Aroint thee, wench! I sorrow for the vagabond
student of the Latin Quarter now, even more than formerly
I envied him. Thus topples to earth another
idol of my infancy.
We have seen every thing, and tomorrow we go to Versailles.
We shall see Paris only for a little while as we
come back to take up our line of march for the ship,
and so I may as well bid the beautiful city a regretful
farewell. We shall travel many thousands of miles
after we leave here and visit many great cities, but
we shall find none so enchanting as this.
Some of our party have gone to England, intending
to take a roundabout course and rejoin the vessel
at Leghorn or Naples several weeks hence. We
came near going to Geneva, but have concluded to return
to Marseilles and go up through Italy from Genoa.
I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I
am sincerely proud to be able to make—and
glad, as well, that my comrades cordially endorse
it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have
seen in France were born and reared in America.
I feel now like a man who has redeemed a failing reputation
and shed luster upon a dimmed escutcheon, by a single
just deed done at the eleventh hour.
Let the curtain fall, to slow music.
Versailles! It is wonderfully beautiful!
You gaze and stare and try to understand that it
is real, that it is on the earth, that it is not the
Garden of Eden—but your brain grows giddy,
stupefied by the world of beauty around you, and you
half believe you are the dupe of an exquisite dream.
The scene thrills one like military music! A
noble palace, stretching its ornamented front, block
upon block away, till it seemed that it would never
end; a grand promenade before it, whereon the armies
of an empire might parade; all about it rainbows of
flowers, and colossal statues that were almost numberless
and yet seemed only scattered over the ample space;
broad flights of stone steps leading down from the
promenade to lower grounds of the park—stairways
that whole regiments might stand to arms upon and
have room to spare; vast fountains whose great bronze
effigies discharged rivers of sparkling water into
the air and mingled a hundred curving jets together
in forms of matchless beauty; wide grass-carpeted
avenues that branched hither and thither in every
direction and wandered to seemingly interminable distances,
walled all the way on either side with compact ranks
of leafy trees whose branches met above and formed
arches as faultless and as symmetrical as ever were
carved in stone; and here and there were glimpses of
sylvan lakes with miniature ships glassed in their
surfaces. And every where—on the
palace steps, and the great promenade, around the fountains,
among the trees, and far under the arches of the endless
avenues—hundreds and hundreds of people
in gay costumes walked or ran or danced, and gave to
the fairy picture the life and animation which was
all of perfection it could have lacked.
