rate of progress!  I responded that we were a party corporate, and that three fourths of what any one did was to the credit of the other three.  The train soon came, and we took our places on the top of the cars and rode on to Versailles.  This was the only ride I had in two-story railway cars, but our trip was such a delightful one in the second story of those cars, that I often wished for like accommodations again.

The National Assembly was in session when we reached Versailles, but we could not gain admittance.  We immediately went to the Palace, which is devoted to the reception of a rich and splendid historical museum unparalleled in Europe.  There are altogether some 34 salles or galleries, which require upwards of an hour to walk through.  The paintings are arranged chronologically, and it is this classification, as well as the magnitude of the collection, that render the museum one of the most famous in Europe.  Adjoining this palace, are the gardens and park, upon the establishment and improvement of which, Louis XIV., (1616) spent $200,000,000!  This immense sum would pay a tract of land 100 miles long and 10 miles wide, bought at $300 per acre!  Many millions have since been spent upon it.  It is at the present day one of the finest pleasure-gardens in Europe.  Its fountains are among the most magnificent in existence.  These are made to play only once (the first Sunday) every month; to supply the water in sufficient aboundance for this magnificent display, costs on each occasion $2,000!  It is a source of the purest happiness for a party of Republicans, as ours was, to see the very palace and gardens which Napoleon III. once occupied as a royal mansion, now held as the common property and the peaceful promenade of the pleasure-seeking masses.  How changed the scene!  That which was prepaired for the king, is now enjoyed by the common people.  Such are the fruits of the French Republic, which has now broken the fetters of royalty for the third time.

On Sunday, August 1st., I visited this garden and park again, this time to see the fountains play.  It is impossible to do justice to this pleasure-garden even in two days.  In the center is the grand canal 186 feet wide and nearly a mile long, intersected at right angles by another canal that is 3,000 feet long.  My rambles were confined to the section intervening between the palace and the Bassin d’Apollon, which is at the nearer end of the Grand Canal.  The fountains and jets in this section, north and south of the Allee du Tapis Vert (green lawn), are almost innumerable.  They do not all play at the same time, so the crowd can follow them from basin to basin until Neptune with his numerous jets, the last and the greatest of them all, is reached.  The Terrasse du Chateau with Silenus, Antinous, Apollo and Bacchus, after the antique, lies next to the palace.  Immediately below is the Parterre d’Eau, upon whose border repose twenty-four magnificent groups in bronze, namely, eight groups of children, eight nymphs and the four principal rivers of France, with their tributaries.  Toward the left of this lies the Parterre du Midi, and still further south, along the palace, lies the Orangerie.  A flight of 103 steps lead down to an iron gate on the road to Brest.