Versailles is a dream:  no language that the most enthusiastic lovers of the beautiful may utter, can exaggerate the wonders of those acres of palaces and miles of gardens.  The magnificence of the place makes the ready writer put up his pencil, and go away whipped, subdued and crestfallen to think that here are creations that no one pen can even catalog.  Louis the Grand, we are told, had thirty-six thousand men and six thousand horses at work here at one time.  No wonder Madame De Maintenon was oppressed by the treasures that were beyond the capacity of man to contemplate; and so off in the woods was built that lover’s retreat, “The Trianon.”  And out there today, hidden in the forest, we behold the second Trianon, built by Marie Antoinette, and we also see those straw-thatched huts where the ladies of her Court played at peasant life.

Louis the Fourteenth builded so well that he discouraged his successor from doing anything but play keep-house, and so extensively that France was rent in twain, and so mightily that even Napoleon Bonaparte was staggered at the thought of maintaining Versailles.

“It’s too much for any man to enjoy—­I give it up!” said the Little Man, perplexed, and ordered every door locked and every window tightly shuttered.  Then he placed a thousand men to guard the place and went about his business.

But today Versailles belongs to the people of France; more, it belongs to the people of earth:  all is free and you may carry away all the beauty of the place that your soul can absorb.

Now, who shall say that Louis the Fourteenth has not enriched the world?

The Duke of Mantua was sumptuous in his tastes, liberal, chivalrous, voluptuous, extravagant.  At the same time he had a cultivated mind, an eye for proportion, and an ear for harmony.  He was even pious at times, and like all debauchees had periods of asceticism.  He was much given to gallantry, and his pension-list of beautiful women was not small.  He was a poet and wrote some very good sonnets; he was a composer who sang, from his own compositions, after the wine had gone round; he was an orator who committed to memory and made his own the speeches that his secretary wrote.

He traveled much, and in great state, with a retinue of servants, armed guards, outriders and guides.  Wherever he went he summoned the local poet, or painter, or musician, and made a speech to him, showing that he was familiar with his work by humming a tune or quoting a stanza.  Then he put a chain of gold around the poor embarrassed fellow’s neck, and a purse in his hands, and the people cheered.

When he visited a town, cavalcades met him afar out, and as he approached, little girls in white and boys dressed in velvet ran before and strewed flowers in front of his carriage.

Oh, the Duke of Mantua was a great man!