[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]
The tram stops close to the Abreuvoir, a large artificial tank, surrounded by masonry for receiving the surplus water from the fountains in the palace gardens, of which it is now the only remnant. Ascending the avenue on the right, we shall find a road at the top which will lead us, to the left, through delightful woods to the site of the palace. Nothing remains but the walls supporting the wooded terrace.
It is difficult to realize the place as it was, for the quincunces of 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.
[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 daysHave 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"]
[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."
[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.
[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.
The forest of Saint Germain is seven leagues in circumference, pierced in every direction by roads and paths, and containing various edifices that were used as hunting-lodges. This vast wood affords no view, except along the seemingly interminable path in which the spectator stands, the vista of which, carried on with mathematical regularity, terminates in a point. This is the case with all the great forests of France except that of Fontainebleau, where nature is sometimes seen in her most picturesque form. In the more remote and unfrequented parts of Saint Germain, the wild boar still makes his savage lair; and still the loiterer, in these lengthened alleys, is startled by a roebuck or a deer springing across the path....
Independently of the noble satellites attached to the court, the infinite number of official persons made its removal to Saint Germain, or the other royal seats, seem like the emigration of a whole people. Forty-nine physicians, thirty-eight surgeons, six apothecaries, thirteen preachers, one hundred and forty maîtres d'hôtel, ninety ladies of honor to the queen, in the sixteenth century! There were also an usher of the kitchen, a courier de vin (who took the charge of carrying provisions for the king when he went to the chase), a sutler of court, a conductor of the sumpter- horse, a lackey of the chariot, a captain of the mules, an overseer of roasts, a chair-bearer, a palmer (to provide ananches for Easter), a valet of the firewood, a paillassier of the Scotch guard, a yeoman of the mouth, and a hundred more for whose offices we have no names in English.
The grand maître d'hôtel was the chief officer of the court. The royal orders came through him; he regulated the expenses; and was, in short, to the rest of the functionaries, what the general is to the army. The maître des requetes was at the head of civil justice; the prevôt de l'hôtel at the head of criminal justice....
When the courtiers presented themselves at the château, some in chariots, some on horseback, with their wives mounted behind them (the ladies all masked), they were subjected to the scrutiny of the captain of the gate. The greater number he compelled to dismount; but the princes and princesses, and a select few who had brevets of entrance, were permitted to ride within the walls.
At court the men wore sword and dagger; but to be found with a gun or pistol in the palace, or even in the town, subjected them to a sentence of death. To wear a casque or cuirass was punished with imprisonment. The laws of politeness were equally strict. If one man used insulting words to another, the offense was construed as being given to the king; and the offender was obliged to solicit pardon of his majesty. If one threatened another by clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, he was to be assommé according to the ordinance; which may either mean knocked down, or soundly mauled--or the two together. If two men came to blows, they were both assommé. A still more serious breach of politeness, however, was the importunity of petitioners.
When the king hunted he was accompanied by a hundred pages, two hundred esquires, and often four or five hundred gentlemen; sometimes by the queen and princesses, with their hundreds of ladies and maids of honor, mounted on palfreys saddled with black velvet.
[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]
Very near the station is the Château de St. Cloud, set on fire by the bombs of Mont-Valèrien, in the night of October 13, 1870, and now the most melancholy of ruins. Sufficient, however, remains to indicate the noble character of a building partly due to Jules Hardouin and Mansart. The château is more reddened than blackened by the fire, and the beautiful reliefs of its gables, its statues, and the wrought-iron grilles of its balconies are still perfect. Grass, and even trees, grow in its roofless halls, in one of which the marble pillars and sculptured decorations are seen through the gaps where windows once were. The view from the terrace is most beautiful.
The name of St. Cloud comes from a royal saint, who was buried in the collegiate church, pulled down by Marie Antoinette (which stood opposite the modern church), and to whose shrine there is an annual pilgrimage. Clodomir, King of Orleans, son of Clovis, dying in 524, had bequeathed his three sons to the guardianship of his mother Clotilde. Their barbarous uncles, Childebert and Clotaire, coveting their heritage, sent their mother a sword and a pair of scissors, asking her whether she would prefer that they should perish by the one, or that their royal locks should be shorn with the other, and that they should be shut up in a convent.
"I would rather see them dead than shaven," replied Clotilde proudly. Two of the princes were then murdered by their uncles, the third, Clodowald, was hidden by some faithful servants, but fright made him cut off his hair with his own hands, and he entered a monastery at a village then called Nogent, but which derived from him the name of St. Clodowald, corrupted into St. Cloud.
