The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-18
Thy Terraces, st. Cloud"

The following particulars relating to the
Palace of st. Cloud, appeared in an English
paper and will be read with interest. The
charms of this whilom delightful abode, now
mass of ruins, were the theme of some beau
full verses by Sir Walter Scott:
The Palace of st. Cloud was the favorite
residence of the ex-Emperor and his Empress,
and also of the Prince Imperial, who during
the grand exhibition of 1867 held there his
youthful court. 1t was originally named after
the grandson Of Clovis l.. a hermit who erect
ed a religio is house upon the site afterwards
occupied as palace.
St. Cloud became gradually resort of pill
grms and crusaders, and also of other wayfar-
ers during the Middle Ages. 1t has been said
that the chateau, which ultimately became
royal residence, was built in 1868 by Louis
XIV. but the chateau itself was a retreat of
royalty as far back as the time of Catherine de
Medicis, who would hold her couct there when
wearied Of the splendors of the Louvre or of
Fontainebleau; and her son Henry III. both
lived and died here. 1t was at St. Cloud, too,
that Henry " was first hailed as King. In
the reign of Louis XIV. the chateau was be-
slowed ON his brother, the Duke of Orleans,
whose duchess, the daughter of our own first
Charles, died within its walls in 1910. In 1749
p later Duke of Orleans, known to history as
"Egalite," was born at st. Cloud, and from
him the chateau was purchased in 1855 by the
unfortunate Marie Antoinette. For a fe
years Immediately before the outbreak of the
first revolution she made this her favorite resi-
dence, as less fantastic than lie Petit Trian-
on" and less sumptuous than Versailles
Here, too, in 1880 she summoned Mirabeau
to the secret conference, which Immediately
preceded his leadership of the National Assem-
bly,.
A few years later the Empress Josephine
reiened at st. Cloud; and it was from st. Cloud
that she set forth to meet Napoleon at Fon-
tainebleau only few weeks before her divorce.
Sad must have been the memories of St.
Cloud where she had spent her childhood to
the daughter of Marie Antoinette, tie Ouch
eSs d d'Angouleme, on her return thither at the
Restoration. 1t was from the windows of St.
Cloud that in 1880 the Duchess de Berri de-
scried through telescope the red flag Of the
Revolution mounted on the top of the Tuile-
ries; it was from St. Cloud that Charles X took
his departure on his abdication; and eighteen
years later the King Uouis Philippe) whom
that same Revolution had seated on the throne
of France, was glad to find temporary resting
place at ST. Cloud, in the interval between his
escape from the Tuileries and his reaching the
sea-coast along with the Queen and other
members of his family. More recently, as our
readers are all aware the grandson of the En-
press Josephine for nearly twenty years made
St. Cloud his favori,e residence; and, when,
some years ago. he drove out thither from Par
l is with the Gar of Russia as his guest it is
l possible that some of those present may have
| remembered how Peter the Great had been
l entertained there by the Duke of Orleans.
then Regent of France, the splendor of whose
f1tes at this palace is still traditonally celc-
brated by French writers. The latest incident
i'll the history of st. Cloud was its destruction
by the Germans in 1870.