limes which stood between the pavilions on either side of the steep
avenue leading to the royal residence, formerly dipt and kept close,
are now huge trees, marking still the design of the grounds, but
obscuring the views, and, by their great growth, making the main avenue
very narrow. St. Simon exaggerates the extravagance of Louis XIV. at
Marly, who spent there four and a half million francs between 1679 and
1690, and probably as much or more between 1690 and 1715, perhaps in
all ten or twelve millions, which would represent fifty million francs
at the present time. Nevertheless the expense of the amusements of
Louis XIV. greatly exceeded the whole revenue of Henri IV., and those
of the early years of Louis XIII.
From the central pavilion in which the flattery of Mansart placed him
as the sun, Louis XIV. emerged every morning to visit the occupiers of
the twelve smaller pavilions, Les Pavilions des Seigneurs, the
constellations, his courtiers, who came out to meet him and swelled his
train. These pavilions, arranged on each side of the gardens, stood in
double avenues of clipt lime-trees looking upon the garden and its
fountains, and leading up to the palace.
The device of the sun was carried out in the palace itself, where all
the smaller apartments circled round the grand salon, the king and
queen having apartments to the back, the dauphin and dauphine to the
front, each apartment consisting of an anteroom, bedroom, and
sitting-room, and each set being connected with one of the four square
saloons, which opened upon the great octagonal hall, of which four
faces were occupied by chimney-pieces and four by the doors of the
smaller saloons. The central hall occupied the whole height of the
edifice, and was lighted from the upper story.
The great ambition of every courtier was to be of the Marly circle, and
all curried favor with the king by asking to accompany him on his
weekly journey to Marly. The Court used to arrive at Marly on a
Wednesday and leave it on a Saturday; this was an invariable rule. The
king always passed his Sundays at Versailles, which was his parish. ...
The leading figure at Marly was Mme. de Maintenon, who occupied the
apartments intended for Queen Marie Thérèse, but who led the simplest
of lives, bored almost to extinction. She used to compare the carp
languishing in the tanks of Marly to herself--"Like me they regret
their native mud." ... At first Mme. de Maintenon dined, in the midst
of the other ladies in the square salon which separated her apartment
from that of the king; but soon she had a special table, to which a
very few other ladies, her intimates, came by invitation.
Marly was the scene of several of the most tragic events in the life of
Louis XIV. "Everything is dead here, there's no life in any thing,"
wrote the Comtesse de Caylus, niece of Mme. de Maintenon, from Marly to
the Princess des Ursins, after the death of the Duchesse de Bourgogne.
And, in a few days afterward, Marly was the scene of the sudden death
of the Dauphin, Duc de Bourgogne, the beloved pupil of Fénelon. Early
in the morning after the death of his wife, he was persuaded, "ill and
anguished with the most intimate and bitterest of sorrows," to follow
the king to Marly, where he entered his own room by a window on the
ground floor.
It was also at Marly--"ill-omened Marly"--that the Duc de Berry, the
younger grandson of Louis XIV., and husband of the profligate daughter
of the Duc d' Orleans--afterward Regent, died, with great suspicion of
poison, in 1714. The MS. memorials of Mary Beatrice by a sister of
Chaillot, describe how, when Louis XIV. was mourning his beloved
grandchildren, and that queen, whom he had always liked and respected,
had lost her darling daughter Louisa, she went to visit him at Marly
where "they laid aside all Court etiquette, weeping together in their
common grief, because, as the Queen said, 'We saw that the aged were
left, and that death had swept away the young.'" St. Simon depicts the
last walk of the king in the gardens at Marly on August 10, 1715. He
went away that evening to Versailles, where he died on September 1.
Marly was abandoned during the whole time of the Regency, and was only
saved from total destruction in 1717, when the Régent Philippe
d'Orléans had ordered its demolition, by the spirited remonstrance of
St. Simon.... The great pavilion itself only contained, as we have
seen, a very small number of chambers. The querulous Smollett, who
visited Marly in 1763, speaks of it as "No more than a pigeon-house in
respect to a palace." But it was only intended as the residence of the
king.
