The Aile Montpensier, which follows on from the edifice which houses the Comedie Francaise, 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 de la Revolution and Palais du Tribunat 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 resurrect 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. Satirical 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 turning 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 ecrivain-jardinier, who set the new vogue for the Palais Royal, but his interest and enthusiasm was not enough to 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 crowning or entry into Paris it was the custom to command a gift by right from the inhabitants. In 1389 Isabeau de Baviere, of dire memory, got sixty thousand couronnes 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 inhabitants, 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:

Dorante: Paris semble a 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 1701, Louis XIV divided the capital into twenty quartiers, or wards, and in 1726-1728 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 Empire and the Restoration but few changes were made, and with the piercing of the new boulevards 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 Tournelles, 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.

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 dismissed 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 Frankish 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 Luxembourg 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 for the Republican president, though the guide-book makers hardly think it worth while to write down the facts.

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 Duc de Piney-Luxembourg, Prince de Tigry, who built it in the sixteenth century. From 1733 to 1736 the palace underwent important restorations and the last persons to inhabit it before the Revolution 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.



In 1791 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"—formerly Napoleon's "Cabinet de Travail," the "Salle des Pas Perdus"—formerly the "Salle du Trone," the Grand Gallery and the apartments 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 structure to the west of the Petit Luxembourg.



The facade of the Palais du Senat is not altogether lovely and has little suggestion of the daintiness of the Petit Luxembourg, but, for all that, it presents a certain dignified pose and the edifice serves its purpose well as the legislative hall of the upper house.



The gardens of the Luxembourg form another of those favourite Paris playgrounds for nursemaids and their charges. It is claimed that the children are all little Legitimists in the Luxembourg gardens, whereas they are all Red Republicans 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, decorative and as thoroughly typical of Paris as the Pont Neuf. Innumerable, but rather mediocre, statues are posed here and there between the palace and the observatory at the end of the long, tree-lined avenue which stretches off to the south, the only really historical monument 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 elaborate 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 beautiful 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 Duc de Maine, the Comte de Vexin and Mademoiselle de Mantes.

Madame Scarron, who became in time Madame de Maintenon, the "vraie reine du roi," died in 1719, and the house passed to La Tour d'Auvergne.

On this same side of the river are the Palais de l'Institut and the Palais Bourbon. The Palais de l'Institut, or Palais Mazarin, is hardly to be considered one of the domestic establishments, the dwellings of kings, with which contemporary Paris was graced. It was but a creation 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 facade 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.

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 l'institut."

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 l'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 edifice, where now sit the French deputies, was built by Girardini for the Dowager Duchesse de Bourbon 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.

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 Seances," and the "Salle des Conferences"—where, in 1830, the Duc d'Orleans took the oath as king of France.

A recent discovery has been made in the lumber room of this old Palais Bourbon, 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 constructed in 1816 for Louis XVIII, with its upholstering of velvet embroidered with the golden fleur-de-lis. The records tell that this throne also served 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 historical souvenir of the first rank, it has been placed prominently where all who visit the Palais Bourbon may see it.

The history of the Palais de l'Elysee 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 well 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 occupant 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 apparently never had much respect for her son's choice as she forever referred to her as "the little gold ingot."

"The ingot" served to construct the palace, however, though at the death of its builder, soon after, it came into the proprietorship of La Pompadour, who spent the sum of six hundred and fifty thousand livres in aggrandizing it. It became 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 l'Elysee by La Pompadour. 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 traditional ram-like manner. He raged for an hour or more from one apartment to another, followed by the whole flock, which committed incalculable 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 ambassadors to his court. Its somewhat restricted park, ornamented with a grotto and a cascade, was at this time one of the curiosities of the capital.

In 1773, the financier Beaujon 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 property into the hands of the Duchesse de Bourbon, the sister of Louis Philippe, and the mother of the Duc 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 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 gratefulness 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, limping 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 promenading before the palace windows, shouting at the tops of their voices "Vive l'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 Duc and Duchesse de Berry but, at the duke's death, in 1820, his widow abandoned it.

