has been substituted
for efficient service; they are elegant adornments only and no longer
useful tools; they act along with the king who is himself an actor,
their persons serving as royal decoration.

I. Versailles.

The Physical aspect and the moral character of Versailles.

It must be admitted that the decoration is successful, and, that since
the fetes of the Italian Renaissance, more magnificent displays have
not been seen. Let us follow the file of carriages which, from Paris
to Versailles, rolls steadily along like a river. Certain horses
called "des enrages," fed in a particular way, go and come in three
hours.[2102] One feels, at the first glance, as if he were in a city
of a particular stamp, suddenly erected and at one stroke, like a
prize-medal for a special purpose, of which only one is made, its form
being a thing apart, as well as its origin and use. In vain is it one
of the largest cities of the kingdom, with its population of 80,000
souls;[2103] it is filled, peopled, and occupied by the life of a single
man; it is simply a royal residence, arranged entirely to provide for
the wants, the pleasures, the service, the guardianship, the society,
the display of a king. Here and there, in corners and around it,
are inns, stalls, taverns, hovels for laborers and for drudges, for
dilapidated soldiers and accessory menials. These tenements necessarily
exist, since technicians are essential to the most magnificent
apotheosis. The rest, however, consists of sumptuous hotels and
edifices, sculptured facades, cornices and balustrades, monumental
stairways, seigniorial architecture, regularly spaced and disposed, as
in a procession, around the vast and grandiose palace where all this
terminates. Here are the fixed abodes of the noblest families; to the
right of the palace are the hotels de Bourbon, d'Ecquervilly, de la
Tremoille, de Conde, de Maurepas, de Bouillon, d'Eu, de Noailles, de
Penthievre, de Livry, du Comte de la Marche, de Broglie, du Prince de
Tingry, d'Orleans, de Chatillon, de Villerry, d'Harcourt, de Monaco;
on the left are the pavilions d'Orleans, d'Harcourt, the hotels
de Chevreuse, de Babelle, de l'Hopital, d'Antin, de Dangeau, de
Pontchartrain--no end to their enumeration. Add to these those of Paris,
all those which, ten leagues around. At Sceaux, at Genevilliers,
at Brunoy, at Ile-Adam, at Rancy, at Saint-Ouen, at Colombes, at
Saint-Germain, at Marly, at Bellevue, in countless pl