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The gardens of the Luxembourg form another of those favourite Paris playgrounds for nursemaids and their charges. It is claimed that the children are all little Legitimists in the Luxembourg gardens, whereas they are all Red Republicans at the Tuileries. One has no means of knowing this with certainty, but it is assumed; at any rate the Legitimists are a very numerous class in the neighbourhood. Another class of childhood to be seen here is that composed of the offsprings of artists and professors of the Latin quarter, and of the active tradesmen of the neighbourhood. They come here, like the others, for the fresh air, to see a bit of greenery, to hear the band play, to sail their boats in the basins of the great fountain and enjoy themselves generally.

One notes a distinct difference in the dress and manners of the children of the gardens of the Luxembourg from those of the Tuileries and wonders if the breach will be widened further as they grow up.

The Jardin du Luxembourg is all that a great city garden should be, ample, commodious, decorative and as thoroughly typical of Paris as the Pont Neuf. Innumerable, but rather mediocre, statues are posed here and there between the palace and the observatory at the end of the long, tree-lined avenue which stretches off to the south, the only really historical monument of this nature being the celebrated Fontaine de M?dicis by Debrosse, the architect of the palace. It was a memorial to Marie de M?dici.

While one is in this quarter of Paris he has an opportunity to recall a royal memory now somewhat dimmed by time, but still in evidence if one would delve deep.

As a matter of fact, royalty never had much to do with this hybrid quarter of Paris, though, indeed, its past was romantic enough, bordering as it does upon the real Latin Quarter of the students. Bounded on one side by the immense domain of the Luxembourg, it stretched away indefinitely beyond Vaugiraud, almost to Clamart and Sceaux.

On this same side of the river are the Palais de l'Institut and the Palais Bourbon. The Palais de l'Institut, or Palais Mazarin, is hardly to be considered one of the domestic establishments, the dwellings of kings, with which contemporary Paris was graced. It was but a creation of Mazarin, the minister, on the site of the H?tel de Nesle, and was first known as the Palais des Quatre Nations, where were educated, at the expense of the Cardinal, sixty young men of various nationalities.

The old chapel has since been transformed into the "Salle des S?ances" of the Institut de France, the Five French Academies. The black, gloomy fa?ade of the edifice, to-day, in spite of the cupola which gives a certain inspiring dignity, is not lovely, and tradition and sentiment alone give it its present interest, though it is undeniably picturesque.

An inscription used to be on the pedestal of one of the fountains opposite the entrance which read:

"Superbe habitant du desert En ce lieu, dis moi, que fais tu --Tu le vois ? mon habit vert Je suis membre de l'institut."

Still following along the left bank of the Seine one comes to the Palais Bourbon, the Chambre des Deput?s, as it is better known. This edifice, where now sit the French deputies, was built by Girardini for the Dowager Duchesse de Bourbon in 1722, and, though much changed during various successive eras, is still a unique variety of architectural embellishment which is not uncouth, nor yet wholly appealing. Napoleon remade the heavily imposing fa?ade, so familiar to all who cross the river by the Pont de la Concorde, but its grimness is its charm rather than its grace.

The structure cost its first proprietor twenty million or more francs, and since it has become national property the outlay has been constant. Everything considered it makes a poor showing; but its pseudo-Greek fa?ade, were it removed, would certainly be missed in this section of Paris.

The principal apartments are the "Salle des Pas Perdus," the "Salle des S?ances," and the "Salle des Conferences"--where, in 1830, the Duc d'Orleans took the oath as king of France.

A recent discovery has been made in the lumber room of this old Palais Bourbon, where deputies howl and shout and make laws as noisily as in any other of the world's parliaments.

The new-made countess's mother-in-law apparently never had much respect for her son's choice as she forever referred to her as "the little gold ingot."

In 1773, the financier Beaujon bought the property from the king and added considerably to it under the direction of the architect Boull?e, who also re-designed the gardens. Thanks to Beaujon, the wonderful Gobelins of to-day were hung upon the walls, and many paintings by Rubens, Poissin, Van Loo, Von Ostade, Murillo, Paul Potter and Joseph Vernet were added.

The death of the financier brought the property into the hands of the Duchesse de Bourbon, the sister of Louis Philippe, and the mother of the Duc d' Enghien, who died so tragically at Vincennes a short time after. The duchess renamed her new possession Elys?e-Bourbon and there led a very retired and sad life among surroundings so splendid that they merited a more gay existence.

At the Revolution the palace became a national property, and, under the Consulate, was the scene of many popular f?tes, it having been rented to a concern which arranged balls and other entertainments for the pleasure of all who could afford to pay. Its name was now the Hameau de Chantilly, and, considering that the entrance tickets cost but fifteen sous--including a drink--it must have proved a cheap, satisfying and splendid amusement for the people.