Some time after it was occupied by the Duc 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 presidents 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, 1910. The dinner was served in the "Grand Salle des Fetes" and the music which accompanied the repast was furnished by the band of the Garde Republicain, beginning with the national anthem of America and finishing 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 Roosevelt, 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 fortunate 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 surroundings of the Chateau de Vincennes; but nevertheless, 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 headings: "The Royal Residence," "The Minimes of the Bois de Vincennes," "Mazarin at Vincennes," "The Prisoners of the Donjon," "The Fetes of the Revolution," "The Death of the Duc d'Enghien," "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 near-by Forest of Joinville.

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 completion 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 regular 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 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 reproduction of the miniature from the Book of Hours of the Duc de Berry given herein one sees the perfect 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 Vincennes. 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 fortress should give way. Here at Vincennes a certain massiveness is noted in connection with the donjon, though the actual ground area which it 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 regularity 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 absolute 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 solitary hours and days within its walls, and Mirabeau did the same in 1777. The Duc d'Enghien, under the First Empire, before his actual death by shooting, suffered sorely herein, while resting under an unjust suspicion.



In 1814-1815 the chateau became a great arsenal and general storehouse for the army. It was attacked by the Allies and besieged twice, but in vain. It was defended against the armies of Blucher by the Baron Daumesnil. Summoned to surrender his charge, "Jambe de Bois" (so called because he had lost a leg the year before) replied: "I will surrender when you surrender to me my leg." A statue to this brave warrior is within the chateau, and commemorates 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 various Republicans, who had been seized as dangerous elements of society after the Coup d'Etat of 1851, also here found an enforced hospitality. The Chateau de Vincennes had become a second Bastille.

The incident of the arrest and death of the Duc d'Enghien is one of the most dramatic in Napoleonic 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 obscurity of the night was so great that a lighted lantern was hung around the neck of the unfortunate 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 political future demanded a coup d'Etat. On the morning of the execution, the emperor, awakening at five o'clock, said to Josephine: "By this time the Duc 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 profoundly 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 considerably transformed, new roads and alleys traced, and an effort made to have it equal more nearly the beauty of the more popular Bois de Boulogne. It occupies the plateau lying 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 Conflans in all its glory.

Conflans was at first the country residence of the Archbishops of Paris, and Saint Louis frequently went into retreat here. When Philippe-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 hospitality.



After the death of the countess, the French king made his residence at Conflans, and Charles VI, when dauphin, was also lodged here that he might be near the capital in case of events which 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 Ducs 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 Vincennes 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 setting 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 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 stragglers 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 l'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 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 un 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 drole, so perhaps it is appropriate. At any rate it is contemporary with the churchman's sojourn at Conflans.



CHAPTER XI

FONTAINEBLEAU AND ITS FOREST



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. Versailles was gorgeous, even splendid, if you will; but it had not the unique characteristics, nor winsomeness 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, that bloomed forth the best and most wholesome 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 maison royale which, according to the Latin name given in the document was called Fontene Bleaudi, an etymology not difficult to trace when what we know of its earlier and later history is considered.

Actually this fontaine belle eau is found to-day in the centre of the Jardin Anglais, its basin and outlet being surrounded by the conventional 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 surroundings.

Under Louis-le-Jeune in 1169 was erected, in the Cour du Donjon, the chapel Saint-Saturnin, which was consecrated by Saint Thomas a Becket, then a refugee in France.

Philippe Auguste and Saint Louis inhabited the palace and Philippe-le-Bel died here in 1314. 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 carried to any great length.

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, Fontainebleau 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 establishment of a golf club with the usual appurtenances. Fontainebleau, the town, has a complexion 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 costume. There was talk long ago of suppressing the corps, but all Fontainebleau rose up in protest. As the popular chanson has it: "Laissez 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 Champollion-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 1514, whereas that monarch only ascended the throne in 1515. The date of the first works under this monarch was 1528, according to a letter of the king himself, which began: "We, the court, intend to live in this palace and hunt the 'betes rousses et noirs qui sont dans la foret.'"

