is marked by the picturesque ruin of a
windmill, and return by the same route.

Not far from Longchamps, on the northern
side, stands the beautiful park and chateau of
Bagatelle. This residence was originally a
small pavilion belonging to Mademoiselle de
Charolois, the daughter of Louis, Prince de
Conde. At her death, Bagatelle passed into
the hands of the Count d'Artois, one of the
brothers of Louis the Sixteenth. He had
the pavilion pulled down, and a miniature
palace built in its stead, which cost him six
hundred thousand francs, or twenty-four
thousand pounds. The count laid a wager,
it is said, of one hundred thousand francs
with the Queen Marie Antoinette, that his
chateau would be built in one month. He
won the bet. Bagatelle received the well-
merited name of La Folie d'Artois. It
escaped destruction during the Revolution of
seventeen hundred and ninety-three, and is
now the property of the Marquis of Hertford.

Near the northern entrance to the Bois de
Boulogne there is a public establishment
called Madrid. It stands on the ground
formerly occupied by le chateau de Faience
(the delph castle), which was built by François
the First, and received its name because the
exterior was made of porcelain. The front
was ornamented with several rich enamels by
Bernardin de Palissy, and the chateau was
noted for the splendid collection of pictures
and statues with which it was filled. Henry
the Third caused this beautiful residence to
be turned into a menagerie for wild beasts,
which fought bulls for his amusement. One
night, however, his majesty dreamed that the
wild beasts intended to devour him; and next
morning, he ordered them all to be killed.
In seventeen hundred and ninety-three, the
porcelain chateau was sold to a company who
undertook to demolish it. The beautiful
enamels of Bernardin de Palissy were sold
to a pavior, and made into cement! Happily,
a few fragments of the porcelain were
preserved, and served as models when the chateau
was reconstructed a few years since. The
finest oak in the Bois de Boulogne stands
opposite Madrid.

At the back of Madrid is a group of
handsome villas, enclosed in pretty gardens, called
St. James. They have been erected on the
site of an extravagantly beautiful summer
residence, built by the famous treasurer of
the Marine, Bandard de Saint James. He
surrounded his mansion with magnificent
gardens, on which he squandered enormous
sums of money. A single rock is said to have
cost sixty thousand pounds, and to have
required forty horses to carry the smallest
block. Bandard de Saint James failed for one
million pounds, and was imprisoned in the
Bastile, where he died in great misery. Saint
James, with its pretty cottages and gardens,
looks like an isolated bit of Saint John's
Wood.

To the east of the Bois de Boulogne, and
the north of Passy, a muette, or hunting-box,
was erected for the accommodation of Charles
the Ninth, on his return from hunting.
The first balloon ascension in France took
place in seventeen hundred and eighty-three,
in the gardens of La Muette, in presence of
the king and queen. Soon after a monster
banquet was given in the park by the city of
Paris, to twenty thousand delegates from
the departments on the occasion of the
Confederation. During the Reign of Terror,
the chateau de la Muette was destroyed;
and, in eighteen hundred and twenty-three,
the park and gardens were sold to
Sebastien Erard, the piano-forte maker. M.
Erard had a handsome mansion built, and the
gardens restored to their former beauty. The
green sward, the white statuary, and the
many-coloured flowers around this beautiful
residence, still form a lovely coup d'œil
from the gate of La Muette in the Bois de
Boulogne.

At a short distance from La Muette, on the
left-hand side, there is a place of amusement
called Ranelagh. Its history is somewhat
curious. In seventeen hundred and seventy-
three, one of the lodge-keepers of the Bois
de Boulogne, named Morison, obtained
permission of the Prince de Soubise, governor of
the chateau de la Muette, to erect a building
—in imitation of the one built by Lord
Ranelagh on the banks of the Thames—which was
to contain a café, a restaurant, a ball-room,
and a theatre. It was opened with great
success on the twenty-fifth of July, seventeen
hundred and seventy-four. Five years
afterwards, the grand master of the rivers and
forests of the environs of Paris, imagining
that his rights had been infringed by the
permission, issued a decree commanding Morison,
on pain of the galleys, to destroy all the
works which he had constructed in the Bois
de Boulogne. Morison immediately applied
to the king; who, in a few days, revoked
the decree, and allowed Ranelagh to be re-
opened with great splendour. This was the
most brilliant epoch in its history. A society
composed of a hundred members founded a
weekly ball, which was extensively patronised
by the Parisians. The Queen Marie
Antoinette, several times honoured the ball with
her presence during her stay at La Muette.
When the Revolution came, Morison, after
struggling for some time with adversity, was
compelled to sell his furniture to pay his debts.
Under the Directory, a few young coxcombs
attempted to revive the ball; but the people
became jealous, the dancers were insulted
and menaced, finally arrested, and the ballroom
taken possession of by a battalion of
guards. Ranelagh was then definitively
closed until the overthrow of the Directory
by Napoleon, when it became once more the
rendezvous of the notorieties of the time.
Among others, Ranelagh produced Trenitz
the dancer, who has given his name to one of
the figures of the quadrille. During the