The Project Gutenberg eBook ofA Versailles Christmas-Tide

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofA Versailles Christmas-TideThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: A Versailles Christmas-TideAuthor: Mary Stuart BoydIllustrator: A. S. BoydRelease date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #10813]Most recently updated: December 21, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Karen Robinson, David Garcia and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team.*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VERSAILLES CHRISTMAS-TIDE ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: A Versailles Christmas-TideAuthor: Mary Stuart BoydIllustrator: A. S. BoydRelease date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #10813]Most recently updated: December 21, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Karen Robinson, David Garcia and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team.

Title: A Versailles Christmas-Tide

Author: Mary Stuart BoydIllustrator: A. S. Boyd

Author: Mary Stuart Boyd

Illustrator: A. S. Boyd

Release date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #10813]Most recently updated: December 21, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Karen Robinson, David Garcia and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VERSAILLES CHRISTMAS-TIDE ***

Mary Stuart BoydWith Fifty-three Illustrations byA.S. Boyd1901

Chapter I—The Unexpected Happens

Chapter II—Ogams

Chapter III—The Town

Chapter IV—Our Arbre de Noël

Chapter V—Le Jour de l'Année

Chapter VI—Ice-bound

Chapter VII—The Haunted Château

Chapter VIII—Marie Antoinette

Chapter IX—The Prisoners Released

The Summons

Storm Warning

Treasure Trove

The Red Cross in the Window

Enter M. Le Docteur

Perpetual Motion

Ursa Major

Meal Considerations

The Two Colonels

The Young and Brave

Malcontent

The Aristocrat

Papa, Mama et Bébé

Juvenile Progress

Automoblesse Oblige

Sable Garb

A Football Team

Mistress and Maid

Sage and Onions

Marketing

Private Boxes

A Foraging Party

A Thriving Merchant

Chestnuts in the Avenue

The Tree Vendor

The Tree-bearer

Rosine

Alms and the Lady

Adoration

Thankfulness

One of the Devout

De L'eau Chaude

The Mill

The Presbytery

To the Place of Rest

While the Frost Holds

The Postman's Wrap

A Lapful of Warmth

The Daily Round

Three Babes and a Bonne

Snow in the Park

A Veteran of the Chateau

Un—Deux—Trois

The Bedchamber of Louis Xiv

Marie Leczinska

Madame Adelaide

Louis Quatorze

Where the Queen Played

Marie Antoinette

The Secret Stair

Madame Sans Tête

Illumination

L'Envoi

The Summons

No project could have been less foreseen than was ours of wintering in France, though it must be confessed that for several months our thoughts had constantly strayed across the Channel. For the Boy was at school at Versailles, banished there by our desire to fulfil a parental duty.

The time of separation had dragged tardily past, until one foggy December morning we awoke to the glad consciousness that that very evening the Boy would be with us again. Across the breakfast-table we kept saying to each other, "It seems scarcely possible that the Boy is really coming home to-night," but all the while we hugged the assurance that it was.

The Boy is an ordinary snub-nosed, shock-headed urchin of thirteen, with no special claim to distinction save the negative one of being an only child. Yet without his cheerful presence our home seemed empty and dull. Any attempts at merry-making failed to restore its life. Now all was agog for his return. The house was in its most festive trim. Christmas presents were hidden securely away. There was rejoicing downstairs as well as up: the larder shelves were stored with seasonable fare, and every bit of copper and brass sparkled a welcome. Even the kitchen cat sported a ribbon, and had a specially energetic purr ready.

Into the midst of our happy preparations the bad news fell with bomb-like suddenness. The messenger who brought the telegram whistled shrilly and shuffled a breakdown on the doorstep while he waited to hear if there was an answer.

"He is ill. He can't come. Scarlet fever," one of us said in an odd, flat voice.

"Scarlet fever. At school. Oh! when can we go to him? When is there a boat?" cried the other.

