Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3

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We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are portrayed
in pictures and marble; catalogs are written about these miles of canvas,
representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy to Waterloo--all
the triumphs of Louis XIV.--all the mistresses of his successor--and all
the great men who have flourished since the French empire began. Military
heroes are most of these--fierce constables in shining steel, marshals in
voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in bearskin caps; some dozens of
whom gained crowns, principalities, dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and
epaulets; some millions, death in African sands, or in icy Russian plains,
under the guidance, and for the good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon.

By far the greater part of "all the glories" of France (as of most other
countries) is made up of these military men: and a fine satire it is on
the cowardice of mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary homage to
the virtue called courage; filling their history-books with tales about
it, and nothing but it.

Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the walls
with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any family
but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has been humbled to
the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore; but it is a monument
of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford matter for a whole
library of sermons.

The cheap defense of nations expended a thousand millions in the erection
of this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the intervals
of their warlike labors, to level hills, or pile them up; to turn rivers,
and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and construct smooth
terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew up in a wilderness, and a
stupendous palace in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the
city was peopled with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the
creator of these wonders--the Great King.

"Only God is great," said courtly Massillon; but next to him, as the
prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his vicegerent here upon earth--
God's lieutenant-governor of the world--before whom courtiers used to fall
on their knees, and shade their eyes, as if the light of his countenance,
like the sun, which shone supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too
dazzling to bear.

Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?--or,
rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty came out of
his chamber, in the midst of his super-human splendors, viz., in his
cinnamon-colored coat, embroidered with diamonds; his pyramon of a wig;
his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches from the ground, "that
he scarcely seemed to touch;" when he came out, blazing upon the dukes and
duchesses that waited his rising--what could the latter do but cover their
eyes, and wink, and tremble? And did he not himself believe, as he stood
there, on his high heels, under his ambrosial periwig, that there was
something in him more than man--something above Fate?

This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days, from
his terrace before his gloomy palace of St. Germains, he could catch a
glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of St. Denis, where his
race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, with a sublime
condescension, "Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am mortal."

Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed that
his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight of that
sharp spire wounded his Majesty's eyes; and is said, by the legend, to
have caused the building of the palace of Babel-Versailles.

In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage--with guards,
cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, lackeys, Fenelons,
Molieres, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, Louvois, Colberts--
transported himself to his new palace: the old one being left for James of
England and Jaquette his wife, when their time should come. And when the
time did come, and James sought his brother's kingdom, it is on record
that Louis hastened to receive and console him, and promised to restore,
incontinently, those islands from which the canaille had turned him.

Between brothers such a gift was a trifle; and the courtiers said to one
another reverently, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." There was no blasphemy in
the speech; on the contrary, it was gravely said, by a faithful believing
man, who thought it no shame to the latter to compare his Majesty with God
Almighty.

Indeed, the books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was
this Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one which was written by
an honest Jesuit and protege of Pere la Chaise, who dedicates it to the
august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go almost as far in print.
He calls our famous monarch "Louis le Grand: 1, l'invincible; 2, le sage;
3, le conquerant; 4, la merveille de son siecle; 5, la terreur de ses
ennemis; 6, l'amour de ses peuples; 7, l'arbitre de la paix et de la
guerre; 8, l'admiration de l'univers; 9, et digne d'en etre le maitre; 10,
le modele d'un heros acheve; 11, digne de l'immortalite, et de la
veneration de tous les siecles!"

A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good, honest judgment upon the
great king! In 30 years more: 1. The invincible had been beaten a vast
number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old woman, who
was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had quite
forgotten his early knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his enemies (for
4, the marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose term, that may
apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his enemies in turn. 6.
The love of his people was as heartily detested by them as scarcely any
other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has been, before or since. 7.
The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send superb ambassadors to kick
their heels in Dutch shopkeepers' antechambers. 8. Is again a general
term. 9. The man fit to be master of the universe was scarcely master of
his own kingdom. 10. The finished hero was all but finished, in a very
commonplace and vulgar way. And, 11, the man worthy of immortality was
just at the point of death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him;
only withered old Maintenon to utter prayers at his bedside, and croaking
Jesuit to prepare him, with heavens knows what wretched tricks and
mummeries, for his appearance in that Great Republic that lies on the
other side of the grave. In the course of his fourscore splendid miserable
years, he never had but one friend, and he ruined and left her. Poor La
Valliere, what a sad tale is yours!...

While La Valliere's heart is breaking, the model of a finished hero is
yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished hero should. Let her
heart break: a plague upon her tears and repentance; what right has she to
repent? Away with her to her convent! She goes, and the finished hero
never sheds a tear. What a noble pitch of stoicism to have reached! Our
Louis was so great, that the little woes of mean people were beyond him;
his friends died, his mistresses left him; his children, one by one, were
cut off before his eyes, and great Louis is not moved in the slightest
degree! As how, indeed, should a god be moved?...

