Parc aux Cerfs [deer parks]

A mansion fitted up in a remote corner of Versailles, whither girls were inveigled for the licentious pleasure of Louis XV. The rank of the person who visited them was scrupulously kept concealed; but one girl, more bold than the rest, rifled the pockets of M. le Comte, and found that he was no other than the king. Madame de Pompadour did not shrink from superintending the labours of the royal valets to procure victims for this infamous establishment. The term is now used for an Alsaʹtia, or haven of shipwrecked characters.

“Boulogne may be proud of being ‘parc aux cerfsʹ to those whom remorseless greed drives from their island home.”—Saturday Review.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.