This state of affairs lasted until 1805, when Murat bought it and here held his little court up to his departure for Naples, when, in gratefulness for past favours, he gave it to Napoleon. The emperor greatly loved this new abode, which he rechristened the Elys?e-Napoleon.

After his defeat at Waterloo Napoleon, limping lamely Parisward, down through the Forests of Compi?gne and Villers-Cotterets, sought in the Elys?e-Napoleon the repose and rest which he so much needed, the throng meanwhile promenading before the palace windows, shouting at the tops of their voices "Vive l'Empereur!" though, as the world well knew, his power had waned forever; the eagle's wings were broken. The throng still crowded the precincts of the palace, but the emperor fled secretly by the garden gate.

On the return of the Duchesse de Bourbon from Spain the magnificent structure became again the Elys?e-Bourbon. The duchess ceded the palace to the Duc and Duchesse de Berry but, at the duke's death, in 1820, his widow abandoned it.

Some time after it was occupied by the Duc de Bordeaux, and, in 1830, it became one of the long list of establishments whose maintenance devolved upon the Civil List, though it remained practically uninhabited all through the reign of Louis Philippe.

In 1848, the National Assembly designated the palace as the official residence for the presidents of the French Republic. Three years after, on the night of the first of December, as the last preparations were being made by Louis Bonaparte for the Coup d' ?tat and the final strangling of the young republic, the residence of the president was transferred to the Tuileries, and the palace of the Faubourg Saint Honor? was again left without a tenant, and served only to give hospitality from time to time to passing notables.

After the burning of the Tuileries, and the coming of the Third Republic, the Elys?e Palace again became the presidential residence, and so it remains to-day.

VINCENNES AND CONFLANS

Vincennes is to-day little more than a dull, dirty Paris suburb; if anything its complexion is a deeper drab than that of Saint Denis, and to call the Bois de Vincennes a park "somewhat resembling the Bois de Boulogne," as do the guidebooks, is ridiculous.

In reality Vincennes is nothing at all except a memory. There is to-day little suggestion of royal origin about the smug and murky surroundings of the Chateau de Vincennes; but nevertheless, it once was a royal residence, and the drama which unrolled itself within its walls was most vividly presented. A book might be written upon it, with the following as the chapter headings: "The Royal Residence," "The Minimes of the Bois de Vincennes," "Mazarin at Vincennes," "The Prisoners of the Donjon," "The F?tes of the Revolution," "The Death of the Duc d'Enghien," "The Transformation of the Chateau and the Bois."

Its plots are ready-made, but one has to take them on hearsay, for the old chateau does not open its doors readily to the stranger for the reason that it to-day ranks only as a military fortress, and an artillery camp is laid out in the quadrangle, intended, if need be, to aid in the defence of Paris. This is one of the things one hears about, but of which one may not have any personal knowledge.

Philippe Auguste, too, has been credited with being the founder of Vincennes; but, at all events, the chateau took on no royal importance until the reign of Saint Louis, who acquired the habit of dispensing justice to all comers seated beneath an oak in the near-by Forest of Joinville.

The erection of the later chateau was begun by Charles, Comte de Valois, brother of Philippe-le-Bel; and it was completed by Philippe VI of Valois, and his successor, Jean-le-Bon, between the years 1337 and 1370, when it became an entirely new manner of edifice from what it had been before. It was in this chateau that was born Charles V, to whom indeed it owes its completion in the form best known.

The donjon of Vincennes was carried to its comparatively great height that it might serve as a tower of observation as well as a place of last retreat if in an attack the outer walls of the fortress should give way. Here at Vincennes a certain massiveness is noted in connection with the donjon, though the actual ground area which it covers is not very great; it was not like many donjons of the time, which were virtually smaller chateaux or fortresses enclosed within a greater.

Vincennes, in comparison with many other contemporary edifices, possessed a certain regularity of outline which was made possible by its favourable situation. When others were of fantastic form, they were usually so built because of the configuration of the land, or the nature of the soil. But here the land was flat, and, though the edifice and its dependencies covered no very extended area, they followed rectangular lines with absolute precision.

In 1814-1815 the chateau became a great arsenal and general storehouse for the army. It was attacked by the Allies and besieged twice, but in vain. It was defended against the armies of Blucher by the Baron Daumesnil. Summoned to surrender his charge, "Jambe de Bois" replied: "I will surrender when you surrender to me my leg." A statue to this brave warrior is within the chateau, and commemorates further the fact that he capitulated only on terms laid down by himself out of his humane regard for the lives of friends and foes.

