THE TUILERIES AND ITS GARDENS
[Illustration: ORIGINAL PLAN of the TUILERIES]
No more sentimental interest ever attached itself to a royal French
palace than that which surrounded the Tuileries from its inception by
Charles IX in the mid-sixteenth century to its extinction by the Commune
in 1871.
The Palace of the Tuileries is no more, the Commune did for it as it did
for the Hotel de Ville and many another noble monument of the capital,
and all that remains are the gardens set about with a few marble
columns and gilt balls--themselves fragments of former decorative
elements of the palace--to suggest what once was the heritage bequeathed
the French by the Medici who was the queen of Saint Bartholomew's night.
It was a palace of giddy gayety that drew its devotees to it only to
destroy them. "Crowned fools who wished to be called kings, and others."
Even its stones were chiselled as if with a certain malignancy and
fatalism, for they have all disappeared, and their history, even, has
not been written as large as that of those of many contemporary
structures.
Of the last five kings to which the Tuileries gave shelter--not counting
the Second Emperor--only one went straightway to the tomb; one went to
the scaffold and three others to exile. A sorry dowry, this, for an
inheritor of a palace at once so noble and admirable in spite of its
unluckiness.
With the court followers and the nobility of the last days of the
monarchy it was the same thing; the Tuileries was but a temporary
shelter. The scaffold accounted for many and banishment engulfed others
to forgetfulness.
It was a commonplace at the time to repeat the warning: "O! Tuileries!
O! Tuileries! Mad indeed are those who enter thy walls, for like Louis
XVI, Napoleon, Charles X and Louis Philippe you shall make your exit by
another door."
The origin of the name Tuileries is somewhat ignominiously traced from
that of a tile factory which existed here in the heart of Paris, on the
banks of the Seine, in the sixteenth century. The property, which
comprised a manor-house as well as the tile fields, was known by the
name of La Sablonniere, and came to the Marquis Neuville de Villeroy,
Superintendent of Finances, who built on the spot a sort of fortified
chateau, which, if not of palatial dimensions, was of a palatial
prodigality of luxury.
Louise de Savoie, mother of Francis I, acquired the property in 1518 and
nine years later gave it to Jean Tiercelin, the Maitre d'Hotel of the
dauphin, who later was to become Henri II.
The lodge, or manor-house, had, by 1564, fallen into so ruinous a state
that Catherine de Medici, the widow of Henri II, set about to lay the
foundations of a new royal palace.
Catherine never resided in her projected palace, and in 1566 Charles IX,
her son, gave the commission to Philibert Delorme to build a palace,
"neighbouring upon the Louvre, but not to be connected therewith, on the
site of the Tuileries."
On July 11, work was begun, and the central pavilion and the two
extremes were carried up two stories within a year. The central
structure was a great circular-domed edifice, enclosing a marvellous
Escalier d'Honneur. The facade, preceded by two terraced porticos, was
on the courtyard, or garden, between the edifice and the Louvre. It sat
back to the present Rue des Tuileries.
The Tuileries did not become a royal residence for some time after its
completion, for Charles IX clung tenaciously to his well-guarded
apartments in the Louvre; for the central structure of the Tuileries,
because of its lack of comparative height, was hardly as much of a
stronghold as he would have liked.
A contemporary note in connection with Charles IX and the Tuileries is
found in Ronsard's "_Epitre a Charles IX_."
"J'ay veu trop de macons
Bastir les Tuileries,
Et en trop de facons
Faire les momeries."
Work on the edifice so auspiciously planned by Delorme was practically
discontinued during the reign of Henri III, owing to lack of funds.
The Renaissance of Delorme, Bullant, Lescot, each of whom had a hand in
the building of the Tuileries, expressed certain characteristic phases
of architectural art in the reigns of Francis I and Henri II. The reign
of Charles IX was only another phase of that long reign of Catherine de
Medici, and architectural influences continued to follow along the same
reminiscent Italian lines, particularly with reference to such edifices
as the Medici herself caused to be built. In the dedication of Philibert
Delorme's "_Traite d'Architecture_" he expressed himself thus with
regard to the Tuileries:
"Madame, I see from day to day with an increasing pleasure the interest
that your Majesty takes in architecture. The palace which you have built
at Paris near the Pont Neuf and the Louvre is, according to its
disposition, excellent and admirable to the extent that it pleases me
beyond measure."
