What is written about Versailles

Our great colleague l'Illustration has just published an extremely curious and interesting article entitled A copy of Versailles in Germany. It concerns the Herrenchiemsee castle, built about a hundred kilometers from Munich by King Louis II of Bavaria. The article, illustrated with numerous photographs, shows us how this castle "is a copy, and even, in certain parts, a replica of our famous Versailles castle.

The author of this article, who is none other than our distinguished collaborator, Mr. Lucien Baillou, photographed (before the war, let us hasten to say), from all its interior and exterior sides the Herrenchiemsee castle, then returned to Versailles, took the same photographs by taking them from the same angle, with the same lighting, with the same camera as those he had used in Germany.

He thus managed to obtain works so similar that even the composers of l'Illustration were mistaken. This is how they subtitled the Combat des Animaux à Versailles by attributing it to Herrenchiemsee and vice versa. There is, however, a difference between these views: the German castle being of relatively recent creation (1880-1885), the Boche trees are of a more cramped size than their French counterparts.

Mr. Baillou had already made known for a long time to a small circle of initiates these very curious photographs, but they deserved to be brought to the attention of the general public, and this has now been done thanks to the universal distribution of the Illustration.