Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

CHAPTER XLVI.
VERSAILLES

Derivation of the Name – Saint-Simon’s Description – Louis XIV. – The Grand Fête of July, 1668 – Peter the Great and the Regent – Louis XV. – Marie Antoinette and the “Affair of the Necklace” – The Events of October, 1789

A DESCRIPTION of the suburbs of Paris does not enter into the scope of the present work. Versailles, however, imperatively claims the attention of any writer on Paris, for Versailles is more than a suburb; it has, during the last two centuries, played almost as important a part in the annals of France as the capital itself.

The history of the town of Versailles is practically inseparable from that of its palace. Originally, indeed, the town was simply a dependency of the palace. In spite of its numerous historical associations, Versailles is comparatively modern. It sprang up suddenly, like the palace itself, by the will of Louis XIV. Its streets were opened and laid out so as to be in harmony with the façades of the palace, while the style and form of each building were regulated beforehand by police edicts. Hence the grand but monotonous aspect of the town.

The name of Versailles is derived, by some authorities, from that of an Italian nobleman, Hugo de Bersaglio, who at the end of one of the earliest of the Italian civil wars took refuge in France. By a familiar etymological change, the B became converted into V, and the name was further transformed from Versaglio into Versailis. Towards the year 1100, the proprietor of the land, Philippe de Versailis, retired to a monastery, and the district of Versailles then passed beneath the authority of the Abbey of Saint-Magloire at Paris.

A purely fantastic and not too ingenious derivation traces the name to “Blés versés,” the land at Versailles being, according to these enterprising etymologists, so high that the wind blew down the corn.

Henry IV. had a small hunting-box at Versailles, and Louis XIII. had another on a far more magnificent scale, which Saint-Simon in his “Memoirs” describes as a castle. It was a square building with a courtyard in the middle, and, according to the fashion of the time, was built of brick. The king’s horses and carriages were kept at a neighbouring farm. It was at Versailles, on the 11th of November, 1630, that the memorable day known in French history as the “Day of Dupes” took place on which, after a long struggle between Cardinal Richelieu and the queen-mother, Louis XIII. took part with his powerful minister. The “red Eminence,” as the much-feared cardinal was called, gave his name to one of the most ancient streets in Versailles, the Rue du Plessis.

After the death of Louis XIII., Versailles and the little castle of brick were abandoned by the court, and it was not until some twenty years afterwards that the Versailles of modern times was to arise. Strictly speaking, Versailles may be said to date from the reign of Louis XIII., but it owed its first importance to Louis XIV. This king, says an historian, “began by building a palace for himself; he then built a town for his palace.” To mark the distinction between the king and his subjects, the Great Monarch, while employing stone for his own royal residences, ordered that the houses of Versailles should be constructed exclusively of brick, or, if by exception stone were used, that the walls should be painted red, with dividing lines of white, so as to give them the appearance of bricks and mortar. The roof of each house was to be of slate, and the uniformity of the architecture, relieved by the verdure of the old trees, gave to the town a character and beauty of its own. Land was ceded to the principal members of the Court that they might build houses for themselves, and the new town grew up, as if by enchantment, on a general plan designed or approved by the king himself.

To study the history of Versailles one should turn to the pages of Saint-Simon, who, in vigorous terms, condemns the reckless extravagance with which Louis XIV. wasted on a pleasure-residence money urgently wanted for the maintenance of his troops.

“When all had been finished,” says the duke, “it appeared that water was everywhere wanting; and this in spite of the millions which had been spent in establishing seas of reservoirs on mud and moving sand. Who would have thought it? This lack of water proved the ruin of the king’s infantry. Madame de Maintenon was in power. The minister, De Louvois, was on the best terms with her, and we were at peace. It occurred to him under these circumstances to turn the course of the river Eure between Chartres and Maintenon, and to conduct it to Versailles. Who can say what gold and what suffering this experiment cost us? It was forbidden under the severest penalties to speak, among the troops employed to turn the stream, about the sickness, the deaths caused by the exhalations from the ancient bed of the river. How many took years to recover from the contagion! How many never regained health at all! The officers, colonels, brigadiers, and others employed were not allowed, whoever they might be, to absent themselves for a quarter of an hour, nor to rest for a quarter of an hour at their work.