There was no question of expediency. The Boy lay sick in a foreign land, so we went to him. It was full noon when the news came, and nightfall saw us dashing through the murk of a wild mid-December night towards Dover pier, feeling that only the express speed of the mail train was quick enough for us to breathe in.

But even the most apprehensive of journeys may hold its humours. Just at the moment of starting anxious friends assisted a young lady into our carriage. "She was going to Marseilles. Would we kindly see that she got on all right?" We were only going as far as Paris direct. "Well, then, as far as Paris. It would be a great favour." So from Charing Cross to the Gare du Nord, Placidia, as we christened her, became our care.

She was a large, handsome girl of about three-and-twenty. What was her reason for journeying unattended to Cairo we know not. Whether she ever reached her destination we are still in doubt, for a more complacently incapable damsel never went a-voyaging. The Saracen maiden who followed her English lover from the Holy Land by crying "London" and "À Becket" was scarce so impotent as Placidia; for any information the Saracen maiden had she retained, while Placidia naively admitted that she had already forgotten by which line of steamers her passage through the Mediterranean had been taken.

Placidia had an irrational way of losing her possessions. While yet on her way to the London railway station she had lost her tam-o'-shanter. So perforce, she travelled in a large picture-hat which, although pretty and becoming, was hardly suitable headgear for channel-crossing in mid-winter.

Storm Warning

It was a wild night; wet, with a rising north-west gale. Tarpaulined porters swung themselves on to the carriage-steps as we drew up at Dover pier, and warned us not to leave the train, as, owing to the storm, the Calais boat would be an hour late in getting alongside.

The Ostend packet, lying beside the quay in full sight of the travellers, lurched giddily at her moorings. The fourth occupant of our compartment, a sallow man with yellow whiskers, turned green with apprehension. Not so Placidia. From amongst her chaotic hand-baggage she extracted walnuts and mandarin oranges, and began eating with an appetite that was a direct challenge to the Channel. Bravery or foolhardiness could go no farther.

Providence tempers the wind to the parents who are shorn of their lamb. The tumult of waters left us scatheless, but poor Placidia early paid the penalty of her rashness. She "thought" she was a good sailor—though she acknowledged that this was her first sea-trip—and elected to remain on deck. But before the harbour lights had faded behind us a sympathetic mariner supported her limp form—the feathers of her incongruous hat drooping in unison with their owner—down the swaying cabin staircase and deposited her on a couch.

"Oh! I do wish I hadn't eaten that fruit," she groaned when I offered her smelling-salts. "But then, you know, I was so hungry!"

In thetrain rapidea little later, Placidia, when arranging her wraps for the night journey, chanced, among the medley of her belongings, upon a missing boat-ticket whose absence at the proper time had threatened complications. She burst into good-humoured laughter at the discovery. "Why, here's the ticket that man made all the fuss about. I really thought he wasn't going to let me land till I found it. Now, I do wonder how it got among my rugs?"

We seemed to be awake all night, staring with wide, unseeing eyes out into the darkness. Yet the chill before dawn found us blinking sleepily at a blue-bloused porter who, throwing open the carriage door, curtly announced that we were in Paris.

Then followed a fruitless search for Placidia's luggage, a hunt which was closed by Placidia recovering her registration ticket (with a fragment of candy adhering to it) from one of the multifarious pockets of her ulster, and finding that the luggage had been registered on to Marseilles. "Will they charge duty on tobacco?" she inquired blandly, as she watched the Customs examination of our things. "I've such a lot of cigars in my boxes."

There was an Old-Man-of-the-Sea-like tenacity in Placidia's smiling impuissance. She did not know one syllable of French. A new-born babe could not have revealed itself more utterly incompetent. I verily believe that, despite our haste, we would have ended by escorting Placidia across Paris, and ensconcing her in the Marseilles train, had not Providence intervened in the person of a kindly disposed polyglot traveller. So, leaving Placidia standing the picture of complacent fatuosity in the midst of a group consisting of this new champion and three porters, we sneaked away.

