Another fair lady, a royal favourite, too, came on the scene at Compiegne in 1769 when Madame du Barry was the principal _artiste_ in the great fete given in her honour by Louis XV. She was lodged in a tiny chateau (built originally for Madame de Pompadour) a short way out of town on the Soissons road. Du Barry must have been a good fairy to Compiegne for Louis XV lavished an abounding care on the chateau and, rather than allow the architect, Jacques Ange Gabriel, have the free hand that his counsellors advised, sought to have the ancient outlines of the former structure on the site preserved and thus present to posterity through the newer work the two monumental facades which are to be seen to-day. The effort was not wholly successful, for the architect actually did carry out his fancy with respect to the decoration in the same manner in which he had designed the Ecole Militaire at Paris and the two colonnaded edifices facing upon the Place de la Concorde. This work was entirely achieved when Louis XVI took possession. This monarch, in 1780, caused to be fitted up a most elaborate apartment for the queen (his marriage with Marie Antoinette was consecrated here), but that indeed was all the hand he had in the work of building at Compiegne, which has practically endured as his predecessor left it. The Revolution and Consulate used the chateau as their fancy willed, and rather harshly, but in 1806 its restoration was begun and Charles IV of Spain, upon his dethronement by Napoleon, was installed therein a couple of years later. The palace, the park and the forest now became a sort of royal appanage of this Spanish monarch, which Napoleon, in a generous spirit, could well afford to will him. He lived here some months and then left precipitately for Marseilles. Napoleon affected a certain regard for this palatial property, though only occupying it at odd moments. He embellished its surroundings, above all its gardens, in a most lavish manner. Virtually, all things considered, Compiegne is a _Palais Napoleonien_, and if one would study the style of the Empire at its best the thing may be done at Compiegne. On July 30, 1814, Louis XVIII and Alexander of Russia met at Compiegne amid a throng of Paris notabilities who had come thither for the occasion. Charles X loved to hunt in the forest of Compiegne. In 1832, one of the daughters of Louis-Philippe, the Princesse Louise, was married to the King of the Belgians in this palace. From 1852 to 1870 the palace and its grounds were the scenes of many imperial fetes.