THE TOWN

The English-speaking traveller finds Versailles vastly more foreign than the Antipodes. He may voyage for many weeks, and at each distant stopping-place find his own tongue spoken around him, and his conventions governing society. But let him leave London one night, cross the Channel at its narrowest and most turbulent and sunrise will find him an alien in a land whose denizens differ from him in language, temperament, dress, food, manners, and customs.

Of a former visit to Versailles we had retained little more than the usual tourist’s recollection of a hurried run through a palace of fatiguing magnificence, a confusing peep at the Trianons, a glance around the gorgeous state équipages, an unsatisfactory meal at one of the open-air cafes, and a scamper back to Paris. But our winter residence in the quaint old town revealed to us the existence of a life that is all its own a life widely variant, in its calm repose, from the bustle and gaiety of the capital, but one that is replete with charm, and abounding in picturesque-interest.

Versailles is not ancient; it is old, completely old. Since the fall of the Second Empire it has stood still. Most of the clocks have run down, as though they realised the futility of trying to keep pace with the rest of the world. The future merges into the present, the present fades into the past, and still the clocks of Versailles point to the same long eventide.

The proximity of Paris is evinced only by the vividly tinted automobiles that make Versailles their goal. Even they rarely tarry in the old town, but, turning at the Chateau gates, lose no time in retracing their impetuous flight towards a city whose usages accord better with their creed of feverish hurry-scurry than do the conventions of reposeful Versailles. And these fiery chariots of modernity, with their ghoulish, fur-garbed, and hideously spectacled occupants, once their raucous, cigale-like birr-r-r has died away in the distance, leave infinitely less impression on the placid life of Versailles than do their wheels on the roads they traverse. Under the grand trees of the wide avenues the townsfolk move quietly about, busying themselves with their own affairs and practising their little economies as they have been doing any time during the last century.

Perhaps it was the emphatic and demonstrative nature of the mourning worn that gave us the idea that the better-class female population of Versailles consisted chiefly of widows. When walking abroad we seemed incessantly to encounter widows: widows young and old, from the aged to the absurdly immature. It was only after a period of bewilderment that it dawned upon us that the sepulchral garb and heavy crape veils reaching from head to heel were not necessarily the emblems of widowhood, but might signify some state of minor bereavement. In Britain a display of black such as is an everyday sight at Versailles is undreamt of, and one saw more crape veils in a day in Versailles than in London in a week. Little girls, though their legs might be uncovered, had their chubby features shrouded in disfiguring gauze and to our unaccustomed foreign eyes a genuine widow represented nothing more shapely than a more or less stubby pillar festooned with crape.

But for an inborn conviction that a frugal race like the French would not invest in a plethora of mourning garb only to cast it aside after a few months’ wear, and that therefore the period of wearing the willow must be greatly protracted, we would have been haunted by the idea that the adult male mortality of Versailles was enormous.

“Do they wear such deep mourning for all relatives?” I asked our hotel proprietor, who had just told us that during the first month of mourning the disguising veils were worn over the faces.

Monsieur shook his sleek head gravely, “But no, Madame, not for all. For a husband, yes; for a father or mother, yes; for a sister or brother, an uncle or aunt, yes; but for a cousin, no.”

He pronounced the no so emphatically as almost to convince us of his belief that in refusing to mourn in the most lugubrious degree for cousins the Versaillese acted with praiseworthy self-denial.

There seemed to be no medium between sackcloth and gala-dress. We seldom noted the customary degrees of half-mourning. Plain colours were evidently unpopular and fancy tartans of the most flamboyant hues predominated amongst those who, during a spell of, say, three years had been fortunate enough not to lose a parent, sister, brother, uncle, or aunt. A perfectly natural reaction appeared to urge the ci-devant mourners to robe themselves in lively checks and tartans. It was as though they said “Here at last is our opportunity for gratifying our natural taste in colours. It will probably be of but short duration. Therefore let us select a combination of all the most brilliant tints and wear them, for who knows how soon that gruesome pall of woe may again enshroud us.”

Probably it was the vicinity of our hotel to the Church of Notre Dame that, until we discovered its brighter side, led us to esteem Versailles a veritable city of the dead, for on our bi-daily walks to visit the invalids we were almost certain to encounter a funeral procession either approaching or leaving Notre Dame. And on but rare occasions was the great central door undraped with the sepulchral insignia which proclaimed that a Mass for the dead was in prospect or in progress. Sometimes the sable valance and portieres were heavily trimmed and fringed with silver; at others there was only the scantiest display of time-worn black cloth.

The humblest funeral was affecting and impressive. As the sad little procession moved along the streets the wayfarers reverently uncovering and soldiers saluting as it passed the dirge-like chant of the Miserere never failed to fill my eyes with unbidden tears of sympathy for the mourners, who, with bowed heads, walked behind the wreath-laden hearse.

