tch tiles, the cornices of blue and white
stucco, in the Chinese fashion, gave the little
house the name, the Porcelain Trianon.
Poets called it the Palace of Flora because
of the wondrous gardens where rare flowers
perfumed the pleasaunce in summer. Built
in 1670, probably on designs of Francois
Le Vau, the Porcelain Trianon was
demolished toward the end of the year 1686.

There remains to-day nothing to remind
us of the Villa of Flowers but the gardens
and a fountain for horses near the canal,
where a terrace planted with beautiful trees
overlooks it. Here Louis XIV often came
in a gondola on summer evenings, when the
Marble Trianon had replaced the Trianon
of Porcelain. The latter's demolition was
inspired, no doubt, by the urging of the new
favorite, Madame de Maintenon, who found
distasteful this reminder of another's
supremacy in the King's affections.

Moreover, this site continued to please
the King for he recognized its convenience
to the palace, and its accessibility by barge
or carriage. He determined to build in the
midst of these enchanting woods and blooms
a dwelling less formal than the one at
Versailles, smaller even than the one at Marly,
but more habitable than the porcelain
_maisonette_--a retreat, in short, where, without
wearisome ceremony, he could retire with
certain favored ones of his Court and while
the summer hours away.

The accounts of the King's treasurer
show that the building of the edifice and the
gardens proceeded rapidly during the year
1687. By the end of November the royal
master found his new residence "well
advanced and very beautiful." Soon after the
New Year he heard the opera "Roland"
performed here, and was pleased to dine for
the first time within the new walls. He gave
orders on recurring visits for the embellishment
of the summer palace. The Trianon
of marble and porphyry, "the most graceful
production of Mansard," was finally
completed in the autumn of 1688. But the work
of decoration went on under the hands of a
horde of artists almost until the end of the
monarch's reign.

Says an English author of a century ago:
"In the midst of all the austerities imposed
upon him by the ambition of Madame de
Maintenon, the King went to Trianon to
inhale the breath of the flowers which he had
planted there, of the rarest and most
odoriferous kind. On the infrequent occasions
when the Court was permitted to accompany
him thither to share in his evening