Out of the window the king's august head was one day thrust, when old
Conde was painfully toiling up the steps of the court below. "Don't hurry
yourself, my cousin," cries Magnanimity; "one who has to carry so many
laurels can not walk fast." At which all the courtiers, lackeys,
mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, and scullions, clasp their hands and
burst into tears. Men are affected by the tale to this very day. For a
century and three-quarters have not all the books that speak of
Versailles, or Louis Quatorze, told the story?

"Don't hurry yourself, my cousin!" O admirable king and Christian! what a
pitch of condescension is here, that the greatest king of all the world
should go for to say anything so kind, and really tell a tottering old
gentleman, worn out with gout, age, and wounds, not to walk too fast!

What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of mankind,
that histories like these, should be found to interest and awe them. Till
the world's end, most likely, this story will have its place in the
history-books, and unborn generations will read it, and tenderly be moved
by it.

I am sure that Magnanimity went to bed that night, pleased and happy,
intimately convinced that he had done an action of sublime virtue, and had
easy slumbers and sweet dreams--especially if he had taken a light supper,
and not too vehemently attacked his "en cas de nuit." ...

The king his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much occasion
for moralizing; perhaps the neigbhboring Parc aux Cerfs would afford
better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great grandsire, the
Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened Louis the well-beloved;
who understood that loneliness is one of the necessary conditions of
divinity, and, being of a jovial, companionable turn, aspired not beyond
manhood.

Only in the matter of ladies did he surpass his predecessor, as Solomon
did David. War he eschewed, as his grandfather bade him; and his simple
taste found little in this world to enjoy beyond the mulling of chocolate
and the frying of pancakes. Look, here is the room called Laboratoire du
Roi, where, with his own hands, he made his mistress's breakfast; here is
the little door through which, from her apartments in the upper story, the
chaste Du Barri came stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble,
gloomy old man.

But of women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had palled
upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign; after having
exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent for his hot
youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was flat and stale;
used up to the very dregs; every shilling in the national purse had been
squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant ministers of
state. He had found out the vanity of pleasure, as his ancestor had
discovered the vanity of glory: indeed, it was high time that he should
die. And die he did; and round his tomb, as round that of his grandfather
before him, the starving people sang a dreadful chorus of curses, which
were the only epitaphs for good or for evil that were raised to his
memory....

On the 10th of May, 1774, the whole court had assembled at the chateau;
the Oeil de Boeuf was full. The Dauphin had determined to depart as soon
as the king had breathed his last. And it was agreed by the people of the
stables, with those who watched in the king's room, that a lighted candle
should be placed in a window, and should be extinguished as soon as he had
ceased to live.

The candle was put out. At that signal, guards, pages, and squires,
mounted on horseback, and everything was made ready for departure. The
Dauphin was with the Dauphiness, waiting together for the news of the
king's demise. An immense noise, as of thunder, was heard in the next
room; it was the crowd of courtiers, who were deserting the dead king's
apartment, in order to pay their court to the new power of Louis XVI.

Madame de Noailles entered, and was the first to salute the queen by her
title of Queen of France, and begged their Majesties to quit their
apartments, to receive the princes and great lords of the court desirous
to pay their homage to the new sovereigns. Leaning on her husband's arm, a
handkerchief to her eyes, in the most touching attitude, Marie Antoinette
received these first visits.

On quitting the chamber where the dead king lay, the Due de Villequier
bade Mr. Anderville, first surgeon of the king, to open and embalm the
body: it would have been certain death to the surgeon.

"I am ready, sir," says he; "but while I am operating, you must hold the
head of the corpse; your charge demands it."

The Duke went away without a word, and the body was neither opened nor
embalmed. A few humble domestics and poor workmen watched by the remains,
and performed the last offices to their master. The surgeons ordered
spirits of wine to be poured into the coffin.

They huddled the king's body into a postchaise; and in this deplorable
equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis, the Well-beloved, was
carried, in the dead of night, from Versailles to Saint-Denis, and then
thrown into the tombs of the kings of France!

If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roof of
the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to amuse himself by
gazing upon the doings of all the towns-people below with a telescope.
Behold that balcony, where, one morning, he, his queen, and the little
Dauphin stood, with Cromwell Grandison Lafayette by their side, who kissed
her Majesty's hand, and protected her; and then, lovingly surrounded by
his people, the king got into a coach and came to Paris: nor did his
Majesty ride much in coaches after that....