During the repairs necessary in the reign of Louis XV., who built
Choisy and never lived at Marly, the cascade which fell behind the
great pavilion was removed. Mme. Campan describes the later Marly of
Louis XVI., under whom the "Marly journey" had become one of the great
burdens and expenses of royal life. The Court of Louis XVI. was here
for the last time on June 11, 1789, but in the latter years of Louis
XVI., M. de Noailles, governor of St. Germain, was permitted to lend
the smaller pavilions furnished to his friends for the summer months.
Marly perished with the monarchy, and was sold at the Revolution, when
the statues of its gardens were removed to the Tuileries. A cotton mill
was for a time established in the royal pavilion; then all the
buildings were pulled down and the gardens sold in lots!
Still the site is worth visiting. The Grille Royale, now a simple
wooden gate between two pillars with vases, opens on the road from St.
Germain to Versailles, at the extremity of the Aqueduct of Marly.
Passing this, one finds oneself in an immense circular enclosure, the
walls of which surround the forest on every side.
The Village of Auteuil
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
[Footnote: From "Outre-Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]
The sultry heat of summer always brings with it, to the idler and the
man of leisure, a longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance
of the country. It is pleasant to interchange the din of the city, the
movement of the crowd, and the gossip of society, with the silence of
the hamlet, the quiet seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of a
woodland brook.
It was a feeling of this kind that prompted me, during my residence in
the North of France, to pass one of the summer months at Auteuil, the
pleasantest of the many little villages that lie in the immediate
vicinity of the metropolis. It is situated on the outskirts of the Bois
de Boulogne, a wood of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty
city enjoys the luxury of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in the
morning to give each other satisfaction in the usual way. A cross-road,
skirted with green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall poplars, leads
you from the noisy highway of St. Cloud and Versailles to the still
retirement of this suburban hamlet. On either side the eye discovers
old châteaux amid the trees, and green parks, whose pleasant shades
recall a thousand images of La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière; and on an
eminence, overlooking the windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful
tho distant view of the domes and gardens of Paris, rises the village
of Passy, long the residence of our countrymen Franklin and Count
Rumford....
It was to the Bois de Boulogne that I looked for my principal
recreation. There I took my solitary walk, morning and evening; or,
mounted on a little mouse-colored donkey, paced demurely along the
woodland pathway. I had a favorite seat beneath the shadow of a
venerable oak, one of the few hoary patriarchs of the wood which had
survived the bivouacs of the allied armies. It stood upon the brink of
a little glassy pool, whose tranquil bosom was the image of a quiet and
secluded life, and stretched its parental arms over a rustic bench,
that had been constructed beneath it for the accommodation of the
foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like myself. It seemed
to look round with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain, whose
stillness was no longer broken by the tap of the martial drum, nor the
discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered among its
branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its
venerable contemporaries, who stooped from the opposite bank of the
pool, nodding gravely now and then, and gazing at themselves with a
sigh in the mirror below....
I entered, too, with some enthusiasm, into all the rural sports and
merrimakes of the village. The holidays were so many little eras of
mirth and good feeling; for the French have that happy and sunshine
temperament--that merry-go-mad character--which renders all their
social meetings scenes of enjoyment and hilarity. I made it a point
never to miss any of the fêtes champêtres, or rural dances, at the wood
of Boulogne; tho I confess it sometimes gave me a momentary uneasiness
to see my rustic throne beneath the oak usurped by a noisy group of
girls, the silence and decorum of my imaginary realm broken by music
and laughter, and, in a word, my whole kingdom turned topsy-turvy with
romping, fiddling, and dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle,
too, a lover of all those innocent amusements which cheer the laborer's
toil, and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel of life, and
help the poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I saw with no
small delight the rustic swain astride the wooden horse of the
carrousel, and the village maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy
car; or took my stand on the rising ground that overlooked the dance,
an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just where the village
touched the outward border of the wood. There a little area had been
leveled beneath the trees, surrounded by a painted rail, with a row of
benches inside. The music was placed in a slight balcony, built around
the trunk of a large tree in the center; and the lamps, hanging from
the branches above, gave a gay, fantastic, and fairy look to the scene.
