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.
[Illustration: While the Frost Holds]
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.
[Illustration: The Postman's Wrap]
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.
[Illustration: A Lapful of Warmth]
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.
[Illustration: The Daily Round]
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.
[Illustration: Three Babes and a Bonne]
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.
[Illustration: Snow in the Park]
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.