Clodowald bequeathed the lands of St. Cloud to the bishops of Paris, who had a summer palace here, in which the body of François I. lay in state after his death at Rambouillet. His son, Henri II., built a villa here in the Italian style; and Henri III. came to live here in a villa belonging to the Gondi family, while, with the King of Navarre, he was besieging Paris in 1589. The city was never taken, for at St. Cloud Henri was murdered by Jacques Clément, a monk of the Jacobin convent in Paris, who fancied that an angel had urged him to the deed in a vision....
From this time the house of the banker Jérôme Gondi, one of the Italian adventurers who had followed the fortunes of Catherine de Medici, was an habitual residence of the Court. It became the property of Hervard, Controller of Finances, from whom Louis XIV. bought it for his brother Philippe d'Orléans, enlarged the palace, and employed Lenôtre to lay out the park. Monsieur married the beautiful Henriette d'Angleterre, youngest daughter of Charles I., who died here, June 30, 1670, with strong suspicion of poison. St. Simon affirms the person employed to have confest to Louis XIV., having used it at the instigation of the Chevalier de Lorraine (a favorite of Monsieur), whom Madame had caused to be exiled. One of the finest sermons of Bossuet describes the "disastrous night on which there came as a clap of thunder the astonishing news! 'Madame is dying! Madame is dead!' At the sound of so strange a wo people hurried to St. Cloud from all sides to find panic over all except the heart of the princess."
In the following year Monsieur was married again, to the Princess Palatine, when it was believed that his late wife appeared near a fountain in the park, where a servant, sent to fetch water, died of terror. The vision turned out to be a reality--a hideous old woman, who amused herself in this way. "The cowards," she said, "made such grimaces that I nearly died laughing. This evening pleasure paid me for the toil of my hard day."
Monsieur gave magnificent fétes to the Court at St. Cloud, added to the palace with great splendor, and caused the great cascade, which Jérôme Gondi had made, to be enlarged and embellished by Mansart. It was at St. Cloud that Monsieur died of an attack of apoplexy, brought on by overeating after his return from a visit to the king at Marly.... The chateau continued to be occupied by Madame, daughter of the Elector, the rude, the original, and satirical Princess Palatine, in whom the modern House of Orleans has its origin, and here she died during the regency of her son....
The Régent d'Orléans, nephew of Louis XIV., received Peter the Great at St. Cloud in 1717. In 1752 his grandson, Louis Philippe d'Orléans, gave at St. Cloud one of the most magnificent fêtes ever seen in France.
In 1785 the Due d'Orleans sold St. Cloud for six million francs to Queen Marie Antoinette, who made great alterations in the internal arrangements of the building, where she resided during the early days of the Revolution.
It was at St. Cloud that the coup d'état occurred which made Napoleon first-consul. This led him to choose the palace of St. Cloud, which had been the cradle of his power, as his principal residence, and, under the first empire, it was customary to speak of "le cabinet de Saint-Cloud," as previously of "le cabinet de Versailles," and afterward of "le cabinet des Tuileries." Here, in 1805, Napoleon and Josephine assisted at the baptism of the future Napoleon III....
It was also in the palace of St. Cloud that Napoleon I. was married to Marie Louise, April 1, 1810. In this palace of many changes the allied sovereigns met after the fall of the First Empire. Blucher, after his fashion, slept booted and spurred in the bed of Napoleon; and the capitulation of Paris was signed here July 3, 1815.
Louis XVIII. and Charles X. both lived much at St. Cloud, and added to it considerably; but here, where Henry IV. had been recognized as King of France and Navarre, Charles X. was forced by the will of the people to abdicate, July 30, 1830. Two years after, Louis Philippe established himself with his family at St. Cloud, and his daughter Clémentine was married to Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg in its chapel, April 28, 1843. Like his uncle, Napoleon III. was devoted to St. Cloud, where--"with a light heart"--the declaration of war with Prussia was signed in the library, July, 17, 1870, a ceremony followed by a banquet, during which the "Marseillaise" was played. The doom of St. Cloud was then sealed. On the 13th of the following October the besieged Parisians beheld the volumes of flame rising behind the Bois de Boulogne, which told that St. Cloud, recently occupied by the Prussians, and frequently bombarded in consequence from Mont-Valérien, had been fired by French bombs.
