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.