“At length the king, tired of glitter and of the crowd, persuaded himself that he wanted occasional solitude: he accordingly set out for the environs. People pressed him to stay at Lucienne; he replied that this happy situation would ruin him, and that, as he wished for absolute rest, he must seek a situation which would permit him to do nothing.

“He found behind Lucienne a deep and narrow valley, with steep sides, inaccessible by its marshes, commanding no view, shut in by hills, and with a wretched village built on its sides. It was called Marly. This enclosure had its advantages; its narrowness kept a resident within bounds. It was an enormous task to dry up the sewers into which the surrounding parts poured their refuse; but at length the hermitage was prepared. Yet the king only slept there for three nights, from Wednesday to Saturday, two or three times a year, with a dozen courtiers at the most. By degrees the hermitage was enlarged. The hills were levelled to afford space for building-sites, and a large portion of the one at the extremity carried away to produce at least the glimpse of a landscape-view.

“Finally, what with buildings, gardens, lakes, aqueducts, parks, forests, statues, etc., Marly became what one sees it to-day, despoiled as it has been since the death of the king. Its vast woods and obscure avenues suddenly changed into immense stretches of water on whose surface people glided about in gondolas; I am speaking of what I have seen, within six weeks; basins changed a hundred times – cascades of ever-varying form.

“It is little to say that Versailles has not cost so much as Marly: and if one adds the expense of continual journeys, particularly towards the end of the king’s life, Marly cost billions. Such was the fortune of a repository of snakes and carrion, spiders and frogs, only chosen because the expense would be nothing!

“Such was the bad taste of the king in everything and his keen passion for forcing nature, which neither the most pressing war nor his devotion could blunt!

“The establishment of the Court at Versailles was another instance of the king’s policy. We all know how he derided, humiliated, confounded the very first grandees, gave pre-eminence to ministers, whom he promoted to equal authority and power with princes of the blood and to an importance exceeding that of the foremost noblemen in the land. It is necessary to show the progress in every direction of such policy on the part of the king. Several causes contributed to draw the court out of Paris, and to keep it incessantly in the country.

“The troubles of the minority, of which this city was the great theatre, had inspired the king with an aversion for it: and people had persuaded him that his stay there was dangerous, and that the residence of the court elsewhere would render cabals at Paris less easy through sheer distance, and more difficult to hide through the ease with which absences could be remarked.

“The number of his mistresses, and the danger of creating great scandals in the heart of a capital so populous and full of such turbulent spirits, now induced the king to remove farther away. At Paris he found himself importuned by the crowd every time he went out, came in, or showed himself in the streets… A passion for exercise and the chase, much more easy to gratify in the country than at Paris, remote as it was from forests and sterile in places of promenade, and the love of buildings which came next and constantly grew, forbade to him the amusements of a town where he could not avoid being continually on view. The idea, moreover, of rendering himself more venerable by abstracting himself from the eyes of the multitude and from daily appearance in public, was one of the considerations which decided the king to fix upon Saint-Germain, soon after the death of the queen, his mother.

“It was there that he began to attract the world by his fêtes and his gallantries, and to make people feel that he wished to be often seen. The flirtation with Mme. de Vallière, which was at first a mystery, resulted in frequent walks to Versailles – a little cardboard castle at that time, built by Louis XIII., himself disgusted, and his suite still more so, at having had to sleep in a vile inn frequented by waggoners, or in a windmill, after long, fatiguing hunts in the forest of Saint-Léger, or even beyond that, and reserved for his son at a period far distant, when roadways, the fleetness of trained dogs, and the skill of a large staff of keepers and huntsmen had rendered the chase easy and short. This monarch never slept at Versailles, or at least, very rarely, passing a night there only from necessity.

“The king, his son, in order to be more in private with his mistress, was there more often. Then its unknown pleasures, its little parties, caused the immense edifices to spring up which have been built there, with their accommodation for a numerous court, so different from the residences at Saint-Germain. Finally he transported his entire household to it, previously to the death of the queen, and built an infinitude of abodes there in compliance with the petitions made to him on the subject; whereas at Saint-Germain almost everyone was put to the inconvenience of staying in the town; those few who were lodged at the castle being terribly cramped for room there.

