I could scarce avoid halting as I rode up the wide terrace of the Palace. Never had I felt before the overcoming sense of grandeur which architecture can bestow. The great façade in its chaste and simple beauty, stretched away to a distance, where dark lime-trees closed the background, their tall summits only peeping above the lofty terrace in which the château stands. On that terrace, too, were walking a crowd of persons of the Court, the full-dress costume showing that they had but left the salons to enjoy the cool and refreshing air of the evening. I saw some turn and look after our travel-stained and dusty party, and confess I felt a half sense of shame at our wayworn appearance. I had not long to suffer such mortification, for ere we marched more than a few minutes, we were joined by a Maréchal de Logis, who accompanied us to our quarters,--one of the buildings adjoining the Palace,--where we found everything in readiness for our arrival. And there! to my surprise, discovered that a most sumptuous supper awaited me,--a politeness I was utterly a stranger to, not being over-cognizant of the etiquette and privilege which await the officer on guard at a Royal Palace. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PARK OF VERSAILLES The instructions delivered to me soon after my arrival in Versailles convinced me that the transmission of despatches was not the service we were called on to discharge, but merely a pretence to blind others as to our presence; the real duty being the establishment of a cordon around the Royal Palace, permitting no one to enter or pass within the precincts who was not provided with a regular leave, and empowering us to detain all suspected individuals, and forward them for examination to St. Cloud. To avoid all suspicion as to the true object, the men were ordered to pass from place to place as if with despatches, many being stationed in different parts of the park; my duty requiring me to be continually on the alert to visit these pickets, and make a daily report to the Préfet de Police at Paris. What the nature of the suspicion, or from what quarter Monsieur Savary anticipated danger, I could not even guess; and though I well knew that his sources of information were unquestionable, I began at last to think that the whole was merely some plot devised by the police themselves, to display uncommon vigilance and enhance their own importance. This conviction grew stronger as day by day I remarked that no person more than ordinary had even approached near the town of Versailles itself, while the absurd exactitude of inquiry as to every minute thing that occurred went on just as before.