No project could have been less foreseen than was ours of
wintering in France, though it must be confessed that for
several months our thoughts had constantly strayed across the
Channel. For the Boy was at school at Versailles, banished
there by our desire to fulfil a parental duty.

The time of separation had dragged tardily past, until one
foggy December morning we awoke to the glad consciousness
that that very evening the Boy would be with us again. Across
the breakfast-table we kept saying to each other, “It seems
scarcely possible that the Boy is really coming home
to-night,” but all the while we hugged the assurance that it
was.

The Boy is an ordinary snub-nosed, shock-headed urchin of
thirteen, with no special claim to distinction save the
negative one of being an only child. Yet without his cheerful
presence our home seemed empty and dull. Any attempts at
merry-making failed to restore its life. Now all was agog for
his return. The house was in its most festive trim. Christmas
presents were hidden securely away. There was rejoicing
downstairs as well as up: the larder shelves were stored with
seasonable fare, and every bit of copper and brass sparkled a
welcome. Even the kitchen cat sported a ribbon, and had a
specially energetic purr ready.

Into the midst of our happy preparations the bad news fell
with bomb-like suddenness. The messenger who brought the
telegram whistled shrilly and shuffled a breakdown on the
doorstep while he waited to hear if there was an answer.

“He is ill. He can’t come. Scarlet fever,” one of us said in
an odd, flat voice.

“Scarlet fever. At school. Oh! when can we go to him? When is
there a boat?” cried the other.

There was no question of expediency. The Boy lay sick in a
foreign land, so we went to him. It was full noon when the
news came, and nightfall saw us dashing through the murk of a
wild mid-December night towards Dover pier, feeling that only
the express speed of the mail train was quick enough for us
to breathe in.

But even the most apprehensive of journeys may hold its
humours. Just at the moment of starting anxious friends
assisted a young lady into our carriage. “She was going to
Marseilles. Would we kindly see that she got on all right?”
We were only going as far as Paris direct. “Well, then, as
far as Paris. It would be a great favour.” So from Charing
Cross to the Gare du Nord, Placidia, as we christened her,
became our care.

She was a large, handsome girl of about three-and-twenty.
What was her reason for journeying unattended to Cairo we
know not. Whether she ever reached her destination we are
still in doubt, for a more complacently incapable damsel
never went a-voyaging. The Saracen maiden who followed her
English lover from the Holy Land by crying “London” and
“À Becket” was scarce so impotent as Placidia; for any
information the Saracen maiden had she retained, while
Placidia naively admitted that she had already forgotten by
which line of steamers her passage through the Mediterranean
had been taken.

Placidia had an irrational way of losing her possessions.
While yet on her way to the London railway station she had
lost her tam-o’-shanter. So perforce, she travelled in a
large picture-hat which, although pretty and becoming, was
hardly suitable headgear for channel-crossing in mid-winter.

It was a wild night; wet, with a rising north-west gale.
Tarpaulined porters swung themselves on to the carriage-steps
as we drew up at Dover pier, and warned us not to leave the
train, as, owing to the storm, the Calais boat would be an
hour late in getting alongside.

The Ostend packet, lying beside the quay in full sight of the
travellers, lurched giddily at her moorings. The fourth
occupant of our compartment, a sallow man with yellow
whiskers, turned green with apprehension. Not so Placidia.
From amongst her chaotic hand-baggage she extracted walnuts
and mandarin oranges, and began eating with an appetite that
was a direct challenge to the Channel. Bravery or
foolhardiness could go no farther.

Providence tempers the wind to the parents who are shorn of
their lamb. The tumult of waters left us scatheless, but poor
Placidia early paid the penalty of her rashness. She
“thought” she was a good sailor—though she acknowledged
that this was her first sea-trip—and elected to remain
on deck. But before the harbour lights had faded behind us a
sympathetic mariner supported her limp form—the
feathers of her incongruous hat drooping in unison with their
owner—down the swaying cabin staircase and deposited
her on a couch.

“Oh! I do wish I hadn’t eaten that fruit,” she groaned when I
offered her smelling-salts. “But then, you know, I was so
hungry!”

In the train rapide a little later, Placidia, when
arranging her wraps for the night journey, chanced, among the
medley of her belongings, upon a missing boat-ticket whose
absence at the proper time had threatened complications. She
burst into good-humoured laughter at the discovery. “Why,
here’s the ticket that man made all the fuss about. I really
thought he wasn’t going to let me land till I found it. Now,
I do wonder how it got among my rugs?”

We seemed to be awake all night, staring with wide, unseeing
eyes out into the darkness. Yet the chill before dawn found
us blinking sleepily at a blue-bloused porter who, throwing
open the carriage door, curtly announced that we were in
Paris.

Then followed a fruitless search for Placidia’s luggage, a
hunt which was closed by Placidia recovering her registration
ticket (with a fragment of candy adhering to it) from one of
the multifarious pockets of her ulster, and finding that the
luggage had been registered on to Marseilles. “Will they
charge duty on tobacco?” she inquired blandly, as she watched
the Customs examination of our things. “I’ve such a lot of
cigars in my boxes.”

There was an Old-Man-of-the-Sea-like tenacity in Placidia’s
smiling impuissance. She did not know one syllable of French.
A new-born babe could not have revealed itself more utterly
incompetent. I verily believe that, despite our haste, we
would have ended by escorting Placidia across Paris, and
ensconcing her in the Marseilles train, had not Providence
intervened in the person of a kindly disposed polyglot
traveller. So, leaving Placidia standing the picture of
complacent fatuosity in the midst of a group consisting of
this new champion and three porters, we sneaked away.

Grey dawn was breaking as we drove towards St. Lazare
Station, and the daily life of the city was well begun.
Lights were twinkling in the dark interiors of the shops.
Through the mysterious atmosphere figures loomed mistily,
then vanished into the gloom. But we got no more than a vague
impression of our surroundings. Throughout the interminable
length of drive across the city, and the subsequent slow
train journey, our thoughts were ever in advance.

The tardy winter daylight had scarcely come before we were
jolting in a fiacre over the stony streets of
Versailles. In the gutters, crones were eagerly rummaging
among the dust heaps that awaited removal. In France no
degradation attaches to open economies. Housewives on their
way to fetch Gargantuan loaves or tiny bottles of milk for
the matutinal café-au-lait cast searching
glances as they passed, to see if among the rubbish something
of use to them might not be lurking. And at one alluring
mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable exterior
perfunctorily turned over the scraps with the point of his
cane.

We had heard of a hotel, and the first thing we saw of it we
liked. That was a pair of sabots on the mat at the foot of
the staircase. Pausing only to remove the dust of travel, we
set off to visit our son, walking with timorous haste along
the grand old avenue where the school was situated. A little
casement window to the left of the wide entrance-door showed
a red cross. We looked at it silently, wondering.

In response to our ring the portal opened mysteriously at
touch of the unseen concierge, and we entered. A conference
with Monsieur le Directeur, kindly, voluble, tactfully
complimentary regarding our halting French, followed. The
interview over, we crossed the courtyard our hearts beating
quickly. At the top of a little flight of worn stone steps
was the door of the school hospital, and under the ivy-twined
trellis stood a sweet-faced Franciscan Soeur, waiting to
welcome us.

Passing through a tiny outer room—an odd combination of
dispensary, kitchen, and drawing-room with a red-tiled
floor—we reached the sick-chamber, and saw the Boy. A
young compatriot, also a victim of the disease, occupied
another bed, but for the first moments we were oblivious of
his presence. Raising his fever-flushed face from the
pillows, the Boy eagerly stretched out his burning hands.

“I heard your voices,” his hoarse voice murmured contentedly,
“and I knew you couldn’t be ghosts.” Poor child! in
the semidarkness of the lonely night-hours phantom voices had
haunted him. We of the morning were real.

The good Soeur buzzed a mild frenzy of “Il ne faut pas
toucher” about our ears, but, all unheeding, we clasped the
hot hands and crooned over him. After the dreary months of
separation, love overruled wisdom. Mere prudence was not
strong enough to keep us apart.

Chief amongst the chaos of thoughts that had assailed us on
the reception of the bad news, was the necessity of engaging
an English medical man. But at the first sight of the French
doctor, as, clad in a long overall of white cotton, he
entered the sick-room, our insular prejudice vanished, ousted
by complete confidence; a confidence that our future
experience of his professional skill and personal kindliness
only strengthened.

It was with sore hearts that, the prescribed cinq
minutes ended, we descended the little outside stair.
Still, we had seen the Boy; and though we could not nurse
him, we were not forbidden to visit him. So we were thankful
too.

CHAPTER II

OGAMS

Our hotel was distinctively French, and immensely
comfortable, in that it had gleaned, and still retained, the
creature comforts of a century or two. Thus it combined the
luxuries of hot-air radiators and electric light with the
enchantment of open wood fires. Viewed externally, the
building presented that airy aspect almost universal in
Versailles architecture. It was white-tinted, with many
windows shuttered without and heavily lace-draped within.

A wide entrance led to the inner courtyard, where orange
trees in green tubs, and trelliswork with shrivelled stems
and leaves still adhering, suggested that it would be a
pleasant summer lounge. Our hotel boasted a grand
salon, which opened from the courtyard. It was an
elaborately ornate room; but on a chilly December day even a
plethora of embellishment cannot be trusted to raise by a
single degree the temperature of the apartment it adorns, and
the soul turns from a cold hearth, however radiant its
garnish of artificial blossoms. A private parlour was
scarcely necessary, for, with most French bedrooms, ours
shared the composite nature of the accommodation known in a
certain class of advertisement as “bed-sitting-room.” So it
was that during these winter days we made ourselves at home
in our chamber.

The shape of the room was a geometrical problem. The three
windows each revealed different views, and the remainder of
the walls curved amazingly. At first sight the furniture
consisted mainly of draperies and looking-glass; for the
room, though of ordinary dimensions, owned three large
mirrors and nine pairs of curtains. A stately bed, endowed
with a huge square down pillow, which served as quilt, stood
in a corner. Two armchairs in brocaded velvet and a centre
table were additions to the customary articles. A handsome
timepiece and a quartette of begilt candelabra decked the
white marble mantelpiece, and were duplicated in the large
pier glass. The floor was of well-polished wood, a strip of
bright-hued carpet before the bed, a second before the
washstand, its only coverings. Need I say that the provision
for ablutions was one basin and a liliputian ewer, and that
there was not a fixed bath in the establishment?

It was a resting-place full of incongruities; but apart from,
or perhaps because of, its oddities it had a cosy
attractiveness. From the moment of our entrance we felt at
home. I think the logs that purred and crackled on the hearth
had much to do with its air of welcome. There is a sense of
companionship about a wood fire that more enduring coal
lacks. Like a delicate child, the very care it demands
nurtures your affection. There was something delightfully
foreign and picturesque to our town ideas in the heap of logs
that Karl carried up in a great panier and piled at
the side of the hearth. Even the little faggots of kindling
wood, willow-knotted and with the dry copper-tinted leaves
still clinging to the twigs, had a rustic charm.

These were pleasant moments when, ascending from the chill
outer air, we found our chamber aglow with ruddy firelight
that glinted in the mirrors and sparkled on the shining
surface of the polished floor; when we drew our chairs up to
the hearth, and, scorning the electric light, revelled in the
beauty of the leaping and darting flames.

It was only in the salle-à-manger that we saw
the other occupants of the hotel; and when we learned that
several of them had lived en pension under the roof of
the assiduous proprietor for periods varying from five to
seven years, we felt ephemeral, mere creatures of a moment,
and wholly unworthy of regard.

At eight o’clock Karl brought the petit
déjeûner of coffee and rolls to our room. At
eleven, our morning visit to the school hospital over, we
breakfasted in the salle-à-manger, a large
bright room, one or other of whose many south windows had
almost daily, even in the depth of winter, to be shaded
against the rays of the sun. Three chandeliers of glittering
crystal starred with electric lights depended from the
ceiling. Half a dozen small tables stood down each side; four
larger ones occupied the centre of the floor, and were
reserved for transient custom.

The first thing that struck us as peculiar was that every
table save ours was laid for a single person, with a half
bottle of wine, red or white, placed ready, in accordance
with the known preference of the expected guest. We soon
gathered that several of the regular customers lodged outside
and, according to the French fashion, visited the hotel for
meals only. After the early days of keen anxiety regarding
our invalid had passed, we began to study our fellow guests
individually and to note their idiosyncrasies. Sitting at our
allotted table during the progress of the leisurely meals, we
used to watch as one habitué after another
entered, and, hanging coat and hat upon certain pegs, sat
silently down in his accustomed place, with an unvarying air
of calm deliberation.

