The Little Trianon.
WHEN LOUIS XIV. had built Versailles, and had felt the inconvenience of grandeur, when he saw the immense salons full of guards, the anterooms thronged with courtiers, the corridors and entresols crowded with footmen, pages and officers, he said to himself that Versailles was indeed what Louis XIV. had planned, and what Mansard, Le Brun, and Le Notre had executed — the dwelling of a deity, but not of a man. Then the Grand Monarque, who deigned to be a man in his leisure moments, built Trianon that he might breathe more freely, and enjoy a little retirement. But the sword of Achilles, which had fatigued even Achilles himself, was an insupportable burden to his puny successor.
Trianon, the miniature of Versailles, seemed yet too pompous to Louis XV., who caused the Little Trianon, a pavilion of sixty feet square, to be built by the architect Gabriel.
To the left of this building was erected an oblong square, without character and without ornament; this was the dwelling of the servants and officers of the household. It contained about ten lodgings for masters, and had accommodation for fifty servants. This building still remains entire, and is composed of a ground-floor, a first story, and attic. This ground floor is protected by a paved moat, which separates it from the planting; and all the windows in it, as well as those of the first-floor, are grated. On the side next Trianon the windows are those of a long corridor, like that of a convent.
Eight or nine doors opening from the corridor gave admittance to the different suites of apartments, each consisting of an anteroom and two closets, one to the left, the other to the right, and of one, and sometimes two, underground apartments, looking upon the inner court of the building. The upper story contains the kitchens and the attics, the chambers of the domestics. Such is the Little Trianon.
Add to this a chapel about six or seven perches from the chateau, which we shall not describe, because there is no necessity for our doing so, and because it is too small to deserve our notice.
The topography of the establishment is, therefore, as follows; a chateau looking with its large eyes upon the park and wood in front; and, on the left, looking toward the offices, which present to its gaze only the barred windows of the corridors and the thickly trellised ones of the kitchens above.
The path leading from the Great Trianon, the pompous residence of Louis XIV., to the little, was through a kitchen garden which connected the two residences by means of a wooden bridge.
It was through this kitchen and fruit garden, which La Quintinie had designed and planted, that Louis XV. conducted M. de Choiseul to the Little Trianon after the laborious council we have just mentioned. He wished to show him the improvements he had made in the new abode of the dauphin and dauphiness.
M. de Choiseul admired everything, and commented upon everything, with the sagacity of a courtier. He listened while the king told him that the Little Trianon became every day more beautiful, more charming to live in; and the minister added that it would serve as his majesty’s private residence.
“The dauphiness,” said the king, “is rather wild yet, like all young Germans; she speaks French well, but she is afraid of a slight accent, which to French ears betrays the Austrian. At Trianon she will see only friends, and will speak only when she wishes. The result will be that she will speak well.”
“I have already had the honor to remark,” said M. de Choiseul, “that her royal highness is accomplished, and requires nothing to make her perfect.”
On the way, the two travelers found the dauphin standing motionless upon a lawn, measuring the sun’s altitude.
M. de Choiseul bent low, but as the dauphin did not speak to him, he did not speak either.
The king said, loud enough to be heard by his grandson:
“Louis is a finished scholar, but he is wrong thus to run his head against the sciences; his wife will have reason to complain of such conduct.”
“By no means, sire,” replied a low, soft voice issuing from a thicket.
And the king saw the dauphiness running toward him. She had been talking to a man furnished with papers, compasses, and chalks.
“Sire,” said the princess. “M. Mique, my architect.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the king, “then you too are bitten by that mania, madame?”
“Sire, it runs in the family.”
“You are going to build?”
“I am going to improve this great park, in which every one gets wearied.”
“Oh! oh! my dear daughter, you speak too loud; the dauphin might hear you.”
“It is a matter agreed upon between us, my father,” replied the princess.
“To be wearied?”
“No; but to try to amuse ourselves.”
“And so your highness is going to build?” asked M. de Choiseul.
“I intend making a garden of this park, my lord duke.”
“Ah! poor Le Notre!” said the king.
“Le Notre was a great man, sire, for what was in vogue then, but for what I love—”
“What do you love, madame?”
“Nature.”
“Ah! like the philosophers.”
“Or like the English.”
“Good! Say that before Choiseul, and you will have a declaration of war immediately. He will let loose upon you the sixty-four ships and forty frigates of his cousin, M. de Praslin.”
“Sire.” said the dauphiness, “I am going to have a natural garden laid out here by Monsieur Robert, who is the cleverest man in the world in that particular branch of horticulture.”
“And what do you call a natural garden?” asked the king. “I thought that trees, and flowers, and even fruit, such as I gathered as I came along, were natural objects.”
