Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-08-01
THE PARK AT VERSAILLES.
Tho GRAND Fountains, Etc.


sailes, gives an account of Sunday
afternoon spent in the park of that
charming city. In the afternoon, he
remarks, there was still more excite
ment for Partisan visitors. On the first
Sunday in every month the Grandes
Eaux are set to play. Start not, severe
reader, nor exclaim against the reck-
less extravaganza of the French govern
ment in throwing so much good money
into the air. 1t is not the country that
pays for the great waters" but the
railway companies, who get up the sight
that they may make profit out of extra
trains. The fountains which Louis XIV.
spent millions of lives as we'll as livres
in order to supply water are now worked
as a speculation. 1t must have paid
we'll to-day, for the park was thronged
with perspiring Parisians, who covered
the broad walks. squatted all over the
grass plots, and filed even the most re-
tired bosquets. Soldiers, too, were there
en- masse; the brick. dust legs Of the hob
bledehoys, from whom the rank and file
of the present French army seems to
be chiefly recruited, were everywhere
sprawlng about the turf The women,
always foremost in France, led their old
fashioned children and unresisting hus-
bands about from one sight to another,
until the young hopefuls all got cross,
and the men, with their waistcoats un-
buttoned, and their hats lifted off their
moist foreheads, looked the picture of
despair
There were two hours to get through
before the Grandes Faux, but when is
French family hard up for conversation
Was there not the last mare nest of a
conspiracy against NJ. Theirs to be dis
cussed and version of the last journal.
istie duel--there are three or four every
week-to be retailed2 Then there are
curious computations of the indemnity
to talk about One politician declares
that it would take man some thirteen |
years, and / know not how many days, |
working fifteen hours a day TO count out |
the indemnity in twenty-franc gold |
pieces; while another caps his friend |
with the information that il only three |
milliards were paid in silver, they would |
weigh fifteen millions of kilogrammes, |
and that they could not be put into the |
eight hundred omnibuses which daily |
drove about the streets of Paris. If
your Frenchman can boast of nothing |
else he will boast OF his misfortunes.
Then the sight of the dark fir woods OF |
Satory looming in the distance across /
the orangery reminded everybody of the |
two poor wretcbes who yesterday at |
daybreak there expiated their crimes. |
Even FreRchmen are beginning to ac-
knowledge the impolicy of these never
ending executions. The behavior of the |
two men who fell yesterday, and their
last words, show clearly that they ac-
cepted the sentence Of their party hav-
ing been, conquered, not by any means
as a punishment for crime. They con-
sidered themselves as martyrs in just |
cause; and there can be no doubt, not |
only that they will be always looked
upon in that light by their friends, but |
that their deaths win be bitterly avenged
at the first opportunity.
Turn we, however, If only for this one
day, to pleasanter subjects. And, harkl
there is rushing sound, and jets of
crystal shoot from the upper terrace
high into the air, Then at the Bassin dc
Latone all the figures spit out streams Of
water at the two children whom Latona
is protecung-stroams which cross each
other until they form of themselves a
design that throws silvery veil over the
central group. In the Bosquet d'Apol-
lon, where stands, at the entrance of
an architectural cavern, the superb
group representing the God Of Light
tended at his toilet by the Gracos, the
water is just beginning TO pour in every
direction round the horses Of the sun,
adding vraisemblsnce as well as beauty
to what in some respects is always the
most beautiful of the bosquets; hence,
the people flock to the so-called COLON
made, where every arch of the circular
arcade Of white marble is frightened by
a single glaneing jet, and then to the So
called Sale de bal, where the omnipres-
ent water falls from step to step Of
many-colored shells. Turn where you
will-look down across the iamAus tapis