After Delorme considerable changes were made and successfully carried
out under the architects Ducerceau, Duperac, Levau and Dorbay.
A distinct feature of the work of Delorme was his use of the column
ornamented throughout its length, which, as he says in his written
works, he first employed in the "_Palais de la Majeste de la Royne-Mere
a Paris_."
Of the ability of Delorme there is no diversity of opinion to-day, nor
was there in his time. Besides the Tuileries he has to his credit the
Chateau d'Anet, the Chateau de Saint Maur, that of Meudon--built for the
Cardinal de Lorraine,--and his important additions to the Chateau de la
Muette and the Chateaux of Saint Germain, Madrid and Fontainebleau.
As might be supposed Catherine de Medici professed a great admiration
for Delorme and recompensed his talents with a royal generosity, even
nominating him as Abbe of the Convent of Saint Eloi de Noyon, a fact
which caused the poet Ronsard to evolve a political satire: "La Truelle
Crossee."
At the same time that she was building the Tuileries Catherine de Medici
caused additions to be made to the Louvre; at least she undertook the
completion of the unfinished portion, which had been left for other
hands to do.
The first historic souvenir which stands out prominently with regard to
the Palais des Tuileries is the fete given four days before the fateful
Saint Bartholomew's night. It was the marriage fete of the gallant Henri
de Bearn, King of Navarre, and the wise and witty Marguerite de Valois.
Henri IV, coming to the throne a quarter of a century after the
admirable first year's work on the Tuileries had been completed, found
that little had been done towards making it a really habitable place. It
had been hurriedly finished off to the second story, and had served well
enough for a temporary residence, or as an overflow establishment where
balls and fetes might be given without crowding, but to the ambitious
Henri IV nothing would do but that the pavilions should be bound
together with a more imposing ligature, and that the Pavillon de Flore
should in turn be linked up with the Louvre by a gallery.
Under Louis XIII this latter really came to a conclusion according to
the plans of the architect Ducerceau, but the inspiration of making the
Louvre and the Tuileries one was due to Henri IV.
Under Louis XIV and Louis XV the palace in its still attenuated form was
scarcely more than a rambling lodging, utterly lacking any of the noble
apartments with which it was afterwards endowed. The court at this time
practically made Versailles its headquarters. Neither of the
above-mentioned monarchs made aught but cursory visits to the Tuileries
and left its occupancy to officers of the household and ministers of
state.
It was in the reign of Louis XV that the Florentine artist, Servandoni,
who was at the same time an eminent architect, a remarkable painter and
a _maestro_ of a musician, organized in the Palais des Tuileries the
Theatre des Machines, the first installed at Paris, and there came the
Comedie Francaise, the Opera and the Bouffes (the _Comedie Italienne_)
and gave command performances before the court.
When the French resolved that Louis XVI should live in Paris, the Palais
des Tuileries was actually offered him, but it was a rather shabby place
of royal residence so far as its interior appointments were concerned,
though in all ways appealing when viewed from without. Considerable
repairs and embellishments were made, but warring factions did much to
make difficult any real artistic progress.
With the advent of Louis XVI there came a contrast to gayety and freedom
from care in royal hearts and heads. On October 5 Louis XVI and the
royal family hid themselves behind barred doors, the convention taking
up its sittings under the same roof and forthwith passing an act which
allowed the completion of the palace according to the plans of Vignon at
an expense of three hundred thousand _livres_. An almost entire
transformation took place, the money being seemingly well spent, and the
structure now first took its proper place among the monumental art
treasures of the capital.
A dramatic incident took place at the great gate of the Tuileries, which
faced the courtyard, when, on May 28, 1795, the populace surged in waves
against its sturdy barrier. The Deputy Feraud met them at the steps.
"You may enter only over my dead body," he said. No reply was made but
to crack his skull, behead the trunk and carry the head aloft on a pike
to the very Tribune where Boissy d'Anglas was presiding.
The Salle de Spectacle of the Tuileries was, even at this period, the
largest auditorium of its kind in Europe, having eight thousand stalls
and boxes, which gave a seating capacity of considerably more than that
number of persons.
