[Illustration: The Labyrinth, at Versailles.]
This charming labyrinth is attached to _Le Petit Trianon_ at Versailles.
The palace and its gardens were formed under the reign of Louis XV., who
was there when he was attacked by the contagious disease of which he died.
Louis XVI. gave it to his queen, who took great delight in the spot, and
had the gardens laid out in the English style. The _château_, or palace,
is situated at one of the extremities of the park of the Grand Trianon,
and forms a pavilion, about seventy-two feet square. It consists of a
ground floor and two stories, decorated with fluted Corinthian columns
and pilasters crowned by a balustrade. The gardens are delightful: here
is a temple of love; there an artificial rock from which water rushes
into a lake; there a picturesque wooden bridge, a rural hamlet, grottoes,
cottages embowered in groves of trees, diversified with statues and
seats--and above all, the fascinating MAZE, the plan of which is
represented in the Engraving.
Versailles, its magnificent palace and gardens, are altogether fraught
with melancholy associations. When we last saw them, the grounds and
buildings presented a sorry picture of neglect and decay. The mimic lakes
and ponds were green and slimy, the grottoes and shell-work crumbling
away, the fountains still, and the cascades dry. But the latter are
exhibited on certain days during the summer, when the gardens are
thronged with gay Parisians. The most interesting object however, is, the
orange-tree planted by Francis I. in 1421, which is in full health and
bearing: alas! we halted beside it, and thought of the wonderful
revolutions and uprootings that France had suffered since this tree was
planted.
In _Le Petit Trianon_ and its grounds the interesting Queen Marie
Antoinette passed many happy hours of seclusion; and would that her
retreat had been confined to the _maze_ of Nature, rather than she had
been engaged in the political intrigues which exposed her to the fury of
a revolutionary mob. In the palace we were shown the chamber of Marie
Antoinette, where the ruffians stabbed through the covering of the bed,
the queen having previously escaped from this room to the king's chamber;
and, as if to keep up the folly of the splendid ruin, a gilder was
renovating the room of the ill-starred queen.
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