r thrills when we really owned a bit of it.

Louis XIV selected Versailles as the site for the royal palace when it
was a swampy, uninteresting little farm. Louis XIII had built a chateau
there in 1627, but had done little to beautify the flat acres
surrounding it. Louis the Magnificent lavished fortunes on the laying
out of his new park. The Grand Trianon was built for Madame de Main
tenon in 1685, and from this time on, for a full century, the Park of
Versailles was the most famous royal residence in the world.

The Petit Trianon was built by Louis XV for Madame du Barry. Later,
during the reign of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, who was then Queen,
tiring of court etiquette and scorning the stately rooms of Versailles,
persuaded her husband to make over to her the Petit Trianon. Here she
built a number of little rustic cottages, where she and the ladies of
her court, dressed in calicoes, played at being milkmaids. They had a
little cottage called the "Laiterie," where the white cows with their
gilded horns were brought in to be milked. Here, too, little plays were
presented in a tiny theater where only the members of the court were
admitted. The Queen and her brother, Comte de Provence, were always the
chief actors.

Our villa adjoins the Park proper. In our deeds to the two acres there
is a clause which reserves a right-of-way for the King! The deed is
worded like the old lease that dates back to 1750, and so one day we may
have to give a King a right-of-way through our garden, if France becomes
a monarchy again. Anyone who knows French people at all knows how dearly
they cherish the dream of a monarchy.

[Illustration: THE BROAD TERRACE CONNECTS HOUSE AND GARDEN]

One of the small houses we found on our small estate had once been a
part of the _hameau_ of Marie Antoinette. We have had this little house
rebuilt and connected with the villa, and now use it as a guest
house. It is very charming, with its walls covered with lattices and
ivy.

Villa Trianon, like most French houses, is built directly on the street,
leaving all the space possible for the garden. The facade of the villa
is very simple, it reminds you of the square houses of the American
Colonial period, except that there is no "front porch," as is inevitable
with us in America. The entrance gate and the stone wall that surround
the place give an interest that our detached and hastily built American
houses lack. The wall is really a continuation of the