secular, conventional 
 order, and its perspectives, looking towards 
 the forest from the terrace and vice versa, are 
 in all ways satisfying to the eye. 
 
 One of the most striking of these alleyed vistas 
 was laid out under the orders of the first Na- 
 poleon in 1810. It loses itself in infinity, almost, 
 its horizon blending with that of the far distant 
 Beaux Monts in the heart of the forest. 
 
 In the immediate neighbourhood of the palace 
 are innumerable statues, none of great beauty, 
 value or distinction. On the south side runs 
 a Cours, or Prado, as it would be called in Cata- 
 lonia. The word Cours is of Provencal origin, 
 and how it ever came to be transplanted here is 
 a mystery. Still here it is, a great tree-shaded 
 promenade running to the river. The climate 
 
356 Roy al Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 of Compiegne is never so blazing hot as to make 
 this Cours so highly appreciated as its name- 
 sakes in the Midi, but as an exotic accessory to 
 the park it is quite a unique delight. 
 
 Within the park may still be traced the out- 
 lines of the moat which surrounded the palace 
 of Charles V, as well as some scanty remains 
 of the same period. 
 
 Another distinctive feature is the famous Ber- 
 ceau en Fer, an iron trellis several thousands of 
 feet in length, which was built by Napoleon I 
 as a reminder to Marie Louise of a similar, but 
 smaller, garden accessory which she had known 
 at Schoenbrunn. It was a caprice, if you like, 
 and rather a futile one since it was before the 
 time when artistically worthless things were the 
 rage just because of their gigantic proportions. 
 Napoleon III cut it down in part, and pruned 
 it to more esthetic proportions, and what there 
 is left, vine and flower grown, is really charming. 
 
 The Foret de Compiegne as a historic wild- 
 wood goes back to the Druids who practiced 
 their mysterious rites under its antique shade 
 centuries before the coming of the kings, who 
 later called it their own special hunting pre- 
 serve. Stone hatchets, not unlike the toma- 
 hawks of the red man, have been found and 
 traced back — well, definitely to the Stone Age, 
 
bo 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 357 
 
 and supposedly to the time when they served 
 the Druids for their sacrifices. 
 
 The soldiers of Caesar came later and their 
 axes were of iron or copper, and though on the 
 warpath, too, their way was one which was 
 supposed to lead civilization into the wilder- 
 ness. Innumerable traces of the Roman oc- 
 cupation are to be found in the forest by those 
 who know how to read the signs; twenty-five 
 different localities have been marked down by 
 the archeologists as having been stations on the 
 path blazed by the Legions of Rome. 
 
 After the Romans came the first of the kings 
 as proprietors of the forest, and in the moyen- 
 age the monks, the barons and the crown itself 
 shared equally the rights of the forest. 
 
 Legends of most weird purport are connected 
 with various points scattered here and there 
 throughout the forest, as at the Fosse Dupuis 
 and the Table Ronde, where a sort of ''trial 
 by fire" was held by the barons whenever a 
 seigneur among them had conspired against another. 
 Ariosto, gathering many of his legends from the 
 works of the old French chroniclers, did not 
 disdain to make use of the Foret de Compiegne 
 as a stage setting. 
 
 During the reign of Clothaire the forest was 
 known as the For^t de Cuise, because of a royal 
 
358 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 palace hidden away among the Druid oaks 
 which bore the name of Cotia, or Cusia. Until 
 1346 the palace existed in some form or other, 
 though shorn of royal dignities. It was at this 
 period that Philippe VI divided the forests of 
 the Valois into three distinct parts in order to 
 better regulate their exploitation. 
 
 The Frankish kings being, it would seem, 
 inordinately fond of la chasse the Foret de Com- 
 piegne, in the spring and autumn, became their 
 favorite rendezvous. Alcuin, the historian, noted 
 this fact in the eighth century, and described 
 this earliest of royal hunts in some detail. In 
 715 the forest was the witness of a great battle 
 between the Austrasians and the Neustrians. 
 
 Before Francis I with his habitual initiative 
 had pierced the eight great forest roads which 
 come together at the octagon called the Puits 
 du Roi, the forest was not crossed by any thor- 
 oughfare; the nearest thing thereto was the 
 Chaussee de Brunhaut, a Roman way which 
 bounded it on the south and east. 
 
 Louis XIV and Louis XV, in turn, cut numer- 
 ous roads and paths, and to the latter were due 
 the crossroads known as the Grand Octagone 
 and the Petit Octagone. 
 
 It was over one of these great forest roads, 
 that leading to Soissons, that Marie Louise, 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 359 
 
 accompanied by a cortege of three hundred 
 persons, eighty conveyances and four hundred 
 and fifty horses, journeyed in a torrential rain, 
 in March 1807, when she came to France to 
 found a dynasty. 
 