He is said to have been such a smart journeyman blacksmith that he might,
if Fate had not perversely placed a crown on his head, have earned a
couple of louis every week by the making of locks and keys. Those who will
may see the workshop where he employed many useful hours: Madame Elizabeth
was at prayers meanwhile; the queen was making pleasant parties with her
ladies; Monsieur the Count d'Artois was learning to dance on the
tightrope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivating l'eloquence du billet
and studying his favorite Horace.

It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well
in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a
minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivaled; and Charles, on the
tightrope, was so graceful and so gentil that Madame Saqui might envy him.
The time only was out of joint. Oh, curst spite, that ever such harmless
creatures as these were bidden to right it!

A walk to the little Trianon is both pleasing and moral; no doubt the
reader has seen the pretty, fantastical gardens which environ it; the
groves and temples; the streams and caverns (whither, as the guide tells
you, during the heat of summer, it was the custom of Marie Antoinette to
retire with her favorite, Madame de Lamballe): the lake and Swiss village
are pretty little toys, moreover; and the cicerone of the place does not
fail to point out the different cottages which surround the piece of
water, and tell the names of the royal masqueraders who inhabited each.

In the long cottage, close upon the lake, dwelt the Seigneur du Village,
no less a personage than Louis XV.; Louis XVI., the Dauphin, was the
Pailli; near his cottage is that of Monseigneur the Count d'Artois, who
was the Miller; opposite lived the Prince de Conde, who enacted the part
of Gamekeeper (or, indeed, any other role, for it does not signify much);
near him was the Prince de Rohan, who was the Aumonier; and yonder is the
pretty little dairy, which was under the charge of the fair Marie
Antoinette herself.

I forget whether Monsieur the fat Count of Provence took any share of this
royal masquerading; but look at the names of the other six actors of the
comedy, and it will be hard to find any person for whom Fate had such
dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of their
prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall poplars by
the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose, of a sudden, some
conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them, and foretells
to them the woes that are about to come.

"You, Monsieur l'Aumonier, the descendant of a long line of princes, the
passionate admirer of that fair queen who sits by your side, shall be the
cause of her ruin and your own, [Footnote: In the diamond-necklace
affair.] and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son of the Condes,
shall live long enough to see your royal race overthrown, and shall die by
the hands of a hangman. [Footnote: He was found hanging in his own bed-
room.] You, oldest son of St. Louis, shall perish by the executioner's ax;
that beautiful head, O Antoinette, the same ruthless blade shall sever."

"They shall kill me first," says Lamballe, at the queen's side.

"Yes, truly," says the soothsayer, "for Fate prescribes ruin for your
mistress and all who love her."

[Footnote: Among the many lovers that rumor gave to the Queen, poor Fersen
is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and
perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape to
Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and was
concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her rescue.
Fersen lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He
was dragged from his carriage by the mob. In Stockholm, and murdered by
them.--Author's note.]

"And," cries Monsieur d'Artois, "do I not love my sister, too? I pray you
not to omit me in your prophecies."

To whom Monsieur Cagliostro says, scornfully, "You may look forward to
fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the grave. You shall
be a king, but not die one; and shall leave the crown only; not the
worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice shall you go into exile; you
shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and your
race; and you shall return home over half a million of human corpses, that
have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as great as the
greatest of your family. Again driven away, your bitterest enemy shall
bring you back. But the strong limbs of France are not to be chained by
such a paltry yoke as you can put on her: you shall be a tyrant, but in
will only; and shall have a scepter, but to see it robbed from your hand."

"And pray, Sir Conjurer, who shall be the robber?" asked Monsieur the
Count d'Artois.

This I can not say, for here my dream ended. The fact is, I had fallen
asleep on one of the stone benches in the Avenue de Paris, and at this
instant was awakened by a whirling of carriages and a great clattering of
national guards, lancers, and outriders, in red. His Majesty, Louis
Philippe, was going to pay a visit to the palace; which contains several
pictures of his own glorious actions, and which has been dedicated, by
him, to all the glories of France.

Versailles in 1739

By Thomas Gray

[Footnote: From a letter to his friend West.]

What a huge heap of littleness! It is composed, as it were, of three
courts, all open to the eye at once, and gradually diminishing till you
come to the royal apartments, which on this side present but half a dozen
windows and a balcony. This last is all that can be called a front, for
the rest is only great wings. The hue of all this mass is black, dirty
red, and yellow; the first proceeding from stone changed by age; the
second, from a mixture of brick; and the last, from a profusion of
tarnished gilding. You can not see a more disagreeable tout ensemble; and,
to finish the matter, it is all stuck over in many places with small busts
of a tawny hue between every two windows.