Treasure Trove

Grey dawn was breaking as we drove towards St. Lazare Station, and the daily life of the city was well begun. Lights were twinkling in the dark interiors of the shops. Through the mysterious atmosphere figures loomed mistily, then vanished into the gloom. But we got no more than a vague impression of our surroundings. Throughout the interminable length of drive across the city, and the subsequent slow train journey, our thoughts were ever in advance.

The tardy winter daylight had scarcely come before we were jolting in afiacreover the stony streets of Versailles. In the gutters, crones were eagerly rummaging among the dust heaps that awaited removal. In France no degradation attaches to open economies. Housewives on their way to fetch Gargantuan loaves or tiny bottles of milk for the matutinalcafé-au-laitcast searching glances as they passed, to see if among the rubbish something of use to them might not be lurking. And at one alluring mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable exterior perfunctorily turned over the scraps with the point of his cane.

We had heard of a hotel, and the first thing we saw of it we liked. That was a pair of sabots on the mat at the foot of the staircase. Pausing only to remove the dust of travel, we set off to visit our son, walking with timorous haste along the grand old avenue where the school was situated. A little casement window to the left of the wide entrance-door showed a red cross. We looked at it silently, wondering.

The Red Cross in the Window

In response to our ring the portal opened mysteriously at touch of the unseen concierge, and we entered. A conference with Monsieur le Directeur, kindly, voluble, tactfully complimentary regarding our halting French, followed. The interview over, we crossed the courtyard our hearts beating quickly. At the top of a little flight of worn stone steps was the door of the school hospital, and under the ivy-twined trellis stood a sweet-faced Franciscan Soeur, waiting to welcome us.

Enter M. Le Docteur

Passing through a tiny outer room—an odd combination of dispensary, kitchen, and drawing-room with a red-tiled floor—we reached the sick-chamber, and saw the Boy. A young compatriot, also a victim of the disease, occupied another bed, but for the first moments we were oblivious of his presence. Raising his fever-flushed face from the pillows, the Boy eagerly stretched out his burning hands.

"I heard your voices," his hoarse voice murmured contentedly, "and I knewyoucouldn't be ghosts." Poor child! in the semidarkness of the lonely night-hours phantom voices had haunted him. We of the morning were real.

The good Soeur buzzed a mild frenzy of "Il ne faut pas toucher" about our ears, but, all unheeding, we clasped the hot hands and crooned over him. After the dreary months of separation, love overruled wisdom. Mere prudence was not strong enough to keep us apart.

Chief amongst the chaos of thoughts that had assailed us on the reception of the bad news, was the necessity of engaging an English medical man. But at the first sight of the French doctor, as, clad in a long overall of white cotton, he entered the sick-room, our insular prejudice vanished, ousted by complete confidence; a confidence that our future experience of his professional skill and personal kindliness only strengthened.

It was with sore hearts that, the prescribedcinq minutesended, we descended the little outside stair. Still, we had seen the Boy; and though we could not nurse him, we were not forbidden to visit him. So we were thankful too.

Perpetual Motion

Our hotel was distinctively French, and immensely comfortable, in that it had gleaned, and still retained, the creature comforts of a century or two. Thus it combined the luxuries of hot-air radiators and electric light with the enchantment of open wood fires. Viewed externally, the building presented that airy aspect almost universal in Versailles architecture. It was white-tinted, with many windows shuttered without and heavily lace-draped within.

A wide entrance led to the inner courtyard, where orange trees in green tubs, and trelliswork with shrivelled stems and leaves still adhering, suggested that it would be a pleasant summer lounge. Our hotel boasted agrand salon, which opened from the courtyard. It was an elaborately ornate room; but on a chilly December day even a plethora of embellishment cannot be trusted to raise by a single degree the temperature of the apartment it adorns, and the soul turns from a cold hearth, however radiant its garnish of artificial blossoms. A private parlour was scarcely necessary, for, with most French bedrooms, ours shared the composite nature of the accommodation known in a certain class of advertisement as "bed-sitting-room." So it was that during these winter days we made ourselves at home in our chamber.

