e _grand coucher_.

If there was ever a Castle of Indolence and Profligacy it was
Versailles, though indeed it is regarded as the monarchy's brilliant
zenith. The picture is an unforgetable one to any who have ever read its
history or seen its stones.

In the year 1650, Martial de Lomenci, one of the ministers of Charles
IX, was the Seigneur of Versailles, but at the will of Catherine de
Medici he was summarily strangled that she might get possession of the
property and make a present of it to her favourite, Albert de Gondi,
Marechal de Retz.

About 1625 Louis XIII had caused a small hunting pavilion to be built
near by and, by degrees, acquiring more land took it into his head to
erect something more magnificent in the way of a country-house, though
the real conception of a suburban Paris palace only came with Louis XIV.

Levau, the latter's architect, made the necessary alterations to the
structure already existing, and little by little the more magnificent
project known in its completed form to-day was evolved. War not being
actually in progress, or imminent, great bodies of soldiery were set at
work with pick and shovel, and at one time thirty thousand had laid
aside their sabres and muskets for the more peaceful art of
garden-making under the direction of Le Notre.

In three decades the sum total of the chief roll of expenses of the
palace and its dependencies reached eighty-one million, one hundred and
fifty-one thousand, four hundred and fourteen _livres_, nine _sols_ and
two _deniers_. It is perhaps even more interesting to know that of this
vast sum more than three millions went for marble, twenty-one millions
for masonry, two and a half millions for the rougher woodwork and a like
sum for marquetry. Other additional "trifling" embellishments of
Versailles and the Trianon during the same period counted up another six
million and a half.

The expense of these works was enormous on all sides. Water being
required for the purpose of supplying the fountains it was proposed that
the waters of the Eure should be turned from their original bed and made
to pass through Versailles, and the enterprise was actually begun.
Beyond the gardens was formed the Little Park, about four leagues
around, and beyond this lay the Great Park, measuring twenty leagues
around and enclosing several forest villages. The total expenses of
these works may never have been exactly known, but they must have been
immense, that is certain