Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-01
Versailles: The Stage of .StateLness

WHEN French history often tanta-
w mount to the world'srushes past the
control of it's actors Paris is usually the
locale of those crises.
When formal staging is in order. when
the-dramatis personae are in a sense mas
ters Of the event. the scene shifts from a
fervent metropolis. true capital of spOn
taneous, passionate endeavor, to a dusty.
| underpopulated town, conceived in self
conscious artifice and through the surge
| Of centuries unfalteringly true to its essen
| tial character. This little CITY, whose
streets are too wide for its sporadic traffic.
| whose vast parks and gardens are almost
| depressingly disproportionate to the pre-
vailing numbers of their frequenters, whose
| grandeur in public buildings is redolent
| with the quality of stiff and silent seclu-
| sion, is Versailles, where the preliminary
| steps toward re-establshing security for
| the globe are now bein., taken.
Let it not be construed from this analysis
| that Versailles made history is of delusive
| pretentousness. Its contributions to world
| annals have been epoch-forming and mag
| nificently vital. But as rule, it mas au-
| thoritativey controlled the clutch OF CIR
| cumstance. Had the Bastille raised its
| grim towers in Versailles the destruction
! of that symbol of tyranny would scarcely
| have been consummated by an irresistible
| popular uprising Formal resolutions would
probably have been passed and the struc-
| ,ure would have been razed, though with
! ,horoughness, yet with austere and conf
| dent disnt:
TNHE unfaiins instinct of French taste
l. has been quick to sense the very special
and exalted role of Versailles. Unless the
foreign visitor realizes it also his impress
sion of it will be entirely out of key with
its singular functions. Over Versailles
hangs the oppressive melancholy of delib-
eratey manufactured Importance. Its de.
| serted avenues, laid out with geometrlca'
accuracy. seem disheartenngly un-Euro-
pean. woefully unpicturesGue.
Conceptions of the brilliant, graceful ele
Rance of the days Of the Great Louis are
rudely dashed by the first glimpses of the
huge brick chateau and its grounds, to
which the eye can fix no limits. Mohu-
mental as that palace is, it's exterior evokes
no thrill. Grass grows between the paving
blocks of the courtyard. a crowd of people
would seem merely a handful there. The
.scene ia almost dull. Facing the gardens
from the terrace on the other side OF the
building the formal trees, the rigid'y out
lined pools, the fountains, >grandiose but
somehow distressingly superabundant
heavily appall one with their excessive sug-
Restions of megalomania.
In a word Versailles appears too big for
its present boots. Even the charming
rrianon retreats, the Great and the Little
with their associations Of sham rusticity
of Watteau- like festivals, of kings and mis-
tresses. intrigues, courtiers and sycophan
tic exauisites. but slightly affect the over
tones of the. general composition
nUT Versailles can afford to be con-
ID temptuous of hasty and superficial
| verdicts. The pageant of history justifies
her. Her place Is unique and France
seems consistently determined to keep it
so. There can be no question that III its
sweeping hat.like grandeur fully measured
up to-the colossal and egoistic aims Of
Louis XIV. So long as the State was The
king, as the Grande Monarque declared it
TO be- where the ruler lived became in fact
the capital of France. Such was Versailles
during most of three reigns--those Of the
Fourteenth. Fifteenth and Sixteenth Louis.
| In the chateau on June 20, i7ss the