 A marriage had been consummated by proc- 
 uration at Vienna, and she set out to actually 
 meet her future spouse for the first time at Sois- 
 sons. At the little village of Courcelles, on the 
 edge of the forest between Soissons and Com- 
 piegne, two men enveloped in great protecting 
 cloaks had arrived post-haste from Compiegne. 
 At the parish church they stopped a moment 
 and took shelter under the porch, impatiently 
 scanning the horizon. Finally a lumbering her- 
 lin de voyage lurched into view, drawn by eight 
 white horses. In its depths were ensconced 
 two women richly dressed, one a beautiful woman 
 of mature years, the other a young girl scarce 
 eighteen years. 
 
 The most agitated of the men, he who was 
 clad in a gray redingote, sprang hastily to the 
 carriage door. He was introduced by the older 
 woman as ^'Sa Majeste PEmpereur des Franfaises, 
 mon frere,^^ The speaker was one of the sisters 
 of Napoleon, Caroline, Queen of Naples; the 
 other was the Archduchess Marie Louise, daugh- 
 ter of Franz II, Emperor of Austria. 
 
360 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 An imposing ceremonial had been planned 
 for Soissons and the court had been ordered to 
 set out from Compiegne with the emperor, in 
 order to arrive at Soissons in due time. When 
 the actual signal for the departure was given the 
 emperor was nowhere to be found. As usual 
 he had anticipated things. 
 
 For weeks before the arrival of the empress 
 to be Napoleon had passed the majority of his 
 waking hours at Paris in the apartments which 
 he had caused to be prepared for Marie Louise. 
 He selected the colour of the furnishings, and 
 superintended the very placing of the furniture. 
 Among other things he had planned a boudoir 
 which alone represented an expenditure of nearly 
 half a million francs. 
 
 Lejeune, who had accompanied Marechal Ber- 
 thier to Vienna to arrange the marriage, had 
 returned and given his imperial master a glow- 
 ing description of the charms of the young arch- 
 duchess who was to be his bride. The emperor 
 compared his ideal with her effigy on medals 
 and miniatures and then worked even more 
 ardently than before that her apartments should 
 be worthy of her when she arrived. 
 
 It was just following upon this fever of excite- 
 ment that Napoleon and the court had repaired 
 to Compiegne. So restless was the emperor that 
 
Compiegne and Its Forest 361 
 
 he could hardly bide the time when the arch- 
 duchess should arrive, and it was thus that he set 
 out with Murat to meet the approaching cortege. 
 
 The pavilion which had been erected for the 
 meeting was left to the citizens of the neighbour- 
 hood, and the marvellous banquet which had 
 been prepared by Bausset was likewise abandoned. 
 Napoleon had no time to think of dining. 
 
 All the roadside villages between Soissons 
 and Compiegne were hung with banners, and 
 the populace appeared to be as highly excited 
 as the contracting parties. It still rained a deluge, 
 but this made no difference. Two couriers 
 at full gallop came first to Compiegne, crying: 
 "Place": "Place": The eight white horses and 
 the herlin de voyage followed. Before one had 
 hardly time to realize what was passing. Napoleon 
 and his bride whisked by in a twinkling. 
 
 At nine o'clock an outpost in the park at Com- 
 piegne announced the arrival of the emperor 
 and his train. At ten o'clock a cannon shot 
 rang out over the park and the emperor and 
 empress passed into the chateau to proceed with 
 certain indispensable presentations; then to souper, 
 a petite souper intime^ we are assured. 
 
 On the morrow all the world of the assembled 
 court met the empress and avowed that she had 
 that specious heaute du diahle which has ever 
 
362 Royal Palaces and Parks of France 
 
 pleased the French connoisseur of beautiful 
 women. They went further, however, and stated 
 that in spite of this ravishing beauty she lacked 
 the elegance , which should be the possession of 
 an empress of the French. The faithful Ber- 
 thier silenced them with the obvious statement 
 that since she pleased the emperor there was 
 nothing more to be said, or thought. 
 
 Flying northward on the great highroad lead- 
 ing out from Paris to Chantilly and Compiegne 
 gadabout travellers have never a thought that 
 just beyond Pont Saint Maxence, almost in plain 
 view from the doorway of the Inn of the Lion 
 d'Argent of that sleepy little town, is a gabled 
 wall which represents all that remains of the 
 "Maison de Philippe de Beaumanoir/' called 
 the Cour Basse. 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aiguillon, Duchesse d', 217 
 
 Alcuin, 358 
 
 Alexander, Emperor, 221, 
 
 330, 349 
 Alphonse XIII of Spain, 7 
 Amboise, 26, 28, 86 
 Amboise, Bussy d', 72 
 Ancre, Marechal d', 67 
 Andelot, Coligny d', 72-73 
 Andilly, Arnauld d', 267 
 Anet, Chateau d', 29, 11 1 
 Angennes, Jacques d', 44, 299, 
 
 311 
 Angers, Chateau d', 22 
 Anglas, Boissy d', 114 
 Angouleme, Duchesse d', 321 
 Anjou, Dues d', 22, 136, 212 
 Anne of Austria, 96-97, 136- 
 
