The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-10-16

reflected honor upon her annals, from the
cradle Of the monarchy down to the present
day." Such was the dedication given BY
Louis Philippe to the main building Of the
palace Of Versailles when he converted II Into
vast and magnificent museum Of painting,
sculpture, carving, canoes, bronzework and
numberless other mementos Of the wealth.
splsndor and renown that had accumulated In
the history Of the 'sgvGnde nation" How
strangely must that dedication read to-day, in
the presence OF the amused and laxative
German officers" who stray from corridor to
corridor and from hall to hall In the Grand
Trianon and the Petit Trianon Teasing their
gaze upon the colossal war scenes OF Horace
Vernet. the cast and chisellsd groups Of Cous-
tou, Coysevox, Puget, Legros, Girardon and
their compeets. King william, the successor
in our time and in the meridian Of Paris, or
those barbaric chieftains who overran luxurious
Romein the decline of the B0s Empire, strolls,
their sole master and possessor now, through
those matchless terraced gardens that ex-
hausted the genius Of LIE Notre, and reviews
his grim troops from the borders of the Rhine
courts which look like the massive frostwork
of fairy realm, SO richly and 50 Whitley are
they encrusted with fine marbles and studded
with statued groups and curiously wrought
monuments.
To such a man, of so varied and peculiar q
recent warfare and with such heaped-up tro-
plies of victory at his feet what emotions
must not the contrast between the France Of
yesterday and the France Of to-day bring
rushing upon his mind Here, in the vast
cour du pdJais or main courtyard of the royal
residence, where the Prussian Guards are now
exercised, he beholds the statues of the great
men of France, her mobiles OF renown, her
marshals, her statesmen, her lawgivers, ora
tors, poets and artists, as though assembled
there to witness the bivouac or 'the wild
Pomeranian hordes" in the very heart
of their refined, luxurious Paradise;
while the colossal bronze Of Louis
Quatorze, who spent two hundred million
dollars upon the perfection Of those splendors,
seems still to hold as naughty command from
the back Of his charger as in those grand days
of the old school monarchy when he could
proudly claim that he, and he solely, was the
State Yonder, looking out upon the many
minor courts and passages, the parterres OF
rarest shrubbery and bloom, the densely
shaded walks, the velvet lawns, the alleys
overarched with meeting branches, crossed
and recrossed like the fretted beams and joists
Of Gothic aisles, are the windows Of l73 ma
jestic halls, filed with the 4,838 pictures,
groups, casts, medallions and retefs that en-
balm forever, for the gaze of posterity, the
faces, the figures and the deeds Of the sages
and heroes of France. There, on deathless
canvas, are the battles OF the first and second
empires and the story of the Bonapartes, from
the Fight Of the Sections to the charge at
Inkermann, the capture of the Malakof and
the glorious day at Solferino. How sad and
strange they look while our eyes are still
lotte of the bombardment and surrender Of
Strasbourg and, worst of all, of tho supreme
disaster at Sedan We cannot Danish these
reflections, even when we turn away, with
King William, for relief to the lighter splen-
doris of the Salon dHercuLe, where Lemoine
has covered the walls with the radiant won
ders Of his pencil, or TO the Grand Gallery,
two hundred and ten feet long and thirty
broad, on the sides and ceilings OF which are
seen glowing the alegories Of Lebrun. No!
Out of the fallen grandeur of the present the
teeming past will still wildly recur. From
the remote eleventh century, when Versailles
was but petty village dependency Of the an
client Abbey Of Saint Magloire, down through
the long succession Of those historic times
when the figures of the Cardinal de Retz, and
Louis XII; of Louis XIV. and his magnif-
cent following and court; Of Louis XIV. and
the celebrities who surrounded him there
throughout the entire continuance of his reign;
Of Louis XVI, closing the long record of the
ancient monarchy amid the dying cries of his
faithful Swiss and the bowls of the sans cu-
lottss forcing him away from this ''lovely
seat" to palatial Imprisonment and, at
last, to merciless judgment and the
| guillotine at Paris--the students memory
sweeps through an unbroken series
Of dramatic episodes, some grand
and imposing; others touching and pathetic;
all full Of deep historic interest. 1t was in the
great hall Of this palace that Louis Quatorze
received the Turkish and Persian Ambassa-
doris, amid such blaze of wax lights, colored
| chandeliers, Illuminated paintings, polished
statuary, sparkling fountains and transparent
vases ofexotics that filled the air with perfume;
such a dazzling array Of gorgeous uniforms and
of feminine loneliness glittering with pearls
and diamonds, that the astonishcd Orientals
wrote to their masters in the East that
they had indeed beheld the King Of