The Evening Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1917-1920, 1918-12-03
By United Press.


VERSAILLES. Nov. 16. CBy Mail.)-
This is a great town for a peace con-
as big as Toledo, Ohio. in point of pop
ulatiOn, and has not nearly the hotel
Accommodations available in Salt Lake
City. and has no convention hall in
the class of the Auditorium at St
Paul, Mimi. it has one qualification
which absolutely puts those American
cities out of the race for the worlds
greatest peace conference.
II has background.
Background is as essential to a sue
cessful peace conference as is chile
con carne to q Mexican carnival. 1t
is expensive, and the right kind can
not be bought in any market any more.
the late war having used up the en-
tire current output.
The historical background of Yer
sailles cost France a century of starv-
alton, an ocean of blood, a cycle OF
scandal, a few billion francs, and a
heartache that throbbed so powerfully
that it Jared dynasties and empires
off the earth.
Louis XIII, who was a goodly king,
went hunting in the woods where now
stands Versailles, one day about 1924.
He had fine luck hunting. but at night
he had to sleep in hotel where there
were some common folk sleeping, and
sitting about talking politics! Sleep
ing in the same building with wag
oners and farmers was shocking to
Louis, for Louis was a regular king.
He decided to build a little chateau
near his hunting grounds, where he
could sleep in peace once or twice a
year, for he had no automobile TO take
him back to Paris at the end of a per-
feet hunting day.
That chateau of Louis XIII, very
unbeautiful but highly expensive
house, still stands, with the magnif-
cent Palace of Versailles built around
it.
The palace itself could house 10000
persons very easily, but it doesn't, and
never did.
Monument to AutOcracy.
1t is used as a museum, and as
monument to the stupendous extrav-
agance, effrontery, and futility of mon
archy. Now it is proposed that repre-
sentatives of practically all nations of
any importance and representatives of
all classes of human being, meet here
to proclaim the end of war and au-
tocracy.
Nobody ever will know how much
the great palace cost France under
the reign OF its builder, Louis XIV.
The palace was not built with an
eye to peace conferences, or assem-
blies of democracies. Louis XIV didn't
know about such things. But Louis had
a lady friend, Miss La Valliere, with
whom he was trying to make a great
hit. She was the same lady who wore
the little decoration suspended about
her neck, from which layallieres iva
riously spelled and designed in these
days. take their name. A certain.
FOuquet, Louis minister of finance, al
so cOurted Miss La Vallierer, and one
night gave a big party to win her
heart. He spent 100000 francs on
the party, but then he was a minis
ter of finance. He invited the king,
and the king became wroth that
mere minister of finance should be
able to give such party and steal his
girl at the same time. So Louis had
Fouquet thrown in Jail as a suspicious
character, undecided to build a house
that would knock Miss La Valliere's
eye out, so to speak. Louis was
married man of course, but then he
was king, and in those days a king
could do no wrong.
Both Louis XIV and his successors
found that the palace was entirely too
big for one lady friend, so they brought
in several at a time, and yet managed
to keep the so far apart that the
royal hair-pullings were few indeed. !
Among the successors of La Valliere ]
were the notorious Mines. Montespan, 4
Dubarry. and Pompadour. /
The Gallery of Mirrors.
Descriptions of the various rooms of .
the palace occupy many volumes, and
descriptions of the gardens about the /
palace occupy whole libraries. But /
The room of chief interest at this time
is the Gallery of Mirrors. 1t was here .
that King William of Prussia, ances-
or of William Hohenzollern, was pro-
claimed emperor of Germany on Jan.
Is, 1871. And it is here that we ex-
Dect to see William Hohenzollern pro-
claimed nobody, As years later. In
fact, many Frenchmen are so poetic
Is to hope that by Jan. is, 1919, either
he peace conference or some auxil- 4
airy court may sentence the last Ger