te
occasionally flings upon this checkerboard of time: one of those
characters whose feverish faculties border on madness, yet who do the
world great good by breaking up its balances, preventing social
ankylosis, and eventually forcing upon mankind a new deal. But in the
train of these vagrant stars famine and pestilence follow.

The Duke of Mantua was brother in spirit to the man who made
Versailles--and making Versailles undid France.

Versailles is a dream: no language that the most enthusiastic lovers of
the beautiful may utter, can exaggerate the wonders of those acres of
palaces and miles of gardens. The magnificence of the place makes the
ready writer put up his pencil, and go away whipped, subdued and
crestfallen to think that here are creations that no one pen can even
catalog. Louis the Grand, we are told, had thirty-six thousand men and
six thousand horses at work here at one time. No wonder Madame De
Maintenon was oppressed by the treasures that were beyond the capacity of
man to contemplate; and so off in the woods was built that lover's
retreat, "The Trianon." And out there today, hidden in the forest, we
behold the second Trianon, built by Marie Antoinette, and we also see
those straw-thatched huts where the ladies of her Court played at peasant
life.

Louis the Fourteenth builded so well that he discouraged his successor
from doing anything but play keep-house, and so extensively that France
was rent in twain, and so mightily that even Napoleon Bonaparte was
staggered at the thought of maintaining Versailles.

"It's too much for any man to enjoy--I give it up!" said the Little Man,
perplexed, and ordered every door locked and every window tightly
shuttered. Then he placed a thousand men to guard the place and went
about his business.

But today Versailles belongs to the people of France; more, it belongs to
the people of earth: all is free and you may carry away all the beauty of
the place that your soul can absorb.

Now, who shall say that Louis the Fourteenth has not enriched the world?

The Duke of Mantua was sumptuous in his tastes, liberal, chivalrous,
voluptuous, extravagant. At the same time he had a cultivated mind, an
eye for proportion, and an ear for harmony. He was even pious at times,
and like all debauchees had periods of asceticism. He was much given to
gallantry, and his pension-list of beautiful women was not small. He was
a poet and wrote some very good sonnets; he was a compose