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VERSAILLES.

THE Museum at Versailles is the proudest monument ever yet erected to the glory of "la belle France." Never did Sovereign conceive a more appropriate mode of testifying his gratitude to the people who bestowed upon him his crown, than Louis Philippe, when he determined to consecrate Versailles to the memory of the stirring deeds and daring spirits recorded in the most brilliant passages of his country's annals. The idea was worthy of the monarch of a great people, and has been wrought out in a manner to show that, whatever may be the faults imputable to Louis Philippe as a king, his heart beats but for France, and he feels like a patriot and a Frenchman on the subject of his Country's glory.

Should any whose lot it may have been to have paced, some few years since, through the vast and lonely saloons of Versailles, now chance to retrace their steps, how greatly must they admire "the conjuration, and the mighty magic," which has summoned up the illustrious dead to people once more these long-deserted halls, and converted these crumbling ruins into a theatre wherein all the great events in the history of France are, as it were, enacted once again!

"Le palais de Versailles est le palais de souvenirs," says a late French writer, and well does it deserve that proud and expressive title; for within its walls are now assembled the effigies of all that are dead to the nation. No unworthy prejudices, no mean distinctions, have operated to the exclusion of one name or one event which sheds a lustre over the history of France. Clovis and Charlemagne; Francis, the King of Gentlemen; and Louis Quatorze, le Grand Monarque himself,-all are there. Napoleon, and the glories of his reign, are there, in la galerie de Napoleon, where all his history is told in the order of his battles. Nay, more; Charles the Tenth, at the invitation of his successor, takes his place amongst the assembled

monarchs.

Great must have been the labor, unwearied the researches, necessary to attain for this national monument the perfection which it has now reached. From the tombs of St. Denis, from the vaults of the Château d'Eu, from the mouldering ruins of churches and of monasteries, have the half-decaying figures of the monarchs of the first race been restored, to appear with crowned brow and sceptred hand in the Galleries of Sculpture. Their successors are seen caparisoned in coat of mail and plaited steel; while those of still more recent times appear, each of them,

"In the same figure, like the king that's dead."

But this care and spirit of research, be it remembered, have not been devoted to kings alone. Warriors, statesmen, sages, and poets, have shared the same honors with the sovereigns whom they served; and the same hall which displays the marbled effigies of the kings displays also the form of many a doughty crusader who fought beside them, and of many a noble dame kneeling in prayer to Heaven for a husband's safety.

For, amidst the assembled hosts of steel-clad warriors and laurelled bards, the eye sees with delight those fairer portions of creation, whose matchless beauty and unwearied intrigue have ever exercised so great an influence over the manners and spirit of the times in

which they lived; and whose presence in these halls is as necessary to the making of this great work "one entire and perfect chrysolite," as it is accordant with the gallant and chivalrous feelings of the nation. To a general participation in these feelings throughout the whole body of the French people must be attributed, in a great degree, the immense influence which women exercised for so long a period in France over the affairs of state. Indeed, until the Revolution, it may be said to have been always extremely doubtful whether the mistress or the minister held more potent sway over the sovereign; and, if ever a contest for supremacy did arise between these powerful rivals, the policy of the statesman too often proved but a very ineffectual weapon against the charms and blandishments of the ruling beauty. Of no country in the world can it be said so truly as of France, that there men rule the state, but women rule the

men.

And what variety and piquancy has this condition of society served to throw over every page of French history. What interest does it impart even to the museum we are now considering! What an additional brilliancy does it shed over the mere catalogue of celebrated names, whose memories are enshrined in these truly national galle. ries! How exciting to us, even as Englishmen, are these mingled names of monarchs, beauties, wits, statesmen, and warriors, which sparkle as we write them! and how, at the bare mention of them, must the French "find their hearts moved more than with a trumpet," as Sir Philip Sidney, as rare a spirit as any amongst them, said of the old ballad of Chevy Chase! Charlemagne and Clovis ; Charles the Seventh, and Jeanne d'Arc; Agnes Sorel, and the brave Dunois, Le Bâtard d'Orléans; Francis the First, and Diana of Poictiers; Bayard, the valiant knight" sans peur et sans reproche;" Hen ri Quatre, and Marguerite de Navarre; the Duc de Guise, and the Montmorenci; Marie de Medicis; Sully and Colbert; Corneille, and Richelieu, and Anne of Austria; Louis the Fourteenth, and La Valliere; Montespan, and De Maintenon; Racine, and Moliere; the Regent Orleans; Marie Antoinette; Napoleon and his Marshals ;all are here. Here, too, the records of their deeds and of their power, written by those simplest of all annalists-the sculptor and the painter, so that all who run may read. Le Brun and Vandermeulen; David, and Horace Vernet,-the true kings at arms,-here blazon forth the stirring actions of the mighty spirits of their age. In short, treasured up within these walls, may be found memorials of every event and remarkable personage in the history of France, calculated to furnish food for the moralist, information to the historian, and models or warnings for the patriot; and which, taken altogether, constitute a museum illustrative of the national history, such as no other country in the world can boast,-a museum fully deserving of the trouble of a journey to all those who have the time and opportunity to visit it;* and justifying to the fullest the following encomiums bestowed upon it and its

When Mahomet found that the mountain would not come to him, like a sensible man as he was, Mahomet made no more to do, bat straight went to the mountain. Our readers, who may not be able very conveniently to follow our advice to visit Versailles, may have the mountain, that is, Versailles, to visit them, in the shape of a beautifully illustrated work, containing copies of all the pictures, statues, &c. there collected, published in numbers, and entitled "Galeries Historiques de Versailles, publié par ordre du Roi par Ch. Gavard." Paris: Treuttel and Co.-London: Kernot.

royal author by M. Dupin, in the discourse which he delivered to the King upon the opening of the galleries:

"Une création qui seule suffirait pour illustrer un règne, est celle du grand Musée de Versailles. Aucun monument n'offre un caractère plus national; c'est l'histoire de France en action. Louis XIV, revenant à Versailles, ne pourrait plus dire, L'Etat, c'est moi! Plus fier encore, le grand roi, en voyant tant de grands hommes, s'écrierait, Messieurs! l'Etat, c'est nous! Car à Versailles tous les temps sont réunis, toutes los gloires sont déifiées, toutes les victoires se suivent. Le Roi l'a ainsi voulu; jamais historien ne fut plus impartial!"