Then Iorson, the swift-footed garçon, would
skim over the polished boards to the newcomer, and, tendering
the menu, would wait, pencil in hand, until the guest, after
careful contemplation, selected his five plats from
its comprehensive list.

The most picturesque man of the company had white moustaches
of surprising length. On cold days he appeared enveloped in a
fur coat, a garment of shaggy brown which, in conjunction
with his hirsute countenance, made his aspect suggest the
hero in pantomime renderings of “Beauty and the Beast.” But
in our hotel there was no Beauty, unless indeed it were
Yvette, and Yvette could hardly be termed beautiful.

Yvette also lived outside. She did not come to
déjeûner, but every night precisely at a
quarter-past seven the farther door would open, and Yvette,
her face expressing disgust with the world and all the things
thereof, would enter.

Yvette was blonde, with neat little features, a pale
complexion, and tiny hands that were always ringless. She
rang the changes on half a dozen handsome cloaks of different
degrees of warmth. To an intelligent observer their wear
might have served as a thermometer. Yvette was
blasée, and her millinery was in sympathy with
her feelings. Her hats had all a fringe of disconsolate
feathers, whose melancholy plumage emphasised the downward
curve of her mouth. To see Yvette enter from the darkness
and, seating herself at her solitary table, droop over her
plate as though there were nothing in Versailles worth
sitting upright for, was to view ennui personified.

Yvette invariably drank white wine, and the food rarely
pleased her. She would cast a contemptuous look over the menu
offered by the deferential Henri, then turn wearily away,
esteeming that no item on its length merited even her most
perfunctory consideration. But after one or two despondent
glances, Yvette ever made the best of a bad bargain, and
ordered quite a comprehensive little dinner, which she ate
with the same air of utter disdain. She always concluded by
eating an orange dipped in sugar. Even had a special table
not been reserved for her, one could have told where Yvette
had dined by the bowl of powdered sugar, just as one could
have located the man with the fierce moustaches and the fur
coat by the presence of his pepper-mill, or the place of
“Madame” from her prodigal habit of rending a quarter-yard of
the crusty French bread in twain and consuming only the soft
inside.

From the ignorance of our cursory acquaintance we had judged
the French a sociable nation. Our stay at Versailles speedily
convinced us of the fallacy of that belief. Nothing could
have impressed us so forcibly as did the frigid silence that
characterised the company. Many of them had fed there daily
for years, yet within the walls of the sunny dining-room none
exchanged even a salutation. This unexpected taciturnity in a
people whom we had been taught to regard as lively and
voluble made us almost ashamed of our own garrulity, and
when, in the presence of the silent company, we were tempted
to exchange remarks, we found ourselves doing it in hushed
voices as though we were in church.

A clearer knowledge, however, showed us that though some
unspoken convention rendered the hotel guests oblivious of
each other’s presence while indoors, beyond the hotel walls
they might hold communion. Two retired military men, both
wearing the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour, as indeed did
most of our habitués, sat at adjacent tables.
One, tall and thin, was a Colonel; the other, little and
neat, a Colonel also. To the casual gaze they appeared
complete strangers, and we had consumed many meals in their
society before observing that whenever the tall Colonel had
sucked the last cerise from his glass of eau-de-vie,
and begun to fold his napkin—a formidable task, for the
serviettes fully deserved the designation later bestowed on
them by the Boy, of “young table-cloths”—the little
Colonel made haste to fold his also. Both rose from their
chairs at the same instant, and the twain, having received
their hats from the attentive Iorson, vanished, still mute,
into the darkness together.

Once, to our consternation, the little Colonel replaced his
napkin in its ring without waiting for the signal from the
tall Colonel. But our apprehension that they, in their
dealings in that mysterious outer world which twice daily
they sought together, might have fallen into a difference of
opinion was dispelled by the little Colonel, who had risen,
stepping to his friend and holding out his hand. This the
tall Colonel without withdrawing his eyes from Le Journal
des Débats which he was reading, silently pressed.
Then, still without a word spoken or a look exchanged, the
little Colonel passed out alone.

The average age of the Ogams was seventy. True, there was
Dunois the Young and Brave, who could not have been more than
forty-five. What his name really was we knew not, but
something in his comparatively juvenile appearance among the
chevaliers suggested the appellation which for lack of a
better we retained. Dunois’ youth might only be comparative,
but his bravery was indubitable; for who among the Ogams but
he was daring enough to tackle the
pâté-de-foie-gras, or the abattis,
a stew composed of the gizzards and livers of fowls? And who
but Dunois would have been so reckless as to follow baked
mussels and crépinettes with rognons
frits?

Dunois, too, revealed intrepid leanings toward strange
liquors. Sometimes—it was usually at
déjeûner when he had dined out on the previous
evening—he would demand the wine-list of Iorson, and
rejecting the vin blanc or vin rouge which,
being compris, contented the others, would order
himself something of a choice brand. One of his favourite
papers was Le Rire, and Henri, Iorson’s youthful
assistant, regarded him with admiration.

A less attractive presence in the dining-room was Madame.
Madame, who was an elderly dame of elephantine girth, had
resided in the hotel for half a dozen years, during which
period her sole exercise had been taken in slowly descending
from her chamber in the upper regions for her meals, and
then, leisurely assimilation completed, in yet more slowly
ascending. Madame’s allotted seat was placed in close
proximity to the hot-air register; and though Madame was
usually one of the first to enter the dining-room, she was
generally the last to leave. Madame’s appetite was as
animated as her body was lethargic. She always drank her
half-bottle of red wine to the dregs, and she invariably
concluded with a greengage in brandy. So it was small marvel
that, when at last she left her chair to “tortoise” upstairs,
her complexion should be two shades darker than when she
descended.

Five dishes, irrespective of hors d’oeuvres at
luncheon, and potage at dinner, were allowed each
guest, and Madame’s selection was an affair of time. Our
hotel was justly noted for its cuisine, yet on
infrequent occasions the food supplied to Madame was not to
her mind. At these times the whole establishment suffered
until the irascible old lady’s taste was suited. One night at
dinner Iorson had the misfortune to serve Madame with some
turkey that failed to meet with her approval. With the air of
an insulted empress, Madame ordered its removal. The
conciliatory Iorson obediently carried off the dish and
speedily returned, bearing what professed to be another
portion. But from the glimpse we got as it passed our table
we had a shrewd suspicion that Iorson the wily had merely
turned over the piece of turkey and re-served it with a
little more gravy and an additional dressing of
cressons. Madame, it transpired, shared our
suspicions, for this portion also she declined, with renewed
indignation. Then followed a long period of waiting, wherein
Madame, fidgeting restlessly on her seat, kept fierce eyes
fixed on the door through which the viands entered.

Just as her impatience threatened to vent itself in action,
Iorson appeared bearing a third helping of turkey. Placing it
before the irate lady, he fled as though determined to debar
a third repudiation. For a moment an air of triumph pervaded
Madame’s features. Then she began to gesticulate violently,
with the evident intention of again attracting Iorson’s
notice. But the forbearance even of the diplomatic Iorson was
at an end. Re-doubling his attentions to the diners at the
farther side of the room, he remained resolutely unconscious
of Madame’s signals, which were rapidly becoming frantic.

The less sophisticated Henri, however, feeling a boyish
interest in the little comedy, could not resist a curious
glance in Madame’s direction. That was sufficient. Waving
imperiously, Madame compelled his approach, and, moving
reluctantly, fearful of the issue, Henri advanced.

“Couteau!” hissed Madame. Henri flew to fetch the desired
implement, and, realising that Madame had at last been
satisfied, we again breathed freely.

A more attractive personage was a typical old aristocrat,
officer of the Legion of Honour, who used to enter, walk with
great dignity to his table, eat sparingly of one or two
dishes, drink a glass of his vin ordinaire and retire.
Sometimes he was accompanied by a tiny spaniel, which
occupied a chair beside him; and frequently a middle-aged
son, whose bourgeois appearance was in amazing contrast to
that of his refined old father, attended him.

There were others, less interesting perhaps, but equally
self-absorbed. One afternoon, entering the cable car that
runs—for fun, apparently, as it rarely boasted a
passenger—to and from the Trianon, we recognised in its
sole occupant an Ogam who during the weeks of our stay had
eaten, in evident oblivion of his human surroundings, at the
table next to ours. Forgetting that we were without the walls
of silence, we expected no greeting; but to our amazement he
rose, and, placing himself opposite us, conversed affably and
in most excellent English for the rest of the journey. To
speak with him was to discover a courteous and travelled
gentleman. Yet during our stay in Versailles we never knew
him exchange even a bow with any of his fellow Ogams, who
were men of like qualifications, though, as he told us, he
had taken his meals in the hotel for over five years.

Early in the year our peace was rudely broken by the advent
of a commercial man—a short, grey-haired being of an
activity so foreign to our usage that a feeling of unrest was
imparted to the salle-à-manger throughout his
stay. His movements were distractingly erratic. In his
opinion, meals were things to be treated casually, to be
consumed haphazard at any hour that chanced to suit. He did
not enter the dining-room at the exact moment each day as did
the Ogams. He would rush in, throw his hat on a peg, devour
some food with unseemly haste, and depart in less time than
it took the others to reach the légumes.

He was hospitable too, and had a disconcerting way of
inviting guests to luncheon or dinner, and then forgetting
that he had done so. One morning a stranger entered, and
after a brief conference with Iorson, was conducted to the
commercial man’s table to await his arrival. The regular
customers took their wonted places, and began in their
leisurely fashion to breakfast, and still the visitor sat
alone, starting up expectantly every time a door opened, then
despondently resuming his seat.

At last Iorson, taking compassion, urged the neglected guest
to while away his period of waiting by trifling with the
hors-d’oeuvres. He was proceeding to allay the pangs
of hunger with selections from the tray of anchovies,
sardines, pickled beet, and sliced sausage, when his host
entered, voluble and irrepressible as ever. The dignified
Ogams shuddered inwardly as his strident voice awoke the
echoes of the room, and their already stiff limbs became
rigid with disapproval.

In winter, transient visitors but rarely occupied one or
other of the square centre tables, though not infrequently a
proud father and mother who had come to visit a soldier son
at the barracks, brought him to the hotel for a meal, and for
a space the radiance of blue and scarlet and the glint of
steel cast a military glamour over the staid company.

An amusing little circumstance to us onlookers was that
although the supply of cooked food seemed equal to any
demand, the arrival of even a trio of unexpected guests to
dinner invariably caused a dearth of bread. For on their
advent Iorson would dash out bareheaded into the night, to
reappear in an incredibly short time carrying a loaf nearly
as tall as himself.

One morning a stalwart young Briton brought to breakfast a
pretty English cousin, on leave of absence from her
boarding-school. His knowledge of French was limited. When
anything was wanted he shouted “Garçon!” in a lordly
voice, but it was the pretty cousin who gave the order.
Déjeûner over, they departed in the
direction of the Château. And at sunset as we chanced
to stroll along the Boulevard de la Reine, we saw the pretty
cousin, all the gaiety fled from her face, bidding her escort
farewell at the gate of a Pension pour Demoiselles. The ball
was over. Poor little Cinderella was perforce returning to
the dust and ashes of learning.

CHAPTER III

THE TOWN

The English-speaking traveller finds Versailles vastly more
foreign than the Antipodes. He may voyage for many weeks, and
at each distant stopping-place find his own tongue spoken
around him, and his conventions governing society. But let
him leave London one night, cross the Channel at its
narrowest—and most turbulent—and sunrise will
find him an alien in a land whose denizens differ from him in
language, temperament, dress, food, manners, and customs.

Of a former visit to Versailles we had retained little more
than the usual tourist’s recollection of a hurried run
through a palace of fatiguing magnificence, a confusing peep
at the Trianons, a glance around the gorgeous state
equipages, an unsatisfactory meal at one of the open-air
cafés, and a scamper back to Paris. But our
winter residence in the quaint old town revealed to us the
existence of a life that is all its own—a life widely
variant, in its calm repose, from the bustle and gaiety of
the capital, but one that is replete with charm, and
abounding in picturesque-interest.

Versailles is not ancient; it is old, completely old. Since
the fall of the Second Empire it has stood still. Most of the
clocks have run down, as though they realised the futility of
trying to keep pace with the rest of the world. The future
merges into the present, the present fades into the past, and
still the clocks of Versailles point to the same long
eventide.

