AT MARLY.
There is a lane on the heights over Paris, embowered by wooded
hedge-rows, or skirted by open vineyards; this lane leads from
Saint-Germain to Marly.
Below the village, deep in a narrow gorge, is the site of the once
famous palace built by Louis XIV. Trees now wave and cattle browse on
turf where once clustered twelve pavilions, linked together by arches
and colonnades, in the Italian or villa style, to suit the royal fancy
of a summer retreat.
Not a stone has been left by the Revolution; what were once gardens
and a park, is now a secluded meadow. Blue-bells, thyme, and primroses
carpet the mossy earth; and the thrush, the cuckoo, and the early
swallow carol among pale sprays of beech and hazel. There are deep
ditches and swampy pools, once carp-ponds and lakes, part of a
plaisance, arranged in the solemn taste of that day, when nature itself
was cut and trimmed _à la Louis Quatorze_.
When Louis fixed upon Marly as a residence he was tired of Versailles.
He was old, he said, and needed relaxation. He wanted a _folie_, a
hermitage—_un rien enfin_—where he could retire from the crowd and the
restraints of his Court, sleep three nights in each week, and enjoy the
society of his especial favourites.
Either the King altered his plan, or his architect (Le Nôtre)
disregarded the royal instructions. Millions were squandered on a
residence, "which was to cost nothing." A forest of full-grown trees
was brought from Compiègne. The expense of draining the marshy soil,
and elevating the waters of the Seine into the _Machine de Marly_, was
never acknowledged.
What a stiff, solemn tyrant Louis is become! Selfish, exacting,
pedantic, intolerant, dreaded by his children and grand-children, and
exercising over them the most absolute control. Unhappy royal family,
how one pities them! Marly was a dreadful infliction. Ill or well,
they must go. The Duchess de Bourgogne might plead her interesting
situation, and the positive prohibition of Fagon: no matter, her name
is on the list—she must go. The Duchesse de Berry—that profligate
daughter of the Duc d'Orléans—is in her bed seriously ill: her mother,
the Duchesse d'Orléans, pleaded for her—in vain; if she could not walk
she must be carried—to Marly she must go. She was dragged thither in a
boat.
Madame de Maintenon herself dared to confess to no ache or pain
that availed to rescue her from standing in the cold winds on
frosty mornings—for the King loved the open air, and did not fear
weather—beside him while he fed the fat carp in marble basins, decided
upon a fresh alley to be cut through the woods, or upon a new cascade
that was to pierce the hills, or a larger pavilion to be added to those
already built.
Nothing could be a greater proof of favour than to be included in the
"list" to Marly. It was an honour more craved for than a ribbon or a
place at Court. The names of the distinguished few were written down
in the King's own hand (a very bad specimen of calligraphy), after due
consultation with Madame de Maintenon. She was fond of Marly, hence
its favour as a residence. She had herself superintended the building,
seated in her gilt sedan chair, the King, hat in hand, standing by her
side. At Marly she could better isolate him than at Versailles. His
loneliness threw him more under her influence and under that of the Duc
de Maine. These two, pupil and governess, perfectly understand each
other. There is to be a codicil to the royal will, virtually passing
over the Duc d'Orléans, his nephew, to invest Maine with all the powers
of a Regent. Madame de Maintenon represents this hypocritical son of
De Montespan as a simple-hearted, unostentatious man, wholly occupied
by his attendance on his Majesty and with his classical studies. The
King, whose personal activity is diminished, and whose powers of mind
are impaired, believes it. Louis, once renowned as the finest horseman,
sportsman, runner, dancer, shot, and charioteer, driving four horses
with ease and grace, in France, is now stiff and somewhat infirm. Too
indolent to move about and inquire for himself, he sees and hears only
through Madame de Maintenon. To others he is an unbending autocrat.
If Louis is feared as a parent he is hated as a Sovereign. The
denunciations of his _ci-devant_ Protestant wife in the interests
of his salvation lash him into inexpressible terror of perdition.
She suggests that he can best expiate the excesses of his youth by a
holocaust to the Almighty of all the heretics within his realm. The
Jesuits press him solely. Terrified by the threats of awful judgments
upon impenitent sovereigns, Louis signs the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. He expels the Jansenists, destroys their pleasant refuge on a
wooded hill near Maintenon, accepts the Bull _Unigenitus_, exiles the
Cardinal de Noailles, and fills the state prisons with recusant bishops.
The whole of France is in indescribable confusion. The south, where
the reformed faith prevails, is deluged with blood. Many thousands of
industrious and orderly citizens doom themselves to perpetual exile
rather than abjure the Protestant faith.
_Le Grand Monarque_ is now a lonely, melancholy old man. Defeat has
dogged his armies; the elevation of his grandchild, Philip, to the
throne of Spain has well-nigh brought France to destruction. Death has
been busy with his family: the Dauphin is dead; his son, the Duc de
Bourgogne, is dead; Adelaide de Savoie, his wife, most justly dear to
Louis, is also dead; and now there only remains one little life, their
son, the infant Duc d'Anjou between himself and the extinction of his
direct line. The Court at Marly is as lugubrious and austere as Madame
de Maintenon and the Jesuits can make it.
Yet a shadow of the pomp and etiquette of Versailles is still kept up.
On certain days after dinner, which takes place at noon, his Majesty
receives the royal family. The folding doors of the royal suite are
thrown open, and Louis appears. His hat with overtopping feathers
is on his head, one hand is placed upon the breast of his coat, the
other rests upon an ormolu table. He wears a diamond star; and a blue
ribbon is passed across his breast. His coat is of black velvet, his
waistcoat of red satin richly wrought with gold; he wears diamonds
in his shoe-buckles and in his garters. On his head is a ponderous
black wig, raised high on the forehead. This black wig gives his thin,
hatchet-shaped face, seamed with wrinkles, a ghastly look. Louis
changes his wigs many times each day to suit various occasions. He has
wigs for all emergencies. In figure he is much shrunk, and is slightly
bent. As he stands, his hand resting on the table for support, every
movement is studied to impose silence and awe. To the day of his death
he is majestic, and has the grandest manners in the world.
The royal family, conducted through galleries and colonnades lined with
exotics and orange-trees (for Louis loves orange-flowers, all other
scents and essences, however, are forbidden), pass before him. They
wear mantles or mantelets according to their rank. To the obeisances
of those who enjoy the honour of the _fauteuil_ his Majesty returns
a decided bow. Others who occupy _tabourets_ only, receive but a
qualified acknowledgment. People who sit on _pliants_ are not received
at Marly at all.
After the reception come the visits. Those who by their rank are
entitled to receive as well as to pay visits, flutter backwards and
forwards, with painful activity. Madame la Duchesse or Madame la
Princesse rushes out of one door and in at another, shouldering her
train, to salute a royal personage and return before more company
arrive to visit herself. Sometimes a call of ceremony is arranged to
Saint-Germain, situated about two miles from Marly, where the unhappy
James II. and his Queen, Mary of Modena, reside, as annuitants on the
royal bounty. Here the question as to who should wear mantles and who
mantelets, who should have _fauteuils_ and who _tabourets_, complicates
itself to such an extent (the etiquette of the English Court having
also to be duly considered) that even his Majesty grows embarrassed.
He cuts the Gordian knot by not sitting down at all. He exchanges a
few casual phrases with the exiled Stuarts _standing_, and forthwith
returns to the _rural retreat_ of Marly.