The steamer for St. Cloud descends the Seine, passing under the Pont de Solferino, Pont de la Concorde, Pont des Invalides, and Pont d'Alma. Then the Champ de Mars is seen on the left, the Palais du Trocadéro on the right. After the Pont du d'Iéna, Passy is passed on the right, and the Ile des Cygnes on the left. Then comes the Pont de Grenelle, after which Auteuil is passed on the right and Javel on the left. After leaving the Pont-viaduc du Point-du-Jour, the Ile de Billancourt is seen on the left. After the Pont de Billancourt, the steamer passes between the Iles de Billancourt and Séguin to Bas Meudon.
[Footnote: From "Pictures From Italy."]
There lay before us, that same afternoon, the broken bridge of Avignon, and all the city baking in the sun; yet with an underdone-piecrust, battlemented wall, that never will be brown, tho it bake for centuries.
The grapes were hanging in clusters in the streets, and the brilliant oleander was in full bloom everywhere. The streets are old and very narrow, but tolerably clean, and shaded by awnings stretched from house to house. Bright stuffs and handkerchiefs, curiosities, ancient frames of carved wood, old chairs, ghostly tables, saints, virgins, angels, and staring daubs of portraits, being exposed for sale beneath, it was very quaint and lovely. All this was much set off, too, by the glimpses one caught, through a rusty gate standing ajar, of quiet sleepy court-yards, having stately old houses within, as silent as tombs. It was all very like one of the descriptions in the Arabian Nights. The three one-eyed Calenders might have knocked at any one of those doors till the street rang again, and the porter who persisted in asking questions--the man who had the delicious purchases put into his basket in the morning--might have opened it quite naturally.
After breakfast next morning, we sallied forth to see the lions. Such a delicious breeze was blowing in, from the north, as made the walk delightful, tho the pavement-stones, and stones of the walls and houses, were far too hot to have a hand laid on them comfortably.
We went, first of all, up a rocky height, to the cathedral, where Mass was performing to an auditory very like that of Lyons, namely, several old women, a baby, and a very self-possest dog, who had marked out for himself a little course or platform for exercise, beginning at the altar-rails and ending at the door, up and down which constitutional walk he trotted, during the service, as methodically and calmly, as any old gentleman out of doors. It is a bare old church, and the paintings in the roof are sadly defaced by time and damp weather; but the sun was shining in, splendidly, through the red curtains of the windows, and glittering on the altar furniture; and it looked as bright and cheerful as need be.
Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which one portion is now a common jail, and another a noisy barrack; while gloomy suites of state apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own old state and glory, like the embalmed bodies of kings. But we neither went there to see state rooms, nor soldiers' quarters, nor a common jail, tho we dropt some money into a prisoners' box outside, while the prisoners, themselves, looked through the iron bars, high, up, and watched us eagerly. We went to see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in which the Inquisition used to sit.
A little, old, swarthy woman, with a pair of flashing black eyes--proof that the world hadn't conjured down the devil within her, tho it had had between sixty and seventy years to do it in--came out of the Barrack Cabaret, of which she was the keeper, with some large keys in her hands, and marshaled us the way that we should go. How she told us, on the way, that she was a Government Officer (concierge du palais apostolique), and had been, for I don't know how many years; and how she had shown these dungeons to princes; and how she was the best of dungeon demonstrators; and how she had resided in the palace from an infant--had been born there, if I recollect right--I needn't relate.
But such a fierce, little, rapid, sparkling, energetic she-devil I never beheld. She was alight and flaming, all the time. Her action was violent in the extreme. She never spoke, without stopping expressly for the purpose. She stamped her feet, clutched us by the arms, flung herself into attitudes, hammered against walls with her keys, for mere emphasis: now whispered as if the Inquisition were there still; now shrieked as if she were on the rack herself; and had a mysterious, hag-like way with her forefinger, when approaching the remains of some new horror--looking back and walking stealthily and making horrible grimaces--that might alone have qualified her to walk up and down a sick man's counterpane, to the exclusion of all other figures, through a whole fever.
Passing through the courtyard, among groups of idle soldiers, we turned off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for our admission, and locked again behind us; and entered a narrow court, rendered narrower by fallen stones and heaps of rubbish; part of it choking up the mouth of a ruined subterranean passage, that once communicated (or is said to have done so) with another castle on the opposite bank of the river. Close to this courtyard is a dungeon--we stood within it, in another minute--in the dismal tower of oubliettes, where Rienzi was imprisoned, fastened by an iron chain to the very wall that stands there now, but shut out from the sky which now looks down into it.
A few steps brought us to the Cachots, in which the prisoners of the Inquisition were confined for forty-eight hours after their capture, without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken, even before they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The day has not got in there yet. They are still small cells, shut in by four unyielding, close, hard walls; still profoundly dark; still massively doored and fastened, as of old.
