The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Both of them rose and dressed quickly, for Dicky had a black calamanco domino, made for him by Madame Michot’s kind fingers, in which he proposed to see the masquerade, as he expressed it.

“You mean, to take part in it with your fiddle,” said Roger, laughing. “I thought, Dicky boy, your piety would not last. But what will your superiors say to this?”

Dicky’s face grew a yard long.

“I don’t know,” he said. “They let us do pretty much as we like when we are out of the seminary for any reason—such as I am now. But surely they know that I love music and dancing and innocent gayety; and there’s no great harm in a domino. But one thing thou knowest, Roger,—I will not do anything unbecoming a gentleman.”

“Indeed you will not, my honest little Dicky,” cried Roger; “and so, put on your domino and take your fiddle and go and spend the day merrily and innocently; and if you never do any greater harm than that, you will have a shining page in the book of all men’s actions!”

Roger went forth himself, at first unmasked, to see the sights. At three o’clock the French King would arrive, to make with the King and Queen of England a grand promenade along the terrace; and the gentlemen-at-arms of King James would be paraded before the palace gates to receive the great King who clothed and fed them. But until then, Roger was his own master, and he used his liberty to walk briskly about, exercising his awkward French as well as his legs, in the crowded town, the great forest, alive with people, and the noble terrace, already a panorama of delight, and was charmed and delighted with all he saw.

By noon the terrace—that glorious spot, where Art, taking Nature by the hand, showed her how to beautify herself still more—was a mass of life and color. The April sun shone with the golden radiance of the springtime. The trees were in their first fresh livery of green, and the delicate and piercing odors of young leaves filled the soft air. Two hundred feet below the sheer descent of the stone parapet, lay the grassy meadows flecked with groves and thickets, through which the silver Seine ran joyfully. To-day the river glittered in the sunlight. Many boats were borne upon its bosom,—for Paris poured out her legions of sight-seers by the water as by the highway. Yonder lay the decorated barge of some grand seigneur who chose to make a water party for the fête. Ladies and cavaliers were stepping out lightly, laughing and chattering, and tripping gayly toward the great flight of two hundred stone steps, that led to the pavilion of Henry the Fourth. As they climbed, they stopped to rest upon the stone benches placed on the platforms, and watched the surging stream of humanity—all sorts and conditions of men—toiling up to the level of the terrace. Next the nobleman’s water party came a group of young workmen from Paris, in a market-gardener’s boat. They wore their working-clothes, and stared with impudent admiration at the great ladies, as yet unmasked, resting on the benches, who by no means resented the liberty. Then came a whole company of washerwomen, in their spotless caps and fichus, who on reaching the top of the vast stairs immediately began dancing to a pipe and tabor that played away merrily for the few pence tossed them. Thousands of feet that day trod those stone steps, and other thousands made the great forest alive, and raised clouds of dust along the highways; for all roads led to St. Germains on Easter Tuesday. Music resounded,—fiddles and flutes and horns, alone and in unison. Here might be seen a group of peasant girls dancing, with a gentleman or two, masked but not disguised, taking a merry fling with them. Yonder a couple of ecclesiastics, in black cassocks and shovel hats, gravely surveyed the scene. The streets of the town were choked with coaches and with horses fantastically apparelled, as became their masked riders. Servants lounged about, eating, drinking, gaping at what they saw, and occasionally fighting for precedence. These encounters, however, were generally settled by the combatants retiring abashed under the jeers and jokes of the bystanders; for it was a good-natured crowd, which came for its day’s fun and would by no means be balked of it. Beggars there were too, in plenty, but even these were jolly fellows on that day, for their gains were considerable, and they were tolerably sure of a full stomach and wine in plenty. The day wore on merrily, and over the noisy, frolicking town and the placid green meadows below it—deserted for once, because from the low-lying fields nothing could be seen—shone the spring sun, and whispered the spring breezes.

At two o’clock there was a commotion huger than any which had preceded it. The King of France had arrived with a vast suite. The cavalcade rattled through the town to the gateway of the château, and into the courtyard. The Grand Monarque descended statelily from his great gilt coach. In the next coach behind him was the lady described by Madame de Beaumanoir, as “that snivelling old Maintenon,” and behind her was the mob of the greatest people in France, who found it to their interest to dog the heels and hang on to the petticoats of the astute widow of Scarron. Madame de Maintenon wore a very haughty air until, after leaving her coach, she followed the wake of the Grand Monarque, and made obeisance to Mary Beatrice of England; when in the presence of that gentle and queenly woman, she assumed a look of great meekness, not to say abjectness, being awed in the presence of true majesty.

The King and Queen of England, with the little Prince of Wales, received their brother of France at the foot of the staircase, and the royalties solemnly embraced and kissed. Roger Egremont, who watched it all from his place in the corps of gentlemen-at-arms drawn up in the courtyard, made up his mind speedily about the Grand Monarque. He looked and walked and spoke the king, every inch of him, and was surely the politest man and the finest gentleman in the world. But whether he was really as great as he appeared to be—that was something else. Roger’s pride, however, was gratified by seeing the showing his own King and Queen, poor and exiled, made in the presence of the royal brother who gave them bread and kept them from beggary. James Stuart was a gentleman, like all his race, whatever might be their faults, and Mary Beatrice of Modena well deserved the praise bestowed upon her by Louis the Fourteenth, as the most royal of all the royal women he had ever known.

The royal party ascended the stairs to the apartments above for rest and refreshment,—a little breath of informality and retirement, only involving the presence of about two hundred of the greatest personages in the kingdom. The corps of gentlemen-at-arms was dismissed. Roger ran to a cupboard in the garret of the château, where he had placed his domino when called upon to take his place in the ranks, and quickly disguising himself, made fast for the crowd that surged about the château. The first person he ran across was a little figure in a gay scarlet domino, laced with silver, whom he had no difficulty in identifying as Madame de Beaumanoir. The old lady was as sprightly and active as the youngest, and François, who toiled behind her, had some difficulty in keeping up with her. She promptly accosted Roger, as he was walking toward the terrace, and he knew well enough what to say.