How often in such moments did I recall the lines of Goldsmith,
describing those "kinder skies" beneath which "France displays her
bright domain," and feel how true and masterly the sketch--
"Alike all ages; dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gray grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore."
Nor must I forget to mention the fête patronale--a kind of annual fair,
which is held at midsummer, in honor of the patron saint of Auteuil.
Then the principal street of the village is filled with booths of every
description; strolling players, and rope-dancers, and jugglers, and
giants, and dwarfs, and wild beasts, and all kinds of wonderful shows,
excite the gaping curiosity of the throng; and in dust, crowds, and
confusion, the village rivals the capital itself. Then the goodly dames
of Passy descend into the village of Auteuil; then the brewers of
Billancourt and the tanners of Sèvres dance lustily under the greenwood
tree; and then, too, the sturdy fishmongers of Brétigny and Saint-Yon
regale their fat wives with an airing in a swing, and their customers
with eels and crawfish....
I found another source of amusement in observing the various personages
that daily passed and repassed beneath my window. The character which
most of all arrested my attention was a poor blind fiddler, whom I
first saw chanting a doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern near
the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat, out at elbows, the
fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short
as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that had
long since seen its best days, set off an open, good-humored
countenance, bronzed by sun and wind. He was led about by a brisk,
middle-aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes; and a little
barefooted boy, with clear, blue eyes and flaxen hair, held a tattered
hat in his hand, in which he collected eleëmosynary sous. The old
fellow had a favorite song, which he used to sing with great glee to a
merry, joyous air, the burden of which ran "Chantons l'amour et le
plaisir!" I often thought it would have been a good lesson for the
crabbed and discontented rich man to have heard this remnant of
humanity--poor, blind, and in rags, and dependent upon casual charity
for his daily bread, singing in so cheerful a voice the charms of
existence, and, as it were, fiddling life away to a merry tune.
I was one morning called to my window by the sound of rustic music. I
looked out and beheld a procession of villagers advancing along the
road, attired in gay dresses, and marching merrily on in the direction
of the church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage-festival. The
procession was led by a long orang-outang of a man, in a straw hat and
white dimity bobcoat, playing on an asthmatic clarionet, from which he
contrived to blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeaking off at
right angles from his tune, and winding up with a grand flourish on the
guttural notes. Behind him, led by his little boy, came the blind
fiddler, his honest features glowing with all the hilarity of a rustic
bridal, and, as he stumbled along, sawing away upon his fiddle till he
made all crack again. Then came the happy bridegroom, drest in his
Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay in his button-hole; and close
beside him his blushing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white robe
and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white roses in her hair. The
friends and relatives brought up the procession; and a troop of village
urchins came shouting along in the rear, scrambling among themselves
for the largess of sous and sugar-plums that now and then issued in
large handfuls from the pockets of a lean man in black, who seemed to
officiate as master of ceremonies on the occasion. I gazed on the
procession till it was out of sight; and when the last wheeze of the
clarionet died upon my ear, I could not help thinking how happy were
they who were thus to dwell together in the peaceful bosom of their
native village, far from the gilded misery and the pestilential vices
of the town.
On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying
the freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when
I heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at
first so faint and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose
mournfully on the hush of evening--died gradually away--then ceased.
Then, it rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral
procession appeared, and passed directly beneath my window. It was led
by a priest, bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two
boys, holding long flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of
priests in their surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax
taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals--now
pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their
lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of
bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols
of the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The
coffin was covered with a velvet pall, and a chaplet of white flowers
lay upon it, indicating that the deceased was unmarried. A few of the
villagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and bearing lighted
tapers. The procession passed slowly along the same street that in the
morning had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A melancholy train
of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of
this world are so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief are brought
so mournfully in contact! We laugh while others weep--and others
rejoice when we are sad! The light heart and the heavy walk side by
side and go about together! Beneath the same roof are spread the
wedding-feast and the funeral-pall! The bridal-song mingles with the
burial-hymn! One goes to the marriage-bed, another to the grave; and
all is mutable, uncertain, and transitory.