The shape of the room was a geometrical problem. The three windows each revealed different views, and the remainder of the walls curved amazingly. At first sight the furniture consisted mainly of draperies and looking-glass; for the room, though of ordinary dimensions, owned three large mirrors and nine pairs of curtains. A stately bed, endowed with a huge square down pillow, which served as quilt, stood in a corner. Two armchairs in brocaded velvet and a centre table were additions to the customary articles. A handsome timepiece and a quartette of begilt candelabra decked the white marble mantelpiece, and were duplicated in the large pier glass. The floor was of well-polished wood, a strip of bright-hued carpet before the bed, a second before the washstand, its only coverings. Need I say that the provision for ablutions was one basin and a liliputian ewer, and that there was not a fixed bath in the establishment?

It was a resting-place full of incongruities; but apart from, or perhaps because of, its oddities it had a cosy attractiveness. From the moment of our entrance we felt at home. I think the logs that purred and crackled on the hearth had much to do with its air of welcome. There is a sense of companionship about a wood fire that more enduring coal lacks. Like a delicate child, the very care it demands nurtures your affection. There was something delightfully foreign and picturesque to our town ideas in the heap of logs that Karl carried up in a greatpanierand piled at the side of the hearth. Even the little faggots of kindling wood, willow-knotted and with the dry copper-tinted leaves still clinging to the twigs, had a rustic charm.

These were pleasant moments when, ascending from the chill outer air, we found our chamber aglow with ruddy firelight that glinted in the mirrors and sparkled on the shining surface of the polished floor; when we drew our chairs up to the hearth, and, scorning the electric light, revelled in the beauty of the leaping and darting flames.

It was only in thesalle-à-mangerthat we saw the other occupants of the hotel; and when we learned that several of them had liveden pensionunder the roof of the assiduous proprietor for periods varying from five to seven years, we felt ephemeral, mere creatures of a moment, and wholly unworthy of regard.

Ursa Major

At eight o'clock Karl brought thepetit déjeûnerof coffee and rolls to our room. At eleven, our morning visit to the school hospital over, we breakfasted in thesalle-à-manger, a large bright room, one or other of whose many south windows had almost daily, even in the depth of winter, to be shaded against the rays of the sun. Three chandeliers of glittering crystal starred with electric lights depended from the ceiling. Half a dozen small tables stood down each side; four larger ones occupied the centre of the floor, and were reserved for transient custom.

The first thing that struck us as peculiar was that every table save ours was laid for a single person, with a half bottle of wine, red or white, placed ready, in accordance with the known preference of the expected guest. We soon gathered that several of the regular customers lodged outside and, according to the French fashion, visited the hotel for meals only. After the early days of keen anxiety regarding our invalid had passed, we began to study our fellow guests individually and to note their idiosyncrasies. Sitting at our allotted table during the progress of the leisurely meals, we used to watch as onehabituéafter another entered, and, hanging coat and hat upon certain pegs, sat silently down in his accustomed place, with an unvarying air of calm deliberation.

Then Iorson, the swift-footedgarçon, would skim over the polished boards to the newcomer, and, tendering the menu, would wait, pencil in hand, until the guest, after careful contemplation, selected his fiveplatsfrom its comprehensive list.

Meal Considerations

The most picturesque man of the company had white moustaches of surprising length. On cold days he appeared enveloped in a fur coat, a garment of shaggy brown which, in conjunction with his hirsute countenance, made his aspect suggest the hero in pantomime renderings of "Beauty and the Beast." But in our hotel there was no Beauty, unless indeed it were Yvette, and Yvette could hardly be termed beautiful.

Yvette also lived outside. She did not come todéjeûner, but every night precisely at a quarter-past seven the farther door would open, and Yvette, her face expressing disgust with the world and all the things thereof, would enter.

Yvette was blonde, with neat little features, a pale complexion, and tiny hands that were always ringless. She rang the changes on half a dozen handsome cloaks of different degrees of warmth. To an intelligent observer their wear might have served as a thermometer. Yvette wasblasée, and her millinery was in sympathy with her feelings. Her hats had all a fringe of disconsolate feathers, whose melancholy plumage emphasised the downward curve of her mouth. To see Yvette enter from the darkness and, seating herself at her solitary table, droop over her plate as though there were nothing in Versailles worth sitting upright for, was to viewennuipersonified.

