Chapter II: The Environs of Paris (2)

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 days
Have 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.

The Two Trianons

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[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."

Malmaison

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[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.

St. Germain

By Leitch Ritchie

[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.

St. Cloud

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[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.