c of the "Citizen-King" whose fondness for red plush,
green repp and horsehair sofas was notable. What he did at Versailles
was almost as great a vandalism against art as that wrought by the
Revolution.

Last scene of all:--Under Lebrun's magnificent canopied ceiling, where
the effigy of Louis XIV is being crowned by the Goddess of Glory, and
the German eagle sits on a denuded tree trunk screaming in agony and
beating his wings in despair, William of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor
of United Germany. It was almost as great an indignity as France ever
suffered; the only greater was when the Prussians marched through the
Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile. That was, and is, the Frenchman's--the
Parisian's, at all events--culminating grief.

The apartment referred to is the Grand Galerie des Glaces (or Galerie
Louis XIV), which is accredited as one of the most magnificently
appointed rooms of its class in all the world. It is nearly two hundred
and fifty feet in length, nearly forty feet in width, and forty-three
feet in height. It is lighted by seventeen large arched windows, which
correspond with arched niches on the opposite wall filled with
mirrors--hence the name.

Sixty Corinthian columns of red marble with bases and capitals of gilt
bronze fill up the intervening wall spaces. The vaulted ceiling by
Lebrun is divided into eighteen small compartments and nine of much
larger dimensions, in which are allegorically represented the principal
events in the history of Louis XIV, from the Peace of the Pyrenees to
that of Nymeguen.

It was in this splendid apartment that Louis XIV displayed the grandeur
of royalty in its highest phase and such was the luxury of the times,
such the splendour of the court, that its immense size could hardly
contain the crowd of courtiers that pressed around the monarch.

Several splendid fetes took place in this great room, of which those of
the marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne in 1697 and that given on the
arrival of Marie Antoinette were the most brilliant.

Following are three pen-pictures of this historic palace.

THE VERSAILLES OF LONG AGO. It was to Versailles that the _Grand Roi_
repaired after his stern chase of the Spaniards across Flanders; through
the wood of Saint Germain and over those awful cobblestones which
Parisians know so well to-day rolled the gilded _carrosse_ of the king.
He had already been announced by a runner who had also brought news of
the latest victory. Courtiers a