 137, 284-287, 289, 347 
 Arc, Jeanne d', 345-346, 354 
 Ardennes, 54 
 Arlors, 25 
 
 Artois, Comtesse d', 176 
 Aubert, Jean, 333 
 Aubigne, D', 299 
 Aumale, Due d', 29, 327, 331- 
 
 Z32, 335, 338, 339 
 Auvergne, Loms d', 162-163 
 Ayen, Due d\ 299 
 
 Bagatelle, Chateau de, 163, 
 
 203-206 
 Bailly, Sylvain, 104 
 Barbes, 173 
 Barbison, 200-201 
 Baril, Jean, 25 
 Barry, Mme. du, 211, 242-243, 
 
 245, 250, 275, 329, 348 
 Bassompierre, 195, 262 
 Bastille, 71, 145, 173 
 
 Bausset, 361 
 
 Baviere, Isabeau de, 69, 151, 
 
 182 
 Beauharnais, Eugene, 220, 
 
 222 
 Beauharnais, Hortense, 215, 
 
 220, 221 
 Beaujon, 164 
 
 Beaumont, Cardinal de, 179 
 Beauvais, Hotel de, 11 
 Becker, General, 221 
 Becket, Thomas a, 182 
 Bedford, Duke of, 69 
 Belleveu, 241-242 
 Berquin, Louis de, 67 
 Berry, Due de, 165 , 
 
 Berry, Duchesse de, 50, 321 
 Berthier, Marechal (see 
 
 Wagram, Prince de) 
 Blanchard, 130 
 Blanqui, 173 
 Blois, 21, 26, 305 
 Blondel, 37 
 Blucher, 173, 209 
 Boileau, 328 
 Boissy, Forest of, 49 
 Bonaparte, Caroline, 359 
 Bonaparte, Jerome, 147 
 Bonaparte, Louis, 235 
 Bonaparte, Lucien, 145 
 Bonheur, Rosa, 202 
 Bordeaux, Due de, 166 
 Borghese, Princesse, 208 
 Bossuet, 328 
 Boulanger, 200 
 Boullee, 164 
 'Boulogne, Bois de, 168, 174, 
 
 175, 203, 206, 209 
 Bourbon Family, 164-165, 
 
 329, 331, 341 
 
 363 
 
364 
 
 Index 
 
 Bourbon, Palais, 120, 159-161 
 Bourdaloue, 328 
 Bourg-la-Reine, 3 
 Boyceau, 30, 262, 270 
 Breton, Mme. de, 121-122 
 Brunei, 223 
 
 Brunswick, Duchesse de, 154 
 Bullant, Jean, 109, 327, 336 
 
 Cadoudal, 173 
 
 Camhaceres, Consul, 115-116 
 
 Cardinal, Palais {see Royal, 
 Palais) 
 
 Carpeaux, 118 
 
 Carrier-Belleuse, 202 
 
 Cartouche, 67 
 
 Cellini, 182, 192 
 
 Chahanne, Comte de, y^ 
 
 Chahrol, 147 
 
 Chalgrin, 154 
 
 Chambiges, Pierre, 91, 281- 
 282 
 
 Chamblay, 54-56 
 
 Chambord, 71, 86, 310 
 
 Chamillard, Michael, 252-253 
 
 Champaigne, Philippe de, 135 
 
 Champ olUon-Figeac, 184 
 
 Chantilly, Chateau and For- 
 est of, 324-340, 362 
 
 Chappell, Comte des, 72 
 
 Charenton, 152 
 
 Charlemagne, 18, 116, 281 
 
 Charles II, 344 
 
 Charles V, 22, 23, 25, 62-63, 
 66, 68, 77, 82-84, i70j i90> 
 247, 281, 327, 344, 356 
 
 Charles VI, 62,, 66, 69, 176- 
 177, 229 
 
 Charles VII, 69, 182, 190, 346, 
 
 354 
 Charles VIII, 21, 299 
 Charles IX, 89, 91-94, 106, 
 
 108-110, 171, 209, 291, 312, 
 
 Z27 
 Charles X, 57, 108, 118, 146, 
 
 173, 192, 204, 212, 237-238, 
 
 303, 317, 319-320, 349 
 Charles IV, Emperor, 63 
 
 Charles V, Emperor, 85, 88, 
 346 
 
 Charles /, of England, 104, 
 137, 289 
 
 Charles the Bold of Bur- 
 gundy (see Charolais, 
 Comte de) 
 
 Charolais, Comte de, 177-178 
 
 Chartres, Dues de (see Or- 
 leans, Dues de) 
 
