PALAIS ROYAL. 437 



in the elegant arrangement of the whole ; and you will 

 have fome ftandard to form your judgment upon if you 

 pleafe to recollect that the duke of Orleans is one of the 

 moft exquifite voluptuaries, and the raoft ambitious 

 fpend-thrift in the world, and that he lives in fo exalted 

 a ftation, wallowing in gold, in the midft of Paris, the 

 parent and inventreis of all refinements in fenfual and 

 moral luxuries. So much the more linking is the 

 contrail on entering the apartments of his two fons, 

 the duke of Chartres, and the count of Beaujolois ; 

 where we fee none but the moil common ornaments, 

 plain furniture, matted chairs, and mattrafles on the 

 floor in which the two princes fieep. It is in fact as if 

 the fybarite father had a mind to bring up his children 

 Spartans. Thus frugality, like virtue, feems always to 

 extort her grander! triumphs from thofe who fcorn her 

 moft. 



After thefe two views, I leave you, my dear friend, 

 to your own imagination and to your own reflections 

 for whatever relates to the owner of the palace. It is 

 not my defign to give a defcription of him, but of his 

 houfe. We defcend into the fecond court, termed la 

 cour royale, for coming into the fcene of bufinefs and 

 buftle : for all that I have hitherto been faying is only 

 exordium or introduction. 



The cour royale is larger than the firft court ; but it 

 is not by far fo much built upon. One half of its area 

 ftill ferves as a building place for the new theatre des 

 varietes amufantes, and for the fourth wing of the new 

 difpolition of the palace. The court is to be twice as 

 large as at prefent. The veftibule through which we 

 come into it, is to be lengthened ; and, facing that 

 magnificent flight of fteps another is to be made, en- 



f f 3 lightened 



