Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

The statues and the paintings which adorn these rooms seem to have been inspired by that one all-powerful passion, which, properly regulated, fills the heart with joy, and which unregulated is the most direful source of wretchedness which can desolate human homes. It is said that art is in possession of a delicacy which rises above the instinctive modesty of ordinary life. France has adopted this philosophy, and it is undeniable that France, with all her refinement and politeness, has become an indelicate nation. The evidence is astounding and revolting. No gentleman, no lady, from other lands can long reside in Paris without being amazed at the scenes which Paris exhibits. The human frame in its nudity is so familiar to every eye, that it has lost all its sacredness. In all the places of public amusement, the almost undraped forms of living men and women pass before the spectators, and all the modesties of nature are profaned. The pen can not detail particulars, for we may not even record in America that which is done in France. The connection is plain. The effect comes legitimately from the cause. No lady can visit Versailles without having her sense of delicacy wounded. It is said that "to the pure all things are pure." But alas for humanity! a fleeting thought will sully the soul. There is much, very much in France to admire. The cordiality and the courtesy of the French are worthy of all praise. But the delicacy of France has received a wound, deplorable in the extreme, and a wound from which it can not soon recover.

The grand banqueting room of Versailles is perhaps the most magnificent apartment in the world, extending along the whole central façade of the palace, and measuring 242 feet in length, 35 feet in width, and 43 feet in height. It is lighted by 17 large arched windows, with corresponding mirrors upon the opposite wall. The ceiling is painted with the most costly creations of art. Statues of Venus and Adonis, and of every form of male and female beauty, embellish the niches. Here Louis XIV. displayed all the grandeur of royalty, and this vast gallery was often filled to its utmost capacity with the brilliant throng of lords and ladies, whom the people here supported, Versailles was the Royal alms-house of the kingdom. The French Revolution, in its terrible reprisals, was caused by strong provocatives.

The cabinet of the king, a very beautiful room, is near. Here is a large round table in the centre of the saloon. History informs us that one day Louis XV. was sitting at this table, with a packet of letters before him. The petted favorite, Madame du Barri, came in, and suspecting that the package was from a rival, she snatched it from the king's hand. He rose indignantly, and pursued her. She ran around the table, chased by the angry monarch, till finding herself in danger of being caught, she threw the letters into the glowing fire of the grate. The fascinating and guilty beauty perished in the Revolution. She was condemned by the revolutionary tribunal. Her long hair was shorn, that the knife of the guillotine might more keenly cut its way. But clustering ringlets, in beautiful profusion, fell over her brow and temples, and vailing her voluptuous features reposed upon her bosom, from which the executioner had brutally torn the dress. The yells of the maddened populace, deriding her exposure and her agony of terror, filled the air. The drunken mob danced exultingly around the aristocratic courtesan as the cart dragged her to the block. But the shrieks of the appalled victim pierced through the uproar which surrounded her. "Life – life – life!" she screamed, frantic with fright; "O, save me, save me!" The mob laughed and shouted, and taunted her with coarse witticisms upon the soft pillow of the guillotine, upon which her head would soon repose. The coarse executioners, with rude violence, bound her graceful, struggling limbs to the plank, the slide fell, and her shrieks were hushed in death.

And here is the room in which her royal lover died. It was midnight, the 10th of May, 1774. The small-pox, in its most loathsome form, had swollen his frame into the mockery of humanity. The courtiers had fled in consternation from the monarch whom they hated and despised. In his gorgeous palace the king of thirty millions of people was left, to struggle with death, unpitied and alone. An old woman sat unconcerned in an adjoining room, waiting till he should be dead. Occasionally she rose and walked to his bedside to see if he still breathed, and, disappointed that he lived so long, returned again to her chair. A lamp flickers at the window, a signal to the courtiers, at a safe distance, that the king is not yet dead. They watch impatiently through the hours of the night the glimmer of that dim torch. Suddenly it is extinguished, and gladness fills all hearts.

"So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,Smiles may be thine, while all around thee weep."