“Sire, you may walk a hundred years in your grounds, and you will see nothing but straight alleys, or thickets cut off at an angle of forty-five degrees, as the dauphin says, or pieces of water wedded to lawns, which in their turn are wedded to perspectives, parterres, or terraces.”
“Well, that is ugly, is it!”
“It is not natural.”
“There is a little girl who loves nature!” said the king, with a jovial rather than a joyous air. “Well, come; what will you make of my Trianon?”
“Rivers, cascades, bridges, grottoes, rocks, woods, ravines, houses, mountains, fields.”—”For dolls?” said the king.
“Alas! sire, for kings such as we shall be,” replied the princess, without remarking the blush which overspread her grandfather’s face, and without perceiving that she foretold a sad truth for herself.
“Then you will destroy; but what will you build?”
“I shall preserve the present buildings.”
“Ah! your people may consider themselves fortunate that you do not intend to lodge them in these woods and rivers you speak of, like Hurons, Esquimaux, and Greenlanders. They would live a natural life there, and M. Rousseau would call them children of nature. Do that, my child, and the encyclopedists will adore you.”
“Sire, my servants would be too cold in such lodgings.”
“Where will you lodge them, then, if you destroy all? Not in the palace; there is scarcely room for you two there.”
“ Sire, I shall keep the offices as they are.”
And the dauphiness pointed to the windows of the corridor which we have described.
“What do I see there?” said the king, shading his eyes with his hand.
“A woman, sire,” said M. de Choiseul.
“A young lady whom I have taken into my household,” replied the dauphiness.
“Mademoiselle de Taverney,” said Choiseul, with his piercing glance.
“Ah!” said the king, “so you have the Taverneys here?”
“Only Mademoiselle de Taverney, sire.”
“A charming girl! What do you make of her?”
“My reader.”
“Very good,” said the king, without taking his eye from the window through which Mademoiselle de Taverney, still pale from her illness, was looking very innocently, and without in the least suspecting that she was observed.
“How pale she is,” said M. de Choiseul.
“She was nearly killed on the 31st of May, my lord duke.”
“Indeed? Poor girl!” said the king. “That M. Bignon deserves to be disgraced.”
“She is quite convalescent again,” said M. de Choiseul, hastily.
“Thanks to the goodness of Providence, my lord.”
“Ah!” said the king, “she has fled.”
“She has perhaps recognized your majesty; she is very timid.”
“Has she been with you long?”
“Since yesterday, sire; I sent for her when I installed myself here.”
“What a melancholy abode for a young girl,” said Louis. “That Gabriel was a clumsy rogue. He did not remember that the trees, as they grew, would conceal and darken this whole building.”
“But I assure you, sire, that the apartments are very tolerable.”
“That is impossible,” said Louis XV.
“Will your majesty deign to convince yourself?” said the dauphiness, anxious to do the honors of her palace.
“Very well. Will you come, Choiseul?”
“Sire, it is two o’clock. I have a parliamentary meeting at half-past two. I have only time to return to Versailles.”
“Well, duke, go; and give those black gowns a shake for me. Dauphiness, show me these little apartments, if you please; I perfectly dote upon interiors.”
“Come, M. Mique,” said the dauphiness to her architect, “you will have an opportunity of profiting by the opinion of his majesty, who understands everything so well.”
The king walked first, the dauphiness followed.
They mounted the little flight of steps which led to the chapel, avoiding the entrance of the courtyard, which was at one side. The door of the chapel is to the left; the staircase, narrow and unpretending, which leads to the corridor, on the right.
“Who lives here?” asked Louis XV.
“No one yet, sire.”
“There is a key in the door of the first suite of apartments.”
“Ah, yes, true. Mademoiselle de Taverney enters it to-day.”
“Here?” said the king, pointing to the door.
“Yes, sire.”
“And is she there at present? If so, let us not enter.”
“Sire, she has just gone down; I saw her walking under the veranda of the court.”
“Then show me her apartments as a specimen.”
“As you please,” replied the dauphiness.
And she introduced the king into the principal apartment, which was preceded by an anteroom and two closets.
Some articles of furniture which were already arranged, several books, a pianoforte, and, above all, an enormous bouquet of the most beautiful flowers, which Mademoiselle de Taverney had placed in a Chinese vase, attracted the king’s attention.
“Ah!” said he, “what beautiful flowers! And yet you wish to change the garden. Who supplies your people with such splendid flowers? Do they keep some for you?”
“It is in truth a beautiful bouquet.”
“The gardener takes good care of Mademoiselle de Taverney. Who is your gardener here?”
“I do not know, sire. M. de Jussieu undertook to procure them for me.”
The king gave a curious glance around the apartments, looked again at the exterior, peeped into the courtyard, and went away. His majesty crossed the park, and returned to the Great Trianon, where his equipages were already in waiting for a hunt which was to take place after dinner, in carriages, from three till six o’clock.
The dauphin was still measuring the sun’s altitude.