the most erudite man I have ever known.  He had as much to say about the restoration of our house as we.  He introduced us to Monsieur de Nolhac, the conservator of the Chateau de Versailles, who gave us the details of our villa as it had been a century and a half ago, and helped us remake the garden on the lines of the original one.  He loaned us pictures and documents, and we felt we were living in a modern version of the Sleeping Beauty, with the sleeping villa for heroine.

Our house had always been called “Villa Trianon,” and so we kept the name, but it should not be confused with the Grand Trianon or the Petit Trianon.  Of course everyone knows about the Park at Versailles, but everyone forgets, so I shall review the history of the Park briefly, that you may appreciate our thrills when we really owned a bit of it.

Louis XIV selected Versailles as the site for the royal palace when it was a swampy, uninteresting little farm.  Louis XIII had built a chateau there in 1627, but had done little to beautify the flat acres surrounding it.  Louis the Magnificent lavished fortunes on the laying out of his new park.  The Grand Trianon was built for Madame de Main tenon in 1685, and from this time on, for a full century, the Park of Versailles was the most famous royal residence in the world.

The Petit Trianon was built by Louis XV for Madame du Barry.  Later, during the reign of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, who was then Queen, tiring of court etiquette and scorning the stately rooms of Versailles, persuaded her husband to make over to her the Petit Trianon.  Here she built a number of little rustic cottages, where she and the ladies of her court, dressed in calicoes, played at being milkmaids.  They had a little cottage called the “Laiterie,” where the white cows with their gilded horns were brought in to be milked.  Here, too, little plays were presented in a tiny theater where only the members of the court were admitted.  The Queen and her brother, Comte de Provence, were always the chief actors.

Our villa adjoins the Park proper.  In our deeds to the two acres there is a clause which reserves a right-of-way for the King!  The deed is worded like the old lease that dates back to 1750, and so one day we may have to give a King a right-of-way through our garden, if France becomes a monarchy again.  Anyone who knows French people at all knows how dearly they cherish the dream of a monarchy.

[Illustration:  THE BROAD TERRACE CONNECTS HOUSE AND GARDEN]

One of the small houses we found on our small estate had once been a part of the hameau of Marie Antoinette.  We have had this little house rebuilt and connected with the villa, and now use it as a guest house.  It is very charming, with its walls covered with lattices and ivy.