And here is the gorgeous couch upon which the monarch who reared these walls expired. It was the 30th of August, 1715. The gray-haired king, emaciate with remorse and physical suffering, reclined upon the regal bed, whose velvet hangings were looped back with heavy tassels and ropes of gold. The vast apartment was thronged with princes and courtiers in the magnificent costume of the times. Ladies sunk upon their knees around the bed where the proudest monarch of France was painfully gasping in the agonies of death. His soul was harrowed with anguish, as he reflected upon the bitter past, and anticipated the dread future. Publicly he avowed with gushing tears his regret, in view of the scenes of guilt through which he had passed. "Gentlemen," said the dying king, in a faltering voice to those around him, "I implore your pardon for the bad example I have set you. Forgive me. I trust that you will sometimes think of me when I am gone." Then exclaiming, "Oh, my God, come to my aid, and hasten to help me," he fell back insensible upon his pillow, and soon expired.

As he breathed his last, one of the high officers of the household approached the window of the state apartment, which opened upon the great balcony, and threw it back. A vast crowd was assembled in the court-yard below, awaiting the tidings which they knew could not long be delayed. Raising his truncheon above his head, he broke it in the centre, and throwing the pieces among the crowd exclaimed, with a loud and solemn voice, "The king is dead!" Then seizing another staff from an attendant, he waved it in the air, shouting joyfully, "Long live the king!" The dead king is instantly and forever forgotten. The living king, who alone had favors to confer, was welcomed to his throne by multitudinous shouts, echoing through the apartment of death.

But upon this balcony a scene of far greater moral sublimity has transpired. It was the morning of the 8th of October, 1789. The night had been black and stormy. The infuriated mob of Paris, drenched with rain, men, women, boys, drunken, ragged, starving, in countless thousands, had all the night long been howling around their watch-fires, ravenous for the life of the queen. Clouds, heavy with rain, were still driven violently through the stormy sky, and pools of water filled the vast court-yard of the palace. Muskets were continually discharged, and now and then the crash of a bullet through a window was heard. At last the mob, pressing the palace in an innumerable throng, with a roar which soon became simultaneous, like an uninterrupted peal of thunder, shouted, "The Queen! the Queen!" demanding that she should appear upon the balcony. With that heroic spirit which ever inspired her, she fearlessly stepped out of the low window, leading her children by her side. "Away with the children!" shouted thousands of voices. Even this maddened multitude had not the heart to massacre youth and innocence. Maria, whose whole soul was roused to meet the sublimity of the occasion, without the tremor of a nerve led back her children, and again appearing upon the balcony, folded her arms and raised her eyes to heaven, as if devoting herself a sacrifice to the wrath of her subjects. Even degraded souls could appreciate the heroism of such a deed. A murmur of admiration ensued, followed by a simultaneous shout, which pierced the skies, "Vive la Reine! Vive la Reine!"

And now we enter the chamber where Maria slept on that night – or rather where she did not sleep, but merely threw herself for a few moments upon her pillow, in the vain attempt to soothe her agitated spirit. The morning had nearly dawned ere she retired to her chamber. A dreadful clamor upon the stairs roused her. The mob had broken into the palace. The discharge of fire-arms and the clash of swords at her door, proclaimed that the desperadoes were struggling with her guard. At the same moment she heard the dying cry of her faithful sentinel, as he fell beneath the blows of the assassins, calling to her, "Fly! fly for your life!" She sprang from her bed, rushed to the private door which led to the king's apartment, and had but just time to close the door behind her, when the tumultuous assailants rushed into the room, and plunged their bayonets, with all the vigor of their brawny arms, into her bed. Unfortunately, Maria had escaped. Happy would it have been for the ill-fated queen had she died in that short agony. But she was reserved for a fate perhaps more dreadful than has ever befallen any other daughter of our race.

Poor Maria! fancy can not create so wild a dream of terror as was realized in her sad life. The annals of the world contain not another tragedy so mournful.

