VERSAILLES, a town situated four leagues from Paris to the south-west. Here Lewis XIV. built a most magnificent palace, and adorned it with noble gardens: it stands on a rising ground, in the middle of a valley surrounded with hills, having, on the side towards Paris, a fine avenue leading to it through the town, which it divides into the Old and New. To give a particular account of this palace would exceed our limits; suffice it to say, that it consists of several courts embellished (both within and without) in the most sumptuous manner. The grove here is exceeding beautiful, and the water-works very grand. The menagerie consists of seven courts, and contains a vast number of rare animals. In the palace, all the parts in the inside, that are not hung with tapestries, are lined with marble; and the nearer you come to the king's apartments, the more costly is the marble, and the finer the sculpture and painting. It would require volumes to describe the various paintings and antique statues with which all the apartments abound. The chapel is an exquisite piece of architecture, sculpture, and painting. Of all the apartments, the king's bed-chamber is the most magnificent; the bed, which is of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold, standing in a kind of alcove, where are two figures of Fame represented sitting. The canal in the garden, by which the river Eure is conveyed to it, is a very noble one: the orangery or green-house is accounted a fine piece of architecture, and indeed a master-piece of its kind; the parterre before it also is very beautiful, being adorned with a great number of orange and lemon trees, myrtles, laurels, &c. The labyrinth or maze is a fine grove, so called, because its several walks are interwoven with each other, that it would be a difficult matter for a person to find his way out of it without a guide: in short, the garden, for statues, canals, groves, grottos, fountains, and every thing that can render it delightful, is superior to any thing of the kind in Europe. The royal cabinet contains the choicest medals, coins, paintings, &c. that Italy could afford. The stables, for proportion, convenience, beauty, and architecture, far exceed many royal palaces. In the same park stands the fine palace of Trianon; the outside of which consists wholly of variegated marble, of exquisite workmanship. The gardens.
dens are large, and abound in statues and water-works. E. Long. 2. 12. N. Lat. 48. 48.