The proximity of Paris is evinced only by the vividly tinted
automobiles that make Versailles their goal. Even they rarely
tarry in the old town, but, turning at the Château
gates, lose no time in retracing their impetuous flight
towards a city whose usages accord better with their creed of
feverish hurry-scurry than do the conventions of reposeful
Versailles. And these fiery chariots of modernity, with their
ghoulish, fur-garbed, and hideously spectacled occupants,
once their raucous, cigale-like birr-r-r has died away in the
distance, leave infinitely less impression on the placid life
of Versailles than do their wheels on the roads they
traverse. Under the grand trees of the wide avenues the
townsfolk move quietly about, busying themselves with their
own affairs and practising their little economies as they
have been doing any time during the last century.

Perhaps it was the emphatic and demonstrative nature of the
mourning worn that gave us the idea that the better-class
female population of Versailles consisted chiefly of widows.
When walking abroad we seemed incessantly to encounter
widows: widows young and old, from the aged to the absurdly
immature. It was only after a period of bewilderment that it
dawned upon us that the sepulchral garb and heavy crape veils
reaching from head to heel were not necessarily the emblems
of widowhood, but might signify some state of minor
bereavement. In Britain a display of black such as is an
everyday sight at Versailles is undreamt of, and one saw more
crape veils in a day in Versailles than in London in a week.
Little girls, though their legs might be uncovered, had their
chubby features shrouded in disfiguring gauze and to our
unaccustomed foreign eyes a genuine widow represented nothing
more shapely than a more or less stubby pillar festooned with
crape.

But for an inborn conviction that a frugal race like the
French would not invest in a plethora of mourning garb only
to cast it aside after a few months’ wear, and that therefore
the period of wearing the willow must be greatly protracted,
we would have been haunted by the idea that the adult male
mortality of Versailles was enormous.

“Do they wear such deep mourning for all relatives?” I asked
our hotel proprietor, who had just told us that during the
first month of mourning the disguising veils were worn over
the faces.

Monsieur shook his sleek head gravely, “But no, Madame, not
for all. For a husband, yes; for a father or mother, yes; for
a sister or brother, an uncle or aunt, yes; but for a cousin,
no.”

He pronounced the no so emphatically as almost to
convince us of his belief that in refusing to mourn in the
most lugubrious degree for cousins the Versaillese acted with
praiseworthy self-denial.

There seemed to be no medium between sackcloth and
gala-dress. We seldom noted the customary degrees of
half-mourning. Plain colours were evidently unpopular and
fancy tartans of the most flamboyant hues predominated
amongst those who, during a spell of, say, three years had
been fortunate enough not to lose a parent, sister, brother,
uncle, or aunt. A perfectly natural reaction appeared to urge
the ci-devant mourners to robe themselves in lively
checks and tartans. It was as though they said—”Here at
last is our opportunity for gratifying our natural taste in
colours. It will probably be of but short duration. Therefore
let us select a combination of all the most brilliant tints
and wear them, for who knows how soon that gruesome pall of
woe may again enshroud us.”

Probably it was the vicinity of our hotel to the Church of
Notre Dame that, until we discovered its brighter side, led
us to esteem Versailles a veritable city of the dead, for on
our bi-daily walks to visit the invalids we were almost
certain to encounter a funeral procession either approaching
or leaving Notre Dame. And on but rare occasions was the
great central door undraped with the sepulchral insignia
which proclaimed that a Mass for the dead was in prospect or
in progress. Sometimes the sable valance and portières
were heavily trimmed and fringed with silver; at others there
was only the scantiest display of time-worn black cloth.

The humblest funeral was affecting and impressive. As the sad
little procession moved along the streets—the wayfarers
reverently uncovering and soldiers saluting as it
passed—the dirge-like chant of the Miserere
never failed to fill my eyes with unbidden tears of sympathy
for the mourners, who, with bowed heads, walked behind the
wreath-laden hearse.

Despite the abundant emblems of woe, Versailles can never
appear other than bright and attractive. Even in mid-winter
the skies were clear, and on the shortest days the sun seldom
forgot to cast a warm glow over the gay, white-painted
houses. And though the women’s dress tends towards
depression, the brilliant military uniforms make amends.
There are 12,000 soldiers stationed in Versailles; and where
a fifth of the population is gorgeous in scarlet and blue and
gold, no town can be accused of lacking colour.

Next to the redundant manifestations of grief, the thing that
most impressed us was the rigid economy practised in even the
smallest details of expenditure. Among the lower classes
there is none of that aping of fashion so prevalent in
prodigal England; the different social grades have each a
distinctive dress and are content to wear it. Among the men,
blouses of stout blue cotton and sabots are common. Sometimes
velveteen trousers, whose original tint years of wear have
toned to some exquisite shade of heliotrope, and a russet
coat worn with a fur cap and red neckerchief, compose an
effect that for harmonious colouring would be hard to beat.
The female of his species, as is the case in all natural
animals, is content to be less adorned. Her skirt is black,
her apron blue. While she is young, her neatly dressed hair,
even in the coldest weather, is guiltless of covering. As her
years increase she takes her choice of three head-dresses,
and to shelter her grey locks selects either a black knitted
hood, a checked cotton handkerchief, or a white cap of
ridiculously unbecoming design.

No French workaday father need fear that his earnings will be
squandered on such perishable adornments as feathers,
artificial flowers, or ribbons. The purchases of his spouse
are certain to be governed by extreme frugality. She selects
the family raiment with a view to durability. Flimsy finery
that the sun would fade, shoddy materials that a shower of
rain would ruin, offer no temptations to her. When she
expends a few sous on the cutting of her boy’s hair,
she has it cropped until his cranium resembles the soft,
furry skin of a mole, thus rendering further outlay in this
respect unlikely for months. And when she buys a flannel
shirt, a six-inch strip of the stuff, for future mending, is
always included in the price.

But with all this economy there is an air of comfort, a
complete absence of squalor. In cold weather the school-girls
wear snug hoods, or little fur turbans; and boys have the
picturesque and almost indestructible bérets of cloth
or corduroy. Cloth boots that will conveniently slip inside
sabots for outdoor use are greatly in vogue, and the
comfortable Capuchin cloaks—whose peaked hood can be
drawn over the head, thus obviating the use of
umbrellas—are favoured by both sexes and all ages.

As may be imagined, little is spent on luxuries. Vendors of
frivolities know better than to waste time tempting those
provident people. On one occasion only did I see money parted
with lightly, and in that case the bargain appeared
astounding. One Sunday morning an enterprising huckster of
gimcrack jewellery, venturing out from Paris, had set down
his strong box on the verge of the market square, and,
displaying to the admiring eyes of the country folks, ladies’
and gentlemen’s watches with chains complete, in the most
dazzling of aureate metal, sold them at six sous apiece as
quickly as he could hand them out.

Living is comparatively cheap in Versailles; though, as in
all places where the cost of existence is low, it must be
hard to earn a livelihood there. By far the larger proportion
of the community reside in flats, which can be rented at sums
that rise in accordance with the accommodation but are in all
cases moderate. Housekeeping in a flat, should the owner so
will it, is ever conducive to economy, and life in a French
provincial town is simple and unconventional.

Bread, wine, and vegetables, the staple foods of the nation,
are good and inexpensive. For 40 centimes one may purchase a
bottle of vin de gard, a thin tipple, doubtless; but
what kind of claret could one buy for fourpence a quart at
home? Graves I have seen priced at 50 centimes,
Barsac at 60, and eau de vie is plentiful at 1
franc 20!

Fish are scarce, and beef is supposed to be dear; but when
butter, eggs, and cheese bulk so largely in the diet, the
half chicken, the scrap of tripe, the slice of garlic
sausage, the tiny cut of beef for the ragout, cannot
be heavy items. Everything eatable is utilised, and many
weird edibles are sold; for the French can contrive tasty
dishes out of what in Britain would be thrown aside as offal.

On three mornings a week—Sunday, Tuesday, and
Friday—the presence of the open-air market rouses
Versailles from her dormouse-like slumber and galvanises her
into a state of activity that lasts for several hours. Long
before dawn, the roads leading townwards are busy with all
manner of vehicles, from the great waggon drawn by four white
horses driven tandem, and laden with a moving stack of hay,
to the ramshackle donkey-cart conveying half a score of
cabbages, a heap of dandelions grubbed from the meadows, and
the owner.

By daybreak the market square under the leafless trees
presents a lively scene. There are stalls sacred to poultry,
to butter, eggs, and cheese; but the vegetable kingdom
predominates. Flanked by bulwarks of greens and bundles of
leeks of incredible whiteness and thickness of stem, sit the
saleswomen, their heads swathed in gay cotton kerchiefs, and
the ground before them temptingly spread with little heaps of
corn salad, of chicory, and of yellow endive placed in
adorable contrast to the scarlet carrots, blood-red beetroot,
pinky-fawn onions, and glorious orange-hued pumpkins; while
ready to hand are measures of white or mottled haricot beans,
of miniature Brussels sprouts, and of pink or yellow
potatoes, an esculent that in France occupies a very
unimportant place compared with that it holds amongst the
lower classes in Britain.

In Versailles Madame does her own marketing, her
maid—in sabots and neat but usually hideous
cap—accompanying her, basket laden. From stall to stall
Madame passes, buying a roll of creamy butter wrapped in
fresh leaves here, a fowl there, some eggs from the wrinkled
old dame who looks so swart and witch-like in contrast to her
stock of milk-white eggs.

Madame makes her purchases judiciously—time is not a
valuable commodity in Versailles—and finishes, when the
huge black basket is getting heavy even for the strong arms
of the squat little maid, by buying a mess of cooked spinach
from the pretty girl whose red hood makes a happy spot of
colour among the surrounding greenery, and a measure of
onions from the profound-looking sage who garners a winter
livelihood from the summer produce of his fields.

Relations with uncooked food are, in Versailles,
distinguished by an unwonted intimacy. No one, however
dignified his station or appearance, is ashamed of purchasing
the materials for his dinner in the open market, or of
carrying them home exposed to the view of the world through
the transpicuous meshes of a string bag. The portly gentleman
with the fur coat and waxed moustaches, who looks a general
at least, and is probably a tram-car conductor, bears his
bunch of turnips with an air that dignifies the office, just
as the young sub-lieutenant in the light blue cloak and red
cap and trousers carries his mother’s apples and lettuces
without a thought of shame. And it is easy to guess the
nature of the déjeûner of this simple
soldat from the long loaf, the bottle of vin
ordinaire, and the onions that form the contents of his
net. In the street it was a common occurrence to encounter
some non-commissioned officer who, entrusted with the
catering for his mess, did his marketing accompanied by two
underlings, who bore between them the great open basket
destined to hold his purchases.

A picturesque appearance among the hucksters of the market
square is the boîte de carton seller.
Blue-bloused, with his stock of lavender or brown bandboxes
strapped in a cardboard Tower of Pisa on his back, he parades
along, his wares finding ready sale; for his visits are
infrequent, and if one does not purchase at the moment, as
does Madame, the opportunity is gone.

The spirit of camaraderie is strong amongst the good folks of
the market. One morning the Artist had paused a moment to
make a rough sketch of a plump, affable man who, shadowed by
the green cotton awning of his stall, was selling segments of
round flat cheeses of goat’s milk; vile-smelling compounds
that, judged from their outer coating of withered leaves,
straw, and dirt, would appear to have been made in a stable
and dried on a rubbish heap. The subject of the jotting, busy
with his customers, was all unconscious; but an old crone who
sat, her feet resting on a tiny charcoal stove, amidst a
circle of decadent greens, detecting the Artist’s action,
became excited, and after eyeing him uneasily for a moment,
confided her suspicions as to his ulterior motive to a
round-faced young countryman who retailed flowers close by.
He, recognising us as customers—even then we were laden
with his violets and mimosa—merely smiled at her
concern. But his apathy only served to heighten Madame’s
agitation. She was unwilling to leave her snug seat yet felt
that her imperative duty lay in acquainting Monsieur du
Fromage with the inexplicable behaviour of the inquisitive
foreigner. But the nefarious deed was already accomplished,
and as we moved away our last glimpse was of the little stove
standing deserted, while Madame hastened across the street in
her clattering sabots to warn her friend.

