To this park which the eyes of day
Traverse with so much difficulty.
My senses have the whole picture of it:
I feel the flowers at the edge of the water.
I sense the coolness which endews them.
The princess comes to sit there.
I see, as she goes there in the evening,
How the day flees and respects her.
The last ode is a promenade about the pool, and, while lacking in poetic beauty, it contains some topographical indications which it would be amusing to verify with the aid of the plans and the documents of the archives. There is a question there of a "lodge today deserted" where Alcandre once came to enjoy solitude. Alcandre is Henri IV, and we thus know the place of the "King's Garden," a retreat where Henri IV loved to pass his time, when he came to Chantilly. Then Théophile leaves on the left a thick wood favorable for lovers' meetings, a "quarter for the Faun and for the Satyr," and stops at a chapel, probably the little chapel of Saint Paul, which still exists today; he remains there a long time and prays the Lord, with the fervor of a poor poet persecuted by the Jesuits and accused of atheism; but words, already sufficiently undisciplined when he wishes to employ them to sing the sport of the nymphs, refuse to obey him when he seizes the harp of David: his prayer is a miracle of platitude....
And if, following my advice, you shall one day read La Maison de Sylvie under the trees of Chantilly, perhaps, despite its poverty of style and monotony of rhymes, you may still find some pleasure there, in spite of the disdain of Boileau, in spite of the enthusiasms of Gautier.