The Labyrinth, at Versailles.
This charming labyrinth is attached to Le Petit Trianon at Versailles. The palace and its gardens were formed under the reign of Louis XV., who was there when he was attacked by the contagious disease of which he died. Louis XVI. gave it to his queen, who took great delight in the spot, and had the gardens laid out in the English style. The château, or palace, is situated at one of the extremities of the park of the Grand Trianon, and forms a pavilion, about seventy-two feet square. It consists of a ground floor and two stories, decorated with fluted Corinthian columns and pilasters crowned by a balustrade. The gardens are delightful: here is a temple of love; there an artificial rock from which water rushes into a lake; there a picturesque wooden bridge, a rural hamlet, grottoes, cottages embowered in groves of trees, diversified with statues and seats—and above all, the fascinating MAZE, the plan of which is represented in the Engraving.
Versailles, its magnificent palace and gardens, are altogether fraught with melancholy associations. When we last saw them, the grounds and buildings presented a sorry picture of neglect and decay. The mimic lakes and ponds were green and slimy, the grottoes and shell-work crumbling away, the fountains still, and the cascades dry. But the latter are exhibited on certain days during the summer, when the gardens are thronged with gay Parisians. The most interesting object however, is, the orange-tree planted by Francis I. in 1421, which is in full health and bearing: alas! we halted beside it, and thought of the wonderful revolutions and uprootings that France had suffered since this tree was planted.
In Le Petit Trianon and its grounds the interesting Queen Marie Antoinette passed many happy hours of seclusion; and would that her retreat had been confined to the maze of Nature, rather than she had been engaged in the political intrigues which exposed her to the fury of a revolutionary mob. In the palace we were shown the chamber of Marie Antoinette, where the ruffians stabbed through the covering of the bed, the queen having previously escaped from this room to the king's chamber; and, as if to keep up the folly of the splendid ruin, a gilder was renovating the room of the ill-starred queen.