THE HAUNTED CHATEAU

The Chateau of Versailles, like the town, dozes through the winter, only half awakening on Sunday afternoons when the townsfolk make it their meeting-place. Then conscripts, in clumsy, ill-fitting uniforms, tread noisily over the shining parqueterie floors, and burgesses gossip amicably in the dazzling Galerie des Glaces, where each morning courtiers were wont to await the uprising of their king. But on the weekdays visitors are of the rarest. Sometimes a few half-frozen people who have rashly automobiled thither from Paris alight at the Chateau gates, and take a hurried walk through the empty galleries to restore the circulation to their stiffened limbs before venturing to set forth on the return journey.

Every weekday in the Place d’Armes, squads of conscripts are busily drilling, running hither and thither with unflagging energy, and the air resounds with the hoarse staccato cries of “Un! Deux! Trois!” wherewith they accompany their movements, cries that, heard from a short distance, exactly resemble the harsh barking of a legion of dogs.

Within the gates there is a sense of leisure: even the officials have ceased to anticipate visitors. In the Cour Royale two little girls have cajoled an old guide into playing a game of ball. A custodian dozes by the great log fire in the bedroom of Louis XIV., where the warm firelight playing on the rich trappings lends such an air of occupation to the chamber, that forgetting how time has turned to grey the once white ostrich plumes adorning the canopy of the bed, and that the priceless lace coverlet would probably fall to pieces at a touch one almost expects the door to open for the entrance of Louis lé Grand himself.

To this room he came when he built the Palace wherein to hide from that grim summons with which the tower of the Royal sepulture of St. Denis, visible from his former residence, seemed to threaten him. And here it was that Death, after long seeking, found him. We can see the little great-grandson who was to succeed, lifted on to the bed of the dying monarch.

“What is your name, my child?” asks the King.

“Louis XV;” replies the infant, taking brevet-rank. And nearly sixty years later we see the child, his wasted life at an end, dying of virulent smallpox under the same roof, deserted by all save his devoted daughters.

To me the Palace of Versailles is peopled by the ghosts of many women. A few of them are dowdy and good, but by far the greater number are graceful and wicked. How infinitely easier it is to make a good bad reputation than to achieve even a bad good one! “Tell us stories about naughty children,” we used to beseech our nurses. And as our years increase we still yawn over the doings of the righteous, while our interest in the ways of transgressors only strengthens.

We all know by heart the romantic lives of the shrinking La Valliere, of Madame de Montespan the impassioned, of sleek Madame de Maintenon the trio of beauties honoured by the admiration of Louis lé Grand; and of the bevy of favourites of Louis XV, the three fair and short-lived sisters de Mailly-Nesle, the frail Pompadour who mingled scheming with debauchery, and the fascinating but irresponsible Du Barry. Even the most minute details of Marie Antoinette’s tragic career are fresh in our memories, but which of us can remember the part in the history of France played by Marie Leczinska? Yet, apart from her claim to notability as having been the last queen who ended her days on the French throne, her story is full of romantic interest.

Thrusting aside the flimsy veil of Time, we find Marie Leczinska the penniless daughter of an exiled Polish king who is living in retirement in a dilapidated commandatory at a little town in Alsace. It is easy to picture the shabby room wherein the unforeseeing Marie sits content between her mother and grandmother, all three diligently broidering altar cloths. Upon the peaceful scene the father enters, overcome by emotion, trembling. His face announces great news, before he can school his voice to speak.

“Why, father! Have you been recalled to the throne of Poland?” asks Marie, and the naïve question reveals that many years of banishment have not quenched in the hearts of the exiles the hope of a return to their beloved Poland.

“No, my daughter, but you are to be Queen of France,” replies the father. “Let us thank God.”

Knowing the sequel, one wonders if it was for a blessing or a curse that the refugees, kneeling in that meagre room in the old house at Wissenberg, returned thanks.

Certain it is that the ministers of the boy-monarch were actuated more by a craving to further their own ends than either by the desire to please God or to honour their King, in selecting this obscure maiden from the list of ninety-nine marriageable princesses that had been drawn up at Versailles. A dowerless damsel possessed of no influential relatives is not in a position to be exacting, and, whate’er befell, poor outlawed Stanislas Poniatowski could not have taken up arms in defence of his daughter.

Having a sincere regard for unaffected Marie Leczinska, I regret being obliged to admit that, even in youth, “comely” was the most effusive adjective that could veraciously be awarded her. And it is only in the lowest of whispers that I will admit that she was seven years older than her handsome husband, whose years did not then number seventeen. Yet is there indubitable charm in the simple grace wherewith Marie accepted her marvellous transformation from pauper to queen. She disarmed criticism by refusing to conceal her former poverty. “This is the first time in my life I have been able to make presents,” she frankly told the ladies of the Court, as she distributed among them her newly got trinkets.

It is pleasant to remember that the early years of her wedded life passed harmoniously. Louis, though never passionately enamoured of his wife, yet loved her with the warm affection a young man bestows on the first woman he has possessed. And that Marie was wholly content there is little doubt. She was no gadabout. Versailles satisfied her. Three years passed before she visited Paris, and then the visit was more of the nature of a pilgrimage than of a State progress. Twin daughters had blessed the union, and the Queen journeyed to the churches of Notre Dame and Saint Genevieve to crave from Heaven the boon of a Dauphin: a prayer which a year later was answered.

