ssadors from the Thirteen United Provinces."

During the Revolution in America the newspapers made much of Marie
Antoinette's liking for Benjamin Franklin. Among others, the _New
Hampshire Gazette_ printed this story, which went the rounds of the
States. "Franklin being lately in the gardens of Versailles, showing the
Queen some electrical experiment, she asked him in a fit of raillery if
he did not dread the fate of Prometheus, who was so severely served for
stealing fire from Heaven. 'Yes, please your Majesty' (replied old
Franklin, with infinite gallantry), 'if I did not behold a pair of eyes
pass unpunished which have stolen infinitely more fire from Jove than I
ever did, though they do more mischief in a week than I have done in all
my experiments.'"

On January 20, 1783, at the office of the Count de Vergennes at
Versailles, in the presence of Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, the
representatives of England, France and Spain affixed their signatures to
the preliminary documents declaring war at an end between America and
England. A little over seven months later, on September 3, 1783, at the
Hotel de York in Paris, the final treaty between Great Britain and the
United States was signed. Later on the same day, the definitive treaty
between England and France was concluded at Versailles. When Franklin
was about to take leave of France and return to Philadelphia, Louis XVI
presented to him the royal portrait, framed by 408 diamonds, the value of
which was estimated at $10,000.

No less than his predecessor had the new Monarch of Versailles and his
gay, ease-loving, oft-times imprudent young wife disregarded the
traditions and dignity of the Sun King's palace. If Louis XV demolished
the Staircase of the Ambassadors and mutilated the _grands appartements_,
Marie Antoinette imitated his desecrations in the royal dwelling by
commanding any change that pleased her fancy, by reducing rooms of state
to mere private chambers, and shutting herself off from the irritating
claims of Court life. Many of the trees in the park died that had been
set out at the proud command of Louis XIV. The gardens became neglected
and desolate. The famous Labyrinth of Aesop's fountains disappeared.

A grove planted on the place formerly beautified by the Grotto of Thetis
(or Tethys) gave sanctuary to the impious scheming of that Madame de
Lamotte, whose intrigue and evil ambition brought upon the Queen in 1785
the scandal of the Diamond N