"
Colonel Harris suggested a ride to Versailles, and Monday morning at nine
o'clock Gaze's coach and four drove to the Grand Hotel, and six outside
seats which had been reserved for the Harris party were filled. The
coachman drove down the Avenue de l'Opera and into the Place du
Carrousel, stopping a moment that all might admire the artistic pavilions
of the Louvre, and the statue to the memory of Leon Gambetta, "Father of
the Republic." Thence they rode out of the Court of the Tuileries, across
the Place de la Concord, and down the charming Champs Elysees. On the
left stands the Palais de l'Industrie, where the salon or annual
exhibition of modern paintings and sculptures occurs in May and June. On
the right is the Palais de l'Elysee, the official residence of the French
president.
George recalled that in these gardens of Paris, in 1814, Emperors
Alexander and Francis, King Frederick III., and others sang a _Te Deum_,
in thanksgiving for their great victory over Napoleon I.; that here
the English, Prussian, and Russian troops bivouacked, and that in the
spring of 1871, Emperor William and his brilliant staff led the German
troops beneath the Arc de Triomphe, while the German bands played "Die
Wacht am Rhine.
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