ceremonies, installed himself in a
neighbouring property known as the Maison du Tillet. Thus it is seen
that the royal stamp of the little bourg of Saint Cloud was never
wanting--not until the later palace and most of the town were drenched
with kerosene and set on fire by the Prussians in 1871.

The "Maison de Gondi" came, by a process of acquisition, and
development, in time, to be the royal palace of Saint Cloud. Its
overloaded details of Italian architecture were brightened up a bit by
the surroundings planned and executed by the landscapist Le Notre and
the life of the court in its suburban retreat took on a real and genuine
brilliance which under the restraint of the gloomy walls of the Louvre
and Paris streets could hardly have been.

The brightest light shining over Saint Cloud at this time was the
radiance shed by the brilliant Henriette d'Angleterre. Her reign as a
social and witty queen of the court was brief. She died at the age of
twenty-six, poisoned at the instigation of the Chevalier de Lorraine
whom she had caused to be exiled. This was the common supposition, but
Louis XIV was afterwards able to prove (?) his brother innocent of the
crime.

The gazettes of the seventeenth century recount many of the fetes given
at Saint Cloud by Monsieur on the occasion of his marriage to the
Princesse Palatine in 1671. One of the most notable of these was that
given for Louis XIV, wherein the celebrated cascades--an innovation of
Le Notre--were first brought to view.

Mansart was called in and a great gallery intended for fetes and
ceremonies was constructed, and Mignard was given the commission for its
decorations.

Monsieur died within the walls of the palace to which he had added so
many embellishments, as also did his second wife. Three royalties dead
of ambition, one might well say, for their lives were neither tranquil
nor healthful. They went the pace.

The regent journeyed out from Paris to this riverside retreat to receive
the Tzar Peter in 1717, and in 1752 Louis Philippe d'Orleans set about
to give a fete which should obscure the memory of all former events of a
like nature into oblivion. How well he succeeded may be a matter of
varying opinion, for the French have ever been prodigally lavish in the
conduct of such affairs. At all events the occasion was a notable one.

The predilection of royalty for Saint Cloud was perhaps not remarkable,
all things considered, for it was, and is, delightfully env