Two days, May seventh and eighth, are given each year to the celebration, and Orleans in other ways has honored the memory of her deliverer. A wide street bears her name, and there are noble statues, and a museum, and church offerings. The Boucher home, which sheltered Joan during her sojourn in Orleans, has been preserved—at least, a house is still shown as the Boucher house, though how much of the original structure remains no one of this day seems willing to decide.
We drove there first, for it is the only spot in Orleans that can claim even a possibility of having known Joan's actual presence. It is a house of the old half-timbered architecture, and if these are not the veritable walls that Joan saw, they must, at least, bear a close resemblance to those of the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, where Joan was made welcome. A few doors away is a fine old mansion, now a museum, and fairly overflowing with objects of every conceivable sort relating to Joan of Arc. Books, statuary, paintings, armor, banners, offerings, coins, medals, ornaments, engravings, letters—thousands upon thousands of articles gathered here in the Maid's memory. I think there is not one of them that her hand ever touched, or that she ever saw, but in their entirety they convey, as nothing else could, the reverence that Joan's memory inspired during the centuries that have gone since her presence made this ground sacred. Until the revolution, Orleans preserved Joan's banner, some of her clothing, and other genuine relics; but then the mob burned them, probably because Joan delivered France to royalty. We were shown an ancient copy of the banner, still borne, I believe, in the annual festivities. Baedeker speaks of arms and armor worn at the siege of Orleans, but the guardian of the place was not willing to guarantee their genuineness. I think Narcissa, who worships the memory of Joan, was almost sorry that he thought it necessary to be so honest. He did show us a photograph of Joan's signature. She wrote it "Jehanne," and her pen must have been guided by her secretary, for Joan could neither read nor write.
We drove to the Place Martroi to see the large equestrian statue of Joan by Foyatier, with reliefs by Vital Dubray. It is very imposing, and the reliefs, showing the great moments in Joan's career, are really fine. We did not care to hunt for other memorials. It was enough to drive about the city, trying to pick out a house here and there that looked as if it might have been standing five hundred years, but if there were any of that age—any that had looked upon the wild joy of Joan's entrance and upon her triumphal departure, they were very few indeed.
It is a grand, straight road from Orleans to Fontainebleau, and it passes through Pithiviers, which did not look especially interesting, though we discovered, when it was too late, that it is noted for its almond-cakes and lark-pies. I wanted to go back, then, but the majority decided against me, and in the late afternoon we entered the majestic royal forest, and by and by came to the palace and the little town and to a pretty hotel on a side street, that was really a village inn for comfort and welcome. There was still plenty of daylight, mellow, waning daylight, and the palace was not far away. We would not wait for it until morning.
I think we most enjoyed seeing palaces about the closing-hour. There are seldom any other visitors then, and the fading afternoon sunlight in the vacant rooms softens their garish emptiness and seems, somehow, to bring nearer the rich pageant of life and love and death that flowed through them so long, and then one day came to an end, and now it is not passing any more. It was really closing-time when we arrived at the palace, but the custodian was lenient, and for an hour we wandered through gorgeous galleries, and salons, and suites of private apartments, where kings and queens lived gladly, loved madly, died sadly for about three hundred years. Francis I built Fontainebleau, on the site of a mediæval castle. He was a hunter, and the forests of Fontainebleau were always famous hunting-grounds. Louis XIII, who was born in Fontainebleau, built the grand entrance staircase, from which, a hundred years later, Napoleon Bonaparte bade good-by to his generals before starting for Elba. Other kings have added to the place and embellished it; the last being Napoleon III, who built for Eugénie the bijou theater across the court.
It may have been our mood, it may have been the tranquil evening light, it may have been reality that Fontainebleau was more friendly, more alive, more a place for living men and women to inhabit than any other palace we have seen. It was hard to imagine Versailles as having ever been a home for anybody. At Fontainebleau I felt that we were intruding—that Marie Antoinette, Marie Louise, or Eugénie might enter at any moment and find us there.
The apartments of the first Napoleon and Marie Louise tell something, too, but the story seems less intimate. Yet the table is there on which Napoleon signed his abdication, while an escort waited to take him to Elba, and in his study is his writing-table; and there is a bust by Canova; but that is marble, and does not encourage the thought of life.
For size and magnificence the library is the most impressive room in Fontainebleau. It is very lofty, very splendid, and it is two hundred and sixty-four feet long. Napoleon III gave great hunting-banquets there. Since then it has always been empty, except for visitors.
The light was getting dim by the time we reached the pretty theater which Louis Napoleon built for Eugénie. It is a very choice place, and we were allowed to go on the stage and behind the scenes and up in the galleries, and there was something in the dusky vacancy of that little play-house, built to amuse the last empress of France, that affected us almost more than any of the rest of the palace, though it was built not so long ago and its owner is still alive. It is not used, the custodian told us—has never been used since Eugénie went away. I believe nothing at Fontainebleau gave more delight to Narcissa and the Joy than this dainty theater.