1902–4.
During the next two years very little occurred to throw light on the story. The person living in Versailles to whom we had been directed as having related the tradition of the Queen’s being at Trianon on October 5th, 1789, was unable to remember anything at all about it. The photographs of the Belvédère made it clear that it was not identical with the kiosk. On the many occasions on which Miss Lamont went to the Trianon she could never again find the places,—not even the wood in which she had been. She assured me that the place was entirely different; the distances were much less than we had imagined; and the ground was so bare that the house and the Hameau were in full view of one another; and that there was nothing unnatural about the trees.
Miss Lamont brought back from Paris La Reine Marie Antoinette, by M. de Nolhac, and Le Petit Trianon, by Desjardins. We noted that M. de Nolhac related the traditional story of the Queen’s visit, and that the Comte de Vaudreuil, who betrayed the Queen by inviting her to the fatal acting of the “Barbier de Séville” in her own theatre at Trianon, was a Creole and marked by smallpox (pages 61, 212). Turning over the pages of Desjardins I found Wertmüller’s portrait of the Queen, and exclaimed that it was the first of all the pictures I had seen which at all brought back the face of the lady. Some weeks later I found this passage: “Ce tableau fut assez mal accueilli des critiques contemporains qui le trouvèrent froid, sans majesté, sans grace. Pour la posterité, au contraire, il a le plus grand mérite; celui de la ressemblance. Au dire de Madame Campan, il n’existe de bon portrait de la reine que cette toile de Wertmüller et celle que Madame Lebrun peignit en 1787” (page 282).
In January, 1904, Miss Lamont went to the Comédie Française to see the “Barbier de Séville,” and noticed that the Alguazils standing round were dressed exactly like our garden officials, but had red stockings added. This was interesting, as the Comédie Française is the descendant of the Royal Private Theatre, and the old royal liveries worn by the subordinate actors (who were, in earlier times, the royal servants) are carefully reproduced at it. Also, she reported, that Almaviva was dressed in a dark cloak and a large Spanish hat, which was said to be the outdoor dress of French gentlemen of the period.
E. M.
On Monday, July 4th, 1904, Miss Lamont and I went to the Trianon, this being my second visit. We were accompanied by Mademoiselle ——, who had not heard our story. On the Saturday of the same week (July 9th) we went again unaccompanied.
Both days were brilliant and hot. On both occasions the dust, glare, trams, and comers and goers, were entirely different from the quietness and solitude of our visit in 1901. We went up the lane as at the first time and turned to the right on reaching the building, which we had now learnt to call the logement des corps de gardes. From this point everything was changed. The old wall facing us had gates, but they were closed, and the one through which we had seen the drive passing through a grove of trees seemed to have been closed for a very long time. We came directly to the gardener’s house, which was quite different in appearance from the cottage described by Miss Lamont in 1901, in front of which she saw the woman and the girl. Beyond the gardener’s house was a parterre with flower-beds, and a smooth lawn of many years’ careful tendance. It did not seem to be the place where we had met the garden officials.
We spent a long time looking for the old paths. Not only was there no trace of them, but the distances were contracted, and all was on a smaller scale than I recollected. The kiosk was gone; so was the ravine and the little cascade which had fallen from a height above our heads, and the little bridge over the ravine was, of course, gone too. The large bridge with the rocher over it, crossing one side of the lake at the foot of the Belvédère, had no resemblance to it. The trees were quite natural, and seemed to have been a good deal cleared out, making that part of the garden much less wooded and picturesque.
The English garden in front of the house was not shaded by many trees; and we could see the house and the hameau from almost every point. Instead of a much shaded rough meadow continuing up to the wall of the terrace, there is now a broad gravel sweep beneath it, and the trees on the grass are gone. Exactly where the lady was sitting we found a large spreading bush of, apparently, many years’ growth. We did not recognise the present staircase, which leads up to the north-west end of the terrace, nor the extension of wall round which one has now to go in order to reach the staircase. We thought that we went up to the terrace from some point nearer to the house from the English garden. The present exit from the French garden to the avenue was not so near the house as we expected, nor was it so broad as we remembered it.
To add to the impossibility of recalling our first visit, in every corner we came across groups of noisy merry people walking or sitting in the shade. Garden seats placed everywhere, and stalls for fruit and lemonade took away from any idea of desolation. The common-place, unhistorical atmosphere was totally inconsistent with the air of silent mystery by which we had been so much oppressed. Though for several years Miss Lamont had assured me of the change, I had not expected such complete disillusionment.