Versailles.—St. Cloud.

The ChÂteau de Versailles, that marvellous chef-d'oeuvre of the splendid taste and unbounded extravagance of Louis le Grand, is shut up, and has been so for the last eighteen months. This is a great disappointment to such of our party as have never seen its interminable chambers and their gorgeous decorations. The reason assigned for this unwonted exclusion of the public is, that the whole of this enormous pile is filled with workmen; not, however, for the purpose of restoring it as a palace for the king, but of preparing it as a sort of universal museum for the nation. The buildings are in fact too extensive for a palace; and splendid as it is, I can easily believe no king of modern days would wish to inhabit it. I have sometimes wondered that Napoleon did not take a fancy to its vastness; but, I believe, he had no great taste in the upholstering line, and preferred converting his millions into the sinews of war, to the possession of all the carving and gilding in the world.

If this projected museum, however, should be montÉ with science, judgment and taste, and on the usual scale of French magnificence, it will be turning the costly whim of le Grand Monarque to excellent account.

The works which are going on there, were mentioned at a party the other evening, when some one stated that it was the intention of the King to convert one portion of the building into a gallery of national history, that should contain pictures of all the victories which France had ever won.

The remark made in reply amused me much, it was so very French.—"Ma foi!... Mais cette galerie-lÀ doit Être bien longue—et assez ennuyeuse pour les Étrangers."

Though the chÂteau was closed to us, we did not therefore give up our purposed expedition to Versailles: every object there is interesting, not only from its splendour, but from the recollections it revives of scenes with whose history we are all familiar. Not only the horrors of the last century, but all the regal glories of the preceding one, are so well known to everybody, that there must have been a prodigious deal of gossip handed down to us from France, or we never could feel so much better acquainted with events which have passed at Versailles than with any scenes that have occurred at an equal distance of time at Windsor.

But so it is; and the English go there not merely as strangers visiting a palace in a foreign land, but as pilgrims to the shrine of the princes and poets who have left their memory there, and with whose names and histories they are as familiar as if they belonged to us.

The day we passed among the royal spectres that never fail to haunt one at this palace of recollections, was a mixture of sunshine and showers, and our meditations seemed to partake of the vicissitude.

It is said that the great Louis reared this stupendous dwelling in which to pass the gilded hours of his idleness, because from St. Germain's he could see the plain of St. Denis, over which his funeral array was to pass, and the spire that marked the spot where his too precious dust was to be laid. Happy was it for him that the scutcheoned sepulchre of St. Denis was the most distant and most gloomy point to which his prophetic glance could reach! Could the great king have looked a little farther, and dreamed of the scenes which were destined to follow this dreaded passage to his royal tomb, how would he have blessed the fate which permitted him to pass into it so peacefully!

It is quite wonderful to see how much of the elaborate decoration and fine finishing of this sumptuous place remains uninjured after being visited by the most ferocious mob that ever collected together. Had they been less intent on the savage object of their mission, it is probable that they would have sated their insane rage in destroying the palace itself, and the costly decorations of its singular gardens. Though far inferior in all ways either to the gardens of the Elector of Hesse Cassel at WilhelmshÖhe, or to those of the Grand Duke of Baden at Schwetzingen, those of Versailles are still highly interesting from many causes, and have so much of majesty and pomp about them, that one cannot look upon them without feeling that only the kings of the earth could ever have had a master's right to take their pleasure therein.

Before we entered upon the orderly confusion of groves, statues, temples, and water-works through which it is necessary to be led, we made our grey-headed guide lead us round and about every part of the building while we listened to his string of interesting old stories about Louis Seize, and Marie Antoinette, and Monsieur, and le Comte d'Artois, (for he seemed to have forgotten that they had borne any other titles than those he remembered in his youth,) all of whom seemed to retain exactly the same place in his imagination that they had occupied some fifty years ago, when he was assistant to the keeper of the orangerie. He boasted, with a vanity as fresh as if it had been newly born, of the honours of that near approach to royalty which he had formerly enjoyed; recounted how the Queen called one of the orange-trees her own, because she fancied its blossoms sweeter than all the rest; and how from such a broad-leafed double-blossoming myrtle he had daily gathered a bouquet for her majesty, which was laid upon her toilet exactly at two o'clock. This old man knew every orange-tree, its birth and history, as well as a shepherd knows his flock. The venerable father of the band dates his existence from the reign of FranÇois Premier, and truly he enjoys a green old age. The one surnamed Louis le Grand, who was twin brother, as he said, to that mighty monarch, looks like a youth beside it—and you are told that it has not yet attained its full growth.

Oh! could those orange-trees but speak! could they recount to us the scenes they have witnessed; could they describe to us all the beauties over whom they have shed their fragrant flowers—all the heroes, statesmen, poets, and princes who have stepped in courtly paces beneath their shade; what a world of witty wickedness, of solemn warning, and of sad reflection, we should have!

But though the orange-trees were mute, our old man talked enough for them all. He was a faithful servant to the old rÉgime: and indeed it should seem that there is something in the air of Versailles favourable alike to orange-trees and loyalty; for never did I hear, while wandering amidst their aristocratic perfume, one word that was not of sound orthodox legitimate loyalty to the race for whose service they have for so many hundred years lived and bloomed. And still they blossom on, unscathed by revolution, unblighted though an usurper called them his;—happier in this than many of those who were once privileged to parade their dignity beneath their royal shade. The old servitors still move among these venerable vegetable grandees with the ceremonious air of courtiers, offering obsequious service, if not to the king himself, at least to his cousin-germans; and I am persuaded there is not one of these old serving-men, who wander about Versailles like ghosts revisiting the scenes of former happiness, who would not more humbly pull off his hat to FranÇois Premier or Louis le Grand in the greenhouse, than to any monarch of a younger race.