“Frequent fêtes, select promenades at Versailles, and journeys were the means seized upon by the king for distinguishing or mortifying, according to the part he assigned to those participating in such ceremonies; though he took care that everyone without the slightest difference should be assiduous and attentive to please him.”

Marly was afterwards much used by him as well as Trianon, where absolutely everyone could come and pay court to him, but where ladies alone had the honour to eat at his table. The wax candle which every evening he caused to be held by some courtier whom he wished to distinguish, and the brevet-doublet, were two more of his inventions. This garment was lined with red, and embroidered with a magnificent and unique design in gold with a little silver. Only a limited number could wear it, including the king, his family, and the princes of the blood; and the latter, like the rest of the courtiers, could only obtain possession of such doublets as they were vacated by their previous holders. The most distinguished members of the court, either directly or by favour, demanded them of the king, and it was a great honour to receive one.

“Not only (says Saint-Simon) was the king sensible of the continual presence of whatever was distinguished – he was likewise so of the inferior classes. He turned his gaze to right and left on rising and going to rest, at his meals, on passing through chambers, in the gardens of Versailles, or where courtiers, alone were privileged to follow him. He saw and noticed everybody: no one escaped him – not even those who would never have hoped to attract his eye. He carefully observed the absence of those belonging to the court, and of the visitors who came more or less frequently; noted the general or particular causes of such absence, and, recording these in his memory, never missed the slightest opportunity of acting in consequence of them.

“It was a demerit in some, and in all whom he had favoured, not to make the court their ordinary residence; in others a demerit to visit it rarely; and it was a sure disgrace never to visit it at all. When it became a question of doing something for such persons, he would say, of this last class, in a lofty tone, ‘I do not know them;’ and of a rare visitor, ‘He is a man I never see.’ These words were irrevocable. It was another crime not to go to Fontainebleau, which he regarded like Versailles. He could not endure people who were fond of Paris. He could easily put up with those who loved the country places to which they belonged, though they had to take care to moderate their expressions of this local affection, and, moreover, before going to stay in the country, to make a longer sojourn at the court. This was not confined to office-bearers or favourites, nor to those whom their age or their capacity marked out from others; anyone frequenting the court was liable to be called to account for his destination. To such a point did the thing go that during a journey I made to Rouen about a law-suit, the king caused a letter to be written to me, young as I was, by Pontchartrain, to demand the reason.”

Of the magnificence of Versailles under Louis XIV. many records remain. A vivid description of one of the most gorgeous fetes ever held is contained in a letter which was addressed at the time by an eye-witness to the Marquis de la Fuente. Nothing grander than this fête could have been devised even by Louis XIV., who offered it to his courtiers and subjects in 1668.

“The day appointed was the 18th of this month,” says the correspondent, who in July of the year named was writing to the marquis by orders of the queen, “and it is impossible to conceive the vast concourse which flocked to the place. The whole aristocratic world, Parisian and provincial, together with many persons who had crossed the sea in the suite of the Duke of Monmouth, had assembled there; never was a gathering so numerous, so select, so sumptuously adorned. The king, wishing that on this occasion all the expense might be his, and that others might have nothing but pleasure, had severely forbidden anything in the nature of tinsel or ornamentation. But what can laws do against fashion?..

“Of the numerous ladies present there were only three hundred who were to have the honour of eating at the royal tables. On their arrival they found all the apartments of the château open to them, perfumed and ready for their reception. In order not to cause them constraint, the royal family had retired into one of the further pavilions. Leisure was allowed these guests for refreshment, after which, towards evening, when the sweetness of the air invited people out of doors, they followed the queen into the garden, where carriages were in waiting to convey them towards one of the woods which lie to the right as you enter, and which has about it something more solitary and more mysterious than the others. The beauty of the evening and of the place compelled them to alight; they had reached a kind of labyrinth intersected by several avenues, many of which compose a circumference round five others, these latter starting out in different directions from one common centre and forming a very agreeable star. A thousand dwarf trees, laden with excellent fruits, fringed these avenues, which were embellished in the five angles with so many niches full of flowers, haunted by some rustic deity or other. In the middle of the star played a fountain whose basin was surrounded by five tables without cloths or covers, and which were made so ingeniously to imitate the natural that, however splendid the collation might be, it appeared to have been created on the spot rather than served.

