1687. By the end of November the royal
master found his new residence "well
advanced and very beautiful." Soon after the
New Year he heard the opera "Roland"
performed here, and was pleased to dine for
the first time within the new walls. He gave
orders on recurring visits for the embellishment
of the summer palace. The Trianon
of marble and porphyry, "the most graceful
production of Mansard," was finally
completed in the autumn of 1688. But the work
of decoration went on under the hands of a
horde of artists almost until the end of the
monarch's reign.

Says an English author of a century ago:
"In the midst of all the austerities imposed
upon him by the ambition of Madame de
Maintenon, the King went to Trianon to
inhale the breath of the flowers which he had
planted there, of the rarest and most
odoriferous kind. On the infrequent occasions
when the Court was permitted to accompany
him thither to share in his evening collation,
it was a beautiful spectacle to see so many
charming women wandering in the midst of
the flowers on the terrace rising from the
banks of the canal. The air was so rich
with the mingled perfume of violets, orange
flowers, jessamines, tuberoses, hyacinths