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372 MEUDON, AND ITS PAST AND
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
« Every Autumn Sunday The Inhabitants Fr...
ancient monarchy , the privilege of walking * in them was restricted to the friends of the Governor . Madame Rolandwhen a child
, , was among the privileged few , and the description she gives in her memoirs of days spent in the forestis perhaps the most poetic
, eloquence piece of prose it is that not sur ever passed . proceeded by any from passage a Frenchwoman in ¦ " Corrine ' s " pen nor . In
, Madame de Stael , gifted as she unquestionably was , ever capable of the exquisite delicacy which is displayed in it .
When Napoleon assumed the Imperial crown , he meditated the reconstruction of the blown-up buildingsbut finding the expense
of doing so would be very great , he accordin , gly decreed its demolition . The stones of which it was constructed were sold , and the
marble pillars of its colonnade employed in constructing the triumphal arch in the Place du Carrousel . The Dauphin ' s Chateau
was , however , repaired , decorated , and furnished as we now see it ; and the Corsiean dictator who pulled down thrones as easily
as he built them _uj _3 , conceived the original idea of converting Meudon into " a nursery for crowned heads" and " an academy
thrones for furnishin . ' It g is the needless education to say of the that heirs this _B apparent ona , partian of scheme continental was
never carried out beyond sending the King of Rome to Meudon during the Russian campaign , where he was subsequently joined
by the Empress Maria Louisa , whom Tallyrand advised to stay herewhen the allies . were marching upon Paris .
It , was afterwards successively inhabited by Don Pedro of Portugal and his _daug-hter Maria da Gloria , whom the old peasantry
still describe as une bonne petite Jille qui aimaii beaucoup manger cles gateaux . The late Due and Duchesse d'Orleans also passed a great
deal of their time in this charming place , which , after the death of that amiable prince , was handed over by Louis Phillippe to Marshal
Soult . His fellow soldier , the Prince Jerome Bonaparte , next occuied itand every one who reads the Paris correspondence of the
p London , newspapers , is doubtless aware that the lazy Imperial Republicanand highly-gifted Plon JPZo ? ilives in Meudon when he
, , is not smoking in the Palais Royale or making summer voyages . The Chateau derives its supply of water from an artificial pond
at Fouceau , and in rambling through the forest several others are also seenwhich serve as frog nurseries . The pond of Yillebon
supplies annual , ly to the Paris markets £ 900 worth of frogs , although it does not cover many roods of ground , while those of
Chalais and Triyeux , though smaller , are nearly as productive in gastronomic treasures . They also supply Prince Napoleon ' s stables
with water . At the entry of the forest there is another pond surrounded by gigantic reeds , whence issues a brook called
La Ruisseau , which supplies about fifty lavoirs with water , for the staple industry of Meudon consists in bleaching clothes which have
grown too yellow for the Paris washerwomen to restore to their
372 Meudon, And Its Past And
372 MEUDON , AND ITS PAST AND
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1863, page 372, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081863/page/12/
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