In America, the
head of the government, in his convenient and appropriate mansion,
receives a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. In
France, the President of the Republic receives four hundred thousand
dollars a year, and yet, even with that vast sum, can not keep up
an establishment at all in accordance with the dwellings of grandeur
which invite his occupancy, and which unceasingly and irresistibly
stimulate to regal pomp and to regal extravagance. The palaces of
France have a vast influence upon the present politics of France.
There is an unceasing conflict between those marble walls of
monarchical splendor, and the principles of republican simplicity.
This contest will not soon terminate, and its result no one can
foresee. Never have I felt my indignation more thoroughly aroused
than when wandering hour after hour through the voluptuous sumptuousness
of Versailles. The triumphs of taste and art are admirable, beyond
the power of the pen to describe. But the moral of exeerable
oppression is deeply inscribed upon all. In a brief description of
the Palaces of France. I shall present them in the order in which
I chanced to visit them.
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