SAINT CLOUD AND TRIANON.
The Emperor had determined that there could not be too much rejoicing at his son's baptism; consequently he gave an entertainment himself, June 23,1811, in the palace and park of Saint Cloud. The palace, with its magnificent halls, its drawing-rooms of Mars, Venus, Truth, Mercury, and Aurora, its Gallery of Apollo, and Room of Diana, adorned with Mignard's frescoes; the park, with its fine trees, its wonderful stretches, its greensward, and abundant flowers; the two grand views from the upper windows, one towards Paris, the other towards the garden; the waterfalls, set in a tasteful frame, and rushing down step by step, breaking into a white foam, sparkling in the sunlight or with the reflection of a thousand torches, formed a marvellous setting for a festival both by night and by day. More than three hundred thousand persons went to Saint Cloud; they began to arrive in the morning, and filled every avenue, covered every bit of rising ground. Food was publicly distributed; the fountains ran wine. Games and sports of all kinds were played, and the Imperial Guard gave an open-air banquet to the garrison of Paris.
At six in the evening Napoleon and Marie Louise drove in an open barouche through the park, without guard or escort, to the great delight of the applauding multitude. The orange house, which had been stripped of its contents for the decoration of the front of the palace, was adorned with stuffs of fine colors. Temples and kiosks had been set up in the shrubbery. At nightfall six illuminated launches, manned by sailors of the Imperial Guard, performed various evolutions and discharged fireworks, which made a brilliant show upon the river. Meanwhile the illuminations began throughout the park, along the terraces, and the amphitheatre, and in the palace. It was a most fairy-like sight; the large cascade with its half-lying statues of the Seine and the Loire; the lower cascade beneath; the fountain rising twenty-seven metres; the large square basin with the ten little shell-shaped basins and the nine fountains spurting from gilded masques; the green lawns, the flower-beds, the shrubbery,—all lit up by the blazing fireworks. At nine o'clock Madame Blanchard went up in a balloon, discharging fireworks from the car, which formed a starlike crown set at a great height; she seemed like a magician in a fiery chariot. Fireworks were then set off by the artillery of the Imperial Guard from the middle of the Plain of Boulogne; they were visible from Paris as from Saint Cloud, and from all the hills bordering the Seine from Calvaire to Meudon. Next to the row of columns opened the illuminated garden, with waterfalls, trees, and porticoes, forming a most brilliant spectacle. The Emperor and Empress walked through the park, and Marie Louise was continually reminded of her beloved Austria, of Schoenbrunn, of the Burg, of Laxenburg, by the wonderful panorama. There were many bands stationed among the trees, playing waltzes, and dancers from the opera, dressed as German shepherds and shepherdesses, were dancing. An interlude, "The Village Festival," words by Étienne, set to music by Nicolo, was given in the open air, on the grass. When the Empress came to a column supporting a basket of flowers, a dove alit at her feet and offered her an ingenious motto.
The weather had been tolerably pleasant all day; but it became stormy in the evening; the air grew heavy: there could be seen neither moon nor stars. There had just been illuminated, opposite the grand cascade, a model of the palace intended for the King of Rome,—this palace the Emperor meant to build on the high ground of Chaillot, with the Bois de Boulogne for its park,—when suddenly the storm that had been slowly gathering burst upon the heads of the vast crowd in the park. There were there deputations from all the large towns of the vast empire which reached from Cuxhaven to Rome; the men in costly velvet coats, the women in dresses of embroidered silk. The Emperor at the moment happened to be talking in the doorway between the drawing-room and the garden; near him was the Mayor of Lyons, to whom he said, "I am going to benefit your manufactures." Then he remained standing in the doorway. The courtiers received the shower with bare heads and smiling faces. Possibly some might have said that the rain of Saint Cloud, like the rain of Marly, did not wet.
Of course no one had an umbrella. Prince Aldobrandini, the Empress's First Equerry, managed to procure one, which he held over her. Count Rémusat found another, and for an hour he was coming and going, between the park and the palace, to bring as many ladies as possible under shelter. The entertainment could not go on; every one was wet through. The musicians could not play on their dripping instruments. The Emperor and the Empress withdrew at eleven, and both the court and the people had gloomy memories of this festivity which began so well and ended so badly. Superstitious and ill-disposed persons fancied that they saw an evil omen in this; they recalled the disastrous ball at the Austrian Embassy, and said that the storm broke just at the very moment when the palace of the King of Rome was illuminated. But what difference could a simple shower make to a people accustomed to streams of blood?
