Cottage, Woman, and Girl
Whilst speaking to the two men, Miss Lamont observed on her right hand a solidly-built cottage with stone steps, on which a woman in old-fashioned dress was standing, handing something to a girl of about 13 or 14, who wore a white cap and skirts nearly reaching to her ankles.
In 1904, Miss Lamont saw a picture resembling this cottage in its general appearance in the Album de Trianon at the Bibliothèque nationale. In 1908, she and a friend discovered such a cottage (more than one) within the gates which were not far from the place where she had seen the plough. These cottages were not in the right position for our experience in 1901, but the type was the same.
In 1907 we discovered from the map of 1783 that there was a building, not now in existence, placed against the wall (outside) of the gardener’s yard between the ruelle and the porte du jardinier; if our original route lay through this yard to the English garden, this building would be exactly in the right place for Miss Lamont’s cottage.
In September, 1910, we saw from marks on this wall that a building might have stood here; for the cornice of the wall is broken into, and there seems to be a perpendicular line from it to the ground visible through the plaster. A photograph shows this.
If the girl seen should be the “Marion” of Madame Julie Lavergne’s story (first read in 1906), she would have been 14 years old in 1789, and her mother was then alive. Her father’s house would have been near the reservoir and not within the locked gates of any enclosure, for she let herself out at night by an open window.[[15]] All this would suit the position of the building in the map.