The Duchesse de Berry—the eldest of the Regent's daughters—kept her Court at the Luxembourg with regal pomp. She received embassadors seated on a throne, surmounted by a canopy sprinkled by the lilies of France. But she did not think it beneath her dignity to do the honours of certain _petits soupers_ at the Palais Royal—too well known to need further mention here. Her sister, Mademoiselle de Valois, was as remarkable for her beauty as for her lack of virtue. Mademoiselle d'Orléans—third daughter of the Regent—was, if possible, more wanton than her sisters. To the eternal disgrace of the Church she was elected Abbess of Chelles. "_Tel père, tel fils_," says the proverb. CHAPTER XXXII. AT MARLY. There is a lane on the heights over Paris, embowered by wooded hedge-rows, or skirted by open vineyards; this lane leads from Saint-Germain to Marly. Below the village, deep in a narrow gorge, is the site of the once famous palace built by Louis XIV. Trees now wave and cattle browse on turf where once clustered twelve pavilions, linked together by arches and colonnades, in the Italian or villa style, to suit the royal fancy of a summer retreat. Not a stone has been left by the Revolution; what were once gardens and a park, is now a secluded meadow. Blue-bells, thyme, and primroses carpet the mossy earth; and the thrush, the cuckoo, and the early swallow carol among pale sprays of beech and hazel. There are deep ditches and swampy pools, once carp-ponds and lakes, part of a plaisance, arranged in the solemn taste of that day, when nature itself was cut and trimmed _à la Louis Quatorze_. When Louis fixed upon Marly as a residence he was tired of Versailles. He was old, he said, and needed relaxation. He wanted a _folie_, a hermitage—_un rien enfin_—where he could retire from the crowd and the restraints of his Court, sleep three nights in each week, and enjoy the society of his especial favourites. Either the King altered his plan, or his architect (Le Nôtre) disregarded the royal instructions. Millions were squandered on a residence, "which was to cost nothing." A forest of full-grown trees was brought from Compiègne. The expense of draining the marshy soil, and elevating the waters of the Seine into the _Machine de Marly_, was never acknowledged. What a stiff, solemn tyrant Louis is become! Selfish, exacting, pedantic, intolerant, dreaded by his children and grand-children, and exercising over them the most absolute control. Unhappy royal family, how one pities them! Marly was a dreadful infliction. Ill or well, they must go. The Duchess de Bourgogne might plead her interesting situation, and the positive prohibition of Fagon: no matter, her name is on the list—she must go. The Duchesse de Berry—that profligate daughter of the Duc d'Orléans—is in her bed seriously ill: her mother, the Duchesse d'Orléans, pleaded for her—in vain; if she could not walk she must be carried—to Marly she must go. She was dragged thither in a boat.