A Versailles Christmas-Tide

or sign of change, declared that it would be outside all precedent if Christmas week passed withou

ithout there was little token of gaiety. Sundry booths for the sale of gingerbread and cheap jouets, which had been erected in the Avenue de St. Cloud, found business languishing, though a stalwart countryman in blouse

, above which perched a pheasant regnant. This trophy met with vast approbation until a rival establishment across the way, not to be outdone, exhibited a centrepiece of unparalleled originality, consisting as it did of a war scene modelled entirely in lard. Entrenched behind the battlements of the fort crowning an eminence, Boers busied themselves with cannon whose aim was carefully directed towards the admiring spectators outside the window, not at the British troops who were essaying to scale the greasy slopes. Half way up the hill, a miniature train appeared from time to time issuing from an absolutely irrelevant tunnel, and, progressing at the rate of qu

gnise in this amalgamation a travesty of our old friend plum-pudding; but so revolting was its dark, bilious-looking exterior that we felt its claim to be accounte

of its size is as silent as Versailles. There is little horse-traffic. Save for the weird, dirge-like drone of the electric cars, which seems in perfect consonance with the tone of sadness pervading

f hearing of the insistent note of some itinerant musician. And no matter how far one penetrates into the recesses of the country, he is always within reach of some bucolic rendering of the popular music-hall ditty of the year before last. But never during

ent. But despite temptations, we remained in drowsy Versailles, and spent several of the hours in the little room where two pallid Red-Cross kni

l seats, eating with their unfailing air of introspective absorption. Nobody had cared enough for these lonely old men to ask them to fill a corner at their tables, even on New Year's Day. To judge by their regular attendance at the hotel meals, these men-a

year as we were told, these men had fed together, yet we never saw them betray even the most cursory interest in one another. They entered and departed without revealing, by word or look, cognisance of another human being's presence. Could one imagine a dozen me

little attentions to reveal his goodwill. Oysters usurped the place of the customary hors d'oeuvres at breakfast, and the meal ended with café noir and cognac hande

only the two Red-Cross prisoners-had gone home on holiday. The day was bright and balmy; and while strolling in the park beyond the Petit Trian

ranches, we caught sight of roofs and houses and, wandering towards them, found ourselves by the side of a miniature

Revolution. The matter-of-fact and unromantic Baedeker, it is true, gives it half a line. After devoting pages to the Chateau, its grounds, pictures, and statues, and detailing exhaustively the riches of

ng words, or, reading its lukewarm recommendation, deem the hamlet worthy of a visit. The Chateau is an immense building crammed with artistic achievements, and by the time t

hen Louis XVI., making for once a graceful speech, presented the site to his wife, saying: "You love flowers. Ah! well, I have a bouquet for you-the Petit Trianon." And his Queen, weary of the restrictions of Court ceremony-though it must be admitted that the willful Marie Antoinette ever decl

he first day of January, the rose foliage was yet green and bunches of shrivelled grapes clung to the vines. It was lovely then; yet a day or two later, whe

en, in some charming déshabillé, would come out to breathe the sweet morning air and to inhale the perfume of the climbing roses on the balcony overlooking the lake, wherein gold-fish darted to and fro among the water-lilies; or expect to see the King,

thatch had decayed, where the insidious finger of Time had crumbled the stone walls. A chilly wind arising, moaned through t