France

About a mile and a half from Wiasma the enemy appeared to the left of the road, and his fire happened to strike the midst of the tail of the army, composed of disbanded soldiers without arms, with wounded and sick among them, and women and children. Every artillery discharge of the Russians caused frightful cries and a frightful commotion in the helpless mass.

And the rear guard, in trying to make them advance, ill-treated them, the soldiers who had clung to the flag assumed the right to despise those who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, had abandoned it.

His GRACE, ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN, New York, wrote the day after having received the book: "Dear Doctor, Many thanks for your great courtesy in sending me a copy of your charming work, 'Christian Greece and Living Greek.' I have already begun its perusal, the chapter on the proper 'Pronunciation of Greek' naturally inviting and claiming immediate attention. I think you laugh Erasmus out of court. Now I must begin, if leisure be ever afforded me, to dip into Greek again, to learn to pronounce your noble language correctly.

In order to give an idea of the great difficulties the soldiers had to face, and examples of their heroic behavior under trying circumstances, let us relate the disaster of Vop.

All the corps marched to Smolensk where they expected to reach the end of all their misery and to find repose, food, shelter; in fact, all they were longing for.

Napoleon entered the city with his guards and kept the rest of the army, including the stragglers, out of doors until arrangements could have been made for the regular distribution of rations and quarters. But together with the stragglers the mass of the army became unmanageable and resorted to violence.

Surgeon Huber of the Wuerttembergians, writes to his friend, Surgeon Henri de Roos, who settled in Russia after the campaign of 1812, how he crossed the Beresina, and in this connection he describes the following dreadful episode:

The threatening barrier had been surmounted, and on went the march to Wilna, without any possibility of a day's rest, because the miserable remainder of the French army was still followed by light Russian troops.

We have pictured the Sun King and his imposing Court. We have told the story of the founding and construction of his luxurious palace, and described the spectacles and entertainments that made Versailles the most brilliant spot in Europe. We have said nothing of the women of Versailles and the part they played in the life of the Court and the influence they exerted in the affairs of France.

Louis the Great, in commanding immense and costly edifices to rise out of the earth, was moved, at least in part, by a desire to assure the monarchy and its established ceremonial a worthy background. Louis XV, in the numerous graceful additions to the chateau made by him, sought only to satisfy his own caprice and convenience.

It was on a May morning in the year 1770 that the child-bride of the Dauphin of France arrived at Versailles - the graceful, winsome, golden-haired Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria. The future Queen of France was then not fifteen years of age, and her affianced husband was but a few months older.

It was not long after the enforced departure of Louis XVI and the Court that the immense sepulcher of regal glory was dismantled and forsaken. During the Revolution some of the furnishings were taken to Paris to supply the needs of the king and his family at the Tuileries. A number of pictures and objects of art contained in the palace and the two Trianons were removed to the Museum of the Louvre, which had been founded in 1775.