THE ROUTE TO SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE--THE PEOPLE--THE CASTLE AND
TERRACE--THEIR PICTURESQUE HISTORY--FIRST VIEW OF PARIS
It is close to high noon when we enter the ancient and once royal city
of St. Germain-en-Laye, after some miles speeding through the aisles of
her forest, where they say wild boar may be found to this day. As we
enter the town, the people are streaming out of the churches and off
and away in every sort of vehicle for the festal part of the day. How
happy they all look, especially the children, whose faces are, as it
were, mirrors reflecting the sunlight. Here are the funny little donkey
and dog carts, both such serious-looking concerns. Yonder is a bridal
coach with its happy party, and in this tram-car is another bridal
party not at all ashamed of its costumes, and all around it seem bent
upon making it happy for this one day at any rate. The morrow and its
sorrows will come soon enough. This is a work-a-day world, and this
festival will be looked back upon throughout all the coming years.
I saw last spring in one of the Parisian gardens a bride in full
regalia, veil and all, proudly seated on an elephant, and very happy
over the admiration of the groom and the others around below her.
Passing rapidly through the streets of Saint-Germain we emerge upon
the castle square, with that picturesque structure to our left, while
far beyond it, along the brow of the hill, stretches the stately and
famous terrace, its balustrade, vases, and statues glimmering white
against the squarely trimmed, pale green trees bordering the walks, and
behind all rise the darker masses of the forest. Off and away before
us the land drops to where the Seine twists and winds through the
valley of rich green. Yonder are the heights of Marly and the forest
of Vésinet and beyond, the white city of Paris, glittering in the
sunshine, spreads away over hill after hill, crowned on the one side
by the Cathedral of Montmartre and on the other by the Fortress of Mt.
Valerian. There is no fairer scene in all the world than this before
us,--as there is no such fair city on earth as Paris in the month of
May. All the world is abroad to-day. Here in the square of the palace
of St. Germain the tide of people is quite tremendous, beating its
human waves against the walls of this ancient abode of the kings of
France and streaming far out upon the wide walks of her terrace.
If Louis le Grand should return and visit this favourite promenade,
favourite until he grew old enough to find the plainly to be seen
towers of St. Denis disagreeable of contemplation, what would he think
of this democratic assemblage where two centuries ago all was state and
ceremony, velvets and laces? However, there are women here as lovely
as La Vallière or de Montespan, and he would probably arrange a later
meeting with some of them. After all is said, the people are about
the same, notwithstanding the lapse of centuries. There are plenty of
La Vallières and Louises in plain air on yonder terrace to-day where
the gay god of love reigns just as supreme as in the days of le grand
Monarque.
[Illustration: THE CHÂTEAU OF SAINT-GERMAIN FROM THE NORTH
By permission of Messrs. Neurdein]
This old castellated château before us was built by Charles V. and
finally completed by Francis I. It was more of a fort than a palace,
and far too sombre to please the gay Henry of Navarre, who had
constructed a gorgeous palace near where the terrace now stands, and
wherein Louis XIII. died. This was destroyed by Charles X.
But there were gay days even in this château before us. Louis XIV.
was born here, and it was here that he came down through the trapdoor
in the ceiling in search of La Vallière sleeping probably on straw.
These old palaces were not always furnished and the king's bed was
hauled from house to house many times. This is said to have occurred
especially here at St.-Germain, to reach which it was in those days
somewhat difficult.
[Illustration: THE TERRACE AT SAINT-GERMAIN
By permission of Messrs. Neurdein]
The terrace was inaugurated when Louis XIV. was in the height of his
glory and with a splendour we can scarcely conceive, surely a contrast
to the very democratic crowds which swarm its alleys and hang over its
balustrade in this year, 1905. James II. of England and his Queen lived
and died here and in this church to our right he lies buried. The
sadness and misfortune of the fated Stuarts never forsook them for an
instant even after death, for the bodies of Henrietta Maria, widow of
Charles I., and her daughter Henrietta were the first to be torn from
their tombs in St. Denis and cast into the fosse.
Before all this, St.-Germain witnessed the reception of the little
Queen of Scotland and historic faces were clustered thickly around her
fair head.
One can picture that stately assemblage as it came from yonder portal
to greet the very weary, tired out little girl, whose brows already
ached with her Scottish crown; Henry II., the gay gallant; Catherine
de Medici,--queen as yet in name only,--with the smouldering fires of
ambition and the gleam of an indomitable will in her black, velvety,
opaque eyes,--eyes which held no pupil yet saw all. One always pictures
her as in her latter days, garbed in sweeping black with a long veil
of sombre hue sweeping down from a black cap whose white frill comes
to a point in the centre of her brow. But here she was clothed in
brilliancy. Henry allowed no black in his court. In the throng came
the boy princes whose short lives were to be so full of tragedies.
Nostradamus also appeared with his prophecies of blood for the little
princess. The head of the house of Guise and all who made history in
those days together with the glittering courtiers,--poured in gorgeous
array from yonder archway onto this square, crowded to-day with its
plebeian humanity, and, as the eye wanders past the château and rests
on the far-reaching terrace, the mental picture, shifting downward
through the years is filled with a throng even far more brilliant.
Masses of Watteau figures headed by Louis le Grand in his high
red-heeled shoes and vast wig, and clothed with pomposity, advance out
of the past; then the furies of the Revolution like a pack of great
gaunt wolves sweep them away as though chaff, and passing onward give
place to the beautiful if mock courts of the Napoléons, and then, the
picture merges into this of to-day where the stage is the same, but how
different the players thereon. Yonder, glittering in the sunshine lies
the cauldron of Paris, which has produced and destroyed all who have
performed on this stage of St.-Germain.
Even with the gaiety of the scene around us we cannot altogether forget
what has occurred here, or wonder what may not yet occur, for it is
quite within the possibilities that future revolutionists may carry
out the intention of Robespierre and establish the guillotine within
this court as a permanence,--an intention thwarted only by his death.
Certainly he was nothing if not picturesque. The grim court of this old
fortress would form a picturesque surrounding for his pet instrument
of destruction, and the last glimpse afforded its victims of the world
they were to leave would be one of the most beautiful that the world
contains. The contemplation of it holds me long to-day, but time flies,
we must move on, and so, entering our red car, we drop away from
St.-Germain speeding down the hillside, rushing through village after
village, crossing and re-crossing the river, skimming onward through
the beautiful Bois de Boulogne, where all Paris is coming outward to
the races, and so through the grand avenues, past the Arch of the Star,
and into the court of the hotel where the auto vanishes and we rest for
a season.