In 1793 this playhouse, of which the parquet occupied the ground floor
of the Pavillon de Marsan, underwent a strange metamorphosis when it
became the legislative hall for the National Convention. All the names
and emblems showing forth in its decorations and indicative of its
ancient rule were changed into Republican devices and symbols. The
Pavillon de Marsan was called the Pavillon de l'Egalite, the Pavillon du
Centre became the Pavillon de l'Unite and the Pavillon de Flore the
Pavillon de la Liberte, where was lodged the Committee of Public
Safety.
The Hall of the Convention, according to reports of the time, was an
appalling mixture of grandeur and effeminacy with respect to its
architectural lines. Surrounding that portion where the legislators
actually sat was the great amphitheatre which for three years was
occupied by a curious, vociferous public, more demonstrative, even, than
those that had attended the former theatrical representations in the
same apartment.
From the opening of the National Convention to the reaction of
"Thermidor" it is estimated that more than three million people assisted
at what they rightly, or wrongly, considered as a "spectacle" staged
only for their amusement.
By the time Napoleon had come into power the Tuileries was hardly
habitable, and before taking up his residence he was obliged to make
immediate and extensive transformations.
On February 19, 1800, Napoleon, still First Consul, left the Palais de
Luxembourg and took up his residence in the Tuileries, the Third Consul,
Lebrun, being lodged in the Pavillon de Flore, in the "Petite
Appartement," which Marie Antoinette had fitted up for her temporary
accommodation when in town. Lebrun, however, gave up his lodging to the
Pope when the Pontiff came to Paris at Napoleon's orders. Consul
Cambaceres, however, refused to shelter himself beneath the roof of the
Tuileries, and indicated a preference for the magnificent Hotel
d'Elboeuf, which was accommodatingly put at his disposition.
Napoleon entered the Tuileries in state, preceded and followed by an
imposing cortege. At the gate of the Carrousel the consuls alighted from
their carriages, and were received by the Consular Guard. On their
arrival the consuls read the following inscription posted at the
entrance: "On August 10th monarchy in France was forever abolished; it
will never be restored." By the 20th of February the inscription had
disappeared. Besides, orders were given to cut down the two liberty
trees which had been planted in the courtyard. On August 10 a large
quantity of cannon shot had been lodged in the facade of the Tuileries,
and around the shot were written these words: "Tenth of August." The
cannon balls disappeared, as well as the inscriptions, when the Arc de
Triomphe was erected on the Place du Carrousel.
This alteration gave great satisfaction. It was important for the
tranquillity of France that the new government should inherit rather the
sword of Charlemagne than the guillotine of Marat.
[Illustration: _Salle des Marechaux, Tuileries_]
The imperial court soon displayed its splendour and magnificence in
the Palais des Tuileries, as a foregone conclusion anticipated.
In a gorgeous and imposing Salle du Trone one might have seen in the
deep casement of the central window, standing up, their hats off, the
group of the Corps Diplomatique, the members of which, loaded with
decorations, ensigns, and diamonds, trembled in the presence of the
Little Corporal of other days; on the other side, the host of the
Princes of the Rhine Confederation--all the personages that Germany,
Russia, Poland, Italy, Denmark, Spain, all Europe, in one word, England
excepted, had sent to Paris.
It is needless to say that the wedding reception of Napoleon and Marie
Louise at the Tuileries was celebrated with unusual magnificence.
Another event, on account of its peculiar moment, strongly excited the
enthusiasm of the French. On March 20, 1811, at seven o'clock in the
morning, the first salute of cannon announced that the empress had given
birth to a child, the future Aiglon, the King of Rome.
After Napoleon's occupancy of the Tuileries it again served the monarch
under the Empire, the Restoration, under Louis Philippe and under the
Second Empire. The palace of unhappy memory saw successively the fall of
Napoleon, the entry of Louis XVIII, the file-by of the Allies, the
flight of Louis XVIII, of Charles X, Louis Philippe and Napoleon III.
Up to the time of the Second Empire the Tuileries preserved, more or
less, its original interior arrangement, and, to a great extent, the
decorations with which it had been embellished under Louis XIV, Louis
XVI, and Napoleon I.
The Pavilion de Flore, at the juncture of the Tuileries and the Louvre
of Henri IV, was practically rebuilt during the Second Empire, but it
followed closely the contemporary designs of the adjoining building.
Here are quartered executive offices of the Prefecture de la Seine. That
portion facing the Pont Royal contains a series of fine sculptures by
Carpeaux, the sole modern embellishments of this nature to be seen in or
on a Paris palace.