But the idea of converting the Palace of Versailles into a Gallery of Art illustrative of the national history, does credit to the good sense and right feeling of Louis Philippe in another respect than that of erect. ing it into a monument to the glory of his country, with which his name must henceforward be inseparably connected.

Versailles might become a national museum; it could never more become a royal residence. Its glory departed from it with the despotic spirit of the ancien régime. The monarch of Versailles must be aut Casar aut nullus, and not the monarch of the Barri cades.

Louis Philippe, even had his known fondness for the enjoyments of private life led him to wish it, could not have hoped to recall Versailles to the unostentatious condition in which it appeared as the simple hunting-seat where Louis the Thirteenth found a refuge from political cares, and from all those endless troubles and anxieties with which the monarch is sure to be surrounded in his state apartments. Still less could the sovereign of la nouvelle France hope to reinstate it in the splendor which it displayed under the direction of Le Grand Monarque himself.

Napoleon, when at the zenith of his glory, anxious to conciliate the admirers of the ancient court, and to invest his own with the reflection of that brilliancy which still shines like a halo round the recollections of that of Louis Quatorze, conceived the idea of restoring to the desolate walls of Versailles the splendor which had so long deserted them. He was at the summit of his power; as emperor, invested with authority almost as despotic as that of Louis; and deeming it, perhaps, no less advantageous to his political views, than flattering to his ambition, he determined to renovate and inhabit Versailles. But the enormous sum which it would have required to enable him to carry this resolution into effect, having caused him to pause for a while, he was induced to consider the matter more narrowly; and the result was, that, perceiving he could no more bring back Versailles to the reputation which it enjoyed under Louis Quatorze, than reduce France to the state of almost feudal slavery in which it existed during the reign of that monarch, he very wisely abandoned the undertaking.

But when the house of Bourbon re-ascended that throne from which, by the voice of the nation, it had been so long excluded, it seemed as if the hour for the restoration of Versailles had arrived. In fact, Louis the Eighteenth directed the necessary steps to be taken for the accomplishment of that purpose. But fate, and the Minister of Finance, willed it otherwise; and the vast halls of

Versailles remained as they had done for years, silent and deserted.

Yet, even in their desolation, the galleries of Versailles formed a fitting monument to the memory of their founder. They told of his glory. They were memorials of his love of magnificence and dis. play, and they told of the extravagance at which that love was gra. tified; and they showed to succeeding generations, what the indifference manifested at his funeral showed to his contemporaries, how fleeting and unsubstantial is the popular admiration of a sovereign who does not make the end and aim of his government the happiness of his people. But they did justice also to the genius of Louis, who, if he neglected the interests of his people at home, labored hard to make France respected abroad; and they showed how far he, who was "every inch a king," excelled, in talents and kingly tastes, those by whom he was succeeded. Versailles is, in fact, identified with Louis Quatorze; it was his palace when living, and, when dead, his tomb.

It was, it is true, inhabited by Louis the Fifteenth; and the death of that monarch took place within its walls. His successor, and the charming Marie Antoinette, likewise kept their court here. It witnessed, moreover, some of the most striking events which preceded the Revolution, some of the most startling scenes of that eventful era. Yet, after all these changes and vicissitudes, at the mention of Ver. sailles we think of none of these: when that name falls on the ear, the mind, overlooking all intermediate objects, rushes back at once to the contemplation of Louis the Fourteenth, and of the brilliant court which he had here created around him; for the interest which we feel in Versailles is as closely identified with that which we experience for him at whose bidding it arose, as was the progress of this proud structure with the varied aspects of its creator's reign.

We will just glance at a few of these; and then resign the matter into hands well calculated to deal with a subject like the present, which may be said to combine the truth of history with the ima gination of romance. Mr. James, who has shown in his romantic novels of "Richelieu," "Philip Augustus," and "De L'Orme," his familiarity with the history of France, more especially at those mo. ments when its interests are of the deepest, could not have found a fitter theme for his well-practised pen than "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH." The records of such an era, abounding in events of the most startling nature, and which called into activity the most daring spirits and the profoundest statesmen which that age produced, when chronicled by a writer so popular as Mr. James, cannot but be welcome to the reading public; and, accordingly, to the forthcoming and concluding volumes of his history, after bestowing some small additional tedium upon our readers, we shall beg to refer them for a more elaborate picture of Versailles when in its "most high and palmy state."

Versailles may be said to have had but one master, its first and greatest. But it witnessed the rise of three mistresses, the gentle La Valliere, the spirituelle and imperious Montespan, and, lastly, the shrewd and ambitious De Maintenon,-whose several reigns form well-defined epochs in the history of this princely edifice.

It rose when the star of La Valliere was in the ascendant; whon Louis, naturally anxious to escape from the too rigid surveillance of