He was dressed in a rough knitted jersey, and a small dark blue round cap was set at the back of his head. She enquired where she should find the Queen’s grotto, and he walked a little way beside her to show her the way.
Miss Lamont expected to have to turn back to the present grotto, and when she remarked that they were going past the Belvédère, he replied firmly that they must go past the Belvédère, and said that it was necessary to have been born and bred in the place to know the way so that “personne ne pourrait vous tromper.”
It appears that from 1870 onwards the gardeners at Trianon have been selected from the technical schools, and that it is now a matter of competition, no one being appointed simply because he was born and bred there. We do not know whether this is the case with the under-gardeners; nor whether the tall gardener was a chief official or not.
In August, 1908, we were told by a former gardener that their dress now is the same as the traditional dress of the ancien régime, viz., a rough knitted jersey with a small casquette on the head.
In the old weekly wages book there appears, for several years, the name “l’Anglais”—probably a nickname.[[75]] He must not be confused with John Egleton, who remained at Trianon only a few months, and whose wages were settled on his departure by a bill which is still in existence, but is not in the wages book.[[76]]
We owe our researches as to the position of the Queen’s grotto almost entirely to the tall gardener’s decided directions and guidance to the part of the English garden between the Belvédère and the montagnes close to the theatre.
E. M.
F. L.
September, 1910.