It was a good afternoon's work to visit all the fountains. They are twenty-six in number, strewn over the undulating grounds. People who visit Paris usually consider a day of Grandes Eaux at Versailles the last word of this species of costly trifling. But the waters at Versailles bear no comparison with those of La Granja. The sense is fatigued and bewildered here with their magnificence and infinite variety. The vast reservoir in the bosom of the mountain, filled with the purest
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water, gives a possibility of more superb effects than have been attained anywhere else in the world. The Fountain of the Winds is one, where a vast mass of water springs into the air from the foot of a great cavernous rock; there is a succession of exquisite cascades called the Race-Course, filled with graceful statuary; a colossal group of Apollo slaying the Python, who in his death agony bleeds a torrent of water; the Basket of Flowers, which throws up a system of forty jets; the great single jet called Fame, which leaps one hundred and thirty feet into the air, a Niagara reversed; and the crowning glory of the garden, the Baths of Diana, an immense stage scene in marble and bronze, crowded with nymphs and hunting-parties, wild beasts and birds, and everywhere the wildest luxuriance of spouting waters. We were told that it was one of the royal caprices of a recent tenant of the palace to emulate her chaste prototype of the silver bow by choosing this artistic basin for her ablutions, a sufficient number of civil guards being posted to prevent the approach of Castilian Actaeons. Ford aptly remarks of these extravagant follies: "The yoke of building kings is grievous, and especially when, as St. Simon said of Louis
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XIV. and his Versailles, 'II se plut á tyranniser la nature.'"
As the bilious Philip paused before this mass of sculptured extravagance, he looked at it a moment with evident pleasure. Then he thought of the bill, and whined, "Thou hast amused me three minutes and hast cost me three millions."
To do Philip justice, he did not allow the bills to trouble him much. He died owing forty-five million piastres, which his dutiful son refused to pay. When you deal with Bourbons, it is well to remember the Spanish proverb, "A sparrow in the hand is better than a bustard on the wing."
We wasted an hour in walking through the palace. It is, like all palaces, too fine and dreary to describe. Miles of drawing-rooms and boudoirs, with an infinity of tapestry and gilt chairs, all the apartments haunted by the demon of ennui. All idea of comfort is sacrificed to costly glitter and flimsy magnificence. Some fine paintings were pining in exile on the desolate walls. They looked homesick for the Museum, where they could be seen of men.