“The first table was bounded, at that end of it which rested against the basin, by a mossy bank covered with truffles and mushrooms, six different entrées garnishing the table, of which the remainder, like a fertile valley, was strewn with salads and green stuff.

“The second table had at one end of it, as though in perspective, an architectural fabric of pastry, the rest of the table being furnished with pies and other produce from the oven.

“The third was terminated by pyramids of dried preserves, the rest of the table looking like a flower-bed through a skilful arrangement of almond cakes and stewed fruits.

“The fourth seemed to spring out of a rock where nature had commenced to form divers crystals, the remainder of the table being laden with crystal vases full of all sorts of iced waters.

“The fifth was bordered by a heap of caramels similar to that shapeless mass of amber which the sea sometimes throws up on shore, and the table was covered with porcelain vessels full of cream.

“All this was due more to the magic of fairies than to human industry. As a matter of fact, no one could be seen in the place when the company entered; and even during the repast you only got half a glimpse of the hands which through the foliage presented, on handsome salvers, beverages to all who wished to drink. For some time the feast was simply contemplated with wonder; but at length temptation overcame scruple, and the assembly set themselves to eat all these things as though they had never believed them enchanted.

“The repast at an end, the company promptly re-entered their carriages, which, after a few turns here and there, stopped at an edifice of rustic appearance, which, rising nearly to the height of the trees and having for external decoration nothing but what had come from the forests or gardens, effaced the pomp of the palace and gave brilliancy to things simple and rustic. At the time of the Druids one would have taken this structure for the palace where they delivered their judgments, or for the temple of the gods presiding over the forests. You could see, on entering, that it was a temple designed for spectacles: contained within it was a theatre, superb no less by its dimensions than by its ornaments. Two twisted columns dazzling with gold and azure, between which marble statues were ranged, supported on each side a very rich ceiling, greatly elevated to facilitate the working of the machines… Who would have thought, sir, that a work which displayed so much order, industry, and invention could have been completed in fifteen days for the purpose of lasting only twenty-four hours! Who would have imagined that so much expense and profusion had no other object than the glory of a day and the representation of a comedy! To a vast audience the troop of Molière played one in his style, new and comic, and agreeably varied with ballet music.

“Darkness had now crept upon us; but although night arrests the operations of nature, she is no enemy to pleasure, and on this occasion spoiled nothing by her arrival. People almost wished she had come sooner; the shadows were blessed, partly for the freshness of the air which they brought, partly for the obscurity which enhanced the brilliancy of the jewels, partly because they announced the hour of supper, to which hunger had already looked forward. Everyone began to think seriously of this meal, though no one fancied that Her Majesty was preoccupied with it when she invited the company to go to the other side of the garden and visit a kind of enchanted palace, so rare and so singular that writers of fiction have imagined nothing like it.”

An elaborate description of this structure follows, and then the supper is described. To avoid confusion, the invited guests were divided up into nine bands, and the respective tables at which they sat were each presided over by some lady of rank.

The first was graced by the presence of the queen. To this table only the princesses of the blood were admitted. Other tables were beneath the charge of the Countess de Soissons, the Princess of Baden, the Duchesse de Créquy, and a number of other distinguished ladies. Besides this accommodation, which was only for invited lady guests, there were, continues the correspondent, “a great number of tables laid in the different avenues where anyone who wished could eat; and in the grotto which, as you know, is the most charming spot at Versailles, three tables of thirty covers each had been laid for the ambassadors. It was noticed that you, sir, were absent, and your absence was to be regretted in view both of the king’s glory and of your own satisfaction. Friend of magnificence as you are, you would have been more affected by the scene than another. But do not regard your absence from the scene as one of your misfortunes; if you knew who it was that wished you present, you would have been amply consoled for the pleasure you lost; and the honour of being remembered by their Majesties should more than recompense you for all the fêtes in the world.

“Good cheer does not usually inspire melancholy thoughts; gaiety shone upon all faces, and still more of it was concealed in each heart. The evening was cool, and the company were longing for a dance. In this disposition the king directed the company to a superb saloon where everything was ordered so regularly, where the ornaments were so natural and so gorgeous, and the place so vast and new, that it was easy to see that this must be the work of the architect of the Louvre – of a man, that is to say, accustomed to great designs and to the most noble ideas.”