Every room we enter has its tale to tell. Providence deals strangely in compensations. The kings of France robbed the nation to rear for themselves these gorgeous palaces. And yet the poor unlettered peasant in his hut, was a stranger to those woes, which have ever held high carnival within these gilded walls. Few must have been the hours of happiness which have been found in the Palace of Versailles. The paintings which adorn the saloons and galleries of this princely abode, are executed in the highest style of ancient and modern art. One is never weary of gazing upon them. Many of them leave an impression upon the mind which a lifetime can not obliterate. All the great events of France are here chronicled in that universal language which all nations can alike understand. David's magnificent painting of the Coronation of Napoleon attracts the special attention of every visitor. The artist has seized upon the moment when the Emperor is placing the crown upon the brow of Josephine. When the colossal work was finished, many criticisms were passed upon the composition, which met the Emperor's ear. Among other things, it was specially objected that it was not a picture of the coronation of Napoleon but of that of Josephine. When the great work was entirely completed, Napoleon appointed a day to inspect it in person, prior to its public exhibition. To confer honor upon the distinguished artist, he went in state, attended by a detachment of horse and a military band, accompanied by the Empress Josephine, the princes and princesses of the family, and the great officers of the crown.

Napoleon for a few moments contemplated the painting in thoughtful silence, and then, turning to the artist, said, "M. David, this is well – very well, indeed. The empress, my mother, the emperor, all are most appropriately placed. You have made me a French knight, and I am gratified that you have thus transmitted to future ages the proofs of affection I was desirous of testifying toward the empress." Josephine was at the time standing at his side, leaning upon his right arm. M. David stood at his left. After contemplating the picture again for a few moments in silence, he dropped the arm of the empress, advanced two steps, and turning to the painter, uncovered his head, and bowing to him profoundly, exclaimed, "M. David, I salute you!"

"Sire!" replied the painter, with admirable tact, "I receive the compliment of the emperor, in the name of all the artists in the empire, happy in being the individual one you deign to make the channel of such an honor."

When this painting was afterward removed to the Museum, the emperor wished to see it a second time. M. David, in consequence, attended in the hall of the Louvre, accompanied by all of his pupils. Napoleon on this occasion inquired of the illustrious painter who of his pupils had distinguished themselves in their art. Napoleon immediately conferred upon those young men the decoration of the Legion of Honor. He then said, "It is requisite that I should testify my satisfaction to the master of so many distinguished artists; therefore I promote you to be Officer of the Legion of Honor. M. Duroc, give a golden decoration to M. David." "Sire, I have none with me," answered the Grand Marshal. "No matter," replied the Emperor; "do not let this day pass without executing my order."

The King of Wirtemberg, himself quite an artist, visited the painting, and exceedingly admired it. As he contemplated the glow of light which irradiated the person of the Pope, he exclaimed, "I did not believe that your art could effect such wonders. White and black, in painting, afford but very weak resources. When you produced this you had no doubt a sunbeam upon your pencil!"

But we must no longer linger here. And yet how can we hurry along through the midst of this profusion of splendor and of beauty. Room after room opens before us, in endless succession, and the mind is bewildered with the opulence of art. In each room you wish to stop for hours, and yet you can stop but moments, for there are hundreds of these gorgeous saloons to pass through, and the gardens and the parks to be visited, the fountains and the groves, the rural palaces of the Great Trianon and the Little Trianon, and above all the Swiss village. The Historical Museum consists of a suite of eleven magnificent apartments, filled with the most costly paintings illustrating the principal events in the history of France up to the period of the revolution. You then enter a gallery, three hundred feet in length, filled with the busts, statues, and monumental effigies of the kings, queens, and illustrious personages of France. The Hall of the Crusades consists of a series of five splendid saloons in the Gothic style, filled with pictures relating to that strange period of the history of the world. But there seems to be no end to the artistic wonders here accumulated. The Grand Gallery of Battles is a room 393 feet in length, 43 in breadth, and the same in height. The vaulted ceiling is emblazoned with gold, and the walls are brilliant with the most costly productions of the pencil. One vast gallery contains more than three hundred colossal pictures, illustrating the military history of Napoleon. In one of the apartments, on the ground floor, are seen two superb carriages. One is that in which Charles X. rode to his coronation. It was built for that occasion, at an expense of one hundred thousand dollars. The resources of wealth and art were exhausted in the construction of this voluptuous and magnificent vehicle. The other was built expressly for the christening of the infant Duke of Bordeaux.