Despite the abundant emblems of woe, Versailles can never appear other than bright and attractive. Even in mid-winter the skies were clear, and on the shortest days the sun seldom forgot to cast a warm glow over the gay, white-painted houses. And though the women’s dress tends towards depression, the brilliant military uniforms make amends. There are 12,000 soldiers stationed in Versailles; and where a fifth of the population is gorgeous in scarlet and blue and gold, no town can be accused of lacking colour.

Next to the redundant manifestations of grief, the thing that most impressed us was the rigid economy practised in even the smallest details of expenditure. Among the lower classes there is none of that aping of fashion so prevalent in prodigal England; the different social grades have each a distinctive dress and are content to wear it. Among the men, blouses of stout blue cotton and sabots are common. Sometimes velveteen trousers, whose original tint years of wear have toned to some exquisite shade of heliotrope, and a russet coat worn with a fur cap and red neckerchief, compose an effect that for harmonious colouring would be hard to beat. The female of his species, as is the case in all natural animals, is content to be less adorned. Her skirt is black, her apron blue. While she is young, her neatly dressed hair, even in the coldest weather, is guiltless of covering. As her years increase she takes her choice of three head-dresses, and to shelter her grey locks selects either a black knitted hood, a checked cotton handkerchief, or a white cap of ridiculously unbecoming design.

No French workaday father need fear that his earnings will be squandered on such perishable adornments as feathers, artificial flowers, or ribbons. The purchases of his spouse are certain to be governed by extreme frugality. She selects the family raiment with a view to durability. Flimsy finery that the sun would fade, shoddy materials that a shower of rain would ruin, offer no temptations to her. When she expends a few sous on the cutting of her boy’s hair, she has it cropped until his cranium resembles the soft, furry skin of a mole, thus rendering further outlay in this respect unlikely for months. And when she buys a flannel shirt, a six-inch strip of the stuff, for future mending, is always included in the price.

But with all this economy there is an air of comfort, a complete absence of squalor. In cold weather the school-girls wear snug hoods, or little fur turbans; and boys have the picturesque and almost indestructible berets of cloth or corduroy. Cloth boots that will conveniently slip inside sabots for outdoor use are greatly in vogue, and the comfortable Capuchin cloaks whose peaked hood can be drawn over the head, thus obviating the use of umbrellas are favoured by both sexes and all ages.

As may be imagined, little is spent on luxuries. Vendors of frivolities know better than to waste time tempting those provident people. On one occasion only did I see money parted with lightly, and in that case the bargain appeared astounding. One Sunday morning an enterprising huckster of gimcrack jewellery, venturing out from Paris, had set down his strong box on the verge of the market square, and, displaying to the admiring eyes of the country folks, ladies’ and gentlemen’s watches with chains complete, in the most dazzling of aureate metal, sold them at six sous apiece as quickly as he could hand them out.

Living is comparatively cheap in Versailles; though, as in all places where the cost of existence is low, it must be hard to earn a livelihood there. By far the larger proportion of the community reside in flats, which can be rented at sums that rise in accordance with the accommodation but are in all cases moderate. Housekeeping in a flat, should the owner so will it, is ever conducive to economy, and life in a French provincial town is simple and unconventional.

Bread, wine, and vegetables, the staple foods of the nation, are good and inexpensive. For 40 centimes one may purchase a bottle of vin de gard, a thin tipple, doubtless; but what kind of claret could one buy for fourpence a quart at home? Graves I have seen priced at 50 centimes, Barsac at 60, and eau de vie is plentiful at 1 franc 20!

Fish are scarce, and beef is supposed to be dear; but when butter, eggs, and cheese bulk so largely in the diet, the half chicken, the scrap of tripe, the slice of garlic sausage, the tiny cut of beef for the ragout, cannot be heavy items. Everything eatable is utilised, and many weird edibles are sold; for the French can contrive tasty dishes out of what in Britain would be thrown aside as offal.

On three mornings a week Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday the presence of the open-air market rouses Versailles from her dormouse-like slumber and galvanises her into a state of activity that lasts for several hours. Long before dawn, the roads leading townwards are busy with all manner of vehicles, from the great waggon drawn by four white horses driven tandem, and laden with a moving stack of hay, to the ramshackle donkey-cart conveying half a score of cabbages, a heap of dandelions grubbed from the meadows, and the owner.

