Amid all the follies and splendors of life at Versailles appeared the
sturdy American figure of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. In the year 1767 he was
presented at Court on the occasion of his first visit to Paris.
"You see," said he, in a letter to Miss Stevenson, daughter of his
landlady in London, "I speak of the Queen as if I had seen her; and so I
have, for you must know I have been at Court. We went to Versailles last
Sunday, and had the honor of being presented to the King, Louis XV. In
the evening we were at the _Grand Convert_, where the family sup in
public. The table was half a hollow square, the service of gold. . . .
An officer of the Court brought us up through the crowd of spectators,
and placed Sir John (Pringle) so as to stand between the Queen and Madame
Victoire. The King talked a good deal to Sir John, and did me, too, the
honor of taking some notice of me.
"Versailles has had infinite sums laid out in building it and supplying
it with water. Some say the expenses exceeded eighty millions sterling
($400,000,000). The range of buildings is immense; the garden-front most
magnificent, all of hewn stone; the number of statues, figures, urns,
etc., in marble and bronze of exquisite workmanship, is beyond
conception. But the water-works are out of repair, and so is a great
part of the front next the town, looking, with its shabby, half-brick
walls, and broken windows, not much better than the houses in Durham
Yard.
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