CHAPTER XXXII.
AT MARLY.
THERE is a lane on the heights over Paris, embowered by wooded hedge-rows, or skirted by open vineyards; this lane leads from Saint-Germain to Marly.
Below the village, deep in a narrow gorge, is the site of the once famous palace built by Louis XIV. Trees now wave and cattle browse on turf where once clustered twelve pavilions, linked together by arches and colonnades, in the Italian or villa style, to suit the royal fancy of a summer retreat.
Not a stone has been left by the Revolution; what were once gardens and a park, is now a secluded meadow. Blue-bells, thyme, and primroses carpet the mossy earth; and the thrush, the cuckoo, and the early swallow carol among pale sprays of beech and hazel. There are deep ditches and swampy pools, once carp-ponds and lakes, part of a plaisance, arranged in the solemn taste of that day, when nature itself was cut and trimmed à la Louis Quatorze.
When Louis fixed upon Marly as a residence he was tired of Versailles. He was old, he said, and needed relaxation. He wanted a folie, a hermitage—un rien enfin—where he could retire from the crowd and the restraints of his Court, sleep three nights in each week, and enjoy the society of his especial favourites.
Either the King altered his plan, or his architect (Le Nôtre) disregarded the royal instructions. Millions were squandered on a residence, "which was to cost nothing." A forest of full-grown trees was brought from Compiègne. The expense of draining the marshy soil, and elevating the waters of the Seine into the Machine de Marly, was never acknowledged.
What a stiff, solemn tyrant Louis is become! Selfish, exacting, pedantic, intolerant, dreaded by his children and grand-children, and exercising over them the most absolute control. Unhappy royal family, how one pities them! Marly was a dreadful infliction. Ill or well, they must go. The Duchess de Bourgogne might plead her interesting situation, and the positive prohibition of Fagon: no matter, her name is on the list—she must go. The Duchesse de Berry—that profligate daughter of the Duc d'Orléans—is in her bed seriously ill: her mother, the Duchesse d'Orléans, pleaded for her—in vain; if she could not walk she must be carried—to Marly she must go. She was dragged thither in a boat.
Madame de Maintenon herself dared to confess to no ache or pain that availed to rescue her from standing in the cold winds on frosty mornings—for the King loved the open air, and did not fear weather—beside him while he fed the fat carp in marble basins, decided upon a fresh alley to be cut through the woods, or upon a new cascade that was to pierce the hills, or a larger pavilion to be added to those already built.