It must be admitted that the decoration is successful, and, that since the fêtes of the Italian Renaissance, more magnificent displays have not been seen. Let us follow the file of carriages which, from Paris to Versailles, rolls steadily along like a river. Certain horses called "des enragés," fed in a particular way, go and come in three hours.[2102] One feels, at the first glance, as if he were in a city of a particular stamp, suddenly erected and at one stroke, like a prize-medal for a special purpose, of which only one is made, its form being a thing apart, as well as its origin and use. In vain is it one of the largest cities of the kingdom, with its population of 80,000 souls;[2103] it is filled, peopled, and occupied by the life of a single man; it is simply a royal residence, arranged entirely to provide for the wants, the pleasures, the service, the guardianship, the society, the display of a king. Here and there, in corners and around it, are inns, stalls, taverns, hovels for laborers and for drudges, for dilapidated soldiers and accessory menials. These tenements necessarily exist, since technicians are essential to the most magnificent apotheosis. The rest, however, consists of sumptuous hotels and edifices, sculptured façades, cornices and balustrades, monumental stairways, seigniorial architecture, regularly spaced and disposed, as in a procession, around the vast and grandiose palace where all this terminates. Here are the fixed abodes of the noblest families; to the right of the palace are the hôtels de Bourbon, d'Ecquervilly, de la Trémoille, de Condé, de Maurepas, de Bouillon, d'Eu, de Noailles, de Penthièvre, de Livry, du Comte de la Marche, de Broglie, du Prince de Tingry, d'Orléans, de Chatillon, de Villerry, d'Harcourt, de Monaco; on the left are the pavilions d'Orléans, d'Harcourt, the hôtels de Chevreuse, de Babelle, de l'Hôpital, d'Antin, de Dangeau, de Pontchartrain--no end to their enumeration. Add to these those of Paris, all those which, ten leagues around. At Sceaux, at Génevilliers, at Brunoy, at Ile-Adam, at Rancy, at Saint-Ouen, at Colombes, at Saint-Germain, at Marly, at Bellevue, in countless places, they form a crown of architectural flowers, from which daily issue as many gilded wasps to shine and buzz about Versailles, the center of all luster and affluence. About a hundred of these are "presented each year, men and women, which makes about 2 or 3,000 in all;[2104] this forms the king's society, the ladies who courtesy before him, and the seigniors who accompany him in his carriage; their hotels are near by, or within reach, ready to fill his drawing room or his antechamber at all hours.