Napoleon has left less trace of himself and his giant power at Versailles than anywhere else; and the naÏads and hamadryads still lift their sculptured heads with such an eternity of stately grace, as makes one feel the evanescent nature of the interlude that was played among them during the empire. It is of the old race of Bourbon that the whole region is redolent. "There," said our old guide, "is the range of chambers that was occupied by the Queen ... those were the King's apartments ... there were the royal children ... there Monsieur ... and there the Comte d'Artois."

Then we were led round to the fatal balcony which overhangs the entrance. It was there that the fallen Marie Antoinette stood, her young son in her arms, and the doomed King her husband beside her, when she looked down upon the demons drunk with blood, who sought her life. I had heard all this hateful, but o'er-true history, more than once before on the same spot, and shortening the frightful detail, I hastened to leave it, though I believe the good old man would willingly have spent hours in dwelling upon it.

The day had been named as one on which the great waters were to play. But, little as Nature has to do with this pretty exhibition, she interfered on this occasion to prevent it. There was no water. The dry winter would, they told us, probably render it impossible to play them during the whole summer.

Here was another disappointment; but we bore it heroically, and after examining and much admiring the numberless allegories which people the grounds, and to the creation of which, a poet must have been as necessary as a sculptor, we adjourned to the Trianons, there to meditate on all the ceaseless vicissitudes of female influence from Maintenon to Josephine. It is but a sad review, but it may serve well to reconcile the majority of womankind to the tranquil dreaminess of obscurity.

The next thing to be done was dining—and most wretchedly done it was: but we found something to laugh at, nevertheless; for when the wine brought to us was found too bad to drink, and we ordered better, no less than four bottles were presented to us in succession, each one increasing in price, but being precisely of the same quality. When we charged the black-eyed daughter of the house with the fact, she said with perfect good-humour, but nowise denying it, that she was very sorry they had no better. When the bill was brought, the same damsel civilly hoped that we should not think ten sous (half-a-franc) too much to pay for having opened so many bottles. Now, as three of them were firmly corked, and carefully sealed besides, we paid our ten sous without any complaining.

The looking at a fÊte at St. Cloud made part of the business of the day; but in order to get there, we were obliged to mount into one of those indescribable vehicles by which the gay bourgeoisie of Paris are conveyed from palace to palace, and from guinguette to guinguette. We had dismissed our comfortable citadine, being assured that we should have no difficulty in finding another. In this, however, we were disappointed, the proportion of company appearing greatly to exceed that of the carriages which were to convey them, and we considered ourselves fortunate in securing places in an equipage which we should have scorned indignantly when we quitted Paris in the morning.

The whimsical gaiety of the crowd, all hurrying one way, was very amusing; all anxious to reach St. Cloud before the promised half-hour's display of water-works were over; all testifying, by look, gesture, voice, and words, that light effervescence of animal spirits so essentially characteristic of the country, and all forming a moving panorama so gay and so bright as almost to make one giddy by looking at it.

Some among the capricious variety of vehicles were drawn by five or six horses. These were in truth nothing but gaily-painted waggons, hung on rude springs, with a flat awning over them. In several I counted twenty persons; but there were some few among them in which one or perhaps two seats were still vacant—and then the rapturous glee of the party was excited to the utmost by the efforts of the driver, as gay as themselves, to obtain customers to fill the vacancies.

Every individual overtaken on the road was invited by the most clamorous outcries to occupy the vacant seats. "St. Cloud! St. Cloud! St. Cloud!" shouted by the driver and re-echoed by all his company, rang in the startled ears of all they passed; and if a traveller soberly journeying in the contrary direction was met, the invitation was uttered with tenfold vehemence, accompanied by shouts of laughter; which, far from offending the party who provoked it, was invariably answered with equal frolic and fun. But when upon one occasion a carriage posting almost at full gallop towards Versailles was encountered, the ecstasy of mirth with which it was greeted exceeds description. "St. Cloud! St. Cloud! St. Cloud!—Tournez donc, messieurs—tournez À St. Cloud!" The shouts and vociferations were enough to frighten all the horses in the world excepting French ones; and they must be so thoroughly broken to the endurance of din, that there is little danger of their starting at it. I could have almost fancied that upon this occasion they took part in it; for they shook their ropes and their tassels, snorted and tossed, very much as if they enjoyed the fun.

After all, we, and many hundred others, arrived too late for the show, the supply of water failing even before the promised half-hour had elapsed. The gardens, however, were extremely full, and all the world looked as gay and as well-pleased as if nothing had gone wrong.

I wonder if these people ever grow old,—that is, old as we do, sitting in the chimney-corner, and dreaming no more of fÊtes than of playing at blind-man's-buff. I have certainly seen here, as elsewhere, men, and women too, grey-headed, and wrinkled enough to be as solemn as the most venerable judge upon the bench; but I never saw any that did not seem ready to hop, skip, jump, waltz, and make love.