CHAPTER XII.
Versailles—Expiatory Chapel—Père Lachaise.
THE guide-books say that the visitor to the palace of Versailles is admitted, should he desire it, to five different court-yards. We cared for but one—the cour d’honneur whose gates are crowned with groups emblematical of the victories of le grand Monarque.
It is an immense quadrangle, paved with rough stones, and flanked on three sides by the palace and wings. The central château, facing the entrance, was built by Louis XIII., the wings by Louis XIV. The prevailing color is a dull brick-red; the roofs are of different heights and styles; the effect of the whole far less grand, or even dignified, than we had anticipated. The pavilions to the right and left are lettered, “À toutes les gloires de la France.” Gigantic statues, beginning, on the right hand, with Bayard, “sans peur et sans reproche,” guard both sides of the court. In the centre is a colossal equestrian statue in bronze of Louis XIV., the be-wigged, be-curled, and be-laced darling of himself and a succession of venal courtezans. At the base of this statue we held converse, long and low, of certain things this quadrangle had witnessed when, through it, lay the way to the most luxurious and profligate court that has cursed earth and insulted Heaven since similar follies and crimes wrought the downfall of the Roman Empire. Of the throngs of base parasites that flocked thither in the days when Pompadour and Du Barry held insolent misrule over a weaker, yet more vicious sovereign than Louis XIV. Of the payment exacted for generations of such amazing excesses, when Parisian garrets and slums sent howling creditors by the thousand to settle accounts with Louis XVI. Vast as is the space shut in by palace-walls and folding gates, they filled it with ragged, bare-legged, red-capped demons. Upon the balcony up there, the king, also wearing the red cap, appeared at his good children’s call. Anything for peace and life! Upon the same balcony stood, the same day, his braver wife, between her babes, true royalty sustaining her to endure, without quailing, the volleys of contumely hurled at “the Austrian woman.” Having secured king, queen, and children as hostages for the payment of the national debt of vengeance, the complainants sacked the palace, made an end of its glory as a kingly residence, until Louis Philippe repaired ravages to the extent of his ability, and converted such of the state apartments as he adjudged unnecessary for court uses into an historical picture-gallery.
The history of the French nation—of its monarchs, generals, marshals, victories, coronations, and hundreds of lesser events—is there written upon canvas. Eyes and feet give out and the brain wearies before it is half read. The polished floors, inlaid with different-colored woods, smooth as glass, are torture to the burning soles; the aching in the back of the neck becomes agony. Yet one cannot leave the work unfinished, where every step is a surprise and each glance discovers fresh objects of interest.
“If only we had the moral courage not to look at the painted ceilings!” said Dux, meditatively; “or if it were en règle for a fellow to lie upon his back in order to inspect them!”
We were in the Gallery of Mirrors, two hundred and forty feet long; seventeen windows looking down upon gardens and park, upon fountains, groves, and lakelets; seventeen mirrors opposite these repeating the scenes framed by the casements.
“The ceiling by Lebrun represents scenes in the life of the Grand Monarch,” uttered the guide.