With the fourth chapter of the romance, when Madame de la Motte drove to Versailles in her cabriolet, "built lightly, open, and fashionable, with high wheels, and a place behind for a servant to stand," begins the record of the various incidents of the story, which either took place at Versailles or centred around it. "'Where are we to go?' said Weber, who had charge of madame's cabriolet.--'To Versailles.'--'By the boulevards?'--'No.'... 'We are at Versailles,' said the driver. 'Where must I stop, ladies?'--'At the Place d'Armes.'" "At this moment," says Dumas, in the romance, "our heroines heard the clock strike from the church of St. Louis." Dumas' descriptions of Versailles are singularly complete, and without verboseness. At least, he suggests more of the splendours of that gay residence of the court than he actually defines, and puts into the mouths of his characters much that others would waste on mere descriptive matter. In the chapter headed Vincennes, in "Marguerite de Valois," Dumas gives a most graphic description of its one-time château-prison: "According to the order given by Charles IX., Henri was the same evening conducted to Vincennes, that famous castle of which only a fragment now remains, but colossal enough to give an idea of its past grandeur. "At the postern of the prison they stopped. M. de Nancey alighted from his horse, opened the gate closed with a padlock, and respectfully invited the king to follow him. Henri obeyed without a word of reply. Every abode seemed to him more safe than the Louvre, and ten doors, closing on him at the same time, were between him and Catherine de Medici. "The royal prisoner crossed the drawbridge between two soldiers, passed the three doors on the ground floor and the three doors at the foot of the staircase, and then, still preceded by M. de Nancey, went up one flight of stairs. Arrived there, Captain de Nancey requested the king to follow him through a kind of corridor, at the extremity of which was a very large and gloomy chamber. "Henri looked around him with considerable disquietude. "'Where are we?' he inquired. "'In the chamber of torture, monseigneur.' "'Ah, ah!' replied the king, looking at it attentively. "There was something of everything in this apartment: pitchers and trestles for the torture by water; wedges and mallets for the question of the boot; moreover, there were stone benches for the unhappy wretches who awaited the question, nearly all around the chamber; and above these seats, and to the seats themselves, and at the foot of these seats, were iron rings, mortised into the walls with no symmetry but that of the torturing art. "'Ah, ah!' said Henri, 'is this the way to my apartment?' "'Yes, monseigneur, and here it is,' said a figure in the dark, who approached and then became distinguishable. "Henri thought he recognized the voice, and, advancing toward the individual, said, 'Ah, is it you, Beaulieu? And what the devil do you do here?'