The bustle of the market is soon ended. By ten o’clock the
piles of vegetables are sensibly diminished. By half-past ten
the white-capped maid-servants have carried the heavy baskets
home, and are busy preparing lunch. At eleven o’clock the
sharp boy whose stock-in-trade consisted of three trays of
snails stuffed à la Bourgogne has sold all the
large ones at 45 centimes a dozen, all the small at 25, and
quite two-thirds of the medium-sized at 35 centimes.

The clock points to eleven. The sun is high now. The vendors
awaken to the consciousness of hunger, and Madame of the
pommes frites stall, whose assistant dexterously cuts
the peeled tubers into strips, is fully occupied in draining
the crisp golden shreds from the boiling fat and handing them
over, well sprinkled with salt and pepper, to avid customers,
who devour them smoking hot, direct from their paper
cornucopias.

Long before the first gloom of the early mid-winter dusk, all
has been cleared away. The rickety stalls have been
demolished; the unsold remainder of the goods disposed of;
the worthy country folks, their pockets heavy with
sous, are well on their journey homewards, and only a
litter of straw, of cabbage leaves and leek tops remains as
evidence of the lively market of the morning.

CHAPTER IV

OUR ARBRE DE NOËL

We bought it on the Sunday morning from old Grand’mere Gomard
in the Avenue de St. Cloud.

It was not a noble specimen of a Christmas-tree. Looked at
with cold, unimaginative eyes, it might have been considered
lopsided; undersized it undoubtedly was. Yet a pathetic
familiarity in the desolate aspect of the little tree aroused
our sympathy as no rare horticultural trophy ever could.

Some Christmas fairy must have whispered to Grand’mere to
grub up the tiny tree and to include it in the stock she was
taking into Versailles on the market morning. For there it
was, its roots stuck securely into a big pot, looking like
some forlorn forest bantling among the garden plants.

Grand’mere Gomard had established herself in a cosy nook at
the foot of one of the great leafless trees of the Avenue.
Straw hurdles were cunningly arranged to form three sides of
a square, in whose midst she was seated on a rush-bottomed
chair, like a queen on a humble throne. Her head was bound by
a gaily striped kerchief, and her feet rested snugly on a
charcoal stove. Her merchandise, which consisted of half a
dozen pots of pink and white primulas, a few spotted or
crimson cyclamen, sundry lettuce and cauliflower plants, and
some roots of pansies and daisies, was grouped around her.

The primulas and cyclamen, though their pots were shrouded in
pinafores of white paper skilfully calculated to conceal any
undue lankiness of stem, left us unmoved. But the sight of
the starveling little fir tree reminded us that in the school
hospital lay two sick boys whose roseate dreams of London and
holidays had suddenly changed to the knowledge that weeks of
isolation and imprisonment behind the window-blind with the
red cross lay before them. If we could not give them the
longed-for home Christmas, we could at least give them a
Christmas-tree.

The sight of foreign customers for Grand’mere Gomard speedily
collected a small group of interested spectators. A knot of
children relinquished their tantalising occupation of hanging
round the pan of charcoal over whose glow chestnuts were
cracking appetisingly, and the stall of the lady who with
amazing celerity fried pancakes on a hot plate, and sold them
dotted with butter and sprinkled with sugar to the lucky
possessors of a sou. Even the sharp urchin who
presided over the old red umbrella, which, reversed, with the
ferule fixed in a cross-bar of wood, served as a receptacle
for sheets of festive note-paper embellished with lace edges
and further adorned with coloured scraps, temporarily
entrusting a juvenile sister with his responsibilities, added
his presence to our court.

Christmas-trees seemed not to be greatly in demand in
Versailles, and many were the whispered communings as to what
les Anglais proposed doing with the tree after they
had bought it. When the transaction was completed and
Grand’mere Gomard had exchanged the tree, with a sheet of
La Patrie wrapped round its pot, for a franc and our
thanks, the interest increased. We would require some one to
carry our purchase, and each of the bright-eyed,
short-cropped Jeans and Pierres was eager to offer himself.
But our selection was already made. A slender boy in a
béret and black pinafore, who had been our
earliest spectator, was singled out and entrusted with the
conveyance of the arbre de Noël to our hotel.

The fact that it had met with approbation appeared to
encourage the little tree. The change may have been
imaginary, but from the moment it passed into our possession
the branches seemed less despondent, the needles more erect.

“Will you put toys on it?” the youthful porter asked
suddenly.

“Yes; it is for a sick boy—a boy who has fever. Have
you ever had an arbre de Noël?”

“Jamais,” was his conclusive reply: the tone thereof
suggesting that that was a felicity quite beyond the range of
possibility.

The tree secured, there began the comparatively difficult
work of finding the customary ornaments of glass and glitter
to deck it. A fruitless search had left us almost in despair,
when, late on Monday afternoon, we joyed to discover
miniature candles of red, yellow, and blue on the open-air
stall in front of a toy-store. A rummage in the interior of
the shop procured candle clips, and a variety of glittering
bagatelles. Laden with treasure, we hurried back to the
hotel, and began the work of decoration in preparation for
the morning.

During its short stay in our room at the hotel, the erstwhile
despised little tree met with an adulation that must have
warmed the heart within its rough stem. When nothing more
than three coloured glass globes, a gilded walnut, and a
gorgeous humming-bird with wings and tail of spun glass had
been suspended by narrow ribbon from its branches, Rosine,
the pretty Swiss chambermaid, chancing to enter the room with
letters, was struck with admiration and pronounced it
“très belle!”

And Karl bringing in a fresh panier of logs when the
adorning was complete, and silly little delightful baubles
sparkled and twinkled from every spray, putting down his
burden, threw up his hands in amazement and declared the
arbre de Noël “magnifique!”

This alien Christmas-tree had an element all its own. When we
were searching for knick-knacks the shops were full of tiny
Holy Babes lying cradled in waxen innocence in mangers of
yellow corn. One of these little effigies we had bought
because they pleased us. And when, the decoration of the tree
being nearly finished, the tip of the centre stem standing
scraggily naked called for covering, what more fitting than
that the dear little Sacred Bébé in his
nest of golden straw should have the place of honour?

It was late on Christmas Eve before our task was ended. But
next morning when Karl, carrying in our petit
déjeûner, turned on the electric light, and
our anxious gaze sought our work, we found it good.

Then followed a hurried packing of the loose presents; and, a
fiacre having been summoned, the tree which had
entered the room in all humility passed out transmogrified
beyond knowledge. Rosine, duster in hand, leant over the
banisters of the upper landing to watch its descent. Karl saw
it coming and flew to open the outer door for its better
egress. Even the stout old driver of the red-wheeled cab
creaked cumbrously round on his box to look upon its
beauties.

The Market was busy in the square as we rattled through. From
behind their battlemented wares the country mice waged wordy
war with the town mice over the price of merchandise. But on
this occasion we were too engrossed to notice a scene whose
picturesque humour usually fascinated us, for as the carriage
jogged over the rough roads the poor little arbre de
Noël palpitated convulsively. The gewgaws clattered
like castanets, as though in frantic expostulation, and the
radiant spun-glass humming-birds quivered until we expected
them to break from their elastic fetters and fly away. The
green and scarlet one with the gold-flecked wings fell on the
floor and rolled under the seat just as the cab drew up at
the great door of the school.

The two Red-Cross prisoners who, now that the dominating heat
of fever had faded, were thinking wistfully of the forbidden
joys of home, had no suspicion of our intention, and we
wished to surprise them. So, burdened with our treasure, we
slipped in quietly.

From her lodge window the concierge nodded approval. And at
the door of the hospital the good Soeur received us, a flush
of pleasure glorifying her tranquil face.

Then followed a moment wherein the patients were ordered to
shut their eyes, to reopen them upon the vision splendid of
the arbre de Noël. Perhaps it was the contrast to
the meagre background of the tiny school-hospital room, with
its two white beds and bare walls, but, placed in full view
on the centre table, the tree was almost imposing. Standing
apart from Grand’mere’s primulas and cyclamen as though,
conscious of its own inferiority, it did not wish to obtrude,
it had looked dejected, miserable. During its sojourn at the
hotel the appreciation of its meanness had troubled us. But
now, in the shabby little chamber, where there were no rival
attractions to detract from its glory, we felt proud of it.
It was just the right size for the surroundings. A two-franc
tree, had Grand’mere possessed one, would have been
Brobdignagian and pretentious.

A donor who is handicapped by the knowledge that the gifts he
selects must within a few weeks be destroyed by fire, is
rarely lavish in his outlay. Yet our presents, wrapped in
white paper and tied with blue ribbons, when arranged round
the flower-pot made a wonderful show, There were mounted
Boers who, when you pressed the ball at the end of the
air-tube, galloped in a wobbly, uncertain fashion. The
invalids had good fun later trying races with them, and the
Boy professed to find that his Boer gained an accelerated
speed when he whispered “Bobs” to him. There were tales of
adventure and flasks of eau-de-Cologne and smart virile
pocket-books, one red morocco, the other blue. We regretted
the pocket-books; but their possession made the recipients
who, boylike, took no heed for the cleansing fires of the
morrow, feel grown-up at once. And they yearned for the
advent of the first day of the year, that they might begin
writing in their new diaries. For the Sister there was a
miniature gold consecrated medal. It was a small tribute of
our esteem, but one that pleased the devout recipient.

Suspended among the purely ornamental trinkets of the tree
hung tiny net bags of crystallised violets and many large
chocolates rolled up in silver paper. The boys, who had
subsisted for several days on nothing more exciting than
boiled milk, openly rejoiced when they caught sight of the
sweets. But to her patients’ disgust, the Soeur, who had a
pretty wit of her own, promptly frustrated their intentions
by counting the dainties.

“I count the chocolates. They are good boys, wise boys,
honest boys, and I have every confidence in them, but—I
count the chocolates!” said the Soeur.

As we passed back along the Rue de la Paroisse, worshippers
were flocking in and out of Notre Dame, running the gauntlet
of the unsavoury beggars who, loudly importunate, thronged
the portals. Before the quiet nook wherein, under a
gold-bestarred canopy, was the tableau of the Infant Jesus in
the stable, little children stood in wide-eyed adoration, and
older people gazed with mute devotion.

Some might deem the little spectacle theatrical, and there
was a slight irrelevance in the pot-plants that were grouped
along the foreground, but none could fail to be impressed by
the silent reverence of the congregation. No service was in
process, yet many believers knelt at prayer. Here a pretty
girl returned thanks for evident blessings received; there an
old spinster, the narrowness of whose means forbade her
expending a couple of sous on the hire of a chair, knelt on
the chilly flags and murmured words of gratitude for benefits
whereof her appearance bore no outward indication.

We had left the prisoners to the enjoyment of their newly
acquired property in the morning. At gloaming we again
mounted the time-worn outside stair leading to the chamber
whose casement bore the ominous red cross. The warm glow of
firelight filled the room, scintillating in the glittering
facets of the baubles on the tree; and from their pillows two
pale-faced boys—boys who, despite their lengthening
limbs were yet happily children at heart—watched
eager-eyed while the sweet-faced Soeur, with reverential
care, lit the candles that surrounded the Holy
Bébé.

CHAPTER V

LE JOUR DE L’ANNÉE

The closing days of 1900 had been unusually mild. Versailles
townsfolk, watching the clear skies for sign of change,
declared that it would be outside all precedent if Christmas
week passed without snow. But, defiant of rule, sunshine
continued, and the new century opened cloudless and bright.

Karl, entering with hot water, gave us seasonable greeting,
and as we descended the stair, pretty Rosine, brushing boots
at the open window of the landing, also wished us a smiling
bonne nouvelle année. But within or without
there was little token of gaiety. Sundry booths for the sale
of gingerbread and cheap jouets, which had been
erected in the Avenue de St. Cloud, found business
languishing, though a stalwart countryman in blouse and
sabots, whose stock-in-trade consisted of whirligigs
fashioned in the semblance of moulins rouges and
grotesque blue Chinamen which he carried stuck into a straw
wreath fixed on a tall pole, had no lack of custom.

