A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REVIVAL.
Outside the inn, some two hundred years ago, there was a great noise
and confusion; the cries of outriders, of mounted guardsmen and
halberdiers, made the quiet village as noisy as a camp. An imposing
cavalcade was being brought to a sharp stop; for the outriders had
suddenly perceived the open inn entrance, with its raised portcullis,
and they were shouting to the coachmen to turn in, beneath the archway,
to the paved court-yard within.
In an incredibly short space of time the open quadrangle presented a
brilliant picture; the dashing guardsmen were dismounting; the maids
and lackeys had quickly descended from their perches in the caleches
and coaches; and the gentlemen of the household were dusting their wide
hats and lace-trimmed coats. The halberdiers, ranging themselves in
line, made a prismatic grouping beneath the low eaves of the
picturesque old inn. In the very middle of the court-yard stood a
coach, resplendent in painted panels and emblazoned with ducal arms.
About this coach, as soon as the four horses which drew the vehicle
were brought to a standstill, cavaliers, footmen, and maids swarmed
with effusive zeal. One of the footmen made a rush for the door:
another let down the steps; one cavalier was already presenting an
outstretched, deferential hand, while still another held forth an arm,
as rigid as a post, for the use of the occupants of the ducal carriage.
Three ladies were seated within. Large and roomy as was the vehicle,
their voluminous draperies and the paraphernalia of their belongings
seemed completely to fill the wide, deep seats. The ladies were the
Duchesse de Chaulnes, Madame de Kerman, and Madame de Sévigné. The
faces of the Duchesse and of Madame de Kerman were invisible, being
still covered with their masks, which, both as a matter of habit and of
precaution against the sun's rays, they had religiously worn during the
long day's journey. But Madame de Sévigné had torn hers off; she was
holding it in her hand, as if glad to be relieved from its confinement.
All three ladies were in the highest possible spirits, Madame de
Sévigné obviously being the leader of the jests and the laughter.
They were in a mood to find everything amusing and delightful. Even
after they had left the coach and were carefully picking their way over
the rough stones--walking on their high-heeled "mules" at best, was
always a dangerous performance--their laughter and gayety continued in
undiminished exuberance. Madame de Sévigné's keen sense of humor found
so many things to ridicule. Could anything, for example, be more
comical than the spectacle they presented as they walked, in state,
with their long trains and high-heeled slippers, up these absurd little
turret steps, feeling their way as carefully as if they were each a
pickpocket or an assassin? The long line behind of maids carrying their
muffs, and of lackeys with the muff-dogs, and of pages holding their
trains, and the grinning innkeeper, bursting with pride and courtesying
as if he had St. Vitus's dance, all this crowd coiling round the rude
spiral stairway--it was enough to make one die of laughter. Such state
in such savage surroundings!--they and their patch-boxes, and towering
head-gears and trains, and dogs and fans, all crowded into a place fit
only for peasants!
When they reached their bedchambers the ridicule was turned into a
condescending admiration; they found their rooms unexpectedly clean and
airy. The furniture was all antique, of interesting design, and though
rude, really astonishingly comfortable. Beds and dressing-tables,
mostly of Henry III's time, were elaborately canopied in the hideous
crude draperies of that primitive epoch. How different were the elegant
shapes and brocades of their own time! Fortunately their women had
suitable hangings and draperies with them, as well, of course, as any
amount of linen and any number of mattresses. The settees and benches
would do very well, with the aid of their own hassocks and cushions,
and, after all, it was only for a night, they reminded the other.
The toilet, after the heat and exposure of the day, was necessarily a
long one. The Duchesse and Madame de Kerman had their faces to make
up--all the paint had run, and not a patch was in its place. Hair,
also, of this later de Maintenon period, with its elaborate artistic
ranges of curls, to say nothing of the care that must be given to the
coif and the "follette," these were matters that demanded the utmost
nicety of arrangement.