 Chateauroux, Mme. de, 250 
 
 Chatou, 210 
 
 Chenonceaux, 26, 32, 71 
 
 Chevalier, Etienne, 339 
 
 Childerhert /, 216 
 
 Christina, Queen, 222 
 
 Cinq-Mars, 72,, 134 
 
 Clagny, Chateau de, 228, 277 
 
 Clement, Jacques, 93, 230-232 
 
 Clothaire, 357 
 
 Clo tilde, 61 
 
 Clevis, 61, 76, 216 
 
 Coictier, Jacques, 66, 152 
 
 Colbert, 3, 87, 98, 100, 269 
 
 Coligny, Admiral, 93 
 
 Collo, Jean, 27 
 
 Commynes, 177 
 
 Compiegne, Palace and For- 
 est of, 52-53, 165, 232, 335, 
 342-362 
 
 Conciergerie, 61, 65-68 
 
 Conde Family, 72,, 269, 324, 
 
 327-331, 333, 337, 339 
 Conflans, Chateau de, 2, 175- 
 
 179 
 Constantine, Emperor, 344 
 Consulat, Palais du {see 
 
 Luxembourg, Palais du) 
 Conti Family, 211, 242, 327 
 Corneille, 7Z, I33, 151 
 Corot, 200 
 C otter eau, Jean, 299, 300-305, 
 
 307 
 Courcelles, 359 
 Cousin, Jean, 170 
 Coypel, 137 
 Cromwell, 137 
 Crojsat, 162 
 
Index 
 
 365 
 
 Dagobert, 54 
 
 Damiens, 67, 263-264 
 
 Dante, 24 
 
 Dardellc, 123 
 
 Daru, 100 
 
 Datibigny, 200 
 
 Daumesnil, Baron, 173 
 
 Daumet, Henri, 332 
 
 Debanes, 22 
 
 Debrosse, Jacques, 64, 154, 
 
 158 
 Decamps, 202, 338 
 Delille, Abbe, 143 
 Delorme, Marion, y2> 
 Delorme, Philibert, 34, 108- 
 
 III, 189 
 Denecourt, 198-199, 201 
 Deputes, Chambre des (j^^ 
 
 Bourbon, Palais) 
 Desmoulins, Camille, 145 
 Dm^, 200 
 Directoire, Palais du {see 
 
 Luxembourg, Palais du) 
 Donon, 100 
 Dorbay, no 
 Drouais, 211 
 Ducamp, Maxine, 126 
 Ducerceau, 92, 94, no, 112 
 Ducrot, General, 222 
 Dugastz, 232 
 Dupaira, 95 
 Duperac, no 
 Dupre, 200 
 Durfort, Madame, 49 
 
 Egalite, Palais (j^^ Royal, 
 
 Palais) 
 Enghien, Chateau d', 340 
 Enghien, Due d\ 169, 172- 
 
 174, 331 
 Epernon, Dues d', 103, 232 
 Erard, Sebastian, 210 
 E^f^, Maria d\ 290 
 Estival, Convent of, 49 
 Estrees, Gabrielle d\ 102, 210 
 l^tampes, Duchesse d', 86, 
 
 185, 192, 294 
 Etoiles, Normand d\ 204 
 
 Eugenie, Empress, 120-122, 
 
 125-126, 238, 350, 352 
 Evans, Dr., 122 
 
 Fallieres, President, 166-167 
 
 Famin, 314-315 
 
 Faure, Felix, 56, 58-59 
 
 Feraud, 114 
 
 Ferrare, Due de, 70 
 
 Flandre, Comfe de, 82 
 
 Flavy, Guillaume de, 345 
 
 Fleury, Chateau de, 195 
 
 Fontaine, 99, 127 
 
 Fontainebleau, Forest of, 6, 
 50, 52, 181, 183, 196-202, 
 279, 294 
 
 Fontainebleau, Palais de, 2, 
 26, 28, 33, 34, 87, 91, III, 
 180-196, 329, 335, 336 
 
 Fouche, 221 
 
 Fould, 53 
 
 Fouquet, lean, 339 
 
 Fouquet, Nicolas, 269 
 
 Fragonard, 211 
 
 Francine, Thomas and Alex- 
 andre, 196 
 
 Francis I, 8, 10, 12, 16, 21, 32, 
 44-45, 62, 64, 67, 77, 79, 81, 
 84-89, 108, no, 170, 181, 
 183-187, 189-191, 194, 209, 
 229, 281-282, 290, 292, 299, 
 306, 310-31 1, 321, 326, 346, 
 358 
 
 Franz II, 359 
 
 Gabriel, 276, 348 
 Gaillon, Chateau de, 33 
 Ganne, Pere, 200 
 Girardini, 160 
 Gisors, Castle of, 82 
 Gondi, 230, 232 
 Goujon, Jean, 89, 90 
 Grand Trianon, 39, 248, 2^, 
 
 259, 260, 263, 264, 274-276 
 Gregory of Tours, 215 
 Grevy, Jules, 58 
 
366 
 
 Index 
 
 Gros, Baron, 338 
 Grosbois, Chateau de, 51 
 Guilbert, Abbe, 184 
 Guillain, Guillaume, 282 
 Guise, Dues de, 70, 72-73, 103 
 