But let us enter the stables, for they also are palaces. The nobles of other lands have hardly been as sumptuously housed as were the horses of the kings of France. The Palace of Versailles is approached from the town by three grand avenues – the central one 800 feet broad. These avenues open into a large space called the Place of Arms. Flanking the main avenue, and facing the palace, were placed the Grand Stables, inclosed by handsome iron railings and lofty gate-ways, and ornamented with trophies and sculptures. These stables were appropriated to the carriages and the horses of the royal family. Here the king kept his stud of 1000 of the most magnificent steeds the empire could furnish. It must have been a brilliant spectacle, in the gala days of Versailles, when lords and ladies, glittering in purple and gold, thronged these saloons, and mounted on horses and shouting in chariots, with waving plumes, and robes like banners fluttering in the air, swept as a vision of enchantment through the Eden-like drives which boundless opulence and the most highly cultivated taste had opened in the spacious parks of the palace. The poor peasant and pale artisan, whose toil supplied the means for this luxury, heard the shout, and saw the vision, and, ate their black bread, and looked upon the bare-footed daughter and the emaciate wife, and treasured up wrath. The fearful outrages of the French revolution, concentrated upon kings and nobles in the short space of a few years, were but the accumulated vengeance which had been gathering through ages of wrong and violence in the hearts of oppressed men. But those days of kingly grandeur have passed away from France forever. Versailles can never again be filled as it has been. It is no longer a regal palace. It is a museum of art, opened freely to all the people. No longer will the blooded Arabians of a proud monarch fill those stables. One has already been converted into cavalry barracks, and the other into an agricultural school. It is to be hoped that the soldiers will soon follow the horses, and that the sciences of peace will eject those of war.

What tongue can tell the heart-crushing dramas of real life which have been enacted in this palace. Its history is full of the revealings of the agonies of the soul. Love, in all its delirium of passion, of hopelessness, of jealousy, and of remorse, has here rioted, causing the virtuous to fall and weep tears of blood, the vicious to become demoniac in reckless self-abandonment. After years of soul-harrowing pleasure and sin, the Duchesse de la Vallière, with pallid cheek, and withered charms, and exhausted vivacity, retired from these sumptuous halls and from her heartless, selfish, discarding betrayer, to seek in the glooms of a convent that peace which the guilty love of a king could never confer upon her heart. For thirty years, clothed in sackcloth, she mourned and prayed, till the midnight tollings of the convent bell consigned her emaciate frame to the tomb.

Madame Montespan, a lady of noble rank, beautiful and brilliant, abandoning her husband, willingly threw herself into the arms of the proud, mean, self-worshiping monarch. The patient, gentle, pious, martyr wife of Louis XIV. looked silently on, and saw Madame Montespan become the mother of the children of the king. But Madame Montespan's cheek also, in time, became pale with jealousy and sorrow, as another love attracted the vagrant desires of the royal debauchee. He sent a messenger to inform the ruined, woe-stricken, frantic woman, that her presence was no longer desired, that she was but a supernumerary in the palace, that she must retire. With insult almost incredible he informed the unhappy woman, that as the children to whom she had given birth were his own they might be received and honored in the palace, but that as she had been only his mistress, it was not decorous that she should longer be seen there. The discarded favorite, in the delirium of her indignation and her agony, seized a dessert knife upon the table, and rushing upon her beautiful boy, the little Count of Toulouse, whom the king held by the hand, shrieked out, "I will leave the palace, but first I will bury this knife in the heart of that child." With difficulty the frantic woman was seized and bound, and the affrighted child torn from her grasp. And here we stand in the very saloon in which this tragedy occurred. The room is deserted and still. The summer's sun sleeps placidly upon the polished floor. But far away in other worlds the perfidious lover and his victim have met before a tribunal, where justice can not be warded off, by sceptre or by crown. Madame Maintenon, whom the king gained by a private marriage, which he afterward was meanly ashamed to acknowledge, succeeded Madame Montespan in the evanescent love of the king.

