Memoirs of a Physician (13 page)
He guessed that the folding-doors would be thrown open, that the whole court was in the gallery, and that he should be seen in this triumphant position. After having suffered so much, he was not sorry to make his enemies suffer in their turn.
The usher, in fact, now opened the doors, and announced the king in the gallery.
Louis XV. crossed the gallery, leaning heavily on M. de ChoiseuPs arm, talking and smiling, without remarking, or seeming to remark, how pale Jean Dubarry was and how red M. de Richelieu.
But M. de Choiseul saw these shades of expression very well. With elastic step, lofty head, and sparkling eyes, he passed before the courtiers, who now approached as eagerly as they had before kept away.
” There,” said the king, at the end of the gallery, ” wait for me, I will take you with me to Trianon. Remember what I have told you.”
” I have treasured it up in my heart,” replied the minister, well knowing what a sting this cutting sentence would inflict on his enemies.
The king once more entered his apartments.
M. de Richelieu broke the file, and hastened to press the minister’s hand between his meager fingers, exclaiming : ” It is long since I knew that a Choiseul bears a charmed life.”
” Thank you,” said the duke, who knew how the land lay.
” But this absurd report,” continued the marshal.
‘ ‘ The report made his majesty laugh very heartily,” said Choiseul.
” I heard something of a letter -“
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” A little mystification of the king’s ‘ replied the minister, glancing while he spoke at Jean, who lost countenance.
” Wonderful ! wonderful ! ” repeated the marshal, turning to the viscount as soon as the Dukede Choiseul was out of sight.
” The king ascended the staircase, calling the duke,who eagerly followed him.
” We have been played upon,” said the marshal to Jean.
” Where are they going ? “
” To the little Trianon, to amuse themselves at our expense.”
’” Hell and furies ! ” exclaimed Jean. “Ah ! excuse me, marshal.”
” It is now my turn,” said the latter. ” We shall see if my plans are more successful than those of the countess.”
CHAPTEE XIII.
THE LITTLE TRIANON”.
WHEN Louis XIV. had built Versailles, and had felt the inconvenience of grandeur, when he saw the immense saloons 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 in-deed 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 swor^ 1 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
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contained about ten lodgings for masters, and had accommodations for fifty servants.
This building still remains entire, and is composed of a ground floor, a first story, and attics. 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 a wood in front ; and, on the left, looking toward the officers, which present to its gaze only the barred windows of the corridor, and the thickly trellised ones of the kitchen 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 the 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
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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 he, ‘ 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, ” Monsieur 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.”
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” And so your highness is going to build ? “asked M. de Choisenl.
” 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, madam e ? “
“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, Monsieur de Praslin.”
” Sire,” said the dauphiness, ” I am going to have a natural garden laid out here by Monsieur Eobert, 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 yards 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 such kings 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 ?”
5 DUMAS VOL. VII.
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“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 Green-landers. They would live a natural life there, and MOTI-sieur Eousseau would call them children of nature. Do that, my child, and the encylopedists 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 officers 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 ?”
1 ‘My reader.”
” Very good,” said the king, without taking his eye from the window through which Mile, de Taveruey, 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 thirty-first of May, my lord duke.”
” Indeed ? Poor girl ! ” said the king. ‘ ‘ That Monsieur 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 iled.”
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‘ ‘ She has perhaps recognized your majesty ; she is very timid.”
” Has she been with yon 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, Monsieur Mique,” said the dauphiness to her architect ; ” yon 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 cor- .ridor, 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 tho king, pointing to the door.
“Yes, sire.”
” And is she there at present ? If so, let us not enter.”
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” Sire, she has just gone down ; I saw her walking un-der the veranda of the court.”
” Then show me her apartments as a specimen.”
” As yon please,” replied the dauphiuess.
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 Mile, 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. Whosnppliesyourpeople 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. Monsieur de Jussieu undertook to procure him 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.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CONSPIRACY IS RENEWED.
