"It's too much for any man to enjoy--I give it up!" said the Little Man,
perplexed, and ordered every door locked and every window tightly
shuttered. Then he placed a thousand men to guard the place and went
about his business.

But today Versailles belongs to the people of France; more, it belongs to
the people of earth: all is free and you may carry away all the beauty of
the place that your soul can absorb.

Now, who shall say that Louis the Fourteenth has not enriched the world?

The Duke of Mantua was sumptuous in his tastes, liberal, chivalrous,
voluptuous, extravagant. At the same time he had a cultivated mind, an
eye for proportion, and an ear for harmony. He was even pious at times,
and like all debauchees had periods of asceticism. He was much given to
gallantry, and his pension-list of beautiful women was not small. He was
a poet and wrote some very good sonnets; he was a composer who sang, from
his own compositions, after the wine had gone round; he was an orator who
committed to memory and made his own the speeches that his secretary
wrote.

He traveled much, and in great state, with a retinue of servants, armed
guards, outriders and guides. Wherever he went he summoned the local
poet, or painter, or musician, and made a speech to him, showing that he
was familiar with his work by humming a tune or quoting a stanza. Then he
put a chain of gold around the poor embarrassed fellow's neck, and a
purse in his hands, and the people cheered.

When he visited a town, cavalcades met him afar out, and as he
approached, little girls in white and boys dressed in velvet ran before