In an hour, however, the three ladies reassembled, in the panelled
lower room--in "la Chambre de la Pucelle." In spite of the care her two
companions had given to repairing the damages caused by their journey,
of the three, Madame de Sévigné looked by far the freshest and
youngest. She still wore her hair in the loosely flowing de Montespan
fashion; a style which, though now out of date, was one that exactly
suited her fair skin, her candid brow, and her brilliant eyes. These
latter, when one examined them closely, were found to be of different
colors; but this peculiarity, which might have been a serious defect in
any other countenance, in Madame de Sévigné's brilliant face was
perhaps one cause of its extraordinarily luminous quality. Not one
feature was perfect in that fascinatingly mobile face: the chin was a
trifle too long for a woman's chin; the lips, that broke into such
delicious curves when she laughed, when at rest betrayed the firmness
of her wit and the almost masculine quality of her reasoning judgment.
Even her arms and hands and her shoulders were "_mal taillés_" as her
contemporaries would have told you. But what a charm in those irregular
features! What a seductiveness in the ensemble of that not
too-well-proportioned figure! What an indescribable radiance seemed to
emanate from the entire personality of this most captivating of women!
As she moved about the low room, dark with the trembling shadows of
light that flowed from the bunches of candles in the sconces, Madame de
Sévigné's clear complexion, and her unpowdered chestnut curls, seemed
to spot the room with light. Her companions, though dressed in the very
height of the fashion, were yet not half as catching to the eye.
Neither their minute waists, nor their elaborate underskirts and
trains, nor their tall coffered coifs (the duchesse's was not unlike a
bishop's mitre, studded as it was with ruby-headed pins), nor the
correctness of these ladies' carefully placed patches, nor yet their
painted necks and tinted eyebrows, could charm as did the unmodish
figure of Madame de Sévigné--a figure so indifferently clad, and yet
one so replete with its distinction of innate elegance and the subtle
charm of her individuality.
With the entrance of these ladies dinner was served at once. The talk
flowed on; it was, however, more or less restrained by the presence of
the always too curious lackeys, of the bustling innkeeper, and the
gentlemen of the household in attendance on the party. As a spectacle,
the little room had never boasted before of such an assemblage of
fashion and greatness. Never before had the air under the rafters been
so loaded with scents and perfumes--these ladies seeming, indeed, to
breathe out odors. Never before had there been grouped there such
splendor of toilet, nor had such courtly accents been heard, nor such
finished laughter. The fire and the candlelight were in competition
which should best light up the tall transparent caps, the lace fichus,
the brocade bodices, and the long trains. The little muff-dogs,
released from their prisons, since the muffs were laid aside at dinner
time, blinked at the fire, curling their minute bodies--clipped
lion-fashion--about the huge andirons, as they snored to kill time,
knowing their own dinner would come only when their mistresses had done.
After the dessert had been served the ladies withdrew; they were
preceded by the ever-bowing innkeeper, who assured them, in his most
reverential tones, that they would find the room opening on the other
court-yard even warmer and more comfortable than the one they were in.
In spite of the walk across the paved court-yard and the enormous
height of their heels, always a fact to be remembered, the ladies voted
to make the change, since by that means they could be assured the more
entire seclusion. Mild as was the May air, Madame de Kerman's
hand-glass hanging at her side was quickly lifted in the very middle of
the open court-yard; she had scarcely passed the door when she had felt
one of her patches blowing off.
"I caught it just in time, dear duchesse," she cried, as she stood
quite still, replacing it with a fresh one picked from her patch-box,
as the others passed her.
"The very best patch-maker I have found lives in the rue St. Denis, at
the sign of La Perle des Mouches; have you discovered him, dear
friend?" said the duchesse, as they walked on toward the low door
beneath the galleries.
"No, dear duchesse, I fear I have not even looked for him--the science
of patches I have always found so much harder than the science of
living!" gayly answered Madame de Sévigné.
Madame de Kerman had now re joined them, and all three passed into la
Chambre des Marmousets.