Yvette invariably drank white wine, and the food rarely pleased her. She would cast a contemptuous look over the menu offered by the deferential Henri, then turn wearily away, esteeming that no item on its length merited even her most perfunctory consideration. But after one or two despondent glances, Yvette ever made the best of a bad bargain, and ordered quite a comprehensive little dinner, which she ate with the same air of utter disdain. She always concluded by eating an orange dipped in sugar. Even had a special table not been reserved for her, one could have told where Yvette had dined by the bowl of powdered sugar, just as one could have located the man with the fierce moustaches and the fur coat by the presence of his pepper-mill, or the place of "Madame" from her prodigal habit of rending a quarter-yard of the crusty French bread in twain and consuming only the soft inside.

From the ignorance of our cursory acquaintance we had judged the French a sociable nation. Our stay at Versailles speedily convinced us of the fallacy of that belief. Nothing could have impressed us so forcibly as did the frigid silence that characterised the company. Many of them had fed there daily for years, yet within the walls of the sunny dining-room none exchanged even a salutation. This unexpected taciturnity in a people whom we had been taught to regard as lively and voluble made us almost ashamed of our own garrulity, and when, in the presence of the silent company, we were tempted to exchange remarks, we found ourselves doing it in hushed voices as though we were in church.

A clearer knowledge, however, showed us that though some unspoken convention rendered the hotel guests oblivious of each other's presence while indoors, beyond the hotel walls they might hold communion. Two retired military men, both wearing the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour, as indeed did most of ourhabitués, sat at adjacent tables. One, tall and thin, was a Colonel; the other, little and neat, a Colonel also. To the casual gaze they appeared complete strangers, and we had consumed many meals in their society before observing that whenever the tall Colonel had sucked the last cerise from his glass ofeau-de-vie, and begun to fold his napkin—a formidable task, for the serviettes fully deserved the designation later bestowed on them by the Boy, of "young table-cloths"—the little Colonel made haste to fold his also. Both rose from their chairs at the same instant, and the twain, having received their hats from the attentive Iorson, vanished, still mute, into the darkness together.

The Two Colonels

Once, to our consternation, the little Colonel replaced his napkin in its ring without waiting for the signal from the tall Colonel. But our apprehension that they, in their dealings in that mysterious outer world which twice daily they sought together, might have fallen into a difference of opinion was dispelled by the little Colonel, who had risen, stepping to his friend and holding out his hand. This the tall Colonel without withdrawing his eyes fromLe Journal des Débatswhich he was reading, silently pressed. Then, still without a word spoken or a look exchanged, the little Colonel passed out alone.

The Young and Brave

The average age of the Ogams was seventy. True, there was Dunois the Young and Brave, who could not have been more than forty-five. What his name really was we knew not, but something in his comparatively juvenile appearance among the chevaliers suggested the appellation which for lack of a better we retained. Dunois' youth might only be comparative, but his bravery was indubitable; for who among the Ogams but he was daring enough to tackle thepâté-de-foie-gras, or theabattis, a stew composed of the gizzards and livers of fowls? And who but Dunois would have been so reckless as to follow baked mussels andcrépinetteswithrognons frits?

Dunois, too, revealed intrepid leanings toward strange liquors. Sometimes—it was usually atdéjeûnerwhen he had dined out on the previous evening—he would demand the wine-list of Iorson, and rejecting thevin blancorvin rougewhich, beingcompris, contented the others, would order himself something of a choice brand. One of his favourite papers wasLe Rire, and Henri, Iorson's youthful assistant, regarded him with admiration.