The great food question never bulks so largely in the public
interest as at the close of a year, so perhaps it was but
natural that the greatest appreciation of the festive
traditions of the season should be evinced by the shops
devoted to the sale of provender. Turkeys sported scarlet
bows on their toes as though anticipating a dance rather than
the oven; and by their sides sausages, their somewhat
plethoric waists girdled by pink ribbon sashes, seemed ready
to join them in the frolic. In one cookshop window a trio of
plaster nymphs who stood ankle-deep in a pool of crimped
green paper, upheld a huge garland of cunningly moulded wax
roses, dahlias, and lilac, above which perched a pheasant
regnant. This trophy met with vast approbation until a rival
establishment across the way, not to be outdone, exhibited a
centrepiece of unparalleled originality, consisting as it did
of a war scene modelled entirely in lard. Entrenched behind
the battlements of the fort crowning an eminence, Boers
busied themselves with cannon whose aim was carefully
directed towards the admiring spectators outside the window,
not at the British troops who were essaying to scale the
greasy slopes. Half way up the hill, a miniature train
appeared from time to time issuing from an absolutely
irrelevant tunnel, and, progressing at the rate of quite a
mile an hour, crawled into the corresponding tunnel on the
other side. At the base of the hill British soldiers, who
seemed quite cognisant of the utter futility of the Boer
gunnery, were complacently driving off cattle. Captious
critics might have taken exception to the fact that the waxen
camellias adorning the hill were nearly as big as the
battlements, and considerably larger than the engine of the
train. But fortunately detractors were absent, and such
trifling discrepancies did not lessen the genuine delight
afforded the spectators by this unique design which, as a
card proudly informed the world, was entirely the work of the
employés of the firm.

It was in a pâtisserie in the Rue de la Paroisse that
we noticed an uninviting compound labelled “Pudding Anglais,
2 fr. 1/2 kilo.” A little thought led us to recognise in this
amalgamation a travesty of our old friend plum-pudding; but
so revolting was its dark, bilious-looking exterior that we
felt its claim to be accounted a compatriot almost insulting.
And it was with secret gratification that towards the close
of January we saw the same stolid, unhappy blocks awaiting
purchasers.

The presence of the customary Tuesday market kept the streets
busy till noon. But when the square was again empty of
sellers and buyers Versailles relapsed into quietude. I
wonder if any other town of its size is as silent as
Versailles. There is little horse-traffic. Save for the
weird, dirge-like drone of the electric cars, which seems in
perfect consonance with the tone of sadness pervading the old
town whose glory has departed, the clang of the wooden shoes
on the rough pavement, and the infrequent beat of hoofs as a
detachment of cavalry moves by, unnatural stillness seems to
prevail.

Of street music there was none, though once an old couple
wailing a plaintive duet passed under our windows. Britain is
not esteemed a melodious nation, yet the unclassical piano is
ever with us, and even in the smallest provincial towns one
is rarely out of hearing of the insistent note of some
itinerant musician. And no matter how far one penetrates into
the recesses of the country, he is always within reach of
some bucolic rendering of the popular music-hall ditty of the
year before last. But never during our stay in Versailles, a
stay that included what is supposedly the gay time of the
year, did we hear the sound of an instrument, or—with
the one exception of the old couple, whom it would be rank
flattery to term vocalists—the note of a voice raised
in song.

With us, New Year’s Day was a quiet one. A dozen miles
distant, Paris was welcoming the advent of the new century in
a burst of feverish excitement. But despite temptations, we
remained in drowsy Versailles, and spent several of the hours
in the little room where two pallid Red-Cross knights, who
were celebrating the occasion by sitting up for the first
time, waited expectant of our coming as their one link with
the outside world.

It was with a sincere thrill of pity that at
déjeûner we glanced round the
salle-à-manger and found all the Ogams filling
their accustomed solitary places. Only Dunois the
comparatively young, and presumably brave, was absent. The
others occupied their usual seats, eating with their
unfailing air of introspective absorption. Nobody had cared
enough for these lonely old men to ask them to fill a corner
at their tables, even on New Year’s Day. To judge by their
regular attendance at the hotel meals, these men—all of
whom, as shown by their wearing the red ribbon of the Legion
of Honour, had merited distinction—had little
hospitality offered them. Most probably they offered as
little, for, throughout our stay, none ever had a friend to
share his breakfast or dinner.

The bearing of the hotel guests suggested absolute ignorance
of one another’s existence. The Colonels, as I have said in a
previous chapter, were exceptions, but even they held
intercourse only without the hotel walls. Day after day,
month after month, year after year as we were told, these men
had fed together, yet we never saw them betray even the most
cursory interest in one another. They entered and departed
without revealing, by word or look, cognisance of another
human being’s presence. Could one imagine a dozen men of any
other nationality thus maintaining the same indifference over
even a short period? I hope future experience will prove me
wrong, but in the meantime my former conception of the French
as a nation overflowing with bonhomie and
camaraderie is rudely shaken.

The day of the year would have passed without anything to
distinguish it from its fellows had not the proprietor, who,
by the way, was a Swiss, endeavoured by sundry little
attentions to reveal his goodwill. Oysters usurped the place
of the customary hors d’oeuvres at breakfast, and the
meal ended with café noir and cognac handed
round by the deferential Iorson as being “offered by the
proprietor,” who, entering during the progress of the
déjeûner, paid his personal respects to
his clientèle.

The afternoon brought us a charming discovery. We had a boy
guest with us at luncheon, a lonely boy left at school when
his few compatriots—save only the two Red-Cross
prisoners—had gone home on holiday. The day was bright
and balmy; and while strolling in the park beyond the Petit
Trianon, we stumbled by accident upon the hameau, the
little village of counterfeit rusticity wherein Marie
Antoinette loved to play at country life.

Following a squirrel that sported among the trees, we had
strayed from the beaten track, when, through the leafless
branches, we caught sight of roofs and houses and, wandering
towards them, found ourselves by the side of a miniature
lake, round whose margin were grouped the daintiest rural
cottages that monarch could desire or Court architect design.

History had told us of the creation of this unique plaything
of the capricious Queen, but we had thought of it as a thing
of the past, a toy whose fragile beauty had been wrecked by
the rude blows of the Revolution. The matter-of-fact and
unromantic Baedeker, it is true, gives it half a line. After
devoting pages to the Château, its grounds, pictures,
and statues, and detailing exhaustively the riches of the
Trianons, he blandly mentions the gardens of the Petit
Trianon as containing “some fine exotic trees, an artificial
lake, a Temple of Love, and a hamlet where the Court ladies
played at peasant life.”

It is doubtful whether ten out of every hundred tourists who,
Baedeker in hand, wander conscientiously over the grand
Château—Palace, alas! no longer—ever notice
the concluding words, or, reading its lukewarm
recommendation, deem the hamlet worthy of a visit. The
Château is an immense building crammed with artistic
achievements, and by the time the sightseer of ordinary
capacity has seen a tenth of the pictures, a third of the
sculpture, and a half of the fountains, his endurance, if not
all his patience, is exhausted.

I must acknowledge that we, too, had visited Versailles
without discovering that the hameau still existed; so
to chance upon it in the sunset glow of that winter evening
seemed to carry us back to the time when the storm-cloud of
the Revolution was yet no larger than a man’s hand; to the
day when Louis XVI., making for once a graceful speech,
presented the site to his wife, saying: “You love flowers.
Ah! well, I have a bouquet for you—the Petit Trianon.”
And his Queen, weary of the restrictions of Court
ceremony—though it must be admitted that the willful
Marie Antoinette ever declined to be hampered by
convention—experiencing in her residence in the little
house freedom from etiquette, pursued the novel pleasure to
its furthest by commanding the erection in its grounds of a
village wherein she might the better indulge her newly
fledged fancy for make-believe rusticity.

About the pillars supporting the verandah-roof of the chief
cottage and that of the wide balcony above, roses and vines
twined lovingly. And though it was the first day of January,
the rose foliage was yet green and bunches of shrivelled
grapes clung to the vines. It was lovely then; yet a day or
two later, when a heavy snowfall had cast a white mantle over
the village, and the little lake was frozen hard, the scene
seemed still more beautiful in its ghostly purity.

At first sight there was no sign of decay about the
long-deserted hamlet. The windows were closed, but had it
been early morning, one could easily have imagined that the
pseudo villagers were asleep behind the shuttered casements,
and that soon the Queen, in some charming
déshabillé, would come out to breathe
the sweet morning air and to inhale the perfume of the
climbing roses on the balcony overlooking the lake, wherein
gold-fish darted to and fro among the water-lilies; or expect
to see the King, from the steps of the little mill where he
lodged, exchange blithe greetings with the maids of honour as
they tripped gaily to the laiterie to play at
butter-making, or sauntered across the rustic bridge on their
way to gather new-laid eggs at the farm.

The sunset glamour had faded and the premature dusk of
mid-winter was falling as, approaching nearer, we saw where
the roof-thatch had decayed, where the insidious finger of
Time had crumbled the stone walls. A chilly wind arising,
moaned through the naked trees. The shadow of the guillotine
seemed to brood oppressively over the scene, and, shuddering,
we hastened away.

CHAPTER VI

ICE-BOUND

Even in the last days of December rosebuds had been trying to
open on the standard bushes in the sheltered rose-garden of
the Palace. But with the early nights of January a sudden
frost seized the town in its icy grip, and, almost before we
had time to realise the change of weather, pipes were frozen
and hot-water bottles of strange design made their appearance
in the upper corridors of the hotel. The naked cherubs in the
park basins stood knee-deep in ice, skaters skimmed the
smooth surface of the canal beyond the tapis vert, and
in a twinkling Versailles became a town peopled by gnomes and
brownies whose faces peeped quaintly from within conical
hoods.

Soldiers drew their cloak-hoods over their uniform caps.
Postmen went their rounds thus snugly protected from the
weather. The doddering old scavengers, plying their brooms
among the great trees of the avenues, bore so strong a
resemblance to the pixies who lurk in caves and woods, that
we almost expected to see them vanish into some crevice in
the gnarled roots of the trunks. Even the tiny acolytes
trotting gravely in the funeral processions had their heads
and shoulders shrouded in the prevailing hooded capes.

To us, accustomed though we were to an inclement winter
climate, the chill seemed intense. So frigid was the
atmosphere that the first step taken from the heated hotel
hall into the outer air felt like putting one’s face against
an iceberg. All wraps of ordinary thickness appeared
incapable of excluding the cold, and I sincerely envied the
countless wearers of the dominant Capuchin cloaks.

Our room was many-windowed, and no matter how high Karl piled
the logs, nor how close we sat to the flames, our backs never
felt really warm. It was only when night had fallen and the
outside shutters were firmly closed that the thermometer
suspended near the chimney-piece grudgingly consented to
record temperate heat.

But there was at least one snug chamber in Versailles, and
that was the room of the Red-Cross prisoners. However
extravagant the degrees of frost registered without, the
boys’ sick-room was always pleasantly warm. How the good
Soeur, who was on duty all day, managed to regulate the heat
throughout the night-watches was her secret. A half-waking
boy might catch a glimpse of her, apparently robed as by day,
stealing out of the room; but so noiseless were her
movements, that neither of the invalids ever saw her stealing
in. They had a secret theory that in her own little
apartment, which was just beyond theirs, the Soeur, garbed,
hooded, and wearing rosary and the knotted rope of her Order,
passed her nights in devotion. Certain it was that even the
most glacial of weathers did not once avail to prevent her
attending the Mass that was held at Notre Dame each morning
before daybreak.

Frost-flowers dulled the inner glories of the shop windows
with their unwelcome decoration. Even in the square on market
mornings business flagged. The country folks, chilled by
their cold drive to town, cowered, muffled in thick wraps,
over their little charcoal stoves, lacking energy to call
attention to their wares. The sage with the onions was
absent, but the pretty girl in the red hood held her
accustomed place, warming mittened fingers at a chaufferette
which she held on her lap. The only person who gave no
outward sign of misery was the boulangère who,
harnessed to her heavy hand-cart, toiled unflinchingly on her
rounds.

In the streets the comely little bourgeoises hid their
plump shoulders under ugly black knitted capes, and concealed
their neat hands in clumsy worsted gloves. But despite the
rigour of the atmosphere their heads, with the hair neatly
dressed à la Chinoise, remained uncovered. It
struck our unaccustomed eyes oddly to see these girls thus
exposed, standing on the pavement in the teeth of some icy
blast, talking to stalwart soldier friends, whose noses were
their only visible feature.

The ladies of Versailles give a thought to their waists, but
they leave their ankles to Providence, and any one having
experience of Versailles winter streets can fully sympathise
with their trust; for even in dry sunny weather mud seems a
spontaneous production that renders goloshes a necessity. And
when frost holds the high-standing city in its frigid grasp
the extreme cold forbids any idea of coquetry, and thickly
lined boots with cloth uppers—a species of foot-gear
that in grace of outline is decidedly suggestive of
“arctics”—become the only comfortable wear.