As the Commune mob was fleeing before the army of Versailles a
conflagration broke out in the Tuileries and soon the whole edifice was
in flames. Within what may have been the briefest interval on record for
a conflagration of its size the Tuileries was but a smoking pile of
half-calcined stones.
The Tuileries had another brief day of glory when the Prince President,
Louis Napoleon, entered its gates, coming straight from his inauguration
at Notre Dame.
The cannon at the Hotel des Invalides blazed out a welcome and every
patriot Republican shouted: "Vive Napoleon!" They little knew, little
cared perhaps, that he would some day become the Second Emperor.
The throng poured forth from the cathedral after the _Domine Salvum_ and
the benediction, the clergy leading the way, followed by the president
and his attendants. The orchestra played a lively march, and the great
bell in the tower boomed forth a glorious peal.
* * * * *
The president's carriage drew up before the gates of the Tuileries and
he entered the great apartment where a reception was given to various
public and military bodies. Between seven and eight thousand naval and
military officers paid their respects, and about half a battalion of the
army saluted, among them two Mamelukes. While this ceremony was going
on, the Place du Carrousel was occupied by several squadrons of cavalry
and the inner courtyards were practically infantry camps. The government
was taking no chances at the beginning of its career. The reception
lasted until well on towards evening, when a banquet of four hundred
covers was laid and partaken of by the invited guests.
The last days of the Tuileries may be said to have commenced with that
eventful September 3, 1870, at five o'clock in the afternoon, when the
Empress Eugenie received a telegraphic despatch from Napoleon III
announcing his captivity and the defeat of Sedan. It was the overthrow.
The evening and the night were calm; the masses, as yet, were unaware of
the fatal news the journals would publish on the morrow. The following
day was Sunday; the weather superb; the disaster was finally announced
and the masses thronged from all parts to the Place de la Concorde,
where a squadron of Cuirassiers barred the bridge leading to the Palais
Bourbon where the deputies were in session.
On the arrival of the news the empress had called in General Trochu, the
Military Governor of Paris, and asked him if he could guarantee order.
He replied in the affirmative. Some hours later a group of deputies came
to the empress and counselled her to sign, not an abdication, but a
momentary renunciation of her powers as regent. Eugenie refused
point-blank.
The throng, passing by the left bank, had arrived at the Chamber of
Deputies, and the formal sitting became a revolutionary one. At three
o'clock the imperial dynasty was proclaimed as at an end, and a
provisionary government installed. Henri Rochefort, the present editor
of the "_Intransingeant_," was delivered from the prison of Sainte
Pelagie and made a member of the government.
By this time the mob which had invaded the Place de la Concorde became
menacing. The cry, "Aux Tuileries," first launched by the street gamins,
soon became the slogan of the crowd. To say it was to do it; the great
iron gates were closed, but in default of a protecting force of arms it
was an easy matter to scale them.
Behind the curtained windows of the palace the empress witnessed the
assault and murmured to her ladies-in-waiting: "It is then finished."
She turned towards the Prince de Metternich and the Chevalier Nigra,
and, in the voice of a suppliant, demanded: "_Que me consillez vous?_"
"You must leave at once, Madame; in a moment the palace will be
invaded."
The empress became resigned and accompanied by Madame Le Breton,
Metternich and Nigra started for the Pavilion de Flore, passing through
the Galerie de Musee and the Galerie d'Apollon, finally leaving by the
gate of the Louvre, which is opposite Saint Germain l'Auxerrois.
The empress was at last out of the palace, but not yet out of danger. A
band of manifestants, making for the Hotel de Ville and shouting; "Vive
la Republique," recognized the empress, but she mounted an empty fiacre
with Madame Le Breton, and giving the driver the first address that
entered her mind thus escaped further indignities, and perhaps danger.
Finally she found a refuge with Doctor Evans, the American dentist
living in the Avenue Malakoff, from whose house she left for England on
the following day.
This is the Frenchman's point of view of one of the picturesque
incidents of history. It disposes of the legend that the empress left
the Tuileries in the carriage of Doctor Evans, but this cannot be
helped, with due regard for the consensus of French opinion. Doctor
Evans was a family friend, besides being the dentist who cared for the
imperial teeth, and it is not going beyond the truth to state that the
fortunate American acquired not a little of his vogue and wealth by his
association with Napoleon III and his family.
