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                          THE BROCHURE SERIES
                     The Petit Trianon: Versailles
                       English Carved Fireplaces
                              APRIL, 1900


[Illustration: PLATE XXVII      CHATEAU, PETIT TRIANON]




                                  THE
                            BROCHURE SERIES
                    OF ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION.

                     1900.      APRIL      No. 4.




                    THE PETIT TRIANON: VERSAILLES.


During the first years of his reign, Louis the XIV. of France resided,
as his predecessors had, at St. Germain in summer; but for some
reason--it is alleged that it was because the windows of the palace
commanded a view of St. Denis, the royal mausoleum--he conceived
a dislike to it, and resolved to build another summer palace for
himself at some spot not far from Paris. Why he chose Versailles is
incomprehensible.

Whatever may have been the motive, however, he decided to erect upon
this desolate, waterless and uninhabited site a vast palace to be
surrounded by a park.

The cost of accomplishing this project was fearful, not in money
alone (although this was more than one thousand million francs), but
in human life. In 1681 twenty-two thousand soldiers and six thousand
horses were employed on the work, and so unhealthy was the site that
the workmen died by thousands. Writing in 1767, Madame de Sévigné says:
"The King is in haste that Versailles should be finished; but it would
seem that God is unwilling. It is almost impossible to continue the
work owing to the fearful mortality among the workmen. The corpses are
f