August 15, 1811, there was a brilliant celebration at Saint Cloud and Paris, as well as throughout the Empire, of the festival of the great and the small Napoleon. August 25 was the birthday of the Empress Marie Louise, and this was celebrated at the two Trianons, which were full of memories of Louis XIV. and of Marie Antoinette. The Grand Trianon, graceful and majestic, though but a single story high, and the Little Trianon, charming, though but a simple small square, of no regal aspect, were enchanted palaces on Marie Louise's birthday. The two buildings, the belvedere, the little lakes, the island and Temple of Love, the village, the octagonal pavilion, the theatre, were all aglow. It seemed as if Marie Antoinette were alive again, and to the Empress Delille's lines could have applied as well as to the Queen:—
"Like its August and youthful deity,
Trianon combines grace with majesty:
For her it adorns itself, is by her adorned."
It was only twenty-two years since Marie Antoinette had been there, and many of the lords and ladies who adorned Napoleon's court as they had adorned that of Louis XVI. could not see without emotion this fairy-like recall of the brilliant days of the old régime. The French nobility had an opportunity to make many reflections on revisiting the Little Trianon which aroused many memories. It was less than eighteen years since there had perished on the scaffold the charming sovereign who had been the idol, the goddess, of this little temple; and now new festivities were beginning; another Austrian archduchess occupied the place of the martyred Queen. There was the Swiss village, of which Louis XVI. had been the miller, the Count of Provence the schoolmaster, the Count of Artois the gamekeeper, the village with its merry mill, the dairy where the cream filled porphyry vessels on marble tables, the laundry where the clothes were beaten with ebony sticks, the granary to which led mahogany ladders, the sheep-house where the sheep were shorn with golden shears. They saw once more the grass sprinkled with flowers, the clear water, the trees of all colors from dark green to cherry-red; larches and pink acacias, cedars of Lebanon, sophoras from China, poplars from Athens, and they said that Time, which shatters a sceptre, respects a shrub. Everything else had changed; the garden was still the same.
All day long the gloomy solitude of Versailles had been crowded anew as if by magic. A countless multitude thronged its long, wide avenues, which had been almost deserted since October, 1789. The festivities of the former monarchy appeared to have begun again. At three in the afternoon a rather heavy shower had fallen, and it seemed as if the day and evening would end gloomily; but on the contrary, the rain was but brief and only freshened the air, and made the festival pleasanter. The setting sun lit up the great king's town, and at night many-colored lamps decorated the Grand Trianon. Six hundred women in rich dresses, and ablaze with jewelry, gathered in the gallery of that palace. The Empress spoke to many of them, and it was noticed how well she had become acquainted with French society, although she had been in the country but fifteen months; and with what kindness and dignity she addressed them.
Then they went to the theatre of the Little Trianon, a perfect jewel, a gem, with its two Ionic columns, its pediment in which Love is holding a lyre and a laurel wreath; and its ceiling representing Olympus, the work of Lagrenée; and its curtain, on which are two nymphs supporting Marie Antoinette's coat-of-arms. It was there that, August 19, 1785, the Queen played Rosina, in "The Barber of Seville," and that the Count of Artois uttered those ominous words as Figaro, "I try to laugh at everything, lest I should have to weep at everything." Before Napoleon and Marie Louise there was given a piece composed for the occasion by Alissan de Chazet: it was called "The Gardener of Schoenbrunn." After it was a pretty ballet given by the dancers of the Opera.
When this was over, the Emperor and Empress walked through the gardens of the Little Trianon, which were illuminated. Napoleon, with his hat in his hand, gave his arm to Marie Louise. They visited the island and the marble Temple of Love, in which is Bouchardon's statue of Love carving his bow into the club of Hercules. There was soft music from concealed performers, which seemed to rise from the bottom of the lake, on which floated illuminated boats full of children disguised as cupids. Then they walked further in the garden, and watched a tableau vivant, representing Flemish peasants. This was succeeded by groups representing the people of the different provinces of the Empire in their national dress, from the Tiber to the North Sea. The celebration ended with a supper in the gallery of the Grand Trianon. All those who had known the place in the old régime agreed that the festival was a perfect success; and Marie Louise, who was becoming more and more at home in France, was sure that her birthday had never been celebrated with anything like such magnificence.