LA DUNETTE MEANT "POOP DECK," the high place on a ship’s stern-castle from which the captain could see everything. The name had come to Louis-François de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon, some twelve years earlier, as he had stood upon the brow of the hill, peering, between two denuded trees, across the frozen bog that would later become the Pièce d’eau des Suisses, at the southern flanks of the stupendous construction site that would shortly become the royal palace of Louis XIV.