to the palace, where
we toiled up and down the grand stairway, and peeped into the chapel
that had echoed to the mockery of worship in the time of the king who
built all this--the king who loved everybody's wife but his own--so
faithlessly! There was a dizzy hurrying through corridors lined with
statuary, through one _salon_ after another hung with Horace Vernet's
paintings describing the glories of France--the crowning of its kings,
the reception of its ambassadors, the signing of its treaties, the
winning of its battles; but was all this bloodshed, and all this agony
depicted upon canvas, for the glory of France? There were immense
galleries, where, on every side, from cornice to floor, one was
conscious of nothing but smoke and cannon, wounds and gore, and rolling
eyes. We walked over the prescribed three miles and a half of floors
slippery as ice, and gazed upon the seven miles of pictures, with a
feeling less of pleasure or gratified curiosity than of satisfaction at
having _done_ Versailles. Room after room was devoted to portraits, full
lengths and half lengths, side faces and full fronts; faces to be
remembered, if one had not been in such mortal haste, and faces that
would never have been missed from the ermined robes. In a quiet corner
we were startled to find some of our good presidents staring down upon
us from the wall. A mutual surprise it seemed to be. But if we Americans
must be awkward and clownish to the last degree, half civilized, and but
one remove from barbarism, don't let us put the acme of all this upon
canvas, and hang it in the palace of kings. Here was President Grant
represented in the saloon of a steamboat,--America to the last,--one leg
crossed, one heel upon the opposite knee, and his head about to sink
into his coat collar in an agony of terror at finding himself among
quality. His attitude might have been considered graceful and dignified
in a bar-room, or even in the saloon of a Mississippi steamer; but it
utterly failed in both particulars in the Palace of Versailles, among
courtly men and high-bred women.

CHAPTER IX.

A VISIT TO BRUSSELS.

To Brussels.--The old and new city.--The paradise
and purgatory of dogs.--The Hotel de Ville and
Grand Place.--St. Gudule.--The picture
galleries.--Wiertz and his odd
paintings.--Brussels lace and an hour with the
lace-makers. How the girls found Charlotte
Bronte's sc