It was in one of the private apartments, occupying the site of the ancient Galerie des Cerfs, now destroyed, that she ordered the execution of her chief equerry, Monaldeschi, whom she had convicted of treason. She listened patiently to his excuses, but was utterly unmoved by them and his entreaties for mercy. She provided a priest to confess him, after which he was slowly butchered by blows with a sword on the head and face, as he dragged himself along the floor, his body being defended by a coat of mail.... Even after the creation of the palaces of Versailles and Marly, Louis XIV. continued to make an annual "voyage de Fontainebleau." He compelled his whole court to follow him; if any of his family were ill, and unable to travel by road, he made them come by water; for himself, he slept on the way, either at the house of the Duc d'Antin (son of Mme. de Montespan) or of the Maréchal de Villeroy. It was here that the Grand Dauphin was born, in 1661. Here, also, it was that Mme. de Maintenon first appeared at the councils, and that the king publicly asked her advice as to whether he should accept the throne of Spain for the Duc d' Anjou. Here, also, in 1685, he signed the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The great Condé died in the palace. Louis XV. was married here to Marie Leczinska in 1725; and here the Dauphin, his son, died in 1765. Louis XIV. delighted in Fontainebleau for its hunting facilities. After the Revolution, Napoleon I. restored the château and prepared it for Pius VII. who came to France to crown him, and was here (January 25, 1813) induced to sign the famous Concordat de Fontainebleau, by which he abjured his temporal sovereignty. The chateau which witnessed the abdication of the Pope, also saw that of Napoleon I., who made his touching farewell to the soldiers of the Vielle-Garde in the Cour du Cheval-Blanc, before setting off for Elba.... The Cour du Cheval-Blanc, the largest of the five courts of the palace, took its name from a plaster copy of the horse of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, destroyed 1626. Recently it has been called the Cour des Adieux, on account of the farewell of Napoleon I. in 1814. It was once surrounded by buildings on all sides; one was removed in 1810, and replaced by a grille. The principal façade is composed of five pavilions with high roofs, united by buildings two stories high. The beautiful twisted staircase in front of the central pavilion was executed by Lemercier for Louis XIII., and replaces a staircase by Philbert Delorme. Facing this pavilion, the mass of buildings on the right is the Aile Neuve of Louis XV., built on the site of the Galerie d'Ulysse, to the destruction of the precious works of Primaticcio and Niccolo dell' Abbate, with which it was adorned. Below the last pavilion, near the grille, was the Grotte du Jardin-des-pins, where James V. of Scotland, coming over to marry Magdalen of France, daughter of François I., watched her bathing with her ladies, by the aid of a mirror....