It is a pity le Roi galant cannot come back to his own for at least one summer night. He had ever an eye for a pretty woman, and it would warm even his ghost to watch the women who flutter from automobile or carriage to the pavilion that bears his name. He would smile approval too at the woman of the golf or tennis costume, for this hot-headed Henry was catholic in his tastes. Perhaps it is the tolerance of his spirit that has made possible at the Henri Quatre what would be shocking at the Bellevue, where the Pompadour is presiding genius. La Grande Marquise was not a marvel of morality, but upon etiquette she stood firm. One must be in grande toilette for Bellevue, but for the Henri Quatre—that is as one chooses.
Pretty women in ravishing toilettes flock to the tables of the glass-enclosed verandahs; but, side by side with the woman of the trailing chiffon and lace, of the wonderful driving cloak, of the picture hat, is the woman who has been playing golf or tennis at some one of the clubs round about St. Germain. The chances are that, being French, she has not played violently enough to disarrange her costume. It is as immaculate, as perfect in its way as the dinner toilette of the woman who has driven out from town, but she adores le sport, and she chatters about it enthusiastically over her truffles and champagne, looking, the while, like a Dresden china image of a golf girl.
High above the bank of the Seine at Meudon stands the Bellevue, a restaurant de luxe, which was built only a few years ago, and has had a considerable vogue, but has suffered since the day of the automobile arrived, because it is hardly far enough from Paris to afford a good motor spin, though too far to be as convenient as the restaurants of the Bois.
The Pompadour once had a villa where the picturesque white building now stands far above the river and overlooking all the country round, and in point of elegance the modern belles who dine on the terrace or in the white arched dining-rooms live up to the traditions of the place where the Grande Marquise held butterfly court; for one dons one's smartest frock for Bellevue. From the river a funicular leads up to the broad terraces in front of the Pavilion. Behind the restaurant the wooded hill climbs on up toward the sky, and on its top Flammarion's observatory is perched. There is a little hotel in the woods, an unimportant place, where Bellevue parties may stay over night if they do not care to go back to the city after a late dinner or supper,—and it is not always easy to get back to town if one has come out to Bellevue in plebeian fashion by train or boat, and lingered late in defiance of boat and railway time-tables. A party of Americans were stranded that way one night last summer. No train, no boat,—and no knowledge of the little hotel in the woods. No carriage to be had, unless les messieurs could wait indefinitely. Les messieurs, being New Yorkers, were not fond of waiting. They tucked the mesdames under their arms, and went out to reconnoitre. In the court stood a magnificent big touring-car, in charge of a liveried and stately chauffeur. One of the Americans boldly approached the imposing personage.
"My man," he said in French that was intelligible if scarcely academic, "I want you to take us into town."
The Frenchman stared in amazement.
"But, Monsieur, this is a private automobile. M. le baron is having supper in there with—eh bien, with a lady."
"Exactly," said the man from New York. "But you are going to take us to town. The baron will never know you're gone. I saw the lady."
The chauffeur lapsed into what Mark Twain would call "a profound French calm." He wrung his hands and rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders and called the gods to witness that the baron would eat him alive if he dared to consider such a proposition.