We pass through this to go into the garden, and here the case is indeed
altered; nothing can be vaster and more magnificent than the back front;
before it a very spacious terrace spreads itself, adorned with two large
basons; these are bordered and lined (as most of the others) with white
marble, with handsome statues of bronze reclined on their edges. From
hence you descend a huge flight of steps into a semi-circle formed by
woods, that are cut all around into niches, which are filled with
beautiful copies of all the famous antique statues in white marble. Just
in the midst is the bason of Latona; she and her children are standing on
the top of a rock in the middle, on the sides of which are the peasants,
some half, some totally changed into frogs, all which throw out water at
her in great plenty.

From this place runs on the great alley, which brings you into a complete
round, where is the bason of Apollo, the biggest in the gardens. He is
rising in his car out of the water, surrounded by nymphs and tritons, all
in bronze, and finely executed, and these, as they play, raise a perfect
storm about him; beyond this is the great canal, a prodigious long piece
of water, that terminates the whole. All this you have at one coup d'oeil
in entering the garden, which is truly great.

I can not say as much of the general taste of the place: everything you
behold savors too much of art; all is forced, all is constrained about
you; statues and vases sowed everywhere without distinction; sugar loaves
and minced pies of yew; scrawl work of box, and little squirting jets-
d'eau, besides a great sameness in the walks, can not help striking one at
first sight, not to mention the silliest of labyrinths, and all Aesop's
fables in water; since these were designed "in usum Delphini" only.

Here, then, we walk by moonlight, and hear the ladies and the nightingales
sing. Next morning, being Whitsunday, make ready to go to the installation
of nine Knights du Saint Esprit. Cambis is one: high mass celebrated with
music, great crowd, much incense, King, Queen, Dauphin, Mesdames,
Cardinals, and Court: Knights arrayed by his Majesty; reverences before
the altar, not bows, but curtsies; stiff hams; much tittering among the
ladies; trumpets, kettledrums, and fifes.

Fontainebleau

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]

The golden age of Fontainebleau came with the Renaissance and Francis I.,
who wished to make Fontainebleau the most glorious palace in the world.
"The Escurial!" says Brantome, "what of that? See how long it was of
building? Good workmen like to be quick finished. With our king it was
otherwise. Take Fontainebleau and Chambord. When they were projected, when
once the plumb-line, and the compass, and the square, and the hammer were
on the spot, then in a few years we saw the Court in residence there."

Il Rosso was first (1531) employed to carry out the ideas of Francois I.
as to painting, and then Sebastian Serlio was summoned from Bologna in
1541 to fill the place of "surintendant des bastiments et architecte de
Fontainebleau." Il Rosso-Giovambattista had been a Florentine pupil of
Michelangelo, but refused to follow any master, having, as Vasari says, "a
certain inkling of his own." Francois I. was delighted with him at first,
and made him head of all the Italian colony at Fontainebleau, where he was
known as "Maitre Roux." But in two years the king was longing to patronize
some other genius, and implored Giulio Romano, then engaged on the Palazzo
del Te at Mantua, to come to him. The great master refused to come
himself, but in his place sent the Bolognese Primaticcio, who became known
in France as Le Primatice.

The new-comer excited the furious jealousy of Il Rosso, whom he supplanted
in favor and popularity, and who, after growing daily more morose, took
poison in 1541. Then Primaticcio, who, to humor his rival had been sent
into honorable exile (on plea of collecting antiquities at Rome), was
summoned back, and destroyed most of Il Rosso's frescoes, replacing them
by his own. Those that remain are now painted over, and no works of Il
Rosso are still in existence (unless in engravings) except some of his
frescoes at Florence.

With the Italian style of buildings and decorations, the Italian system of
a Court adorned by ladies was first introduced here under Francois I., and
soon became a necessity.... Under Francois I., his beautiful mistress, the
Duchesse d'Etampes--"la plus belle des savantes, et la plus savante des
belles," directed all the fetes. In this she was succeeded, under Henry
II., by Diane de Poitiers, whose monogram, interwoven with that of the
king, appears in all the buildings of this time, and who is represented as
a goddess (Diana) in the paintings of Primaticcio.

Under Francois II., in 1560, by the advice of the queen-mother, an
assembly of notables was summoned at Fontainebleau; and here, accompanied
by her 150 beautiful maids of honor, Catherine de Medici received the
embassy of the Catholic sovereigns sent to demand the execution of the
articles of the Council of Trent, and calling for fresh persecution of the
reformers.

Much as his predecessors had accomplished, Henri IV. did more for the
embellishment of Fontainebleau, where the monogram of his mistress,
Gabrielle d'Estrees, is frequently seen mingled with that of his wife,
Marie de Medici. All the Bourbon kings had a passion for hunting, for
which Fontainebleau afforded especial facilities.

It was at Fontainebleau that Louis XIII. was born, and that the Marechal
de Biron was arrested. Louis XIII. only lived here occasionally. In the
early reign of Louis XIV., the palace was lent to Christina, of Sweden,
who had abdicated her throne.

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