Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/72



"A town of noble fame,

Where monuments are found in ancient guise,

Where kings and queens in pomp did long abide,

And where God pleased that good King Louis died."

the Convention had finished its sittings yesterday, Iaccompanied Mrs. C and sisters to Versailles, where they are residing during the summer. It was really pleasing to see among the hundreds of strange faces in the Convention those distinguished friends of the slave from Boston.

Mrs. C's residence is directly in front of the great palace where so many kings have made their homes, the prince of whom was Louis XIV. The palace is now unoccupied. No ruler has dared to take up his residence here since Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were driven from it by the mob from Paris on the eighth of October, 1789. The town looks like the wreck of what it once was. At the commencement of the first revolution it contained one hundred thousand inhabitants; now it has only about thirty thousand. It seems to be going back to what it was in the time of Louis XIII. when in 1621, he built a small brick chateau, and from it arose