CHAPTER VIII.
THE LITTLE TRIANON.
WHEN Louis XIV. built Versailles and perceived the discomfort of grandeur, he granted it was the sojourneying-place for a demi-god but no home for a man. So he had the Trianon constructed to be able to draw a free breath at leisure moments.
But the sword of Achilles, if it tired him, was bound to be of insupportable weight to a myrmidon. Trianon was so much too pompous for the Fifteenth Louis that he had the Little Trianon built.
It was a house looking with its large eyes of windows over a park and woods, with the wing of the servant’s lodgings and stables on the left, where the windows were barred and the kitchens hidden by trellises of vines and creepers.
A path over a wooden bridge led to the Grand Trianon through a kitchen garden.
The King brought Prime Minister Choiseul into this garden to show him the improvements introduced to make the place fit for his grandson the Dauphin, and the Dauphiness.
Duke Choiseul admired everything and passed his comments with a courtier’s sagacity. He let the monarch say the place would become more pleasant daily and he added that it would be a family retreat for the sovereign.
“The Dauphiness is still a little uncouth, like all young German girls,” said Louis; “She speaks French nicely, but with an Austrian accent jarring on our ears. Here she will speak among friends and it will not matter.”
“She will perfect herself,” said the duke. “I have remarked that the lady is highly accomplished and accomplishes anything she undertakes.”
On the lawn they found the Dauphin taking the sun with a sextant. Louis Aguste, duke of Berry, was a meek-eyed, rosy complexioned man of seventeen, with a clumsy walk. He had a more prominent Bourbon nose than any before him, without its being a caricature. In his nimble fingers and able arms alone he showed the spirit of his race, so to express it.