For, indeed, about this same moment, Maillard has halted his draggled
Menads on the last hill-top; and now Versailles, and the Chateau of
Versailles, and far and wide the inheritance of Royalty opens to
the wondering eye. From far on the right, over Marly and
Saint-Germains-en-Laye; round towards Rambouillet, on the left:
beautiful all; softly embosomed; as if in sadness, in the dim moist
weather! And near before us is Versailles, New and Old; with that broad
frondent Avenue de Versailles between,--stately-frondent, broad, three
hundred feet as men reckon, with four Rows of Elms; and then the Chateau
de Versailles, ending in royal Parks and Pleasances, gleaming lakelets,
arbours, Labyrinths, the Menagerie, and Great and Little Trianon.
High-towered dwellings, leafy pleasant places; where the gods of this
lower world abide: whence, nevertheless, black Care cannot be excluded;
whither Menadic Hunger is even now advancing, armed with pike-thyrsi!

Yes, yonder, Mesdames, where our straight frondent Avenue, joined, as
you note, by Two frondent brother Avenues from this hand and from that,
spreads out into Place Royale and Palace Forecourt; yonder is the
Salle des Menus. Yonder an august Assembly sits regenerating France.
Forecourt, Grand Court, Court of Marble, Court narrowing into Court
you may discern next, or fancy: on the extreme verge of which
that glass-dome, visibly glittering like a star of hope, is
the--Oeil-de-Boeuf! Yonder, or nowhere in the world, is bread baked for
us. But, O Mesdames, were not one thing good: That our cannons, with
Demoiselle Theroigne and all show of war, be put to the rear? Submission
beseems petitioners of a National Assembly; we are strangers in
Versailles,--whence, too audibly, there comes even now sound as
of tocsin and generale! Also to put on, if possible, a cheerful
countenance, hiding our sorrows; and even to sing? Sorrow, pitied of
the Heavens, is hateful, suspicious to the Earth.--So counsels shifty