Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1894 — The King’s Pleasure. [ARTICLE]

The King’s Pleasure.

Louis the Fourteenth once remarked impatiently in the hearing of the Duke d’Antin, superintendent of the royal buildings, that he hoped that some time a forest which he had always disliked, because it obstructed one of his favorite views, would be cut down. Unknown to the king, Duke d’Antin had the trunks of all the trees in the objectionable piece of forest sawed through near the ground in such a way that they still stood, though a slight pull would bring them down. He removed every evidence of the work, and fastened ropes to the tops of the trees, and concealed more than twelve hundred men in the forest to manage the ropes at a signal from him. .The duke knew on what day the king would walk in the wood, and planned his work accordingly. The king took his accustomed promenade, and, as usual, he expressed his sentiments about the hated fbrest. “Your majesty, the

forest shall be removed whenever you like,” saidD’Antin. ‘‘lndeed,” said the king, “then I wish it might be done at once.” At that moment D’Antin blew a shrill blast from a whistle, and, to the utter amazement of the king and the royal party, the forest fell as if by enchantment.— [Argonaut.