and this time a decisive one; for, though a few workmen were employed in
levelling the grounds and building the walls during the Hundred Days,
there was neither spirit nor conviction in the work: the illusions of
other days had fled, and were not to be revived. It was impossible for
even the most sanguine partisans of Napoleon to imagine that the palace
would ever be completed and receive him as a tenant.

Under the Restoration it was decided to utilize the deserted foundations
and to erect thereon a barrack. The laying of the cornerstone of the new
edifice was made the occasion of a solemn festival in honor of the
successes of the French army in Spain. The day chosen was the
anniversary of the taking of the fort of the Trocadero at Cadiz by the
duc d'Angouleme, and the better to mark the occasion the height on which
the new barrack was to stand was solemnly rebaptized by the name of the
fort in question. The programme of the fete was long and elaborate. It
consisted of a representation of the taking of the Trocadero, a sham
battle in which twenty battalions of the royal guard took part. Then
came the laying of the cornerstone, which duty was performed by the
dauphin and dauphiness. But the projected barrack of the Bourbons shared
the fate of the palace of Napoleon. It was never built, and for nearly
thirty years the ruins of the abandoned foundations and terraces were
left to be picturesquely clothed with weeds and wild grasses. Only the
name bestowed upon the height remained, and it was still called the
Trocadero.

Under the Second Empire the laying out of the numerous handsome avenues
which extend around the Arc de Triomphe, and have it for a centre,
necessitated the clearing and levelling of the deserted site. It was at
first proposed to erect there a monument in commemoration of the
victories of Magenta and Solferino, and the plans were actually drawn
up: it was to have consisted of a lofty column, surpassing in its
dimensions any similar monument in Paris. At the base of this column a
fountain and a vast cascade were to be constructed, and the slope was to
have been laid with turf and planted with trees. But this project, too,
came to naught, and the Exhibition of 1867 only impelled the authorities
into grading and laying out the ground, strengthening and repairing the
flights of steps that led to the summit, and embellishing it with
grass-plats and flower-beds. Later, the project was conceived by
Napoleon III.