 Hamon, 200 
 
 Harlay - Cfauvallon,- Arch- 
 bishop De, 178-179 
 
 Haussmann, Baron, 3, 13, 152 
 
 Hebert, 201 
 
 Hennequin, Dame Gillette, 
 178 
 
 Henri II, 26, 32, 44, 69-70, 78, 
 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 108, no, 
 170, 193, 229, 230, 282, 294- 
 
 29s, 311, 327 
 Henri III, 29, 92-93, loi, 109, 
 
 230-232, 312 
 Henri IV, 16, 26, 27, 29, 45- 
 46, 71-72, 87, 89, 92, 94-95, 
 102-103, 111-112, 118, 172, 
 186, 190, 191, 194-197, 206, 
 209, 210, 231, 232, 238, 282- 
 283, 306, Z27 
 Henrietta of England, 233, 
 
 289 
 Henriette de France, 104, 137- 
 Henry V of England, 63, 326 
 Henry VI of England, 63, 69 
 Henry VIII of England, 311 
 Herivaux, Bois de, 340 
 Hohenzollern, Prince de, 53 
 Hortense, Queen, 330 
 Hugo, Victor, 73 
 Hugues Capet, 62 
 
 Institut, Palais de V, 159-160 
 Isabey {Pere), 40 
 
 Jacob of Cologne, 87 
 Jacque, 200 
 
 James II 'j)f England, 290 
 Jarnac, Gui Chabot de, 294 
 Joachim, Prince, 52, 56 
 John II of France, 83, 170 
 John VIII, Pope, 344 
 Joinville, Forest of, 169 
 
 Josephine, Empress, 174, 215, 
 
 217-222, 323 
 Justice, Palais de {see La 
 
 Cite, Palais de) 
 
 Karr, Alphonse, 149 
 
 La Barauderie, De, 30 
 
 Labaudy, 50 
 
 La Brosse, 102 
 
 La Cite, Palais de, 12, 61-68, 
 
 75, 81, 82, 93, 152, 153, 170 
 La Chdtaigneraie, 294 
 Laffitte, Pierre, 212, 213, 243 
 Lambesc, Prince de, 144 
 La Muette, Chateau de, iii, 
 
 203, 209-210 
 Lancret, 338 
 Langeais, 33 
 Lannes, Marechal, 213 
 Laporte, 284 
 La Quintinye, 267-269 
 La Reine Blanche, Chateau 
 
 de, 341 
 Las chant, 232 
 Latini, Brunetto, 24 
 Lauzan, 178, 289 
 La Valliere, Louise de, 289 
 Lebrun, Charles, 97, 255, 256 
 Lebrun, Consul, 115 
 Le Calabrese, Henri, 27 
 Lecouteux de Canteleu, 217, 
 
 222 
 Ledoux, 211, 243 
 Lefuel, 100 
 Lejeune, 360 
 Leloir, 239 
 L'Elysee, Palais de, 153, 162- 
 
 167 
 Lemercier, Jacques, 96, 100, 
 
 135, 262 
 LeMoyne, 239 
 Le Notre, 16, 22, 25, 26, 28, 
 
 30, 31, 35, 39, 40, 104, 128, 
 
 129-130, 179, 233, 248, 264- 
 
 266, 270, 277, 288, 292, 307- 
 
 308, 327, 330 
 Lepaute, 240 
 Le Roy, 262 
 
Index 
 
 367 
 
 Les Bruyeres, 222 
 Lescot, Pierre, 88-90, 109 
 Lesdtguieres, Duchesse de, 
 
 179 
 Levau, 97-98, no, 247, 249 
 Lomenci, Martial de, 247 
 Longueil, Rene de, 212 
 Longueville, Mme. de, 73, 327 
 Loret, II 
 
 Lorraine, Cardinal de, in 
 Lorraine, Chevalier de, 2^3 
 Louis I, 344 
 Louis V, 344 
 Louis VI, 281 
 Louis VII, 169, 181, 182 
 Louis IX, 23, 62, 77, 169, 176, 
 
 182, 190, 281, 295, 341, 344, 
 
 354 
 
 Louis XI, 21, 66, 69, 152, 172, 
 177-178, 299, 326 
 
 Louis XII, 26, 69, 299, 305, 
 306, 326, 354 
 
 Louis XIII, 16, 48, 87, 96, 
 112, 132, 134, 136, 171, 189, 
 190, 194, 209, 247, 249, 262, 
 266, 283-284, 306, 347 
 
 Louis XIV, II, 12, 14, 16, 17, 
 29, 33, 38, 39, 46, 48, 49, 50, 
 85, 87, 97-99, 104, 112, 118, 
 127, 136-137, 152, 158, 170, 
 178, 186, 189, 190, 206, 217, 
 223-224, 226, 233, 240, 245, 
 247, 249, 251-253, 255-257, 
 261, 264, 268, 270, 273, 274, 
 277, 283, 284, 288-290, 291, 
 293, 296, 297, 299, 303-307, 
 312, 328, 345, 347, 358 
 
