dazzling with light and
beauty, was reflected from mirror, cornice, and tinted fabric; from this
gilt on the iron chain of usurped dominion, a glance through the window
revealed its origin: a throng of people were on their way to mass and a
regiment was on parade--the one illustrating the blind exaction of bigoted
authority, the other the machinery of brute force--the church and the
army, the mitre, and the sword, superstition and violence; with these, in
all ages, have the multitude been subdued; and between these two
representations of elemental despotism, clustered on a high wall, stood a
crowd to watch the meek procession of worshippers, and the exactitude of
the manual, or admire the spirited, yet controlled, evolutions of the
officer on his noble charger. The whole scene typified France as she is;
uneducated devotees, a military organization at the beck of its chief, and
a surplus of curious, intimidated or acquiescent spectators.

To pass from St. Cloud to Versailles is like turning from the last to the
first chapters of French history. The vast court of the palace is lined
with colossal statues; and thus we enter the vestibule through a file of
pale and majestic sentinels, summoned, as it were, from the tomb to guard
the trophies of nationality. Our pilgrimage through such a world of
effigies begins with Clovis and Charlemagne, and ends with Louis Philippe:
the place itself is the ancient home of royalty; the gardens, visible
from every window, have been trod by generations of monarchs and
courtiers; the ceilings bear the arms of the noble families of the
kingdom; while around are the faces and figures of the men of valor and of
genius that consecrate her history. Through this panorama move peasants,
workmen, citizens, and foreigners, gazing unrestricted, as upon a
procession evoked from the inexorable past, in which are all those of whom
they have heard or read as illustrious in France; they see the battles,
the leaders, the kings, the poets, the human material of history. This
grand conception, which has of late years been mainly realized by the last
king, is certainly one of the most grand and significant of modern times.
Even in this, our one day's observation, how many ideas are revived, how
many characters brought into view; what events, associations and people
throng upon our consciousness, as slowly gazing, we tread the interminable
halls and scan the countless memorials of Versailles!

Taking up the th