By this time the populace had invaded the palace and cursed with
indignities unmentionable the marble halls, and the furnishings in
general, and pillaged such portable property as pleased the individual
fancies of the spoilsmen.
After the signing of the Peace Treaty by the Bordeaux Assembly, which
now represented the governmental head, and Thiers had become president,
that worthy would do away with the cannon of which the National Guard
still held possession in their garrison on the Butte of Montmartre. The
orders which he sent forth came to be the signal for another outbreak on
the part of the populace. On March 18 the Commune was proclaimed and
Citoyen Dardelle, an old African hunter, was appointed military governor
of the Tuileries. Whatever this individual's military qualifications may
have been, he delivered himself to the enjoyment of a high and dissolute
life in his luxurious apartments in the palace; a fact which was
speedily made note of by the still restless populace.
The Citoyen Rousselle, a member of the Communal Government, had the idea
of organizing a series of popular concerts in the gardens of the
Tuileries for the profit of the wounded in the late friction.
Hung on the walls, at the entrance of each apartment was a placard which
read: "Fellow men, the gold with which these walls were built was earned
by your sweat." "To-day you are coming to your own." "Remain faithful to
your trust and see to it that the tyrants enter never more."
During one of these public concerts a poem of Hegesippe Moreau was read
which terminated as follows, and set the populace aflame.
* * *
"Et moi j'applaudirai; ma jeuneusse engourdie
Se rechauffera a ce grand incendie."
He referred to the burning of the former abode of emperors and kings as
a sort of sacrifice to the common good. The public had held itself in
hand very well up to this moment, but applauded the verses vociferously.
The last of the concerts was held on May 21, the same day as the Army of
Versailles entered Paris. Night came, and with it the raging, red flames
springing skywards from the roof of the Tuileries.
In a few moments the flames had enveloped the entire building. All the
forces that it was possible to gather had been ordered upon the scene,
but they were unable to save the old palace, and by one o'clock in the
morning it was but a mass of smoking ruins. The Communards had done
their work well. Before leaving its precincts they had sprinkled coal
oil over every square metre of carpet, window-hangings and tapestries,
and the slow-match was not long in passing the fire to its inflammable
timber. The library of the Louvre was destroyed, but the museums,
galleries and their famous collections fortunately escaped.
For a dozen years the lamentable ruins of the old palace of the
Tuileries reared their singed walls, a witness and a reproach to the
tempestuosity of a people. Finally, in 1882, Monsieur Achille Picard
undertook their removal for thirty-three thousand francs, and within a
year not a vestige, not an unturned stone remained in its original place
as a witness to this chapter of Paris history.
Two porticos of the Pavillon de l'Horloge, originally forming a part of
the Tuileries, have been re-erected on the terrace of the Orangerie,
facing the Place de la Concorde.
There remain but two survivors of the late imperial sway in France, the
Empress Eugenie who lives in England, and Emile Olivier, "_l'homme au
coeur leger_," who lives at Saint Tropez in the Midi.
A Paris journalist a year or more ago, while sitting among a little
coterie of literary and artistic folk at Lavenue's famous terrace-cafe,
recounted the following incident clothed in most discreet language, and
since it bears upon the Tuileries and its last occupants it is repeated
here.
"Last night beneath the glamour of a September moon I saw a black shadow
silently creep out from beneath the gloom of the arcades of the Rue de
Rivoli just below the Hotel Continental. It crossed the pavement and
passed within the railings of the gardens opposite, one of the gates to
which, by chance or prearranged design, was still open. It moved slowly
here and there upon the gravelled walks and seated itself upon a
solitary bench as if it were meditating upon the splendid though sad
hours that had passed. Was it a wraith; was it Eugenie, late empress of
the French?"
To have remembered such a dream of fancy for forty long years one must
have been endowed with superhuman courage, or an inexplicable
conscience.
The Rue des Pyramides, which has been prolonged to the banks of the
Seine, will give those of the present generation who have never seen the
Tuileries an exact idea of its location. If it still existed the facade
of the palace would front upon this street.
The most moving history of the detailed horrors of the Commune,
particularly with reference to the part played by the Tuileries therein,
is to be found in Maxime Ducamp's "_Les Derniers Convulsions de Paris_."
