The Greatest Palace and Garden of France 
INTERIOR OF MUSIC PAVILION 
A COLONNADE 
Each step in the progress ot the works, even 
down to the latest restoration, is followed 
faithfully. Woven in with the story of the 
building is a narration of noteworthy occur¬ 
rences, the appearance on the scene of per¬ 
sonages connected with its history, the fetes 
of the monarch, even the production of 
plays, and with all this there goes a general 
hut minute description of the palace, its 
splendid stairways, its spacious courtyards, 
its innumerable apartments, its chapel, its 
Galerie des Glaces. The connection with 
these scenes of those who once frequented 
them gives an opportunity of reproducing 
the engraved portraits for which the time 
was famed. The faces of painters, sculptors, 
architects, court favorites, authors and states¬ 
men are thus shown to us as they appeared 
to their contemporaries. 
Following for some time the fortunes of 
the palace under the successors of the Grand 
Monarque , it is not until our authors have 
passed well into the second volume that they 
take up the consideration of the vast grounds 
surrounding the palace and of the buildings 
and works of art scattered about in them. 
Among these the two Trianons , of course, 
divide the honors with the stupendous works 
of Le Notre, those gardens, green allees, 
canals, in short that pare which constitutes 
the masterpiece of the unchallenged master 
of landscape architects. 
Although we have spoken of certain 
features of the book which an architect 
would like, the work, nevertheless, is not 
such as would be produced if intended for 
architects alone. It is of the sort that 
distinctly commends itself to the wealthy 
amateur whose interest is in all the arts 
rather than in one, and not in the arts 
alone, but in all that went to make Ver¬ 
sailles the unique thing it is, the character¬ 
istic monument, the perfect expression of 
the age of Absolutism. 
38 
