PALAIS ROYAL. 4»5 



take a little turn to remind you by a fuggeftion or two 

 of what it was, that you may feel more fenfibly the de- 

 fcription of what it is. In the firfl place, I muft tell 

 you, that it was projected by pride, and executed 

 by arrogance ; that defpotifm at firft here held her. 

 court, and that the fentiment of freedom here firft 

 broke loofe. 



The cardinal de Rich lieu, of politic and defpotic 

 memory, in the year 1629. laid the plan of a palace on 

 the ruins of the hotels Mercosur and Rambouillet (as 

 he was never better pleafed than when he could build 

 on the ruins of nobility), a palace that, for thofe times 

 was very magnificent, and the building whereof em- 

 ployed feven years. The founder of the Academie 

 Francoife had the vanity to place upon it, at the ex- 

 pence either of the french language or of eccleliaftical 

 humility, the plain, and yet at the fame time obfcure 

 inscription, palais cardinal; and in thefe two 

 words found fo much employment for all Paris, and 

 e Specially the parifian literati, that they for a long while 

 forgot their patriotifm, and minded nothing but this 

 infcription; inftead of thinking of the vaft fums of 

 money requhite to the railing of the magnificent flruc- 

 ture, and the Sources from whence they were to be 

 drawn : which, had they done, it might have made the 

 defpoticai Maecenas more inclined to uneaftnefs than 

 to laughter. The queftion in all companies was, What 

 is the meaning of Palais cardinal ? to which people 

 anfwered as well as they could ; or rather as well as 

 they ought, considering that the places in the academy 

 he was instituting were at his difpofal. Doubtlefs they 

 might have Said, that Palais cardinal^ taken in the fame 



fenfe 



