, Art and Education. Arriving
from Trianon, where they had been in residence, the King and his wife
entered the palace by the Marble Stairway, traversed the Grand Hall of
the Guards (to-day called the Hall of Napoleon) and the halls leading
to the Grand Gallery of Battles, where they saw portrayed on canvas all
the important military engagements of French armies, from Tolbiac to
Wagram. In the Chamber of Louis XIV the King and Queen examined the
restorations of the furniture, and found them well done. A royal
banquet was laid in the Grand Gallery and in adjacent salons. At eight
o'clock His Majesty, the royal family and 1500 guests assembled in the
brilliantly illuminated Opera House, where they witnessed a performance
of Moliere's _Misanthrope_ and extracts from the opera, _Robert le
Diable_, by Meyerbeer. The spectacle was concluded by a piece written
by Eugene Scribe, the famous French librettist, in celebration of the
founding of the Museum. At midnight the King and his family led a
procession through the galleries of the palace, lighted by footmen
carrying torches. At two o'clock in the morning the festivities were
at an end and the royal party left for Trianon.

Says a French author, writing two years after the opening of the
museum. "When Louis Philippe first cast his eye upon Versailles, he
saw at once the impiety of allowing such a monument to sink into utter
ruin. . . . He determined that the palace of Louis XIV, without losing
its individuality, should become a palace of the entire people; and
that the bygone spirit of absolutism should give shelter to the spirit
of modern liberty. Versailles, therefore, erected as a homage to
individual pride, has become, under the Orleans regime, a great
national monument--and certainly the most complete and splendid of its
class in all Europe. The temple of luxury was converted into a temple
of the arts, and French valor was recorded in immortal colors upon the
walls, by French genius."

In the vast edifice Louis Philippe created a pictorial record that
embraced not only the great battles from the beginning of the monarchy
down to his own day, but the chief incidents that distinguished the
reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI; the victories of the Republic; the
campaigns of Napoleon; the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X; the
Revolution of 1830, and the reign of Louis Philippe. The kings of
France, the members of their families and immediate entourage, great
Fre