 Louis XV, 4, 14, 16, 17, 38, 
 48, 112, 152, 162, 163, 174, 
 185, 186, 189, 190, 192, 205, 
 207, 209, 211, 227, 241, 243, 
 246, 250, 253, 263-264, 275- 
 276, 284, 290, 312, 320, 323, 
 
 , 329, 345, 348, 350-352, 358 
 
 ^Louis XVI, 37, 39, 41, 43, 57, 
 108, 113, 118, 143, 144, 152, 
 154, 210, 213, 227, 250, 261, 
 235-236, 352, 356, 358-362 
 
 290, 312-313, 316, 320, 322, 
 
 348, 351 
 Louis XVIII, 118, 161, 174, 
 
 237, 250, 316, 349 
 Louis Philippe, 105, 108, 117- 
 
 118, 146, 149, 154, 162, i6(5, 
 
 186, 194, 199, 207, 238, 254- 
 
 255, 350 (see also Orleans 
 
 Family) 
 Louveciennes, Chateau de, 
 
 210-212, 242, 288 
 Louvre, 4, 12, 13, 22, 25, 32, 
 
 44, 62, 68, 75-105, 108, 109, 
 
 no. III, 112, 118, 124, 131, 
 
 132, 152, 233, 351 
 Lude, Comtesse de, 49 
 Luxembourg, Jean de, 346 
 Luxembourg, Palais de, 28, 
 
 40, 115, 136, 144, 153-158 
 
 Machine de Marly, 223-224 
 Madrid, Chateau de, in 
 Magnan, Marechal, 242 
 Maine, Due de, 159 
 Maintenon, Chateau de, 242, 
 
 296-308, 312 
 Maintenon, Mme. de, 158-159, 
 
 194, 227, 249, 274, 296-299, 
 
 302-303, 305-308, 312, 347 
 Maisons-Laffitte, Chateau de, 
 
 203, 212-214, 288 
 Malmaison, Chateau de, 215- 
 
 223, 323 
 Mandrin, 67 
 
 Mansart, Frangois, 212-213 
 Mansart, Jules Hardouin, 35, 
 
 137, 179, 226, 233, 241, 249, 
 
 274, 276, 291, 327, 333 
 Mantes, 55 
 
 Mantes, Mile, de, 159 
 Marat, 116 
 Marceliano, Pucello and 
 
 Ednie, 26 * 
 
 Marie .Antoinette, 49, iiS, 
 
 194, 204, 210, 237, 245, 256, 
 
 276-277, 320, 322, 349 
 Marie Louise, 6, 117, 208, 
 Marie Sophie, 320 
 
368 
 
 Index 
 
 Marie Therese, ii 
 
 Marigny, Enguerrand de, 62, 
 
 172 
 Marigny, Marquis de, 99 
 Marlotte, 201 
 
 Marly-le-Roi {or -le-^ourg 
 or -le-Chatel), 2, 224-228, 
 283, 288 
 Mary Tudor, of England, 69 
 Marseilles, 91 
 Massena, Due de, 217 
 Masson, Frederic, 236 
 Matignon, Marechal de, 70 
 Mayenne, Due de, loi 
 Masarin, Cardinal, 87, 104, 
 
 136, 159, 169, 283-285 
 Mazarin, Palais {see Institut, 
 
 Palais de 1') 
 
 Medici, Catherine de, 26, 31, 
 
 33, 44, 48, 68, 69-71, 90-91, 
 
 93-94, 97, 107, 108, no, in, 
 
 171, 195, 230, 247, 311 
 
 Medici, Marie de, 72, 103, 
 
 154, 155, 158, 206, 347 
 Menars et de Marigny, Mar- 
 quis de, 163 
 Menours, Jacques de, 30, 262- 
 
 263 
 Mercogliano, 18 
 Messonier, 338 
 Metezeau, Thibaut, 92, 94 
 Metternich, Prince de, 121 
 Meudon, Bois de, 240 
 Meudon, Chateau de, 34, in 
 Michelet, 192 
 Mignard, 233, 239, 306 
 Millet, Eugene, 290, 291 
 Millet, Jean Frangois, 200, 
 
 201 
 Mirabeau, 172 
 Moliere, 73, 104, 178, 249 
 Molineaux, Chateau de, 278 
 Mollet, Qaude, 29, 30 
 Mollien, 100 
 
 Monconseil, Marquise de, 204 
 Mongomere, Comte de, 67 
 Montansier, Due de, 269 
 Montargis, 28 
 
 Montebello, Marechal de, 213 
 Montespan, Marquise de, 159, 
 
 249, 275, 312 
 Montesson, Marquise de, 234 
 Montgaillard, 50 
 MontgolHer, 130 
 Montgomeri, Sieur de, 70 
 Montmartre, 288 
 Montmorency Family, 178, 
 
