The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-10-25
sAINEMOUD.
from the New York Times. I

HAINTCLOUD.
II from the New York Times.1
| It Is announced that the French Govern
ment has given notice of its intention to as
for an appropriation for the rebuilding of th
palace Of Saint Cloud. This intelligence wi
have an interest for hundreds of thousands {
} visitors, who rambled about the noble pill
when it was an imperial residence, and whe
the saturnine Napoleon III promenaded il
terraces in the early dawn of summer rorr
ings, maturing his plans for the continue
subsection of the restless people over whom b
ruled. The fine chateau on which Gondi, tn
architect, lavished all his exquisite taste an
skill more than three centuries ago, was on
of the favorite resorts of travellers. The
loved to wander up the winding road, from tn
picturesque village by the Seine, to tn
behind which, in the great halls O
the palace, Eugene and Napoleon some
times found refuge from the turmoils ant
gayeties of Paris, just as many grandee o
| the past has sought repose before them. I
was at st. Cloud that tbs Duke of Orleans
loved to hide himself when the cares of thu
world weighed heavily, and to plan parks ant
gardens with his pet gardener, LIE Notre; il
Wa there that Louis XVI and Marie An
toinette held many gay festival, or lived Sc
questered and happy when court tumults were
over; and there that Napoleon now and then
went to muse on his lofty schemes, and to re-
pose under the mighty and ancient trees.
What tourist does not remember the joyous
junketing in the long alleys of the park when
the st. Cloud fair was in progress? And who
can forget the promenades in the leafy avenue
of the huge forest the sweet hooks around
Vile D'Avray, or the lovely thickets on the
route to Bas-Meudon? What visitor to
France has not threaded the forest of Saint
Cloud?
When the Franco-Prussian war came, with
its myriad disasters, the palace of Saint
Cloud was ruined In the park-which had
resounded for score of years to nothing save
music and laughter, or Of the peaceful hum of
occasional diplomatic chatter, when the En-.
peror gave party au bois-thousands of SOL
diers Lit their camp-fres in trenches, or bur
rowed in subterranean passages, seeking shell
ter from the relentless storm of iron hail poured
upon them by the French forts. In the long
and trying winter of 1901, when the Prus-
slams surrounded Paris with circle of iron
and fire, and when the shock of gigantic ar
tillery duel shivered the ice in the Seine, the
park OF Saint Cloud was scanned and scared
with tunnels, redoubts, and intrenchments
The unbaried dead lay for days beside
the shattered walls of the chateau
The superb shade-trees were felled and
converted into abattis, the roads were worn
into bitches by the passage of artillery; and
somber graveyards, filed with many mounds,
on each of which lay Prussion helmet and a
sprig of evergreen, bore witness to the fierce
ness of the struggle. The palace root had
fallen in; great fragments Of pillars which
had supported the gilded and frescoed plafonds
Of gorgeous saloons were Clipped into tiny
pieces and sent to Germany as souvenirs; and
the floors on which many noble ladies had
danced were stained with the blood of foreign |
foes.
That was not the first time that alien SOL |
liers had been quartered in the Park of st. |
Cloud. When the allied armies were at the |
gates of Paris in 1913, Germans and Russians
ogether had wandered beneath thu trees and |
'ivouacked in the saloons. But the second
lsitation left nothing save a few blackened
walls, mass of unsightly stones and broken
and ruined park. French shells
rom French forts toppled down the monu-
nent to royal pleasure aud retirement; and a
erce rush of battle-fame, a few days before
Queen Paris capitulated and put on the sack
10th Of humiliation and the ashes of despair,
sft unseemly gaps in the streets of the pretty
own which took its name from the palace
iany brawny Republican from the peoples
uarters of Paris was glad when he
card that the Imperial residence was
one, and thousands of Frenchmen
expressed their hope that the ruin might re-
lain unrestored-a CHASTITY memorial of the
haos in which monarchy and Imperialism had
from the country which they had
ing afflicted with misrule. The country over ,
hich the Assembly and MacMahon rule is
Oh, and can erect a score of palaces, each
ne costly as Saint Cloud; but it is not alto {
ether pleasant to see the attention of her I
Tiers devoted to such petty matters when her !
Derties are in danger, and her voters need !
,ht and encouragement. Perhaps the voice I
the masses in France may have some influ- !
ice with the Versailles Government, and
ay teach that .riflng collection of "ghosts J
the past" that "new occasions make new g
'ties." Even the national pride of the :
:ench masses will hardly influence them c
llingly to consent to the rebuilding of ruined r
storic palaces until there is no longer any
obability that new monarchs may arise to n
cupy them. C