blanche_, power unlimited, and all but unlimited wealth to work out his fantastic and superb conception. Simultaneously with this mighty fabric another work of almost equal magnitude had to be undertaken; this was the planting of the park and the gardens. The country for miles around the site of the palace was a swamp abounding with reptiles, and reeking with vapors of so deadly a character that the men employed in draining it died like flies of a malaria that raged like a pestilence for months together. They refused after a time to continue the work, though enormous wages were offered, and it was found necessary at last, under pain of abandoning it, to press men into the service as for the army in time of war. No accurate statistics are extant as to the number of victims who perished in the execution of this royal freak; but the most authentic opinions of the time put it at the astounding figure of _twenty thousand_. So much for the good old times of the _ancien régime_, that we are apt to invest with a sort of pathetic prestige. What were the lives of so many _vilains_(67) and the tears and hunger of innumerable _vilaines_, widows and orphans of the dead men, in comparison to the supreme pleasure of the king and the accomplishment of his omnipotent will? The death‐sweat of these human cattle rained upon the swamp, and in due time it was’ made wholesome, purified as so many foul spots upon the earth are by the sweat of toil and sorrow, and fitted to grow flowers and green trees that would diffuse their fragrance and spread pleasant shade where corruption and barrenness had dwelt.