Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
It was also in the palace of St. Cloud that Napoleon I. was married to
Marie Louise, April 1, 1810. In this palace of many changes the allied
sovereigns met after the fall of the First Empire. Blucher, after his
fashion, slept booted and spurred in the bed of Napoleon; and the
capitulation of Paris was signed here July 3, 1815.
Louis XVIII. and Charles X. both lived much at St. Cloud, and added to
it considerably; but here, where Henry IV. had been recognized as King
of France and Navarre, Charles X. was forced by the will of the people
to abdicate, July 30, 1830. Two years after, Louis Philippe established
himself with his family at St. Cloud, and his daughter Clémentine was
married to Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg in its chapel, April 28, 1843.
Like his uncle, Napoleon III. was devoted to St. Cloud, where--"with a
light heart"--the declaration of war with Prussia was signed in the
library, July, 17, 1870, a ceremony followed by a banquet, during which
the "Marseillaise" was played. The doom of St. Cloud was then sealed.
On the 13th of the following October the besieged Parisians beheld the
volumes of flame rising behind the Bois de Boulogne, which told that
St. Cloud, recently occupied by the Prussians, and frequently bombarded
in consequence from Mont-Valérien, had been fired by French bombs.
The steamer for St. Cloud descends the Seine, passing under the Pont de
Solferino, Pont de la Concorde, Pont des Invalides, and Pont d'Alma.
Then the Champ de Mars is seen on the left, the Palais du Trocadéro on
the right. After the Pont du d'Iéna, Passy is passed on the right, and
the Ile des Cygnes on the left. Then comes the Pont de Grenelle, after
which Auteuil is passed on the right and Javel on the left. After
leaving the Pont-viaduc du Point-du-Jour, the Ile de Billancourt is
seen on the left. After the Pont de Billancourt, the steamer passes
between the Iles de Billancourt and Séguin to Bas Meudon.
III
OLD PROVENCE
The Papal Palace at Avignon
By Charles Dickens
[Footnote: From "Pictures From Italy."]
There lay before us, that same afternoon, the broken bridge of Avignon,
and all the city baking in the sun; yet with an underdone-piecrust,
battlemented wall, that never will be brown, tho it bake for centuries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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