At present there are trees on each side of the pelouse, and one growing near the site of the old Jeu de Bague, but none growing in front of the house, and it all looks drier, brighter, and less confined than in 1901.
We have found two interesting mentions of this pelouse.
Before the new theatre was built in 1779, the old comédie stood on it for three years. When the comédie was moved it gave place to a “pelouse parsemée d’arbres.”[[66]]
The Lady
Nothing unusual marked the lady sitting on a low seat on the grass immediately under the north terrace. I remember recognising that her light-coloured skirt, white fichu, and straw hat were in the present fashion, but they struck me as rather dowdy in the general effect. She was so near us that I looked full at her, and she bent slightly forward to do the same.
I never doubted that we had both seen her, and three months after was astonished to hear that Miss Lamont had not done so. That sounds simple to others, to ourselves it is inexplicable. Miss Lamont had seen the plough, the cottage, the woman, and the girl, which I had not; but she is generally more observant than I, and there were other things to look at. At this moment there was nothing to see on the right, and merely a shady, damp-looking meadow on the left, and the lady was sitting in front of the house we had come to see, and were both eagerly studying. The lady was visible some way off; we walked side by side straight up to her, leaving her slightly on the left hand as we passed up the steps to the terrace, from whence I saw her again from behind, and noticed that her fichu had become a pale green.
The fact that she had not been seen at a moment when we were both a little exercised by our meeting with the men,—one looking so unpleasant, and the other so unaccountably and infectiously excited,—made a deep impression.
The legend that we heard the following winter of the Queen having been occasionally seen sitting in front of the house in the English garden, is of course incapable of proof; but three things were to us full of interest.
I. In 1902 I saw Wertmüller’s picture of the Queen, which alone of all the many portraits shown me in any way brought back the face I had seen; for the face was more square and the nose shorter. A few weeks later we read that Madame Campan considered it almost the only picture of her that was really like, though other people thought that it did not do her justice.
II. In April, 1908, we learned that there was only one time during the Queen’s tenure of the Petit Trianon when she could have seen strangers in her gardens, from which, in earlier days, the Court was entirely excluded, and to which even the King only came by invitation. For four months, after May, 1789, when the Court was carried off to Paris, the public streamed in as it liked. So many came to see the place that had been too much talked about, that the King and Queen had gone that summer to Marly for a little rest and quiet. That was the time when D’Hezecques, with one of the deputies, walked round and saw the grotto and the little bridge. At the time the Trianon officials must have learnt to treat strangers with cold politeness, but probably resenting the necessity. This exactly accounts for the manner of the guards at the porte du jardinier; they made no difficulty, and told us that we should find the house by going that way, but in quite an unusual manner for Frenchmen. It was mechanical and disengaged.