Part 22 (1/2)

The military museum of to-day, which is enclosed by the palace walls, possesses a remarkable collection of its kind, but has no intimate lien upon the history of the palace

The _parterre_ before the palace is cut off froates It was relaid, a transforinally conceived in 1676, by Le Notre, modified in 1750 and much reduced in size and beauty in the nineteenth century, though later enlarged by taking three hectares of ground frolish garden

A peninsula of a superficial area of over ten thousand acres snugly enfolded in one of the great horseshoe bends of the Seine contains the Foret de Saint Germain A line drawn across the neck of the peninsula fro the Route de Poissy, coue of land which is as wild and wooded to-day as in the times of Francis, the Henris and the Louis

The _routes_ and _allees_ of the forest are traced with regularity and precision, and historians have written theues, a statelance at any h upon its plateau sits this historic ood, for the reat _ soe level Francis I, huntsreat forest, and Louis XIV in his time developed its syste easy,” says history, though it is difficult to follow this At all events the forest re-spot of its class near Paris

Within this maze of paths and alleys are many famed historic spots, the Chene Saint Fiacre, the Croix de Noailles, the Croix Saint Simon, the Croix du Main (erected in 1709 in honour of the son of Louis XIV), the etoile des Amazones, the Patte d'Oie, the Chene du Capitaine and many more which are continually referred to in the history of the palace, the forest of Saint Germain-en-Laye, and of the Abbaye de Poissy

The forest is not wholly separated from the mundane world for occasionally a faint echo of the Rouen railway is heard, a toot fro coal up-river to Paris, the strident notes of auto stea the principal roadway over which state coaches of kings and courtiers formerly rolled The contrast is not particularly offensive, but the railway threatens to make further inroads, so one hardly knows the future that may be in store for the patriarch oaks and eles reat Fontainebleau trees, and in point of fact the forest is by no means as solitary, nor ever was One of the most celebrated, certainly one of the most spectacular, duels of history took place in the park at Saint Geral and profligate life at the expense--it was said--of the favours of the duchesse d'eta an accusation, deemed wholly uncalled for, a ”_duel judiciaire_” took place, with La Chataigneraie as the dauphin's substitute as adversary of de Jarnac who sought no apology but co and issued his first Letters Patent to his council concerning the ”_duel judiciaire_,”

whereby he absolved hiht to partake, that he appointed his dear friend Francois de Vivonne, ”Seigneur de la Chataigneraie,” to play the role for hiand before the monarch and the assembled court he was laid low by his adversary

This was one of the last of the ”_duels judiciaires_” in France What Saint Louis and Philippe-le-Bel had vainly sought to suppress, the procedure having cost at least a hundred thousand _livres_, was practically accomplished by Henri II by a stroke of the pen

CHAPTER XVIII

MAINTENON

Out fro from the capital to the frontier, dohich rolled the royal corteges of old, lie Maintenon and its famous chateau, some sixty odd kilometres from Paris and twenty from Rambouillet

Just beyond Versailles, on the road to Maintenon, lies the trim little townlet of Saint Cyr, known to-day as the West Point of France, theit its chief distinction

Going back into the rerew up froht for ninety-one thousand _livres_ ”a chateau and a convent for woirls' school therein She reserved an apartment for herself, and one suspects indeed that it was simply another project of the Widow Scarron to have a place of rendezvous near the capital

Certainly under the circuood that she was doing for orphaned girls, she ht of a roof to shelter her when she wished She was absolutely doth of time It was here that ”Esther” and ”Athalie,” which Racine had composed expressly for Madame de Maintenon's pensionnaires, were produced for the first time

[Illustration: Fauteuil _of_ Mme _de_ Maintenon _Worked by the_ De at Saint Cyr it was Madame de Maintenon's custo between seven and eight in theto town for the evening, much as a celebrated American millionaire journalist, whose country-house overlooks the faarden, does to-day

Madame de Maintenon actually went into retirement at Saint Cyr upon the death of Louis XIV, and for four years, until her death, never left it

She died frorave urated, and was buried in the chapel, beneath an elaborate tomb which the Duc de Noailles, who married her niece, caused to be erected The to the Revolution and the ”Maison Royale de Saint Cyr,” of which nothing had been changed since its foundation, was suppressed, the edifice itself being pillaged and the remains of Madame de Maintenon sadly profaned, finally to be recovered and deposited again in the chapel where a siraven words:

Cy-Git Madame De Maintenon 1635-1719-1836

Napoleon I established the ecole Militaire at Saint Cyr, froraduated each year ardens of Madame de Maintenon's tiround, of the reat international highroad, the old Route Royale of the ht of the crow, until it crosses the great National Forest of Ra the valley of the Eure almost to its headwaters it finally comes to Maintenon, a town of a couple of thousand souls, whose hter of Theodore-Agrippa d'Aubigne, named Francoise, and who came in time to be the Marquise de Maintenon