After a few days of thought-congealing cold—a cold so
intense that sundry country people who had left their homes
before dawn to drive into Paris with farm produce were taken
dead from their market-carts at the end of the
journey—the weather mercifully changed. A heavy
snowfall now tempered the inclement air, and turned the
leafless park into a fairy vision.

The nights were still cold, but during the day the sun
glinted warmly on the frozen waters of the gilded fountains
and sparkled on the facets of the crisp snow. The marble
benches in the sheltered nooks of the snug Château
gardens were occupied by little groups, which usually
consisted of a bonne and a baby, or of a chevalier and
a hopelessly unclassable dog; for the dogs of Versailles
belong to breeds that no man living could classify, the most
prevalent type in clumsiness of contour and astonishing
shagginess of coat resembling nothing more natural than those
human travesties of the canine race familiar to us in
pantomime.

Along the snow-covered paths under the leafless trees, on
whose branches close-wreathed mistletoe hangs like rooks’
nests, the statues stood like guardian angels of the scene.
They had lost their air of aloofness and were at one with the
white earth, just as the forest trees in their autumn dress
of brown and russet appear more in unison with their parent
soil than when decked in their bravery of summer greenery.

CHAPTER VII

THE HAUNTED CHATEAU

The Château of Versailles, like the town, dozes through
the winter, only half awakening on Sunday afternoons when the
townsfolk make it their meeting-place. Then conscripts, in
clumsy, ill-fitting uniforms, tread noisily over the shining
parqueterie floors, and burgesses gossip amicably in
the dazzling Galerie des Glaces, where each morning
courtiers were wont to await the uprising of their king. But
on the weekdays visitors are of the rarest. Sometimes a few
half-frozen people who have rashly automobiled thither from
Paris alight at the Château gates, and take a hurried
walk through the empty galleries to restore the circulation
to their stiffened limbs before venturing to set forth on the
return journey.

Every weekday in the Place d’Armes, squads of conscripts are
busily drilling, running hither and thither with unflagging
energy, and the air resounds with the hoarse staccato cries
of “Un! Deux! Trois!” wherewith they accompany their
movements, cries that, heard from a short distance, exactly
resemble the harsh barking of a legion of dogs.

Within the gates there is a sense of leisure: even the
officials have ceased to anticipate visitors. In the Cour
Royale two little girls have cajoled an old guide into
playing a game of ball. A custodian dozes by the great log
fire in the bedroom of Louis XIV., where the warm firelight
playing on the rich trappings lends such an air of occupation
to the chamber, that—forgetting how time has turned to
grey the once white ostrich plumes adorning the canopy of the
bed, and that the priceless lace coverlet would probably fall
to pieces at a touch—one almost expects the door to
open for the entrance of Louis le Grand himself.

To this room he came when he built the Palace wherein to hide
from that grim summons with which the tower of the Royal
sepulture of St. Denis, visible from his former residence,
seemed to threaten him. And here it was that Death, after
long seeking, found him. We can see the little great-grandson
who was to succeed, lifted on to the bed of the dying
monarch.

“What is your name, my child?” asks the King.

“Louis XV;” replies the infant, taking brevet-rank. And
nearly sixty years later we see the child, his wasted life at
an end, dying of virulent smallpox under the same roof,
deserted by all save his devoted daughters.

To me the Palace of Versailles is peopled by the ghosts of
many women. A few of them are dowdy and good, but by far the
greater number are graceful and wicked. How infinitely easier
it is to make a good bad reputation than to achieve even a
bad good one! “Tell us stories about naughty children,” we
used to beseech our nurses. And as our years increase we
still yawn over the doings of the righteous, while our
interest in the ways of transgressors only strengthens.

We all know by heart the romantic lives of the shrinking La
Vallière, of Madame de Montespan the impassioned, of
sleek Madame de Maintenon—the trio of beauties honoured
by the admiration of Louis le Grand; and of the bevy of
favourites of Louis XV, the three fair and short-lived
sisters de Mailly-Nesle, the frail Pompadour who mingled
scheming with debauchery, and the fascinating but
irresponsible Du Barry. Even the most minute details of Marie
Antoinette’s tragic career are fresh in our memories, but
which of us can remember the part in the history of France
played by Marie Leczinska? Yet, apart from her claim to
notability as having been the last queen who ended her days
on the French throne, her story is full of romantic interest.

Thrusting aside the flimsy veil of Time, we find Marie
Leczinska the penniless daughter of an exiled Polish king who
is living in retirement in a dilapidated commandatory at a
little town in Alsace. It is easy to picture the shabby room
wherein the unforeseeing Marie sits content between her
mother and grandmother, all three diligently broidering altar
cloths. Upon the peaceful scene the father enters, overcome
by emotion, trembling. His face announces great news, before
he can school his voice to speak.

“Why, father! Have you been recalled to the throne of
Poland?” asks Marie, and the naïve question reveals that
many years of banishment have not quenched in the hearts of
the exiles the hope of a return to their beloved Poland.

“No, my daughter, but you are to be Queen of France,” replies
the father. “Let us thank God.”

Knowing the sequel, one wonders if it was for a blessing or a
curse that the refugees, kneeling in that meagre room in the
old house at Wissenberg, returned thanks.

Certain it is that the ministers of the boy-monarch were
actuated more by a craving to further their own ends than
either by the desire to please God or to honour their King,
in selecting this obscure maiden from the list of ninety-nine
marriageable princesses that had been drawn up at Versailles.
A dowerless damsel possessed of no influential relatives is
not in a position to be exacting, and, whate’er befell, poor
outlawed Stanislas Poniatowski could not have taken up arms
in defence of his daughter.

Having a sincere regard for unaffected Marie Leczinska, I
regret being obliged to admit that, even in youth, “comely”
was the most effusive adjective that could veraciously be
awarded her. And it is only in the lowest of whispers that I
will admit that she was seven years older than her handsome
husband, whose years did not then number seventeen. Yet is
there indubitable charm in the simple grace wherewith Marie
accepted her marvellous transformation from pauper to queen.
She disarmed criticism by refusing to conceal her former
poverty. “This is the first time in my life I have been able
to make presents,” she frankly told the ladies of the Court,
as she distributed among them her newly got trinkets.

It is pleasant to remember that the early years of her wedded
life passed harmoniously. Louis, though never passionately
enamoured of his wife, yet loved her with the warm affection
a young man bestows on the first woman he has possessed. And
that Marie was wholly content there is little doubt. She was
no gadabout. Versailles satisfied her. Three years passed
before she visited Paris, and then the visit was more of the
nature of a pilgrimage than of a State progress. Twin
daughters had blessed the union, and the Queen journeyed to
the churches of Notre Dame and Saint Geneviève to
crave from Heaven the boon of a Dauphin: a prayer which a
year later was answered.

But clouds were gathering apace. As he grew into manhood the
domestic virtues palled upon Louis. He tired of the
needlework which, doubtless, Marie’s skilled hands had taught
him. We recall how, sitting between her mother and
grandmother, the future Queen had broidered altar cloths.
Marie Leczinska was an adoring mother; possibly her devotion
to their rapidly increasing family wearied him. Being little
more than a child himself, the King is scarcely likely to
have found the infantile society so engaging as did the
mother. Thus began that series of foolish infidelities that,
characterised by extreme timidity and secrecy at first, was
latterly flaunted in the face of the world.

Marie’s life was not a smooth one, but it was happier than
that of her Royal spouse. To me there is nothing sadder,
nothing more sordid in history, than the feeble, useless
existence of Louis XV., whose early years promised so well.
It is pitiful to look at the magnificent portrait, still
hanging in the palace where he reigned, of the child-king
seated in his robes of State, the sceptre in his hand,
looking with eyes of innocent wonder into the future, then to
think upon the depth of degradation reached by the once
revered Monarch before his body was dragged in dishonour and
darkness to its last resting-place.

Pleasanter figures that haunt the Château are those of
the six pretty daughters of Louis and Marie Leczinska. There
are the ill-starred twins, Elizabeth and Henrietta: Madame
Elizabeth, who never lost the love of her old home, and,
though married, before entering her teens, to the Infanta of
Spain, retired, after a life of disappointment, to her
beloved Versailles to die; and the gentle Henrietta who,
cherishing an unlucky passion for the young Duc de Chartres,
pined quietly away after witnessing her lover wed to another.

Then there is Adelaide, whom Nattier loved to paint,
portraying her sometimes as a lightly clad goddess, sometimes
sitting demurely in a pretty frock. Good Nattier! there is a
later portrait of himself in complacent middle age surrounded
by his wife and children; but I like to think that, when he
spent so many days at the Palace painting the young Princess,
some tenderer influence than mere artistic skill lent cunning
to his brush.

When the daughters of Louis XV. were sent to be educated at a
convent, Adelaide it was who, by tearful protest to her royal
father, gained permission to remain at the Palace while her
sisters meekly endured their banishment. From this instance
of childish character one would have anticipated a career for
Madame Adelaide, and I hate being obliged to think of her
merely developing into one of the three spinster aunts of
Louis XVI. who, residing under the same roof, turned coldly
disapproving eyes upon the manifold frailties of their niece,
Marie Antoinette.

The sisters Victoire and Sophie are faint shades leaving no
impression on the memory; but there is another spirit, clad
in the sombre garb of a Carmelite nun, who, standing aloof,
looks with the calm eyes of peace on the motley throng. It is
Louise, the youngest sister of all, who, deeply grieved by
her father’s infatuation for the Du Barry—an
infatuation which, beginning within a month of Marie
Leczinska’s decease, ended only when on his deathbed the
dying Monarch prepared to receive absolution by bidding his
inamorata farewell—resolved to flee her profligate
surroundings and devote her life to holiness.

It is affecting to think of the gentle Louise, secretly
anticipating the rigours of convent life, torturing her
delicate skin by wearing coarse serge, and burning tallow
candles in her chamber to accustom herself to their
detestable odour.

Her father’s consent gained, Louise still tarried at
Versailles. Perhaps the King’s daughter shrank from
voluntarily beginning a life of imprisoned drudgery. We know
that at this period she passed many hours reading
contemporary history, knowing that, once within the convent
walls, the study of none but sacred literature would be
permitted.

Then came an April morning when Louise, who had kept her
intention secret from all save her father, left the Palace
never to return. France, in a state of joyous excitement, was
eagerly anticipating the arrival of Marie Antoinette, who was
setting forth on the first stage of that triumphal journey
which had so tragic an ending. Already the gay clamour of
wedding-bells filled the air; and Louise may have feared
that, did she linger at Versailles, the enticing vanities of
the world might change the current of her thoughts.

Chief among the impalpable throng that people the state
galleries is Marie Antoinette, and her spirit shows us many
faces. It is charming, haughty, considerate, headstrong,
frivolous, thoughtful, degraded, dignified, in quick
succession. We see her arrive at the Palace amid the
tumultuous adoration of the crowd, and leave amidst its
execrations. Sometimes she is richly apparelled, as befits a
queen; anon she sports the motley trappings of a mountebank.
The courtyard that saw the departure of Madame Louise
witnesses Marie Antoinette, returning at daybreak in company
with her brother-in-law from some festivity unbecoming a
queen, refused admittance by the King’s express command.

Many of the attendant spirits who haunt Marie Antoinette’s
ghostly footsteps as they haunted her earthly ones are
malefic. Most are women, and all are young and fair. There is
Madame Roland, who, taken as a young girl to the Palace to
peep at the Royalties, became imbued by that jealous hatred
which only the Queen’s death could appease.

“If I stay here much longer,” she told that kindly mother who
sought to give her a treat by showing her Court life, “I
shall detest these people so much that I shall be unable to
hide my hatred.”

It is easy to fancy the girl’s evil face scowling at the
unconscious Queen, before she leaves to pen those
inflammatory pamphlets which are to prove the Sovereign’s
undoing and her own. For by some whim of fate Madame Roland
was executed on the very scaffold to which her envenomed
writings had driven Marie Antoinette.

A spectre that impresses as wearing rags under a gorgeous
robe, lurks among the foliage of the quiet bosquet
beyond the orangerie. It is the infamous Madame de la Motte,
chief of adventuresses, and it was in that secluded grove
that her tool, Cardinal de Rohan, had his pretended interview
with the Queen. Poor, perfidious Contesse! what an existence
of alternate beggarly poverty and beggarly riches was hers
before that last scene of all when she lay broken and bruised
almost beyond human semblance in that dingy London courtyard
beneath the window from which, in a mad attempt to escape
arrest, she had thrown herself.