After a description of the magnificent saloon in question, the correspondent adds: “I will not speak of the pomp of the ball, or the grace of the Majesties, nor of the beauty and personal ornament of those who danced; I will leave you to imagine the scene.

“You know, sir, that it is useless for pleasures to be natural unless art is employed to conduct them. Then instinct must not always be their rule; they would destroy themselves if one gave them full liberty – in a word, their votaries exhaust them far too rapidly. They should be quitted with regret and not with satiety. The king was aware of this when he closed the ball sooner than the assembly would have wished. People rose with His Majesty, and no one now thought of anything but departure and repose.

“But scarcely had the company emerged from the thick of the wood and arrived at the first flower-bed, where a moment before we had seen nothing but fountains and flowers, when our eyes were startled with the strangest and most prodigious illumination that could possibly be conceived. The order of nature seemed confounded; darkness seemed to have fallen from the heavens and daylight to have sprung out of the earth. A lurid, dazzling light illuminated the whole of the surrounding country, though there was not a trace of smoke in the air, and not a sound of flickering flames or of crackling sparks disturbed the silence of the night. Along the principal avenue of the garden motionless giants could be seen glowing internally with fire: at all the windows of the château great luminous phantoms appeared which, without consuming themselves, seemed penetrated with a fire more lively and more ardent than is the element of fire itself… This terrible and surprising spectacle troubled and fascinated the sightseers. There are horrors which please, and the soul athirst for novelty feeds on what astonishes it. Whilst people were eagerly revelling in these visions, they were suddenly aroused by claps of thunder, often redoubled, accompanied by an infinitude of lightning flashes and fires which, darting towards the heavens like rockets or hovering in the air like stars, burst to pieces or fell into some lake where they rekindled themselves instead of being extinguished, or, finally, creeping along the ground like serpents, augmented the horrors of darkness by dissipating it, and seemed to threaten the universe with its last conflagration. Nevertheless, we soon recognised the ingenious imposture of these phantoms of light which had dazzled us, of this artificial thunder by which we had been so astonished.

“All present continued to enjoy the spectacle until the peep of dawn seemed to give the signal for the assembly to retreat. Such, sir, was the display that happily crowned the gallant and magnificent fête with which His Majesty regaled his subjects in order that they might have a taste of the peace which he had just established for them, and in order that they might see that he limited his ambition thenceforth to ensuring repose and spreading joy throughout the length and breadth of the land.”

The splendour of Versailles came to an end with the Great Monarch, the Roi Soleil as he was also called.

The Regent cared only for Paris, and neither lived at Versailles himself nor allowed the heir to the throne to live there. Occasionally he visited the place; and Peter the Great, on visiting Paris, was put up for a time at Trianon in the Versailles park. The Tsar of Muscovy arrived in Paris from Holland (he had not yet been recognised by Europe as Emperor of Russia) on the 8th of May, 1717, and remained partly in the capital, partly at Versailles, for upwards of six weeks.

Saint-Simon describes him as tall, well-made, rather thin, his face somewhat round, with a broad forehead, fine eyebrows, short nose, thick lips, reddish-brown complexion, and fine black eyes, large, bright, piercing, open. His look was majestic and graceful when he was on his guard; but, at other times, severe and fierce, with a nervous twitching which did not often show itself, but at times quite changed the expression of his eyes and his physiognomy. For a moment his look was wild and terrible, but he at once recovered his habitual expression. His general air gave evidence of wit, reflection, greatness of mind, all marked by grace. He wore a round brown wig almost without powder; he was generally dressed in a brown suit with gold buttons, and with stockings of the same colour, without gloves or cuffs. When this prince visited St. Cyr, he was received like the king. He wished to see Madame de Maintenon, who, suspecting that his chief desire was to see how old she looked, determined to receive him in bed. Her conjecture proved correct. On entering the room, the Tsar drew aside the window-curtains, and then the curtains of the bed, which Madame de Maintenon had closed, with the exception of one which remained half-drawn, looked at her attentively without saying a word or going through any form of civility, and then went away just as he had come.

