His Majesty was hunting at his country castle of Versailles (it was only a castle then), and would not return for a week; thus, after halting for refreshment and repose at my old hotel, the _Golden Fleur-de-lis_, in the Rue d'Ecosse, where Maître Pierre Omelette was still extant in all his glory and amplitude of night-cap and white apron, I flung all the frivolous billets with which I was intrusted into the box of the Hotel des Postes--all save those for Mademoiselle de l'Orme, whom I was anxious to see, and hiring a fresh horse, departed next day for the royal hunting-seat, without making any detour towards the château d'Amboise, though I looked wistfully at its shining vanes, and steep slated turrets as they rose above the coppice with a cloud of pigeons wheeling round them; but I rode rapidly on, feeling piqued, because the handsome and gay Marquis of Gordon had written to Clara, and had given me the letter to carry. Moreover I dreaded to meet her natural grief for her brother's death, and resolved seriously to consider the expedience of my visit, _after_ the delivery of my despatch. At this time, when the imperial general had nearly made himself master of all the bailiwick of Vaudevrange, and encamped his army between the Save and the Wilde, that he might more effectually succour the Duke of Lorraine; and when France and her allies were most unsuccessful in Italy, where the Duke of Parma was stripped of his territories by the encroaching Spaniards, notwithstanding all the valiant efforts of the French troops under the Marechal Duc de Crecqui, couriers or officers bearing despatches were ever anxiously waited for at the Louvre and Versailles, and by no one more than Richelieu, who had precipitated France into this war with the German empire. In a short time I approached Versailles, a small village on a rising ground, about twelve miles westward from Paris, and entered the avenue which led to the country palace or hunting castle built by Louis XIII. It is an edifice entirely of brick, coped with stone, crowned by balustrades and sculptured trophies, busts, and vases. All the statues, eighty in number, are antiques of white marble, and stand on carved corbeilles between the windows. In the centre is a balcony supported by eight Doric columns of richly-veined marble. Under this balcony stood a gentleman of the Scottish Guard, one of the twenty-four archers, on duty with his arquebuse, talking to some young nobles and Gray Mousquetaires, who were lounging about the grand entrance, and making it seem quite gay, with their slashed pourpoints and plumed hats. Little hills that teem with game surround this quaint old hunting castle, on which, since those days, Louis XIV. has engrafted one of the most magnificent palaces in the world.