The Chapel Man
Whilst we were standing at the south-west end of the terrace above the French garden, the door of a building at right angles to the house suddenly opened, and a young man came out and slammed the door behind him. He came to us very quickly along a level. His manner was jaunty and imperious, and he told us that the only way to the house was by the cour d’honneur. It was difficult to hear what he said. We thought at once that we were trespassing and looked for some way down from the terrace, upon which he constituted himself our guide, and with an inquisitive, amused expression, went with us a little way down the French garden, and showed us out into the avenue by a broad road.
There is much to say about this incident.
I. The man evidently did not mean us to stand on the terrace so near to the house, and forced us to move away. He was the second person that afternoon who had excitedly insisted on our going one way rather than another; but now we know that since 1870 the gardens and terraces have been made public until dark, and people walk about freely. No one has ever stopped us since, nor can we hear of anyone else who has been guided as we were.
II. In 1905 we found that the building out of which the man came was the old chapel, which is in a ruinous condition.
In 1906, Miss Lamont had leave to go into the chapel, which she had to enter from the avenue, there being no entrance from the garden. When inside she saw that the door out of which he had come was one leading into the royal gallery. The gallery now stands isolated high up on the north wall of the chapel. Formerly, from inside, it was reached by a door on a landing at the top of a staircase. This staircase is completely broken down, and the floor of the landing is gone, so that there is now no access to the gallery. The terrace door of the gallery is bolted, barred, and cobwebbed over from age and disuse. The guide said that the door had not been opened in the memory of any man there: not since it was used by the Court.
In April, 1907, Miss Lamont went again to the chapel, this time with two companions. Their guide then told them that the doors had not been opened to his knowledge for fifteen years, and the great door not since it was used by the court of Louis XVI. “Moi, je suis ici depuis quinze ans, et je sais que les portes ont été condamnées bien avant cela.” He added that having the sole charge of the keys, no one could have opened the doors without his knowledge, and smiled at the idea as he looked at the blocked-up old doors.
In August, 1907, two other friends went to the chapel and entirely confirmed all that had been said about its ruined condition and the impossibility of the great door having been opened in 1901. Their guide told them that the big door had been Marie Antoinette’s private entrance. The gallery was still standing and had two chairs on it of gilt and old red velvet; but when they asked whether it was possible to enter it, the guide laughed and pointed to the staircase. There was no other entrance, he said, and the stairs had been in that condition for the last ten years. They thought from the look of the stairs that they had probably been so for much longer.
In September, 1910, a fifth friend went to the chapel and bore witness to the impossibility of the doors having been used in 1901, and was told that the staircase had finally broken down fifteen years before.
III. From Desjardins’ book we learned that the Queen’s concierge had been Bonnefoy du Plan. He had rooms between the chapel and the cour d’honneur and kept his stores in a loft over the chapel, reached by the now broken-down old staircase. The window of this attic still looks over the French garden, and from it, in old days, he would have seen anyone approaching the house from that side. The name of the suisse (the porter) in charge of the porte du perron de la chapelle in 1789 was Lagrange. His rooms were immediately behind the chapel, looking into the avenue.[[68]] He could easily have been sent through the chapel to interview strangers on the terrace.
IV. We did not lose sight of the man when he came to us. As it is now he must have gone quite out of sight, down one flight of steps outside the chapel door, and (after passing under a high wall) have reached the terrace (where we were standing) by a second set of steps. The present wall of the chapel courtyard is so high as to hide half the door, and a large chestnut tree in the courtyard hides it from the part of the terrace on which we were,—even in winter.
In April, 1907, we discovered that a continuous ground-floor passage from the kitchens once passed the chapel door to the house. This set us wondering as to whether there had ever been a pathway above it. The same year we were told that the chapel courtyard round which the passage had gone had been enlarged.
In August, 1907, two friends reported to us and photographed a mark on the outside of the courtyard wall, showing where it might at some time have been raised.
In March, 1908, another mark on the chapel was discovered, revealing that there had once been an inner wall to the courtyard, which might have been removed when the courtyard was enlarged. We also found out that the levels were so different that the passage would have been partly underground on the side of the French garden, but in the rez de chaussée in the courtyard and where it flanked the cour d’honneur. We noticed from the photographs that the bastion at the south-west corner of the house in the cour d’honneur looked older than the top part of the wall adjoining it above the chapel courtyard.
In September, 1910, permission was given to enter this courtyard; when within, it was definitely explained that above the kitchen passage there had been a covered way, by which the Queen could enter the chapel from the house in wet weather. The top of this covered way had been “de plain pied,” joining the bit of terrace outside the chapel door to the terrace by the house. This would have been the level way along which our man came to us.
The marks of the passage and covered way (forming the intervening piece of terrace) were perfectly clear both on the inside of the present wall and on the ground in the courtyard. The present balustrade adjoining the bastion was probably placed when the old covered way was destroyed and the outside wall was raised. It was also noticed that the round windows in the bastion lighted the lower kitchen passage; but that those facing the French garden, being on a higher level, lighted the covered way.
The guide stated that the tree in the centre of the chapel courtyard had certainly been planted after the days of the monarchy.
V. The road from the garden to the avenue (through which the man ushered us) was not far from the chapel, and was broad enough to admit a coach. The present one is narrower and further to the west.
In 1907, we read a note by M. de Nolhac in Les Consignes de Marie Antoinette in which he says that the old porte de la ménagerie which must have led from the avenue to the French garden is now lost, but that it must have been “tout auprès des bâtiments de la Conciergerie et des cuisines.”[[69]] We thought that perhaps it was the one we went by, and on looking at Mique’s map of 1783 found a broad road dividing the kitchen court into two parts. At present solid continuous buildings on the two sides of the kitchen court show no sign of an entrance, though in two places the roofs have a difference of level.
In April, 1909, a Frenchman, who sold prints and seemed to be a specialist in maps, said that Mique’s map was the only authoritative one.
In September, 1910, we learned from the first authority that Mique’s map was “exact”: that the road found in it had certainly existed, and its position relatively to the pond in the French garden was explained. A search for some sign of it was at once made, and successfully. On the garden side, not at all far from the chapel, the jamb of an old opening still projects from the building, covered with ivy; and the stones on the ground are laid, for a space of about twelve paces, the other way from the stones on either side, evidently to make a carriage road. A large rectangular stone was lying on the ground which might either have been a step, or part of the second jamb. On the avenue side marks of an opening of some sort can be traced through the plaster with which Louis Philippe finished the buildings after restoring and also altering them. The opening would have included two present windows not far from the porte de la bouche, as the signs of it are visible on both sides of the opening, and the space between is from twelve to twenty paces.
Within the kitchen court the buildings have been so altered and plastered over that no traces of change could be found.
All the points corresponded with the recollection of the roadway through which we had passed in 1901.