The ministers of Charles X, in 1830, had cause to regret the strength of the chateau walls; and Barb?s, Blanqui and Raspail, in 1848, and various Republicans, who had been seized as dangerous elements of society after the Coup d'?tat of 1851, also here found an enforced hospitality. The Chateau de Vincennes had become a second Bastille.

The incident of the arrest and death of the Duc d'Enghien is one of the most dramatic in Napoleonic history. The scene was Vincennes. Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, son of the Prince de Cond?, born at Chantilly in 1772, became, without just reason, suspected in connection with the Cadoudal-Pichegreu plot, and was seized by a squadron of cavalry at the Schloss Ettenheim in the Duchy of Baden and conducted to Vincennes. Here, after a summary judgment, he was shot at night in the moat behind the guardhouse. The obscurity of the night was so great that a lighted lantern was hung around the neck of the unfortunate man that the soldiers might the better see the mark at which they were to shoot.

The rest is history--of that apologetic kind which is not often recorded.

The Bois de Vincennes is not the fashionable parade ground of the Bois de Boulogne. On the whole it is a sad sort of a public park, and not at all fashionable, and not particularly attractive, though of a vast extent and possessed of a profoundly historic past of far more significance than that of its sweet sister by the opposite gates of Paris.

There are some forty kilometres of roadway within the limits of the Bois de Vincennes, and a dozen kilometres or more of footpaths; but, since the military authorities have taken a portion for their own uses as a training ground, a shooting range and for the Batteries of La Faisanderie and Gravelle, it has been bereft of no small part of its former charm. There are three lakes in the Bois, the Lac de Sainte Mand?, the Lac Daumesnil and the Lac de Gravelle.

A near neighbour of Vincennes is Conflans, another poor, rent relic of monarchial majesty. The Chateau de Conflans was situated at the juncture of the Seine and Marne, but, to-day, the immediate neighbourhood is so very unlovely and depressing that one can hardly believe that it ever pleased any one's fancy, least of all that of a kingly castle builder.

Banal dwellings on all sides are Conflans' chief characteristics to-day; but the old royal abode still lifts a long length of roof and wall to mark the spot where once stood the Chateau de Conflans in all its glory.

This castle, for it was more castle than palace, was reputed one of the most magnificent in the neighbourhood of the Paris of its time, surrounded as it was with a resplendent garden and a forest in miniature, really a part of the Bois de Vincennes of to-day, where roamed wild boar and wolves which furnished sport of a kingly kind.

The view from the terrace of the chateau must have been wonderfully fine, the towers and roof-tops of old Paris being silhouetted against the setting sun, its windows dominating the swift-flowing current of the two rivers at the foot of the fortress walls.

Commynes recounts the battle as follows: "Four thousand archers were sent out from Paris by the king, who fired upon the castle from the river bank on both sides."

The kings of France about this time developed a predilection for the chateaux on the banks of the Loire, and Conflans was offered for sale in 1554. Divers personages occupied it from that time on, the Mar?chal de Villeroy, the Connetable de Montmorency and, for a brief time, Cardinal Richelieu.

It was in the Chateau de Conflans that was planned the foundation of the French Academy; here Moli?re and his players first presented "La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes"; and here, also, was held the marriage of La Grande Mademoiselle with the unhappy Lauzan.

Saint-Simon, the court chronicler, mentions that the gardens were so immaculately kept that when the Archbishop and "La Belle" Duchesse de Lesdigui?res used to promenade therein they were followed by a gardener who, with a rake, sought to remove the traces of each footprint as soon as made.

Later, the Cardinal de Beaumont, the persecutor of the Jansenists, resided here.

"Notre archeveque est ? Conflans C'est un grand solitaire C'est un grand so C'est un grand so C'est un grand solitaire."

FONTAINEBLEAU AND ITS FOREST

Of all the French royal palaces Fontainebleau is certainly the most interesting, despite the popularity and accessibility of Versailles. It is moreover the cradle of the French Renaissance. Napoleon called it the Maison des Si?cles, and the simile was just.

Not the least of the charm of Fontainebleau is the neighbouring forest so close at hand, a few garden railings, not more, separating the palace from one of the wildest forest tracts of modern France.

It was from the Palace of Fontainebleau, too, that bloomed forth the best and most wholesome of the French Renaissance architecture. It was the model of all other later residences of its kind. It took the best that Italy had to offer and developed something so very French that even the Italian workmen, under the orders of Fran?ois I, all but lost their nationality. Vasari said of it that it "rivalled the best work to be found in the Rome of its time."

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