Note 1046 — Chapter XVIII · (continued 2)

Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 150. Versailles, which thus passed into the hands of the family of Marshal Retz—the Gondi family—was an old castle situated in the midst of an almost unbroken forest. The Gondi family sold it to Louis XIII., who built a hunting lodge, afterward transmuted by Louis XIV. into the magnificent palace, which, for more than a century, was the favorite residence of the most splendid court in Europe. The mode in which the title was acquired did not augur well for the justice or the morality which was to reign there. M. L. Lacour has contributed an animated sketch, "Versailles et les protestants de France," to the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., viii. (1859) 352-367.