"They gave me the most fashionable teachers besides, but M. Roche (the tutor) was not qualified to arrange their lessons, nor to qualify me to benefit by them. I was, moreover, like all the children of my age and station, dressed in the handsomest clothes to go out, and naked and dying with hunger in the house."
This was not through unkindness, but because of dissipation and carelessness, all the time and attention being given elsewhere. Even in the last days of the ancien régime little boys had their hair powdered and dressed in ringlets and curls. They wore a sword, carried a chapeau under the arm, wore laces and frills, and coats with cuffs heavy with gold lace. The small girls were their mothers in miniature. At six one of them would present her hand for a little dandy to kiss, her little figure would be squeezed into a stiff corset, her huge hoop-skirt supported a skirt of brocade enwreathed with garlands of flowers. On her head was a structure of false curls, puffs, knots, and ribbons, held on by pins and topped with plumes; and if she was pale they would put rouge on her face. By force of habit and instruction she bore herself like a mature woman. Her most important instructor was the dancing-master, her never-ending study deportment.
In the eighteenth century drawing-room women were queens. They prescribed the law and fashion in all things. There was no situation, however delicate, that they did not save through tact and politeness. This was the time when first Watteau, and later Lancret and Fragonard, painted the Fêtes galantes, when pretty picnics and dancing in a woody dell were great diversions. It was an idealized life of the brilliant world of France which early in the eighteenth century Watteau painted. Scattered all through the land were sumptuous dwellings of the rich, upon which fortunes were lavished. Beaus and belles alike dressed themselves à la Watteau. He became the lover's poet, a painter of an ideal pastoral which hardly existed, but to which his hand gave beauty and value. This was one side. On the other, besides heavy taxation, poor crops, flood, famine, and the devastation of war, there was always the pest. This terrible contagious fever, with the smallpox, was a scourge to the people. Hundreds fell victims to these twin plagues, for the usual treatment was copious bleeding.
Figure 81. BED OF NAPOLEON AT GRAND TRIANON.
But the court, while it might suffer at times from sickness and death, never allowed itself to think of such things. It amused itself with balls and masques, plays, and even with blindman's-buff. The gardens at Versailles were always in gala dress, and at night musicians played among the trees, and thousands of lights sparkled among the flowers. Fifty years later they played at simplicity too, these great ladies and elegant cavaliers, laying aside the silks and brocades of which a surfeit had wearied them, and wearing picturesque gowns of simple material and cut. Marie Antoinette herself set the example in her retreat at Little Trianon, with the muslin gown and fichu crowned with a straw hat, in which she ran across the gardens. Beneath all this elegance, amiability, and extravagance the Revolution seethed and boiled and finally overran and destroyed. Till almost the very end extravagance increased, and in [Figure 79] is shown an encoignure, or corner cupboard with commode below, and cabinet above, of the most elaborate inlaid work, with very rich ormolu mounts. This work is by David de Luneville, and is a marvel of the intricacy of inlaying, many different woods being used in that jumble of ornament which forms the decoration of the door in the cabinet. At each intersection of the lattice work inlay is a little rosette. The divisions of the lower part have an edging of satin-wood, which in the centre panel is made more ornate with an inlay of ebony. This piece is at the Waring Galleries, London.
The new conditions in France wrought changes in every detail of life. Simplicity, so called, was becoming the watchword, and once more antique models were sought for forms and decorations. Under the Empire the style was much less graceful, the lines coarser, and the elaboration of ornament heavy. Could anything be less pleasing than Josephine's bed at Fontainebleau, shown in [Figure 80]? It is one of the few unsightly things in that beautiful palace, where are now gathered so many works of art. The bedstead is covered with heavy chiselled ornaments in brass, and surmounted by a canopy held on pillars. This canopy is partly of carved wood and partly of embroidered satin. There are strings of gold beads hanging from this satin, and in addition heavy satin curtains very richly embroidered. These are edged with a long and clumsy fringe. The whole room is in keeping with the bed, for the floor is covered with a carpet bearing the imperial insignia all over it, and the hangings on the walls have countless spots in lieu of a pattern. It was at Fontainebleau that the sentence of divorce was passed on Josephine, and it seems possible that the sleepless nights which the poor lady endured must have been rendered more miserable by the unlovely character of her surroundings.
It is with pleasure that one turns to [Figure 81], showing the bed of the great Emperor himself, at Grand Trianon, Versailles. It is a good example of the best Empire work, and is mahogany ornamented with ormolu mounts in classic style.
Figure 82. ROOM AT FONTAINEBLEAU, WITH HISTORIC TABLE.