14. In the municipal records kept in the Library at Versailles there is a list of fêtes in the grounds. Miss Lamont has examined it carefully. There had been one for which people had been dressed in Louis XVI. costume in June, 1901, but there is a note to say that it had been confined to the Hameau. There was none in August, 1901. We know that since 1901 there have been fêtes in the grounds with scenes in character, so that other people may have come across them; an examination of the records as to dates would probably reveal such possibilities.
In the same catalogue notices are made of photographs taken of historical groups at fêtes; there had been some in connection with the June fête, and “Otto” was mentioned by name. On enquiry Otto wrote that he had not taken “l’ensemble de la fête, c’était des groupes de jeunes filles, et des dames séparément.” “Dufayel” took pains to look the matter up, and Miss Lamont and one of his employées went all through his lists and books of specimen photographs, and found that he had not taken any photographs at Trianon between 1900 and 1906. He recommended enquiries at Pierre Petit’s, as Petit would have Lafayette’s as well as other photographers’ pictures. No photographs of the scenes we wanted were to be heard of there, and Pierre Petit wrote afterwards that his only photographs at Trianon had been taken in 1900 for the Exhibition.
It has been suggested to us that our story can be explained by people posing for a cinematograph in order to register the scene of the messenger running to the Queen, whilst something further has been said of a girl sweeping up leaves as forming part of the group. Naturally, from the first, we had thought of some such explanation, but had rejected it as insufficient. We did not see the man running; we only heard him; then he suddenly appeared, standing close to us, and addressed us personally, earnestly, and with excitement. As a scene it would have been nothing; we saw no Queen, and no girl sweeping up leaves. He remained by us until we turned away from him. The cinematograph theory does not explain how it was that he came over and stood with his back against rocks of considerable size piled on one another, when rocks have not been there for nearly a hundred years, though we find that they had been placed in that part of the garden in 1788. Nor does it explain how it was that both before and during the man’s coming we were both gazing at a kiosk which is not now in existence, though both rocks and kiosk we found out years after to have made part of the original scenery in 1789. Not a word is hinted about the little bridge over the ravine, and the little cascade close by, all being essentials both to our, and, we believe, to the original story. We suspect the explanation to be simply that we had not talked about them at first, not knowing their significance till later, and so they have not got into any widely-spread story. We know from the archives that the streams were not cleared from leaves after October 4th, 1789, and that “Mariamne” is only mentioned as having been paid for work in the grounds in 1783, as one of several children so occupied.
If masqueraders were posing as guards at the porte du jardinier, the cinematograph idea does not explain the reappearance of the old cottage close by, in its former position as placed in Mique’s map of 1783. If the part of the Queen was being acted, what of the orchard of trees we saw her looking into, not now in existence; also, what is the account of the barrier at our right hand screening off the present view and exactly answering to the old enclosure of the Jeu de Bague?
The cinematograph does not explain the man who opened the great door of the chapel, easily banging it behind him as he came out; for in 1907 the people living in the place believed that it had not been opened since the days of Louis XVI., and the keeper of the key knew that even the door of the landing had not been opened for fifteen years. How was the wall lowered, which now largely hides the great door from the terrace, and makes it necessary to go down one flight of steps and up another, whereas we saw the man coming along a level, in full view, from the moment of his opening the door until he reached us standing on the terrace outside the window of the antichambre?[[77]]
A cinematograph would not explain the reappearance of the old wood in all its denseness; nor the rapid disappearance of the cart and horse in an open field; nor the music, which, six years later, was found to be a piecing together of eighteenth century operas.
No amount of masqueraders explains to us the ease with which we dismissed from sight and hearing the usual August crowds in the middle of a fine afternoon, and the impossibility of harmonising our recollections of the scenery with anything but the old maps and records. Certainly none of the persons we met were being photographed at the moment, or we must have seen it; and had scenery been erected for the purpose, we must have observed such large artificial arrangements; there would probably have been sightseers; and, presumably, the fact of anything so considerable would have been in the catalogue.
Even should it be proved that a cinematograph had been taken that very day, it would not be a possible explanation to us. The groups we saw were small and isolated from one another. There was the deepest silence everywhere, and no sunshine; whilst the light was the worst possible for a picture, for the sky was overcast. And though whilst we stood there an indefinable air of strangeness dropped over everything, including the tall forest trees, it was not of a kind that could be accounted for by fictitious scenery. The people moved and spoke as usual, but their words were extraordinarily difficult to catch.
In September, 1910, the question of such representation was settled by an enquiry of the authorities. No leave to take cinematographs had been granted in August, 1901. The fête had been on June 27th, and the photographs of it had been taken sufficiently near the time to be published in the July number of Versailles Illustré. Not one of the pictures in this number is in the least like what, we saw either in the matter of subjects, costumes, or places. The inaccuracy is so great, that in an article in the same magazine the scene of the messenger coming to the Queen is transferred from the grotto to the Hameau, though the sole authority for the tradition places it at the grotto.
15. During the last five or six years much research into topographical and archæological details has been made by the newly-formed “Société des amis de Versailles,” probably from the same archives examined by Miss Lamont, so that many points of likeness to what we saw may soon reappear. Old music with old-fashioned instruments is now frequently introduced at summer fêtes at Trianon. Even the water arrangements in our part of the garden seem likely to be altered, and the little cascade may yet be seen again. At the beginning of 1910 Miss Lamont saw engineers searching for the first and second sources, and in the following autumn she found iron grids placed on the ground near the positions we had allotted for them; but nothing had been altered up to September, 1910. We are most curious to know whether the restorations will be exactly according to our recollections of the scenery or not.