Through the Royal salons flits a presence whereat the shades
of the Royal Princesses look askance: that of the frolicsome,
good-natured, irresponsible Du Barry. A soulless ephemera
she, with no ambitions or aspirations, save that, having
quitted the grub stage, she desires to be as brilliant a
butterfly as possible. Close in attendance on her moves an
ebon shadow—Zamora, the ingrate foundling who, reared
by the Duchesse, swore that he would make his benefactress
ascend the scaffold, and kept his oath. For our last sight of
the prodigal, warm-hearted Du Barry, plaything of the aged
King, is on the guillotine, where in agonies of terror she
fruitlessly appeals to her executioner’s clemency.

But of all the bygone dames who haunt the grand
Château, the only one I detest is probably the most
irreproachable of all—Madame de Maintenon. There is
something so repulsively sanctimonious in her aspect,
something so crafty in the method wherewith, under the cloak
of religion, she wormed her way into high places,
ousting—always in the name of propriety—those who
had helped her. Her stepping-stone to Royal favour was
handsome, impetuous Madame de Montespan, who, taking
compassion on her widowed poverty, appointed Madame Scarron,
as she then was, governess of her children, only to find her
protégée usurp her place both in the honours of
the King and in the affections of their children.

The natural heart rebels against the “unco guid,” and Madame
de Maintenon, with her smooth expression, double chin, sober
garments and ever-present symbols of piety, revolts me. I
know it is wrong. I know that historians laud her for the
wholesome influence she exercised upon the mind of a king who
had grown timorous with years; that the dying Queen declared
that she owed the King’s kindness to her during the last
twenty years of her life entirely to Madame de Maintenon. But
we know also that six months after the Queen’s death an
unwonted light showed at midnight in the Chapel Royal, where
Madame de Maintenon—the child of a prison
cell—was becoming the legal though unacknowledged wife
of Louis XIV. The impassioned, uncalculating de Montespan had
given the handsome Monarch her all without stipulation. Truly
the career of Madame de Maintenon was a triumph of virtue
over vice; and yet of all that heedless, wanton throng, my
soul detests only her.

CHAPTER VIII

MARIE ANTOINETTE

Stereotyped sights are rarely the most engrossing. At the
Palace of Versailles the petits appartements de la
Reine, those tiny rooms whose grey old-world furniture
might have been in use yesterday, to me hold more actuality
than all the regal salons in whose vast emptiness footsteps
reverberate like echoes from the past.

In the pretty sitting-room the coverings to-day are a
reproduction of the same pale blue satin that draped the
furniture in the days when queens preferred the snug
seclusion of those dainty rooms overlooking the dank inner
courtyard to the frigid grandeur of their State chambers.
Therein it was that Marie Leczinska was wont to instruct her
young daughters in the virtues as she had known them in her
girlhood’s thread-bare home, not as her residence at the
profligate French Court had taught her to understand them.

The heavy gilt bolts bearing the interlaced initials M.A.
remind us that these, too, were the favourite rooms of Marie
Antoinette, and that in all probability the cunningly
entwined bolts were the handiwork of her honest spouse, who
wrought at his blacksmith forge below while his wife flirted
above. But in truth the petits appartements are
instinct with memories of Marie Antoinette, and it is
difficult to think of any save only her occupying them. The
beautiful coffre presented to her with the layette of
the Dauphin still stands on a table in an adjoining chamber,
and the paintings on its white silk casing are scarcely faded
yet, though the decorative ruching of green silk leaves has
long ago fallen into decay.

A step farther is the little white and gold boudoir which
still holds the mirror that gave the haughty Queen her first
premonition of the catastrophe that awaited her. Viewed
casually the triple mirror, lining an alcove wherein stands a
couch garlanded with flowers, betrays no sinister qualities.
But any visitor who approaches looking at his reflection
where at the left the side panels meet the angle of the wall,
will be greeted by a sight similar to that whose tragic
suggestion made even the haughty Queen pause a moment in her
reckless career. For in the innocent appearing mirrors the
gazer is reflected without a head.

It was through this liliputian suite, this strip of
homeliness so artfully introduced into a palace, that Marie
Antoinette fled on that fateful August morning when the mob
of infuriated women invaded the Château.

Knowing this, I was puzzling over the transparent fact that
either of the apparent exits would have led her directly into
the hands of the enemy, when the idea of a secret staircase
suggested itself. A little judicious inquiry elicited the
information that one did exist. “But it is not seen. It is
locked. To view it, an order from the Commissary—that
is necessary,” explained the old guide.

To know that a secret staircase, and one of such vivid
historical importance, was at hand, and not to have seen it
would have been too tantalising. The “Commissary” was an
unknown quantity, and for a space it seemed as though our
desire would be ungratified. Happily the knowledge of our
interest awoke a kindly reciprocity in our guide, who,
hurrying off, quickly returned with the venerable custodian
of the key. A moment later, the unobtrusive panel that
concealed the exit flew open at its touch, and the secret
staircase, dark, narrow, and hoary with the dust of years,
lay before us.

Many must have been the romantic meetings aided by those
diminutive steps, but, peering into their shadows, we saw
nothing but a vision of Marie Antoinette, half clad in
dishevelled wrappings of petticoat and shawl, flying
distracted from the vengeance of the furies through the
refuge of the low-roofed stairway.

In my ingenuous youth, when studying French history, I
evolved a theory which seemed, to myself at least, to account
satisfactorily for the radical differences distinguishing
Louis XVI. from his brothers and antecedents. Finding that,
when a delicate infant, he had been sent to the country to
nurse, I rushed to the conclusion that the royal infant had
died, and that his foster-mother, fearful of the
consequences, had substituted a child of her own in his
place. The literature of the nursery is full of instances
that seemed to suggest the probability of my conjecture being
correct.

As a youth, Louis had proved himself both awkward and clumsy.
He was loutish, silent in company, ill at ease in his
princely surroundings, and in all respects unlike his younger
brothers. He was honest, sincere, pious, a faithful husband,
a devoted father; amply endowed, indeed, with the
middle-class virtues which at that period were but rarely
found in palaces. To my childish reasoning the most
convincing proof lay in his innate craving for physical
labour; a craving that no ridicule could dispel.

With the romantic enthusiasm of youth, I used to fancy the
peasant mother stealing into the Palace among the spectators
who daily were permitted to view the royal couple at dinner,
and imagine her, having seen the King, depart glorying
secretly in the strategy that had raised her son to so high
an estate. There was another picture, in whose dramatic
misery I used to revel. It showed the unknown mother, who had
discovered that by her own act she had condemned her innocent
son to suffer for the sins of past generations of royal
profligates, journeying to Paris (in my dreams she always
wore sabots and walked the entire distance in a state of
extreme physical exhaustion) with the intention of preventing
his execution by declaring his lowly parentage to the mob.
The final tableau revealed her, footsore and weary, reaching
within sight of the guillotine just in time to see the
executioner holding up her son’s severed head. I think my
imaginary heroine died of a broken heart at this juncture, a
catastrophe that would naturally account for her secret dying
with her.

During our winter stay at Versailles, my childish phantasies
recurred to me, and I almost found them feasible. What an
amazing irony of fate it would have shown had a son of the
soil expired to expiate the crimes of sovereigns!

But more pitiful by far than the saddest of illusions is the
sordid reality of a scene indelibly imprinted on my mental
vision. Memory takes me back to the twilight of a spring
Sunday several years ago, when in the wake of a cluster of
market folks we wandered into the old Cathedral of St. Denis.
Deep in the sombre shadows of the crypt a light gleamed
faintly through a narrow slit in the stone wall. Approaching,
we looked into a gloomy vault wherein, just visible by the
ray of a solitary candle, lay two zinc coffins.

Earth holds no more dismal sepulchre than that dark vault,
through the crevice in whose wall the blue-bloused marketers
cast curious glances. Yet within these grim coffins lie two
bodies with their severed heads, all that remains mortal of
the haughty Marie Antoinette and other humble spouse.

CHAPTER IX

THE PRISONERS RELEASED

The first dread days, when the Boy, heavy with fever, seemed
scarcely to realise our presence, were swiftly followed by
placid hours when he lay and smiled in blissful content,
craving nothing, now that we were all together again. But
this state of beatitude was quickly ousted by a period of
discontent, when the hunger fiend reigned supreme in the
little room.

“Manger, manger, manger, tout le temps!” Thus the
nurse epitomised the converse of her charges. And indeed she
was right, for, from morning till night, the prisoners’
solitary topic of conversation was food. During the first ten
days their diet consisted solely of boiled milk, and as that
time wore to a close the number of quarts consumed increased
daily, until Paul, the chief porter, seemed ever ascending
the little outside stair carrying full bottles of milk, or
descending laden with empty ones.

“Milk doesn’t count. When shall we be allowed food,
real food?” was the constant cry, and their relief was
abounding when, on Christmas Day, the doctor withdrew his
prohibition, and permitted an approach to the desired solids.
But even then the prisoners, to their loudly voiced
disappointment, discovered that their only choice lay between
vermicelli and tapioca, nursery dishes which at home they
would have despised.

“Tapioca! Imagine tapioca for a Christmas dinner!” the
invalids exclaimed with disgust. But that scorn did not
prevent them devouring the mess and eagerly demanding more.
And thereafter the saucepan simmering over the gas-jet in the
outer room seemed ever full of savoury spoon-meat.

I doubt if any zealous mother-bird ever had a busier time
feeding her fledglings than had the good Sister in satisfying
the appetites of these callow cormorants. To witness the
French nun seeking to allay the hunger of these voracious
schoolboy aliens was to picture a wren trying to fill the
ever-gaping beaks of two young cuckoos whom an adverse fate
had dropped into her nest.

As the days wore by, the embargo placed upon our desire to
cater for the invalids was gradually lifted, and little
things such as sponge biscuits and pears crept in to vary the
monotony of the milk diet.

New Year’s Day held a tangible excitement, for that morning
saw a modified return to ordinary food, and, in place of
bottles of milk, Paul’s load consisted of such tempting
selections from the school meals as were deemed desirable for
the invalids. Poultry not being included in the school menus,
we raided a cooked-provision shop and carried off a plump,
well-browned chicken. The approbation which met this venture
resulted in our supplying a succession of poulettes,
which, at the invalids’ express desire, were smuggled into
their room under my cloak. Not that there was the most remote
necessity for concealment, but the invalids, whose sole
interest centred in food, laboured under the absurd idea
that, did the authorities know they were being supplied from
without, their regular meals would be curtailed to prevent
them over-eating.

The point of interest, for the Red-Cross prisoners at least,
in our morning visits lay in the unveiling of the eatables we
had brought. School food, however well arranged, is
necessarily stereotyped, and the element of the unknown ever
lurked in our packages. The sugar-sticks, chocolates, fruit,
little cakes, or what we had chanced to bring, were carefully
examined, criticised, and promptly devoured.

A slight refreshment was served them during our short stay,
and when we departed we left them eagerly anticipating
luncheon. At gloaming, when we returned, it was to find them
busy with half-yards of the long crusty loaves, plates of
jelly, and tumblers, filled with milk on our Boy’s part, and
with well diluted wine on that of his fellow sufferer.

Fear of starvation being momentarily averted, the Soeur used
to light fresh candles around the tiny Holy
Bébé on the still green Christmas-tree,
and for a space we sat quietly enjoying the radiance. But by
the time the last candle had flickered out, and the glow of a
commonplace paraffin lamp lighted the gloom, nature again
demanded nourishment; and we bade the prisoners farewell for
the night, happy in the knowledge that supper, sleep, and
breakfast would pleasantly while away the hours till our
return.

The elder Red-Cross knight was a tall, good-looking lad of
sixteen, the age when a boy wears painfully high collars,
shaves surreptitiously—and unnecessarily—with his
pen-knife, talks to his juniors about the tobacco he smokes
in a week, and cherishes an undying passion for a maiden
older than himself. He was ever an interesting study, though
I do not think I really loved him until he confided his
affairs of the heart, and entrusted me with the writing of
his love-letters. I know that behind my back he invariably
referred to me as “Ma”; but as he openly addressed the
unconscious nun as “you giddy old girl,” “Ma” might almost be
termed respectful, and I think our regard was mutual.

All things come to him who waits. There came a night when for
the last time we sat together around the little tree,
watching the Soeur light the candles that illuminated the Holy
Bébé. On the morrow the prisoners,
carefully disinfected, and bearing the order of their release
in the form of a medical certificate, would be set free.