It is with sensations of pure delight that I recur to the brief period
of my existence which was passed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil.
There is one kind of wisdom which we learn from the world, and another
kind which can be acquired in solitude only. In cities we study those
around us; but in the retirement of the country we learn to know
ourselves.
[Illustration: Paris: Interior of the Grand Opera House]
[Illustration: Paris Front of the Grand Opera House]
[Illustration: Arc de Triomphe]
[Illustration: Arch Erected by Napoleon, Near the Louvre]
[Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Vincent de Paul]
[Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Sulpice]
[Illustration: Picture Gallery at Versailles]
[Illustration: Versailles: Bed-Room of Louis XIV]
[Illustration: The Grand Trianon at Versailles]
[Illustration: The Little Trianon at Versailles]
[Illustration: Bed-Room of Catherine de Medici at Chaumont]
[Illustration: Marie Antoinette's Dairy at Versailles]
[Illustration: Tours From Turner's "Rivers of France"]
[Illustration: Saint Denis From Turner's "Rivers of France"]
[Illustration: Havre From Turner's "Rivers of France"]
[Illustration: The Bridge of St. Cloud From Turner's "Rivers of France"]
The Two Trianons
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]
The Trianons may be reached in half an hour from the railway station,
but the distance is considerable, and a carriage very desirable,
considering all the walking inside of the palaces to be accomplished.
Carriages take the straight avenue from Bassin de Neptune. The
pleasantest way for foot-passengers is to follow the gardens of
Versailles as far as the Bassin d'Apollon, and then turn to the right.
At the end of the right branch of the grand canal, staircases lead to
the park of the Grand Trianon; but these staircases are railed in, and
it is necessary to make a détour to the Grille de la Grande Entrée,
whence an avenue leads directly to the Grand Trianon, while the Petit
Trianon lies immediately to the right, behind the buildings of the
Concierge and Corps de Garde.
The original palace of the Grand Trianon was a little château built by
Louis XIV., in 1670, as a refuge from the fatigues of the Court, on
land bought from the monks of St. Genevieve, and belonging to the
parish of Trianon. But in 1687 the humble château was pulled down, and
the present palace erected by Mansart in its place.
Louis XIV. constantly visited the Grand Trianon, with which for many
years he was much delighted. But, after 1700, he never slept at
Trianon, and, weary of his plaything here, turned all his attention to
Marly. Under Louis XV., however, the palace was again frequently
inhabited.
Being entirely on one floor, the Grand Trianon continued to be a most
uncomfortable residence, till subterranean passages for service were
added under Louis Philippe, who made great use of the palace. The
buildings are without character or distinction. Visitors have to wait
in the vestibule till a large party is formed, and are then hurried
full speed round the rooms, without being allowed to linger for an
instant.
The Petit Trianon was built by Gabriel for Louis XV. in the botanical
garden which Louis XIV. had formed at the instigation of the Duc
d'Ayen. It was intended as a miniature of the Grand Trianon, as that
palace had been a miniature of Versailles. The palace was often used by
Louis XV., who was here first attacked by the smallpox, of which he
died. Louis XVI. gave it to Marie Antoinette, who made its gardens, and
whose happiest days were spent here.
The Petit Trianon is a very small and very unassuming country house.
Mme. de Maintenon describes it in June as "a palace enchanted and
perfumed." Its pretty simple rooms are only interesting from their
associations. The furniture is mostly of the times of Louis XVI. The
stone stair has a handsome iron balustrade; the salons are paneled in
white.
