The Court is at Saint-Germain. Louis XIV. was born there, and until Versailles and Marly were built, he made it his principal residence. In one of the principal saloons, on the first floor, lying midway between the turreted angles of the façade, looking over the plains towards Paris, Louis XIII. had ended his miserable existence, his private band playing a "De Profundis," of his own composition, during his death throes. His morbid nature—reproduced in his descendant Louis XV., who said he loved "the scent of newly made graves"—made him await the approach of death with a sort of grim curiosity. As he lay on his bed, opposite the windows, his dim eyes resting on the wide expanse outstretched below, he called Laporte to him. He was so near his end that he articulated with difficulty. "Remember, my good Laporte," he gasped, "that place, below there, where the road turns under that rise,"—and he raised his shrunken finger, and pointed to a particular spot, on the road to Saint-Denis, along which his funeral procession must pass to reach the tombs of his ancestors—"that place there. It has been newly gravelled, Laporte. It is rough, and will shake me. Let the driver go gently over the loose stones. Be sure to tell him I said so." This was not like his son, Louis XIV., who came to detest Saint-Germain because this very Cathedral of Saint-Denis, where he must be buried, was visible on the horizon line. Such an object did not suit a monarch who desired to be thought immortal. The Court is at Saint-Germain. It is a cool, delicious evening, after a day of unusual heat. The summer evenings are always charming at Saint-Germain, by reason of the bowery freshness of the adjacent forest, from which cool breezes come rippling through the air, and fan the heated atmosphere. The sombre château is now a mass of deep shadow, save where the setting sun lights up some detail of its outline—an arched window, a rich cornice, a pillared portico, or a pointed tower, which stand out against the western sky with fugitive brightness. The parterre blazes with summer flowers, the perfume of which creeps upwards in the rising dews of evening. The formal gravel walks are bordered by statues and orange-trees; the splashing of many fountains stirs the air. A flock of peacocks strut on the greensward, their long tails catching the last rays of the sunset. The summer birds make delicate music among the shrubberies; and the giant elms, in the outer park, divided from the garden by an open iron railing, bow their rounded heads to the breeze.