 324, 326-327, 339 
 Montmorency, Forest of, 49, 
 
 288 
 Montpensier, Mile, de, 136 
 Moreau, Architect, 138 
 Moreau, Hegesippe, 123-124 
 Moskowa, Prince de la, 53 
 Muette, Chateau de la, in 
 Murat, Princes de, 52-56, 165, 
 
 235, 361 
 Murillo, 164 
 Musee de Cluny, 12 
 M us set, De, 274 
 
 Nacret, 239 
 
 Nanterre, 281 
 
 Nanteuil, Celestin, 200 
 
 Napoleon I, 6, 13, 40, 51-52, 
 57, 79, 88, 100, 108, 1 1 5-1 18, 
 127, 129, 145, 154, 155, 160, 
 165, 171, 173-174, 180, 186, 
 187-188, 190, 194, 208, 213, 
 217-222, 235-237, 250, 254, 
 274, 296, 298, 313-316, 320, 
 321, 322, 345, 349, 352, 355- 
 356, 359-362 
 
 Napoleon III, 13, 58, 92, 100, 
 105, 118- 122, 147, 152, 166, 
 195, 197, 222, 238, 290, 313, 
 318, 323, 345, 350-352, 356 
 
 Nattier, 338 
 
 Neckar, 144 
 
 Nemours, Due de, 70 
 
 Neufforge, De, 37 
 
 Neuilly and its Chateauj 206* 
 209, 238 
 
 Nicholas II, 352 
 
 Nicolo dell' abbate, 193 
 
 Nigra, Chevalief, 121 
 
Index 
 
 369 
 
 Noailles, Dues de, 298-300, 
 
 306 
 Noisy, Chateau de, 278 
 Nolhac, M. de, 274 
 
 Olivier, Emile, 125 
 Oppenard, 137 
 
 Orgemont, Marguerite d', 326 
 Orleans, Dues d', 137-140, 
 
 143, 144-149, 161, 209, 233, 
 
 234, 286-287, ZZ7 
 Orleans, Palais d' {see 
 
 Royal, Palais) 
 Ormesson, D', yz 
 Osman, 230-231 
 OursinSf Juvenal des, 66 
 
 Palatine, Princesse, 233 
 
 Palissy, Bernard, 31-32 
 
 Panseron, 2)7 
 
 Pare, Ambroise, 171 
 
 Paul, Saint Vincent de, y2i 
 
 Penthievre, Due de, 306, 312, 
 
 322 
 Pepin-le-Bref, 343 
 Percier, 100, 127 
 Perrault, Charles, 98-99 
 Petit Luxembourg, Palais du, 
 
 155, 157 
 Petit Trianon, 39, 260, 264, 
 
 274, 276-277, 329 
 Pfnor, 184 
 Philippe Auguste, 12, 62, 77, 
 
 80-82, 169, 182, 190 
 Philippe III, 62, 177 
 Philippe IV, 62, 170, 176, 182, 
 
 190, 295 
 Philippe VI, 170, 358 
 Philippe II, of Spain, 69 
 Philippe-EgaUte, 138-139 
 Picard, Achille, 125 
 Pichegreu, 173 
 Pierrefonds, 290, 335 
 Pisan, Christine de, 23 
 Pius VII, 6, 115, 194, 23s 
 Poirson, 184 
 Poissin, 164 
 
 Poissy, 23, 232, 292, 293 
 Poitiers, Diane de, 29, 44, 70- 
 
 71, 193 
 Pompadour, Mme. de, 163, 
 204-205, 241-242, 246, 250, 
 
 275, 348 
 Potter, Paul, 164 
 Poussin, 338 
 Prieur, Barthelemy, 196 
 Primaticcio, 87, 188, 192, 193 
 Provence, Comte de, 154 
 
 Quatre Nations, Palais des 
 {see Institut, Palais de 1') 
 
 Rabelais, 322 
 
 Racine, 297, 303, 308, 328 
 
 Rambouillet, Chateau and 
 
 Forest of, 44-45, 50, 55-59, 
 
 242, 296, 298, 309-323, 328, 
 
 335, Z2>^ 
 Rambouillet, Seigneur de, 299 
 Raphael, 87, 170 
 Raspail, 173 
 Ravaillac, 67, 102 
 Redon, 128 
 
 Regnier, Henri de, 244 
 Remusat, Mme. de, 174, 219 
 Rets, Marechal de, 247 
 Revolution, Palais de la (see 
 
 Royal, Palais) 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, 72, 73, 
 
 95, 100, 131-139, 151, 178, 
 
 179, 216-217 
 Rigaud, 307 
 Rigby, 334 
 
 Robert II, 62, 190, 281 
 Rochefort, Henri, 120-121 
 Romain, Mme., 141 
 Ronsard, 34, 90, 109, iii 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 166-167 
 Rosier, De, 210 
 Rosny, 55 
 Rosso, 182, 192 
 Rousseau, Theodore, 200, 201 
 Rousselle, 123 
 Rouvray, Forest of, 229 
 Rovigo, Due de, 221 
 
