THE LITTLE TRIANON.
When Louis XIV. built Versailles and perceived the discomfort of
grandeur, he granted it was the sojourneying-place for a demi-god but no
home for a man. So he had the Trianon constructed to be able to draw a
free breath at leisure moments.
But the sword of Achilles, if it tired him, was bound to be of
insupportable weight to a myrmidon. Trianon was so much too pompous for
the Fifteenth Louis that he had the _Little_ Trianon built.
It was a house looking with its large eyes of windows over a park and
woods, with the wing of the servant’s lodgings and stables on the left,
where the windows were barred and the kitchens hidden by trellises of
vines and creepers.
A path over a wooden bridge led to the Grand Trianon through a kitchen
garden.
The King brought Prime Minister Choiseul into this garden to show him
the improvements introduced to make the place fit for his grandson the
Dauphin, and the Dauphiness.
Duke Choiseul admired everything and passed his comments with a
courtier’s sagacity. He let the monarch say the place would become more
pleasant daily and he added that it would be a family retreat for the
sovereign.
“The Dauphiness is still a little uncouth, like all young German girls,”
said Louis; “She speaks French nicely, but with an Austrian accent
jarring on our ears. Here she will speak among friends and it will not
matter.”
“She will perfect herself,” said the duke. “I have remarked that the
lady is highly accomplished and accomplishes anything she undertakes.”
On the lawn they found the Dauphin taking the sun with a sextant. Louis
Aguste, duke of Berry, was a meek-eyed, rosy complexioned man of
seventeen, with a clumsy walk. He had a more prominent Bourbon nose than
any before him, without its being a caricature. In his nimble fingers
and able arms alone he showed the spirit of his race, so to express it.
“Louis,” said the King, loudly to be overheard by his grandson, “is a
learned man, and he is wrong to rack his brain with science, for his
wife will lose by it.”
“Oh, no,” corrected a feminine voice as the Dauphiness stepped out from
the shrubbery, where she was chatting with a man loaded with plans,
compass, pencil and notebook.
“Sire, this is my architect, Mique,” she said.
“Have you caught the family complaint of building?”
“I am going to turn this sprawling garden into a natural one!”
“Really? why, I thought that trees and grass and running water are
natural enough.”
“Sire, you have to walk along straight paths between shaped boxwood
trees, hewn at an angle of forty-five, to quote the Dauphin, and ponds
agreeing with the paths, and star centres, and terraces! I am going to
have arbors, rockeries, grottoes, cottages, hills, gorges, meadows---- ”
“For Dutch dolls to stand up in?” queried the King.
“Alas, Sire, for kings and princes like ourselves,” she replied, not
seeing him color up, and that she had spoken a cutting truth.
“I hope you will not lodge your servants in your woods and on your
rivers like Red Indians, in the natural life which Rousseau praises. If
you do, only the Encyclopædists will eulogise you.”
“Sire, they would be too cold in huts, so I shall keep the out-buildings
for them as they are.” She pointed to the windows of a corridor, over
which were the servant’ sleeping rooms and under which were the
kitchens.
“What do I see there?” asked the King, shielding his eyes with his hand,
for he had short-sight.
“A woman, your Majesty,” said Choiseul.
“A young lady who is my reading-woman,” said the princess.
“It is Mdlle. de Taverney,” went on Choiseul.
“What, are you attaching the Taverneys to your house?”
“Only the girl.”
“Very good,” said the King, without taking his eyes off the barred
window out of which innocently gazed Andrea, with no idea she was
watched.
“How pale she is!” remarked the Prime Minister.
“She was nearly killed in the dreadful accident of the 30th of May, my
lord.”
“For which we would have punished somebody severely,” said Louis, “but
Chancellor Seguier proved it was the work of Fate. Only that fellow
Bignon, Provost of the Merchants, was dismissed--and--poor girl! he
deserved it.”
“Has she recovered?” asked Choiseul quickly.
“Yes, thank heaven!”
“She goes away,” said the King.
“She recognized your Majesty, and fled. She is timid.”
“A cheerless dwelling for a girl!”
“Oh, no, not so bad.”
“Let us have a look round inside, Choiseul?”
“Your Majesty, Council of Parliament at Versailles at half-past two.”
“Well, go and give those lawyers a shaking!”
And the sovereign, delighted to look at buildings, followed the
Dauphiness who was delighted, also, to show her house. They passed
Mdlle. de Taverney under the eaves of the little kitchen yard.
“This is my reader’s room,” remarked the Dauphiness. “I will show you it
as a sample of how my ladies will fare.”
It was a suite of anteroom and two parlors. The furniture was placed;
books, a harpsichord, and particularly a bunch of flowers in a Japanese
Vase, attracted the King’s attention.
“What nice flowers! how can you talk of changing your garden? who the
mischief supplies your ladies with such beauties? do they save any for
the mistress?”
“It is very choice.”
“Who is the gardener here so sweet upon Mdlle. de Taverney?”
“I do not know--Dr. Jussieu found me somebody.”
The King looked round with a curious eye, and elsewhere, before
departing. The Dauphin was still taking the sun.