Malcontent

A less attractive presence in the dining-room was Madame. Madame, who was an elderly dame of elephantine girth, had resided in the hotel for half a dozen years, during which period her sole exercise had been taken in slowly descending from her chamber in the upper regions for her meals, and then, leisurely assimilation completed, in yet more slowly ascending. Madame's allotted seat was placed in close proximity to the hot-air register; and though Madame was usually one of the first to enter the dining-room, she was generally the last to leave. Madame's appetite was as animated as her body was lethargic. She always drank her half-bottle of red wine to the dregs, and she invariably concluded with a greengage in brandy. So it was small marvel that, when at last she left her chair to "tortoise" upstairs, her complexion should be two shades darker than when she descended.

Five dishes, irrespective ofhors d'oeuvresat luncheon, andpotageat dinner, were allowed each guest, and Madame's selection was an affair of time. Our hotel was justly noted for itscuisine, yet on infrequent occasions the food supplied to Madame was not to her mind. At these times the whole establishment suffered until the irascible old lady's taste was suited. One night at dinner Iorson had the misfortune to serve Madame with some turkey that failed to meet with her approval. With the air of an insulted empress, Madame ordered its removal. The conciliatory Iorson obediently carried off the dish and speedily returned, bearing what professed to be another portion. But from the glimpse we got as it passed our table we had a shrewd suspicion that Iorson the wily had merely turned over the piece of turkey and re-served it with a little more gravy and an additional dressing ofcressons. Madame, it transpired, shared our suspicions, for this portion also she declined, with renewed indignation. Then followed a long period of waiting, wherein Madame, fidgeting restlessly on her seat, kept fierce eyes fixed on the door through which the viands entered.

Just as her impatience threatened to vent itself in action, Iorson appeared bearing a third helping of turkey. Placing it before the irate lady, he fled as though determined to debar a third repudiation. For a moment an air of triumph pervaded Madame's features. Then she began to gesticulate violently, with the evident intention of again attracting Iorson's notice. But the forbearance even of the diplomatic Iorson was at an end. Re-doubling his attentions to the diners at the farther side of the room, he remained resolutely unconscious of Madame's signals, which were rapidly becoming frantic.

The less sophisticated Henri, however, feeling a boyish interest in the little comedy, could not resist a curious glance in Madame's direction. That was sufficient. Waving imperiously, Madame compelled his approach, and, moving reluctantly, fearful of the issue, Henri advanced.

"Couteau!" hissed Madame. Henri flew to fetch the desired implement, and, realising that Madame had at last been satisfied, we again breathed freely.

The Aristocrat

A more attractive personage was a typical old aristocrat, officer of the Legion of Honour, who used to enter, walk with great dignity to his table, eat sparingly of one or two dishes, drink a glass of hisvin ordinaireand retire. Sometimes he was accompanied by a tiny spaniel, which occupied a chair beside him; and frequently a middle-aged son, whose bourgeois appearance was in amazing contrast to that of his refined old father, attended him.

There were others, less interesting perhaps, but equally self-absorbed. One afternoon, entering the cable car that runs—for fun, apparently, as it rarely boasted a passenger—to and from the Trianon, we recognised in its sole occupant an Ogam who during the weeks of our stay had eaten, in evident oblivion of his human surroundings, at the table next to ours. Forgetting that we were without the walls of silence, we expected no greeting; but to our amazement he rose, and, placing himself opposite us, conversed affably and in most excellent English for the rest of the journey. To speak with him was to discover a courteous and travelled gentleman. Yet during our stay in Versailles we never knew him exchange even a bow with any of his fellow Ogams, who were men of like qualifications, though, as he told us, he had taken his meals in the hotel for over five years.

Early in the year our peace was rudely broken by the advent of a commercial man—a short, grey-haired being of an activity so foreign to our usage that a feeling of unrest was imparted to thesalle-à-mangerthroughout his stay. His movements were distractingly erratic. In his opinion, meals were things to be treated casually, to be consumed haphazard at any hour that chanced to suit. He did not enter the dining-room at the exact moment each day as did the Ogams. He would rush in, throw his hat on a peg, devour some food with unseemly haste, and depart in less time than it took the others to reach thelégumes.

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