Goblin, looking back as I have described, went softly on, into a vaulted chamber, now used as a store-room; once the Chapel of the Holy Office. The place where the tribunal sat, was plain. The platform might have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the Good Samaritan having been painted on the wall of one of these Inquisition chambers! But it was, and may be traced there yet.
High up in the wall, are niches where the faltering replies of the accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had been brought out of the very cell we had just looked into, so awfully; along the same stone passage. We had trodden in their very footsteps.
I am gazing round me, with the horror that the place inspires, when Goblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but the handle of a key, upon her lip. She invites me, with a jerk, to follow her. I do so. She leads me out into a room adjoining--a rugged room, with a funnel- shaped, contracting roof, open at the top, to the bright day, I ask her what it is. She folds her arms,, leers hideously, and stares. I ask again. She glances round, to see that all the little company are there; sits down upon a mound of stones; throws up her arms, and yells out, like a fiend, "La Salle de la Question!"
The Chamber of Torture! And the roof was made of that shape to stifle the victim's cries! Oh Goblin, Goblin, let us think of this awhile, in silence. Peace, Goblin! Sit with your short arms crossed on your short legs, upon that heap of stones, for only five minutes, and then flame out again.... A cold air, with an earthy smell, falls upon the face of Monsieur; for she has opened, while speaking, a trap-door in the wall. Monsieur looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to the top, of a steep, dark lofty tower; very dismal, very dark, very cold. The Executioner of the Inquisition, says Goblin, edging in her head to look down also, flung those who were past all further torturing, down here. "But look! does Monsieur see the black stains on the wall?" A glance, over his shoulder, at Goblin's keen eye, shows Monsieur--and would without the aid of the directing-key--where they are. "What are they?" "Blood!"
In October, 1791, when Revolution was at its height here, sixty persons; men and women ("and priests," says Goblin, "priests"); were murdered, and hurled, the dying and the dead, into this dreadful pit, where a quantity of quicklime was tumbled down upon their bodies. Those ghastly tokens of the massacre were soon no more; but while one stone of the strong building in which the deed was done, remains upon another, there they will lie in the memories of men, as plain to see as the splashing of their blood upon the wall is now.... Goblin's finger is lifted; and she steals out again, into the Chapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave courier, who is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap on the hat with the largest key; and bids him be silent. She assembles us all, round a little trap-door in the floor, as round as grave.
"Voilà!" she darts down at the ring, and flings the door open with a crash, in her goblin energy, tho it is no light weight. "Voilà les oubliettes! Voilà les oubliettes! Subterranean! Frightful! Black! Terrible! Deadly! Les oubliettes de l'Inquisition!"
My blood ran cold, as I looked from Goblin, down into the vaults, where these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside--of wives, friends, children, brothers--starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt on seeing the accurst wall below, decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph.
I felt exalted with the proud delight of living, in these degenerate times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some high achievement! The light in the doleful vaults was typical of the light that has streamed in, on all persecution in God's name, but which is not yet at its noon! It can not look more lovely to a blind man newly restored to sight, than to a traveler who sees it, calmly and majestically, treading down the darkness of that Infernal Well.
Goblin, having shown les oubliettes, felt that her great coup was struck. She let the door fall with a crash, and stood upon it with her arms a-kimbo, sniffing prodigiously.
When we left the place, I accompanied her into her house, under the outer gateway of the fortress, to buy a little history of the building. Her cabaret, a dark low room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the thick wall--in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney; its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its household implements are scraps of dress against the wall; and a sober looking woman (she must have a congenial life of it, with Goblin) knitting at the door-- looked exactly like a picture by Ostade.
I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream, and yet with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of which the light, down in the vaults, had given, me the assurance. The immense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous strength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building, its gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous irregularity, awaken awe and wonder.
The recollection of its opposite old uses; an impregnable fortress, a luxurious palace, a horrible prison, a place of torture, the court of the Inquisition; at one and the same time, a house of feasting, fighting, religion, and blood, gives to every stone in its huge form a fearful interest, and imparts new meaning to its incongruities. I could think of little, however, then, or long afterward, but the sun in the dungeons.
The palace coming down to be the lounging-place of noisy soldiers, and being forced to echo their rough talk and common oaths, and to have their garments fluttering from its dirty windows, was some reduction of its state, and something to rejoice at; but the day in its cells, and the sky for the roof of its chambers of cruelty--that was its desolation and defeat! If I had seen it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have felt that not that light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns, could waste it, like the sunbeams in its secret council-chamber and its prisons.