One relic of the Tuileries left unharmed found a purchaser in a
Roumanian prince, at a public sale held as late as 1889. This was the
ornately beautiful iron gate which separated the Cour du Carrousel from
the Cour des Tuileries. Roumanian by birth, French at heart and Parisian
by adoption, this wealthy amateur, for a trifle over eight thousand
francs, became the owner of a royal souvenir which must have cost five
hundred times that sum.
The eastern front of the Tuileries opened into a courtyard formed under
the direction of the first Napoleon. It was separated from the Place du
Carrousel by a handsome iron railing with gilt spear-heads extending the
whole range of the palace. From this court there were three entrances
into the Place du Carrousel, the central gate corresponding with the
central pavilion of the palace, the other two having their piers
surmounted by colossal figures of victory, peace, history and France. A
gateway under each of the lateral galleries also communicated on the
north with the Rue de Rivoli, and on the south with the Quai du Louvre.
The Place du Carrousel was named in honour of a tournament held upon the
spot by Louis XIV in 1662. It communicated on the north with the Rue
Richelieu and the Rue de l'Echelle, and on the south with the Pont Royal
and the Pont du Carrousel. To-day in the square stands the triumphal
arch erected by Napoleon in 1806, after the designs of Percier and
Fontaine.
The newly laid-out and furbished-up gardens make the Place du Carrousel
even more attractive than it was when set about with flagged areas,
gravelled walks and paved road ways, and, while the monumental and
architectural accessories excel the horticultural embellishments in
quantity, the general effect is incomparably finer at present than
anything known before.
Plans for rebuilding the Place du Carrousel provide for a division into
three distinct parts, three grand _pelouses_, _a boulingrins a la
Francais_, or lawns of a circumscribed area, according to the best
traditions of Le Notre, a border of flowers and a few decoratively
disposed clumps of flowering shrubs, the whole combined in such a way
that the perspective and vista down the Champs Elysees will in no manner
suffer. The architect-landscapist, M. Redon, who has been charged with
the work, has drawn his inspiration from a series of unexecuted designs
of Le Notre which have recently been brought to light from the innermost
depths of the national archives. It was a safe way of avoiding an
anachronism, and this time a government architect has chosen well his
plan of execution.
In later years the question of the reembellishment of the Garden of the
Tuileries has ever been before the public, but little has actually been
changed save the remaking of certain garden plots, the planting of a few
shrubs or the placing of a few statues.
The Garden of the Tuileries has a superficial area of 232,632 square
metres. It is the most popular of all open spaces in the capital to the
Parisian who would take his walks abroad not too far from the centre of
things. The chief curiosity of the garden is the celebrated chestnut
tree which burst into flower on the day of Napoleon's arrival from
Elba--March 20. The precocious tree has ever been revered by the
Bonapartists since, though the tree has never performed the trick the
second time.
Statues innumerable are scattered here and there through the garden and
give a certain sense of liveliness to the area. Some are by famous
names, others by those less renowned, but as a whole they make little
impression on one, chiefly, perhaps, because one does not come to the
Garden of the Tuileries to see statues.
To the left and right are the terraces, first laid out by the celebrated
Le Notre. Like the hanging gardens of Babylon, they overlook a lower
level of _parterres_, gravelled walks and ornamental waters. Along the
Rue de Rivoli is the Terrasse de l'Orangerie, and on the side of the
river is the Terrasse de la Marine.
According to the original plans of Le Notre the garden was set down as
five hundred _toises_ in length, and one hundred and sixty-eight
_toises_ in width, the latter dimension corresponding to that of the
facade of the palace.
Along the shady avenues of this admirable city garden of to-day an
enterprising _concessionaire_ has won a fortune by renting out
rush-bottomed chairs to nursemaids, retired old gentlemen with red
ribbons in their buttonholes, and trippers from across the channel. It
is a perfectly legitimate enterprise and a profitable one it would seem,
and has been in operation considerably more than half a century.
It was from the Gardens of the Tuileries in 1784 that took place
Blanchard's celebrated ascension in Montgolfier's balloon and brought
forth the encomium from the British Royal Society that the body was not
in the least surprised that a Frenchman should have solved the problem
of "volatability." The French monarch, more practical, was so mightily
pleased with the success of the experiment that he bestowed upon the
author the sum of four hundred thousand francs from his treasury to be
used for the perfection of the art.