370 
 
 Index 
 
 Royal, Palais, 131-150, 284, 
 
 351 
 Royale, Place (see Vosges, 
 
 Place des) 
 Rubens, 164 
 Rueil (see Malmaison) 
 
 Sadi-Carnot, 58 
 
 Saint Cloud, Palais de, 13, 
 93, 228, 229-243 
 
 Saint Cyr, 296-298, 303 
 
 Saint Germain-en-Laye, 28, 
 91, III, 136, 203, 206, 223, 
 232, 242, 256, 279-295, 311, 
 
 324, 336, 345 
 
 Saint Germain, Forest of, 
 212, 292-295 
 
 Saint James, Baudart de, 208 
 
 Saint Louis (see Louis IX) 
 
 Saint Maur, Chateau de, iii 
 
 Saint Ouen, 54 
 
 Saint-Simon, 179, 262, 348 
 
 Sarto, Del, 192 
 
 Savoie, Louise de, 108 
 
 Savoie, Philippe de, 66 
 
 Scarron, Mme. (see Mainte- 
 non, Mme. de) 
 
 Schickler, Baron, 318 
 
 Schopin, 195 
 
 Senat, Palais du {see Luxem- 
 bourg, Palais du) 
 
 Senlis, 6 
 
 Senlis, Foret de, 340 
 
 Senlis, Seigneurs de, 324 
 
 Seran, Comtesse de, 275 
 
 Serlio, 88, 185 
 
 Serres, Olivier de, 33 
 
 Servandoni, 112 
 
 Sevigne, Mme. de, 179, 277, 
 328 
 
 Soissons, 359-361 
 
 Soyecourt, Marquis de, 212 
 
 Sualem, Rennequin, 223 
 
 Sully, Due de, 102, 103 
 
 Talmon, Prince de, 73 
 Tesse, Marquis de, 73 
 
 Thermes, Palais des, 12, 62, 
 
 . ^53 
 
 Thierry III, 224 
 
 Thiers, President, 122-123 
 
 Thomery, 202 
 
 Thou, De, 73 
 
 Temple, The, 144 
 
 Tiercelin, Jean, 108 
 
 Tillet, Maison du, 232 
 
 Toulouse, Comte de, 321 
 
 Toulouse, Comtesse de, 312, 
 320 
 
 Tournelles, Palais des, 66, 68- 
 71, 81, 152 
 
 Trepsat, 313-314 
 
 Trianon {see Grand Tria- 
 non) 
 
 Triboulet, 186 
 
 Tribunat, Palais du {see 
 Royal, Palais) 
 
 Trochu, General, 120 
 
 Tuileries, Palace and Gar- 
 dens of the, 3, 13, 31, 33-34, 
 40, 76, 78, 82, 91, 92, 94, 
 106-130, 131, 155, 157, 166, 
 218, 227, 317 
 
 Turenne, 73 
 
 Turgot, 100 
 
 Valerian, Mont, 288 
 
 Vallet, Pierre, 27 
 
 Valois, Charles, Comte de, 
 
 170 
 Valois, Elizabeth de, 69 
 Valois, Marguerite de (1492- 
 
 1549), 8, 10 
 Valois, Marguerite de (1553- 
 
 1615), 10, 69, III, 209 
 Van Loo, 164 
 Vasari, 181 
 Vauban, 252 
 Vaux-le-Vicomte, 36, 42 
 Vendome, Due de, 102, 206 
 Vernet, Joseph, 164, 239 
 Verneuil, Marquis de, 2.Qfj 
 Veronese, 338 
 Versailles, 2, 36, 42, 85, 88, 
 
 99, 112, 118, 145, 163, 180, 
 
Index 
 
 371 
 
 196, 205, 215, 223-224, 226, 
 228, 239, 240, 242, 244-278, 
 
 279, 283, 29(5, 305, 324, 334, 
 
 335, 2,Z6, 350 
 Vesinet, Bois de, 288 
 Vexin, Comte de, 159, 
 Vignole, 188 
 Vignon, 113 
 Villa Normande, 54 
 Villeray, Marquis de, 299 
 Villeroy, Marquis Neuville 
 
 de, 108 
 Villeroy, Marechal de, 178 
 Villers-Cotterets, 28, 165, 346 
 Vincennes, Chateau de, 168- 
 
 175, 331, 345 
 
 Vincennes, Bois de, 168, 174- 
 
 175, 177 
 Vinci, Leonardo da, 87, 192 
 Visconti, 100 
 
 Vivonne, Frangois de, 294 
 Voltaire, 263 
 Von Ostade, 164 
 Vosges, Place des, 71-74, 152. 
 
 Wagram, Prince de, 51, 52, 
 
 360, 362 
 Wallace, Sir Richard, 205 
 Wellington, 208-209 
 William I, Emperor, 255 
 Wolsey, 132 
 
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