Peter, at Versailles, Marly, and St. Cyr, as in Paris itself, visited everything which piqued his curiosity and enabled him to satisfy his passion for information. “This passion,” says Saint-Simon, “made him adopt all possible means for getting away from the importunate crowd which constantly surrounded him, and he frequently escaped the vigilance of the noblemen whom the king had attached to his person to accompany him wherever he went. The first carriage he found at hand – any hackney carriage was quite good enough for him – he got into it with no matter what member of his suite, and drove wherever he wanted to go. The king paid the first visit to his royal guest, who went down to receive him as he got out of his carriage, and then accompanied the young monarch, keeping on his left until they reached the apartment, when the two princes sat down side by side and quite on an equality. The Tsar, however, insisted on giving the place of honour to the king. The same ceremonial was followed in the visit which Peter afterwards returned. On this occasion the Tsar, after taking the young king beneath the arms, raised him to his own height, kissed him several times, flattered him and caressed him in the most tender and affectionate way. Those present were much surprised at the way the young prince received these attentions, without being in the least disconcerted and without showing any emotion.

“The Regent, having taken the Tsar to his grand box, and Peter, in the middle of the piece, having asked for some beer, the Duke of Orleans, standing up, presented to him a glass on a saucer. The Russian prince received it with a graceful gesture, drinking the contents and putting back the glass on the saucer, which the Duke of Orleans, always standing, held in his hand, afterwards offering the Tsar a napkin in the same manner.”

Louis XV. lived for a time at Versailles, and it was there that his Parc-aux-Cerfs – with the young girls dressed in virginal blue, whom, with strange inappropriateness and shocking irreverence, he had dedicated to Our Lady – was established. But he formed an aversion for the place after the attack made upon him by Damiens, who struck at him and slightly wounded him with a penknife in the marble court just as he was getting into his carriage.

The royal suburb which Louis XIV. had created, which the Paris-loving Regent disdained, and which Louis XV. feared as associated with an attempt on his life, was destined to become the favourite residence of the homely, kindhearted Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, his charming wife; and Versailles has since been as closely associated with revolutions and with the disasters of France as formerly with the splendour and luxury of the monarchy at its supreme point of development. Versailles was the scene of the strange intrigues known collectively as “the affair of the necklace,” and it was at Versailles that the king and queen were openly threatened by the revolutionary mob.

The affair of the diamond necklace was turned to the disadvantage and grave injury of the queen by all her enemies, though it is certain that Marie Antoinette had nothing whatever to do with the matter. A certain Countess de Lamotte-Valois was the prime mover in the affair, and she acted throughout with an ingenuity which surprised the good faith of many. Born in a comparatively humble position, she became the wife of a dissipated and ruined count; when, determined to turn her newly acquired position to account, she went to Paris, where she succeeded in getting presented to Marie Antoinette and also to Cardinal de Rohan, the king’s grand almoner. She persuaded the cardinal, that to secure the eternal gratitude of the queen it was only necessary to obtain for her a necklace worth a million and a half francs which was in the possession of the court jewellers. De Rohan, moreover, was assured that the queen entertained for him the most tender affection, and, in order to carry conviction to the cardinal’s mind, a Mlle. d’Olivia, who much resembled Marie Antoinette, was induced to personate her at a midnight interview with His Eminence in the gardens of Versailles. Armed with the real signature of Cardinal de Rohan and a forged signature of the queen, the countess got possession of the necklace (February 2, 1786), which she forthwith carried to London and there sold it in fragments. Meanwhile, she pretended that she had delivered the necklace to Marie Antoinette, and she succeeded in concealing her robbery for several months by producing fictitious notes in handwriting imitated from that of Marie Antoinette. At last a direct application was made by the jewellers to the queen herself, which resulted in a public trial before the Parliament of Paris. The affair caused the greatest excitement throughout France. There was no evidence which really told against the queen, and all that could be urged against the cardinal was that his folly and fatuity had enabled the Countess de Lamotte to make him an easy dupe. De Rohan, then, was acquitted, while the countess was sentenced to be whipped, branded on the shoulder, and imprisoned for life. After two years confinement at the Salpêtrière, she escaped in June, 1787, and fled to London, where she published scandalous libels against the queen. In spite of her innocence, Marie Antoinette was suspected by the common people of having played the part attributed to her by the infamous Lamotte, and even when, five years later, she was being carried to the guillotine, sarcasms in reference to the affair of the necklace were hurled at the unfortunate woman by the mob.