An account of Francois I and his "young Italian friends" makes mention of the visit of the king, in company with the Duchesse d'Etampes, to the studio of Serlio who was working desperately 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 standing 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 motif 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 craftsmen who had produced many of the Italian masterpieces of the time.

The tracing of the gardens at Fontainebleau, 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 proportions 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 eliminations of Louis XIV and Louis XV when they made their additions to the palace.

Under the Convention, later on, Fontainebleau's palace again suffered. Under the Consulate 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, Fontainebleau 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.



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 examples 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 monument, 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. Beyond 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 horseshoe stair, certainly much better expressed in French as the Escalier en Fer a Cheval, from which the emperor took his farewell of his "Vieux Grognards" 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 celebrated steed which was originally placed here under a canopy or baldaquin held aloft by colonnettes. 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.

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 Pavillon des Aumoniers, or de l'Horloge; the Chapelle de la Trinite; the Pavillon des Armes; the Pavillon des Peintres; the Pavillon des Poels; the Galerie des Fresques; and, finally, the Pavillon 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 construction, dates from the time of Louis XIII, and replaces the stairs built by Philibert Delorme. The tennis court, just before the Pavillon de l'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 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 proportions 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 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 chasselas, grapes of the finest quality. One wonders who gets them: Ou s'en vont les raisins du roi? 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 reminiscent of the early art of the Renaissance. Francois 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 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 heedlessness 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 with her protege, Primaticcio. One of the masters of this coterie was Nicolo dell' Abbate, better known, perhaps, for his works 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 alternately laid with gold or silver, bearing the monogram of the monarch and his devise. The parquet 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 dell' Abbate, and fifty figures of mythological gods and heroes decorate the window casings.

The chapel dates chiefly from the time of Henri IV, the altar and numerous embellishments belonging to later reigns.

A certain sentiment, not a little real beauty, and much unauthenticated history attach themselves 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 furniture, 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 provincial 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 restorations. Under the Second Empire the Galerie Francois I was repainted, some false antiquities 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 Montceau, 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 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 Chaussee 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 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 them out; the Forest of Fontainebleau remains to-day the best known and most delightful 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 appellation 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 invented 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'Apremont and the Gorge de Franchard as he did the Rue de la Paix or the Champs Elysees. Denecourt's great work, "Promenades dans la Foret 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 bouffe 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.

The flora of the Forest of Fontainebleau is remarkably varied; Denecourt gives seventy varieties of plants and flowers which grow and propagate 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 number; 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 the painters of the thirties. Theodore Rousseau, 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 conservative 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 reward and appreciation, though it is the dealers who have profited—the men are dead.



In memory of the fame brought to this little 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 showing 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 Fontainebleau" says, rightly enough, that, with the coming of the men of Fontainebleau and its "artist-villages" the classic type of "Paysage d'Italie" has disappeared from the Salon Catalogues.

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. The town of Fontainebleau has changed somewhat under this double influence. At Fontainebleau 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 Bonheur who 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 celebrated Bagatelle, within the confines of the Bois itself. The Chateau de Bagatelle was built in a month, thus meriting its name, by the Comte 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."



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 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 meeting 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 phonographic 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 Francaise believes that Louis XIV pronounced "Moi," "le Roi" as "Moue" "le 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 Ile 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 Duc de Vendome. They were in a great coach drawn by four horses which insisted 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 Marquis de Verneuil, "I should have proposed the toast: 'Le Roi Boit!" As a result of this incident 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 suburban 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 setting 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 Republic 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 all comers. Thus was born that delightful Paris suburb, with the broad, shady avenues and comfortable houses, with which one is familiar to-day. The aristocratic Parc 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 having 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 Lucullus 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 brilliant 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 expressed encomiums of the emperor.

