This is the remains of the chateau built by Louis
XIII at Versailles. Louis XIV did not wish to bury his father's
dwelling.
THE STORY OF VERSAILLES
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF VERSAILLES
A dreary expanse of low-lying marsh-land, dismal, gloomy and full of
quicksands, where the only objects that relieved the eye were the
crumbling walls of old farm buildings, and a lonely windmill, standing
on a roll of higher ground and stretching its gaunt arms toward the sky
as if in mute appeal against its desolate surroundings--such was
Versailles in 1624. This uninviting spot was situated eleven miles
southwest of Paris, the capital city of France, the royal city, the
seat, during a century before, of the splendid court of the brilliant
Francis I and of the stout-hearted Henry II, the scene of the masterful
rule of Catherine de Medici, of the career of the engaging and
beautiful Marguerite de Valois and of the exploits of the gallant Henry
of Navarre.
The desolate stretch of marshland, with its lonely windmill, meant
nothing then to the court nor to the busy fortune-hunting and
pleasure-seeking inhabitants of Paris. No one had reason to go to
Versailles, except perhaps the poor farmers and the owner of the
isolated mill--least of all the nobility and fashionable folk of the
glittering capital. No exercise of the imagination could then have
conjured up the picture of the splendor in store for the barren waste
of Versailles.
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