nfortunate Marie
Antoinette, who, in part converted its grounds into an English garden,
in addition to setting aside a portion into what is called La Petite
Suisse.

We went through this exceedingly pretty house and its gardens with
melancholy interest. The first is merely a pavilion in the Italian
taste, though it is about half as large as the President's House, at
Washington. I should think the Great Trianon has quite twice the room of
our own Executive residence; and, as you can well imagine, from what has
already been said, the Capitol itself would be but a speck among the
endless edifices of the chateau. The projection in the centre of the
latter is considerably larger than the capitol, and it materially
exceeds that building in cubic contents. Now this projection is but a
small part indeed of the long line of facade, it actually appearing too
short for the ranges of wings.

Marie Antoinette was much censured for the amusements in which she
indulged in the grounds of the Little Trianon, and vulgar rumour
exaggerating their nature, no small portion of her personal unpopularity
is attributable to this cause. The family of Louis XVI. appears to have
suffered for the misdeeds of its predecessors, for it not being very
easy to fancy anything much worse than the immoralities of Louis XV. the
public were greatly disposed "to visit the sins of the fathers on the
children."

La Petite Suisse is merely a romantic portion of the garden, in which
has been built what is called the Swiss Hamlet It contains the miniature
abodes of the Cure, the Farmer, the Dairywoman, the Garde-de-Chasse, and
the Seigneur, besides the mill. There is not much that is Swiss,
however, about the place, with the exception of some resemblance in the
exterior of the buildings. Here, it is said, the royal family used
occasionally to meet, and pass an afternoon in a silly representation of
rural life, that must have proved to be a prodigious caricature. The
King (at least, so the guide affirmed), performed the part of the
Seigneur, and occupied the proper abode; the Queen was the Dairy woman,
and we were shown the marble tables that held her porcelain milk-pans;
the present King, as became his notorious propensity to field-sports,
was the Garde-de-Chasse, the late King was the Miller, and, _mirabile
dictu_, the Archbishop of Paris did not disdain to play the part of the
Cure. There was, probably, a good deal of poetry in this account; though
it is pre