The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-06-16

days Of bitter agitation after Waterloo. The bed he died on has been on view there, think, ever since 1t was brought from St. Helena, but the other relics that are being gathered together will IglVe no doubt a new importance to Nal maison in the eyes of English visitors who often overlook it.
 The restorations at St. Germain, which are almost finished, were begun in 1862. Of course, the Franco German war interrupted them, and even after the war they were interrupted again between 1890 and 1893. Lately four thousand pounds a year has teen granted by the Service des Batiments Civils, and twelve thousand pounds by the Service des Monuments Historiques, l suppose that the chateau of St. Ger main, no longer having on show beds in which kings slept and chairs on which they sat, and having only mediocre pie lures to console you for the want, can never be as interesting to visitor sas places like Compiegne-to have Yer sa1lles and Fontainebleau out of the comparison, because they are incom- parable-where you can see the original furniture. But as the only brick palace of the French Renaissance, the chateau is remarkable, and probably the first impression of everyone who looks at its great shining windows without iron crosspieces is the same-that it is a modern-looking building which you might easily have supposed to be cou- pie ot hundred vars younger.p If you are Jacobite, of course, you will think St. Germain the noblest of all Trench chateaux, for there James IT., after his expulsion from England, lived with the |penitential chain round his body There he died and was buried The last time l went into the parish church there were two wreaths of white flowers on his monument bearing the address of some devout legitimate of the Thames valley. His widow lived there till her death, and her little court did not re- tire even then. For all I know, their descendants would still be in the cha teau if the court had not been turned out in the Revolution.
 The monument to James II was erect ed by Queen Victoria, as though to sho that the House of Hanover can be Jacobite too. Perhaps this gift was re- garded by Jacobites as an even more bitter attention than the services of the office of works, which so obliglngly undertakes every year to place the tri- butes of high treason on the statue of Charles in Trafalgar Square. James II used to say that the magnificent view from the great terrace of St. Ger main (Alfred de Musset called it "The Balcony of Paris') reminded him of richmond. Everything depends on the point of view. It reminded Louis of St Denis, where one day he would have to be buried. That was perhaps the real reason why he built Versailles. The museut of French and Roman antiqui- ties in the chateau has reached high state of excellence, and it is good plan to take it as preparatory step to Clu- ny. 81
 Fountainebleau is too well known and too glorious for it to be necessity to say anything to encourage English wis itors to go there. There you have at once the grandeur of a palace and the informality of a hunting-box, and the combination, if not the nobest, is per- haps the most attractive thing in France-the palace one would like most to live in. The Fecohstituted rooms are those of Joseph Banaparte (Napoleon's eldest brother, who became King of Spain); of Louis Bonaparte (who be- came King of Holland); of Queen Hor- tense, his wife; of the sisters of Napo- leon; of Pope Plus VII, who consecra- ted Napoleon, signed the conoordat with France, and was prisoner all the time he was at Fontainebleau; of Mu- rat (Napoleon's brotherrin-law), and ol some other famous persons.
 Lastly, M, Taharaud at Compeigne is turning certain rooms of the chateau which have not hitherto been on view from furniture warehouse into har- montous seroes, which make you think that the kings and queens and empe- TOTS might come in at any moment and take up their life where they left 1t off The chairs are placed about the rooms as presumably they used to be, instead of round the walls in rows-wood is or