In 1815 Wellington made it his headquarters and here had his first conference with Blucher. Upon Wellington quitting Saint James the property 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 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 Pavillon 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 surrounded by stucco, doll-house villas, and unappealing 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 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 reembellish it anew. Through the ministrations of a certain Drouais, Fragonard was commissioned to decorate a special pavilion outside the chateau proper, destined for the "collations du Roi."

The subject chosen was the "Progres de l'Amour dans le Coeur des Jeunes Filles." Just where these panels are to-day no one seems to know, but sooner or later they will doubtless be discovered.

Fragonard's famous "Escalade," or "Rendezvous," the first of the series of five proposed panels, depicted the passion of Louis XV for du Barry. The shepherdess had the form and features of that none too scrupulous feminine beauty, and the "berger gallant" was manifestly a portrait of the king.

Perhaps these decorations at Louveciennes were 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 forgotten.

Francois Mansart built the first Chateau de Maisons on a magnificent scale for Rene de Longueil, 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 surrounding lands were made into a Marquisate. In 1671, on the day of the death of Philippe, Duc 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 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 devastated, but the chateau escaped, owing to its having been made the headquarters of the invading allies. After this, in 1818, the banker Laffitte came into possession. He exercised a great hospitality 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 commercial, 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 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 vestibule.

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 Empress Josephine and her daughter Hortense lie buried in the parish church), one comes to Malmaison 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 cobblestones 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 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.

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 property and the Duc de Massena, a few years afterwards, reestablished it after a fashion, but speculating 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 national merchandise to be turned into ecus, and a certain Monsieur Lecouteux de Canteleu, having 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 which it had never before possessed, gave it its complete fame, in fact.

Napoleon himself, as First Consul, was passionately fond of the place, but by the time he had become emperor, because of unhappy memories, perhaps, for he had them at times, came rarely to this charming suburban chateau.

It was at Malmaison that began the good fortune 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 16, 1809, Josephine quitted the Tuileries, her eyes still red with the tears from that last brief interview. She arrived at Malmaison at the end of a lugubrious day, when the whole place was enveloped 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 melancholy, for it was then Josephine learned that Malmaison had been endowed with an income of two millions for its upkeep, and that her personal belongings and the furnishings of her favourite apartments were already on the way thither from the Tuileries. The wound was not even then allowed to heal, for she learned that Napoleon 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 himself to permit of it. This historic letter closed thus; "Adieu, Josephine, bonne nuit, si tu doutais de moi, tout sera bien indigne."

On the 17th of December Napoleon actually did come to Malmaison to see her from whom he was officially separated. Josephine had confided 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 automatically 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 Napoleon: 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 his desk and his geographical globe—his famous mappemond—was in its accustomed place.

Princes passing through Paris came to Malmaison to salute the former empress, and she allowed herself to become absorbed in her greenhouses 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 preceding 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 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 Officiel." Upon this Napoleon sent the Duc de Rovigo to Paris for his passports and the necessary orders which would enable 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 unbelievable. With an eternal adieu and a rapid step down the garden walk to the driveway, he at last entered the carriage which was awaiting him and was driven rapidly away. Some days after the Allies 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 pictures 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 ultimately purchased by Napoleon III.

In October, 1870, during the siege of Paris, General Ducrot sought to make a reconnaissance by way of Malmaison, and so weak was his project 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 Bruyeres," a royal estate of Napoleon III. It was created and developed by the emperor and was always referred to as a Parc Imperial.

Perhaps the most banal of all the royal souvenirs 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 cobblestoned 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 Rennequin 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 fountains 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 Cookites 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 gardens, 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 townlet 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 neighbouring 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-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, leading 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.

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 deniers. 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 pensionnaire at Versailles, could hardly have carried more distinction.

The court usually resided at Marly from Wednesday 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 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 "gentleman 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 communication to the apartments of the king, and another forming a sort of private box, overlooking 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.