The fate of this proud beauty, once one of the most envied and admired of the gilded throng, which crowded Versailles, was indeed peculiar. Upon her dying bed, in accordance with the gloomy superstitions of the times, she bequeathed her body to the family tomb, her heart to the convent of La Flèche, and her entrails to the priory of St. Menoux. A village surgeon performed the duty of separating from the body those organs, which were to be conveyed as sacred relics to the cloister. The heart, inclosed in a leaden case, was forwarded to La Flèche. The intestines were taken out and placed in a small trunk. The trunk was intrusted to the care of a peasant, who was directed to convey them to St. Menoux. The porter, having completed half of his journey, sat down under a tree to rest. His curiosity was excited to ascertain the contents of the box. Astonished at the sight, he thought that some comrade was trifling with him, desiring to make merry at his expense. He therefore emptied the trunk into a ditch beside which he sat. Just at that moment, a lad who was herding swine drove them toward him. Groveling in the mire they approached the remains and instantly devoured them! She had bequeathed the sacred relics as a legacy to the church, to be approached with reverence through all coming time. The filthiest animals in the world rooted them into the mire and ate them, devouring a portion of the remains of one of the proudest beauties who ever reigned in an imperial palace.

It has often been said that the French revolution merely overthrew a Bourbon to place upon the throne a Bonaparte. But Napoleon, a democratic king, with all the energy of his impassioned nature consulting for the interests of the people of France, was as different in his character, and in the great objects of his ambition, and his life, from the old feudal monarchs, as is light from darkness. The following was the ordinary routine of life, day after day, and year after year, with Louis XIV., in the palace of Versailles.

At eight o'clock in the morning two servants carefully entered the chamber of the king. One, if the weather was cold or damp, brought dry wood to kindle a cheerful blaze upon the hearth, while the other opened the shutters, carried away the collation of soup, roasted chicken, bread, wine, and water, which had been placed, the night before, at the side of the royal couch, that the king might find a repast at hand in case he should require refreshment during the night. The valet de chambre then entered and stood silently and reverently at the side of the bed for one half hour. He then awoke the monarch, and immediately passed into an ante-room to communicate the important intelligence that the king no longer slept. Upon receiving this announcement an attendant threw open the double portals of a wide door, when the dauphin and his two sons, the brother of the king, and the Duke of Chartres, who awaited the signal, entered, and approaching the bed with the utmost solemnity of etiquette, inquired how his majesty had passed the night. After the interval of a moment the Duke du Maine, the Count de Toulouse, the first lord of the bed-chamber, and the grand master of the robes entered the apartment, and with military precision took their station by the side of the couch of recumbent royalty. Immediately there followed another procession of officers bearing the regal vestments. Fagon, the head physician, and Telier, the head surgeon, completed the train.

The head valet de chambre then poured upon the hands of the king a few drops of spirits of wine, holding beneath them a plate of enameled silver, and the first lord of the bed-chamber presented to the monarch, who was ever very punctilious in his devotions, the holy water, with which the king made the sign of the cross upon his head and his breast. Thus purified and sanctified he repeated a short prayer, which the church had taught him, and then rose in his bed. A noble lord then approached and presented to him a collection of wigs from which he selected the one which he intended to wear that day, and having condescended to place it, with his own royal hands upon his head, he slipped his arms into the sleeves of a rich dressing-gown, which the head valet de chambre held ready for him. Then reclining again upon his pillow, he thrust one foot out from the bed clothes. The valet de chambre reverently received the sacred extremity, and drew over it a silk stocking. The other limb was similarly presented and dressed, when slippers of embroidered velvet were placed upon the royal feet. The king then devoutly crossing himself with holy water, with great dignity moved from his bed and seated himself in a large arm-chair, placed at the fire-side. The king then announced that he was prepared to receive the First Entrée. None but the especial favorites of the monarch were honored with an audience so confidential. These privileged persons were to enjoy the ecstatic happiness of witnessing the awful ceremony of shaving the king. One attendant prepared the water and held the basin. Another religiously lathered the royal chin, and removed the sacred beard, and with soft sponges, saturated with wine and water, washed the parts which had been operated upon and soothed them with silken towels.