By daybreak the market square under the leafless trees presents a lively scene. There are stalls sacred to poultry, to butter, eggs, and cheese; but the vegetable kingdom predominates. Flanked by bulwarks of greens and bundles of leeks of incredible whiteness and thickness of stem, sit the saleswomen, their heads swathed in gay cotton kerchiefs, and the ground before them temptingly spread with little heaps of corn salad, of chicory, and of yellow endive placed in adorable contrast to the scarlet carrots, blood-red beetroot, pinky-fawn onions, and glorious orange-hued pumpkins; while ready to hand are measures of white or mottled haricot beans, of miniature Brussels sprouts, and of pink or yellow potatoes, an esculent that in France occupies a very unimportant place compared with that it holds amongst the lower classes in Britain.

In Versailles Madame does her own marketing, her maid in sabots and neat but usually hideous cap accompanying her, basket laden. From stall to stall Madame passes, buying a roll of creamy butter wrapped in fresh leaves here, a fowl there, some eggs from the wrinkled old dame who looks so swart and witch-like in contrast to her stock of milk-white eggs.

Madame makes her purchases judiciously time is not a valuable commodity in Versailles and finishes, when the huge black basket is getting heavy even for the strong arms of the squat little maid, by buying a mess of cooked spinach from the pretty girl whose red hood makes a happy spot of colour among the surrounding greenery, and a measure of onions from the profound-looking sage who garners a winter livelihood from the summer produce of his fields.

Relations with uncooked food are, in Versailles, distinguished by an unwonted intimacy. No one, however dignified his station or appearance, is ashamed of purchasing the materials for his dinner in the open market, or of carrying them home exposed to the view of the world through the transpicuous meshes of a string bag. The portly gentleman with the fur coat and waxed moustaches, who looks a general at least, and is probably a tram-car conductor, bears his bunch of turnips with an air that dignifies the office, just as the young sub-lieutenant in the light blue cloak and red cap and trousers carries his mother’s apples and lettuces without a thought of shame. And it is easy to guess the nature of the dejeuner of this simple soldat from the long loaf, the bottle of vin ordinaire, and the onions that form the contents of his net. In the street it was a common occurrence to encounter some non-commissioned officer who, entrusted with the catering for his mess, did his marketing accompanied by two underlings, who bore between them the great open basket destined to hold his purchases.

A picturesque appearance among the hucksters of the market square is the boite de carton seller. Blue-bloused, with his stock of lavender or brown bandboxes strapped in a cardboard Tower of Pisa on his back, he parades along, his wares finding ready sale; for his visits are infrequent, and if one does not purchase at the moment, as does Madame, the opportunity is gone.

The spirit of camaraderie is strong amongst the good folks of the market. One morning the Artist had paused a moment to make a rough sketch of a plump, affable man who, shadowed by the green cotton awning of his stall, was selling segments of round flat cheeses of goat’s milk; vile-smelling compounds that, judged from their outer coating of withered leaves, straw, and dirt, would appear to have been made in a stable and dried on a rubbish heap. The subject of the jotting, busy with his customers, was all unconscious; but an old crone who sat, her feet resting on a tiny charcoal stove, amidst a circle of decadent greens, detecting the Artist’s action, became excited, and after eyeing him uneasily for a moment, confided her suspicions as to his ulterior motive to a round-faced young countryman who retailed flowers close by. He, recognising us as customers even then we were laden with his violets and mimosa merely smiled at her concern. But his apathy only served to heighten Madame’s agitation. She was unwilling to leave her snug seat yet felt that her imperative duty lay in acquainting Monsieur du Fromage with the inexplicable behaviour of the inquisitive foreigner. But the nefarious deed was already accomplished, and as we moved away our last glimpse was of the little stove standing deserted, while Madame hastened across the street in her clattering sabots to warn her friend.

The bustle of the market is soon ended. By ten o’clock the piles of vegetables are sensibly diminished. By half-past ten the white-capped maid-servants have carried the heavy baskets home, and are busy preparing lunch. At eleven o’clock the sharp boy whose stock-in-trade consisted of three trays of snails stuffed a la Bourgogne has sold all the large ones at 45 centimes a dozen, all the small at 25, and quite two-thirds of the medium-sized at 35 centimes.

The clock points to eleven. The sun is high now. The vendors awaken to the consciousness of hunger, and Madame of the pommes frites stall, whose assistant dexterously cuts the peeled tubers into strips, is fully occupied in draining the crisp golden shreds from the boiling fat and handing them over, well sprinkled with salt and pepper, to avid customers, who devour them smoking hot, direct from their paper cornucopias.

Long before the first gloom of the early mid-winter dusk, all has been cleared away. The rickety stalls have been demolished; the unsold remainder of the goods disposed of; the worthy country folks, their pockets heavy with sous, are well on their journey homewards, and only a litter of straw, of cabbage leaves and leek tops remains as evidence of the lively market of the morning.