It clouded our gladness to know that before the patient
Sister stretched another period of isolation. Just that day
another pupil had developed scarlet fever, and only awaited
our boys’ departure to occupy the little room. Hearing that
this fresh prisoner lay under sentence of durance vile, we
suggested that all the toys—chiefly remnants of
shattered armies that, on hearing of the Boy’s illness, we
had brought from the home playroom he had
outgrown—might be left for him instead of being sent
away to be burnt.

The Boy’s bright face dulled. “If it had been anybody else!
But, mother, I don’t think you know that he is the one French
boy we disliked. It was he who always shouted ‘à
bas les Anglais!‘ in the playground.”

The reflection that for weary weeks this obnoxious boy would
be the only inmate of the boîte, as the invalids
delighted to call their sick-room, overcame his antipathetic
feeling, and he softened so far as to indite a polite little
French note offering his late enemy his sympathy, and
formally bequeathing to him the reversion of his toys,
including the arbre de Noël with all its
decorations, except the little waxen Jesus nestling in the
manger of yellow corn; the Soeur had already declared her
intention of preserving that among her treasures.

The time that had opened so gloomily had passed, and now that
it was over we could look back upon many happy hours spent
within the dingy prison walls. And our thoughts were in
unison, for the Boy, abruptly breaking the silence, said:
“And after all, it hasn’t been such a bad time. Do you know,
I really think I’ve rather enjoyed it!”

L’ENVOI

Heavy skies lowered above us, the landscape seen through the
driving mist-wreaths showed a depressing repetition of drabs
and greys as we journeyed towards Calais. But, snugly
ensconced in the train rapide, our hearts beat high
with joy, for at last were we homeward bound. The weeks of
exile in the stately old town had ended. For the last time
the good Sister had lit us down the worn stone steps. As we
sped seawards across the bleak country, our thoughts flew
back to her, and to the little room with the red cross on its
casement, wherein, although our prisoners were released,
another term of nursing had already begun for her. In
contrast with her life of cheerful self-abnegation, ours
seemed selfish, meaningless, and empty.

Dear nameless Sister! She had been an angel of mercy to us in
a troublous time, and though our earthly paths may never
again cross, our hearts will ever hold her memory sacred.

By the same Author

OUR STOLEN SUMMER

THE RECORD OF A ROUNDABOUT TOUR
BY
MARY STUART BOYD
WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SKETCHES BY A.S. BOYD

Extracts from Reviews

THE WORLD.—”To be able to go round the world
nowadays, and write a descriptive record of the tour that is
vivid and fresh is a positive literary feat. It has been
successfully accomplished in Our Stolen Summer by Mrs.
Boyd, who with no ulterior object in making a book journeyed
over four continents in company with her husband, and picked
up en route matter for one of the pleasantest, most
humorous, and least pretentious books of travel we have read
for many a day. It is admirably illustrated by Mr. A.S. Boyd,
whose sense of humour happily matches that of his observant
wife, and the reader who can lay aside this picturesque and
truly delightful volume without sincere regret must have a
dull and dreary mind.”

PUNCH.—”Our Stolen Summer is calculated
to lead to wholesale breakage of the Eighth Commandment.
Certainly, my Baronite, reading the fascinating record of a
roundabout tour, feels prompted to steal away. Mary Stuart
Boyd, who pens the record, has the great advantage of the
collaboration of A.S.B., whose signature is familiar in
Mr. Punch’s Picture Gallery…. A charming book.”

SPECTATOR.—”The writer, by the help of a ready
pen and of the pencil of a skilful illustrator, has given us
in this handsome volume a number of attractive pictures of
distant places…. It is good to read and pleasant to look
at.”

TRUTH.—”You will find no pleasanter holiday
reading than Our Stolen Summer.”

ACADEMY.—”A fresh record, and worth the reading.
Of such is Mrs. Boyd’s volume, which her husband has
illustrated profusely with spirited line drawings.”

FIELD.—”One of the brightest books of travel
that it has been our good fortune to read. The illustrations
deserve a notice to themselves. They are far and away better
than those which we usually get in books of this kind, and we
do not know that we can bestow higher praise on them than to
say that they are worthy of the letterpress which they
illustrate.”

LAND AND WATER.—”A delightful sketch of a
delightful journey…. Our Stolen Summer is a book
which will be read with equal delight on a lazy summer
holiday, or in the heart of London when the streets are
enveloped in fog and the rain is beating against the window
panes. Mr. Boyd’s sketches are simply admirable.”

SPHERE.—”A delightful record of travel. Mrs.
Boyd is never dull, and there is plenty of acute observation
throughout her pleasant story of travel. My Boyd’s
illustrations which appear on practically every page, are, it
need scarcely be said, up to the high level that is already
familiar to students of his black-and-white work.”

LADIES’ FIELD.—”A singularly delightful and
unaffected book of travel.”

MADAME.—”One of the most delightful books of
travel it has been our good fortune to read.”

MORNING POST.—”If the encouragement of
globe-trotting be a virtuous action, then certainly Mrs.
Stuart Boyd has deserved well of her country. To read her
book is to conceive an insensate desire to be off and away on
‘the long trail’ at all hazards and at all costs…. Mr.
Boyd’s illustrations add greatly to the interest and charm of
the book. There is movement, atmosphere, and sunshine in
them.”

STANDARD.—”Mrs. Boyd went with her husband round
the world, and the latter—an artist with a sense of
humour—kept his hand in practice by making droll
sketches of people encountered by the way, which heighten the
charm of his wife’s vivacious description of a Stolen
Summer. Mrs. Boyd has quick eyes and an open mind, and
writes with sense and sensibility.”

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—”It is not so much what Mrs.
Boyd has to tell as the invariable good humour and brightness
with which she records even the most familiar things that
makes the charm of her excellent diary.”

DAILY CHRONICLE.—”Mrs. Boyd has written the log
with sparkle and observation—seeing many things that
the mere man-traveller would miss. Mr. Boyd’s sketches are,
of course, excellent.”

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—”Mrs. Boyd writes with so
much buoyancy, and her humour is so unexpected and unfailing,
that it is safe to say that there is not a dull page from
first to last in this record of a tour round the world… Mr.
A.S. Boyd’s numerous illustrations show him at his very
best.”

GLOBE.—”A work to acquire as well as to peruse.”

WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—”The narrative from
beginning to end does not contain a dull page. Of Mr. Boyd’s
numerous sketches it is only necessary to say that they are
excellent. Altogether Our Stolen Summer will be found
to be one of the most fascinating of recent books of travel.”

SUNDAY TIMES.—”Brilliantly and entertainingly
written, and liberally illustrated by an acknowledged master
of the art of black and white.”

SCOTSMAN.—”A beautiful and fascinating book….
Pen and pencil sketches alike have grace, nerve, and humour,
and are alive with human interest and observation.”

GLASGOW HERALD.—”One of the most delightful
travel-books of recent times…. Mrs. Boyd’s volume must
commend itself to people who contemplate visiting the other
side of the globe and to all stay-at-home travellers as
well.”

DAILY FREE PRESS.—”Mrs. Boyd is an admirable
descriptive writer—observant, humorous, and
sympathetic. Without illustrations, Our Stolen Summer
would be a notable addition to the literature of travel; with
Mr. Boyd’s collaboration it is almost unique.”

LEEDS MERCURY.—”Vivacious and diverting record.”

YORKSHIRE DAILY POST.—”For such a book there
could be nothing but praise if one wrote columns about it.”

BIRMINGHAM DAILY POST.—”A singularly happy and
interesting record of a most enjoyable tour.”

NORTHERN WHIG.—”Shrewdness of observation, with
not a little humour and a real literary gift, mark the story
of Our Stolen Summer.”

THE BOOKMAN.—”Mrs. Boyd writes with so much
brightness, such vivacity and picturesqueness of style, that
although the volume runs to close upon four hundred pages
there is not a dull page among them. The success of Our
Stolen Summer, however, is due as much to the artist as
to the author; and praise must be equally divided. Mr. Boyd’s
sketches are spirited, clever, full of humour and sympathetic
observation. Without a word of letter-press they would have
formed an excellent travel-book; taken in conjunction with
Mrs. Boyd’s narrative they are irresistible.”

LONDON AND EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS

Illustrated by A.S. Boyd

A LOWDEN SABBATH MORN

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
WITH TWENTY-SEVEN PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY A.S. BOYD

Extracts from Reviews

THE TIMES.—”The characters whom Stevenson had in
his mind’s eye are all cleverly pictured, and the drawings
may be truthfully said to illustrate the writer’s
ideas—a quality that seldom resides in
illustrations…. All are faithfully presented as only one
who has known them intimately could present them…. Mr.
Boyd’s talent for black-and-white work has never found
happier expression.”

MORNING POST.—”It is impossible to imagine
anything more likely to appeal to the sentiment of the
Scottish people throughout the world than this series of
pictures, instinct with the spirit of their land.”

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—”One of the happiest
combinations of author and artist which has been seen of late
years. Mr. Boyd has entered thoroughly into the spirit of the
lines, and his figures are instinct with graceful humour.”

DAILY CHRONICLE.—”Mr. Boyd is to be
congratulated (as R. L. S. would assuredly have granted) upon
interpreting so vividly a notable feature in the national
life of Scotland.”

ATHENAEUM.—”The task of illustrating Stevenson’s
verses was most difficult, because it demands from the artist
knowledge of local circumstances and characteristic details.
Mr. Boyd’s success in making us see so plainly the moods and
manners of the ‘restin’ ploughman’ while he ‘daundered’ in
his garden and ‘raxed his limbs’ is the more to be enjoyed
and praised.”

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—”Followers of the master will
appreciate this beautiful book for its accurate
interpretation of the poem as well as for its excellent
drawing.”

ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE.—”There is plenty of good
Scotch character in the illustrations, and a quiet
observation of the humours of a parish, with such annals as
those recorded by Gait.”

ACADEMY.—”An attractive book.”

SATURDAY REVIEW.—”In saying therefore that Mr.
Boyd’s illustrations—there is a full page drawing for
each verse—are not only worthy of the poem, but
actually emphasise and define its merits, we give the book
the highest possible praise. It is a volume which should be
added to the library of every collector.”

SPECTATOR.—”These illustrations to Mr.
Stevenson’s Scots poem are distinctly clever, especially in
their characterisation of the various attendants at the
village kirk.”

SPEAKER.—”The book presents very vividly some of
the aspects (both humorous and pathetic) of a Scottish rural
lowland parish, and will doubtless touch a chord in the heart
of Scotsmen throughout the world.”

OUTLOOK.—”Many of Mr. Stevenson’s admirers the
world over have long desired that such a classic poem should
be faithfully and adequately illustrated, and they will give
a hearty welcome to this most handsome quarto.”

SCOTSMAN.—”One way and another the book is
wholly delightful.”

GLASGOW EVENING NEWS.—”Mr. Boyd’s contributions
to a volume which ought to be popular with Scots in every
part of the world, are full of pawky humour, and their
realism is so pronounced that we seem to have known the
models in the life.”

DUNDEE ADVERTISER.—”This is a volume to be
treasured alike for the sake of the poet, of the artist, and
of that form of Scottish life which is rapidly disappearing
before the march of progress.”

ARBROATH HERALD.—”Mr. Boyd has represented these
pictures in line sketches, which are characterised at once by
the strength and confidence of a masterful draughtsman and
the insight of a keen observer of character, who has long
been familiar with the types presented in Stevenson’s poem.”

GOOD WORDS.—”Mr. Boyd has portrayed, with here
and there a happy trait of grace or humour beyond the wording
of the text, the very scene and people. Each of the
illustrations has a charm and freshness of its own.”

ART JOURNAL.—”Mr. Boyd’s knowledge of Lothian
peasants and their manners is as complete as Stevenson’s. His
drawings place in pictorial view the poet’s thoughts, while
they greatly enhance the descriptions by emphasising what the
writer rightly left vague.”

LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, III St. Martin’s Lane

A Versailles Christmas-tide

Contents

Illustrations

CHAPTER I

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

CHAPTER II

OGAMS

CHAPTER III

THE TOWN

CHAPTER IV

OUR ARBRE DE NOËL

CHAPTER V

LE JOUR DE L’ANNÉE

CHAPTER VI

ICE-BOUND

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

MARIE ANTOINETTE

CHAPTER IX

THE PRISONERS RELEASED

L’ENVOI

OUR STOLEN SUMMER

Extracts from Reviews

A LOWDEN SABBATH MORN

Extracts from Reviews