e world seemed brought together; so richly were the
costumes of the knights and the trappings of the horses embroidered
with gold and silver that the cloth beneath could barely be seen. An
immense amphitheatre afforded seats for a multitude of spectators, and
in a smaller pavilion, richly gilded, sat the two queens of France,
the queen of England, and the royal princesses. The first day was
spent in tilting at Medusa heads and heads of Moors: the second at
rings. The king is said to have greatly distinguished himself by his
skill. Maria Theresa, his young queen, distributed the prizes, and the
garden was afterwards named the Place du Carrousel.

Louis, however, hated Paris, for his forced exile and the humiliations
of the Fronde rankled in his memory. Nor were the associations of St.
Germain any more pleasant. A lover of the chase and all too prone to
fall into the snares of "fair, fallacious looks and venerial trains,"
the retirement of his father's hunting lodge at Versailles, away from
the prying eyes and mocking tongues of the Parisians, early attracted
him. There he was wont to meet his mistress, Madame de la Valliere,
and there he determined to erect a vast pleasure-palace and gardens.
The small chateau, built by Lemercier in the early half of the
seventeenth century, was handed over to Levau in 1668, who, carefully
respecting his predecessor's work in the Cour de Marbre, constructed
two immense wings, which were added to by J.H. Mansard, as the
requirements of the court grew. The palace stood in the midst of a
barren, sandy plain, but Louis' pride demanded that Nature herself
should bend to his will, and an army of artists, engineers and
gardeners was concentrated there, who at the sacrifice of incredible
wealth and energy, had so far advanced the work that the king was able
to come into residence in 1682.

In spite of seas of reservoirs fed by costly hydraulic machinery at
Marly, which lifted the waters of the Seine to an aqueduct that led to
Versailles, the supply was deemed inadequate, and orders were given to
divert the river Eure between Chartres and Maintenon to the gardens of
the palace. For years an army of thirty thousand men was employed in
this one task, at a cost of money and human life greater than that of
many a campaign. So heavy was the mortality in the camp that it was
forbidden to speak of the sick, and above all of the dead, who were
carried away in cartloads by night for burial. All that rema