Later on the same day, the definitive treaty
between England and France was concluded at Versailles. When Franklin
was about to take leave of France and return to Philadelphia, Louis XVI
presented to him the royal portrait, framed by 408 diamonds, the value of
which was estimated at $10,000.
No less than his predecessor had the new Monarch of Versailles and his
gay, ease-loving, oft-times imprudent young wife disregarded the
traditions and dignity of the Sun King's palace. If Louis XV demolished
the Staircase of the Ambassadors and mutilated the _grands appartements_,
Marie Antoinette imitated his desecrations in the royal dwelling by
commanding any change that pleased her fancy, by reducing rooms of state
to mere private chambers, and shutting herself off from the irritating
claims of Court life. Many of the trees in the park died that had been
set out at the proud command of Louis XIV. The gardens became neglected
and desolate. The famous Labyrinth of Aesop's fountains disappeared.
A grove planted on the place formerly beautified by the Grotto of Thetis
(or Tethys) gave sanctuary to the impious scheming of that Madame de
Lamotte, whose intrigue and evil ambition brought upon the Queen in 1785
the scandal of the Diamond Necklace, with the subsequent dramatic arrest
of Cardinal de Rohan in the fateful Hall of Mirrors, and the humiliating
trial of Marie Antoinette.
Bored by incessant publicity, finding no pleasure in the formal
promenades of the palace park, the Queen pleaded for "a house of her
own," where she could find recreation after her own tastes, unobserved by
the curious and the critical.
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