, and other furniture of solid silver. The
whole inner side of the room is formed by seventeen enormous mirrors set
in spaces to correspond in shape to the window opposite, and fitted in
between with polished marble. Above them runs a cornice of glittering
gilt, and over that again the ceiling curves in a great arch, each panel
of it bearing some picture to recall the victories of the Grand Monarch.
Ungrateful posterity has somewhat forgotten the tremendous military
achievements of Louis XIV--the hardships of his campaign in the
Netherlands in which the staff of the royal cuisine was cut down to one
hundred cooks--the passage of the Rhine, in which the King actually
crossed the river from one side to the other, and so on. But the
student of history can live again the triumphs of Louis in this Hall of
Mirrors. It is an irony of history that in this room, after the conquest
of 1871, the King of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor by his
subjects and his allies.

But if one wants to see battle pictures, one has but to turn to the
north wing of the Chateau. There you have them, room after room--twenty,
thirty, fifty roomsful--I don't know how many--the famous gallery of
battles, depicting the whole military history of France from the days of
King Clovis till the French Revolution. They run in historical order.
The pictures begin with battles of early barbarians--men with long hair
wielding huge battle-axes with their eyes blazing, while other
barbarians prod at them with pikes or take a sweep at them with a
two-handed club. After that there are rooms full of crusade
pictures--crusaders fighting the Arabs, crusaders investing Jerusalem,
crusaders raising the siege of Malta and others raising the siege of
Rhodes; all very picturesque, with the blue Mediterranean, the yellow
sand of the desert, prancing steeds in nickel-plated armour and knights
plumed and caparisoned, or whatever it is, and wearing as many crosses
as an ambulance emergency staff. All of these battles were apparently
quite harmless, that is the strange thing about these battle pictures:
the whole thing, as depicted for the royal eye, is wonderfully full of
colour and picturesque, but, as far as one can see, quite harmless.
Nobody seems to be getting hurt, wild-looking men are swinging maces
round, but you can see that they won't hit anybody. A battle-axe is
being brought down with terrific force, but somebody is thrusting up a
steel shield just in time to me