Here Marie Antoinette st to Mme. Lebrun for the picture in which she is
represented with her children. In the dining-room is a secretaire given
to Louis XVI. by the States of Burgundy, and portraits of the King and
Marie Antoinette. The Cabinet de Travail of the queen was a cabinet
given to her on her marriage by the town of Paris; in the Salle de
Réception are four pictures by Watteau; the Boudoir has a Sévres bust
of the queen; in the Chambre-á-coucher is the queen's bed, and a
portrait of the Dauphin by Lebrun. These simple rooms are a standing
defense of the queen from the false accusations brought against her at
the Revolution as to her extravagance in the furnishing of the Petit
Trianon. Speaking of her happy domestic life, Mme. Lebrun says: "I do
not believe Queen Marie Antoinette ever allowed an occasion to pass by
without saying an agreeable thing to those who had the honor of being
near her."
Malmaison
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]
The station is opposite a short avenue, at the end of which on the
right, is the principal entrance to Malmaison. A little higher up the
road at the right is a gate leading to the park and gardens, freely
open to the public, and being sold (1887) in lots by the Stat. There is
a melancholy charm in the old house of many recollections--grim, empty,
and desolate; approached on this side by a bridge over the dry moat. A
short distance off, rather to the left, as you look from the house, is
a very pretty little temple--the Temple of Love--with a front of
columns of red Givet marble brought from the chateau of Richelieu, and
a clear stream bursting from the rocks beneath it.
Malmaison is supposed to derive its name from having been inhabited in
the XI century by the Norman brigand Odon, and afterward by evil
spirits, exorcised by the monks of St. Denis. Josephine bought the
villa with its gardens, which had been much praised by Delille, from M.
Lecouteulx de Canteleu for 160,000 francs.... Josephine retired to
Malmaison at the time of her divorce, and seldom left it afterward....
In 1814, the unhappy Josephine, whose heart was always with Napoleon,
was forced to receive a visit from the allied sovereigns at Malmaison,
and died of a chill which she caught in doing the honors of her grounds
to the Emperor Alexander on May 26, by a water excursion on the pool of
Cucufa. After his return from Elba, Napoleon revisited the place....
After the loss of the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon once more retired to
Malmaison, then the property of the children of Josephine, Eugene and
Hortense. There he passed June 25, 1815, a day of terrible agitation.
That evening at five o'clock he put on a brown suit of civilian
clothes, tenderly embraced Queen Hortense and the other persons
present, gave a long lingering look at the house and gardens connected
with his happiest hours, and left them for ever.
After the second Restoration Prince Eugène sold Malmaison, removing its
gallery of pictures to Munich. There is now nothing remarkable in the
desolate rooms, tho the Salle des Maréchaux, the bedroom of Josephine,
and the grand salon, with a chimney-piece given by the Pope are pointed
out. In later years the house was for some time inhabited by Queen
Christina of Spain. It will be a source of European regret if at least
the building connected with so many historic souvenirs, and the
immediate grounds are not preserved.
St. Germain
By Leitch Ritchie
[Footnote: From "The Rivers of France." Pictures by J. M. W. Turner,
R.A. Text by Leitch Ritchie.]
The view from the terrace of Saint Germain is one of the finest in
France. This view, and a shady walk in the forest behind, are the only
attractions of Saint Germain; for the old palace of the kings of France
presents the appearance of nothing more than a huge, irregular,
unsightly brick building. It is true, a great portion of the walls is
of cut stone; but this is the idea which the whole conveys to the
spectator. The edifice stands on the site of a chateau built by
Louis-le-Gros, which, having been burned down by the English, was thus
raised anew from its ruins. Charles V., François II., Henry IV., Louis
XIII., and Louis XIV., all exercised their taste upon it, and all added
to its general deformity.
Near this Henri Quatre built another château, which fell into ruins
forty or fifty years ago. These ruins were altogether effaced by
Charles X., who had formed the project of raising another structure
upon the spot, entirely his own. The project, however, failed, like
that of the coup d'etat, but this is of no consequence. The new château
exists in various books of travel, written by eye-witnesses, quite as
palpably as the enormous bulk of the ancient château. It is a true
"castle in Spain." Among the sights to be seen in the palace is the
chamber of Mademoiselle de la Vallière, and the trap-door by which she
was visited by Louis Quatorze. There are also the chamber and oratory
of our James II., who died at Saint Germain, on the 16th September,
1701.