But clouds were gathering apace. As he grew into manhood the domestic virtues palled upon Louis. He tired of the needlework which, doubtless, Marie’s skilled hands had taught him. We recall how, sitting between her mother and grandmother, the future Queen had broidered altar cloths. Marie Leczinska was an adoring mother; possibly her devotion to their rapidly increasing family wearied him. Being little more than a child himself, the King is scarcely likely to have found the infantile society so engaging as did the mother. Thus began that series of foolish infidelities that, characterised by extreme timidity and secrecy at first, was latterly flaunted in the face of the world.

Marie’s life was not a smooth one, but it was happier than that of her Royal spouse. To me there is nothing sadder, nothing more sordid in history, than the feeble, useless existence of Louis XV., whose early years promised so well. It is pitiful to look at the magnificent portrait, still hanging in the palace where he reigned, of the child-king seated in his robes of State, the sceptre in his hand, looking with eyes of innocent wonder into the future, then to think upon the depth of degradation reached by the once revered Monarch before his body was dragged in dishonour and darkness to its last resting-place.

Pleasanter figures that haunt the Chateau are those of the six pretty daughters of Louis and Marie Leczinska. There are the ill-starred twins, Elizabeth and Henrietta: Madame Elizabeth, who never lost the love of her old home, and, though married, before entering her teens, to the Infanta of Spain, retired, after a life of disappointment, to her beloved Versailles to die; and the gentle Henrietta who, cherishing an unlucky passion for the young Duc de Chartres, pined quietly away after witnessing her lover wed to another.

Then there is Adelaide, whom Nattier loved to paint, portraying her sometimes as a lightly clad goddess, sometimes sitting demurely in a pretty frock. Good Nattier! there is a later portrait of himself in complacent middle age surrounded by his wife and children; but I like to think that, when he spent so many days at the Palace painting the young Princess, some tenderer influence than mere artistic skill lent cunning to his brush.

When the daughters of Louis XV. were sent to be educated at a convent, Adelaide it was who, by tearful protest to her royal father, gained permission to remain at the Palace while her sisters meekly endured their banishment. From this instance of childish character one would have anticipated a career for Madame Adelaide, and I hate being obliged to think of her merely developing into one of the three spinster aunts of Louis XVI. who, residing under the same roof, turned coldly disapproving eyes upon the manifold frailties of their niece, Marie Antoinette.

The sisters Victoire and Sophie are faint shades leaving no impression on the memory; but there is another spirit, clad in the sombre garb of a Carmelite nun, who, standing aloof, looks with the calm eyes of peace on the motley throng. It is Louise, the youngest sister of all, who, deeply grieved by her father’s infatuation for the Du Barry an infatuation which, beginning within a month of Marie Leczinska’s decease, ended only when on his deathbed the dying Monarch prepared to receive absolution by bidding his inamorata farewell resolved to flee her profligate surroundings and devote her life to holiness.

It is affecting to think of the gentle Louise, secretly anticipating the rigours of convent life, torturing her delicate skin by wearing coarse serge, and burning tallow candles in her chamber to accustom herself to their detestable odour.

Her father’s consent gained, Louise still tarried at Versailles. Perhaps the King’s daughter shrank from voluntarily beginning a life of imprisoned drudgery. We know that at this period she passed many hours reading contemporary history, knowing that, once within the convent walls, the study of none but sacred literature would be permitted.

Then came an April morning when Louise, who had kept her intention secret from all save her father, left the Palace never to return. France, in a state of joyous excitement, was eagerly anticipating the arrival of Marie Antoinette, who was setting forth on the first stage of that triumphal journey which had so tragic an ending. Already the gay clamour of wedding-bells filled the air; and Louise may have feared that, did she linger at Versailles, the enticing vanities of the world might change the current of her thoughts.

Chief among the impalpable throng that people the state galleries is Marie Antoinette, and her spirit shows us many faces. It is charming, haughty, considerate, headstrong, frivolous, thoughtful, degraded, dignified, in quick succession. We see her arrive at the Palace amid the tumultuous adoration of the crowd, and leave amidst its exécrations. Sometimes she is richly apparelled, as befits a queen; anon she sports the motley trappings of a mountebank. The courtyard that saw the departure of Madame Louise witnesses Marie Antoinette, returning at daybreak in company with her brother-in-law from some festivity unbecoming a queen, refused admittance by the King’s express command.

Many of the attendant spirits who haunt Marie Antoinette’s ghostly footsteps as they haunted her earthly ones are malefic. Most are women, and all are young and fair. There is Madame Roland, who, taken as a young girl to the Palace to peep at the Royalties, became imbued by that jealous hatred which only the Queen’s death could appease.

“If I stay here much longer,” she told that kindly mother who sought to give her a treat by showing her Court life, “I shall detest these people so much that I shall be unable to hide my hatred.”

It is easy to fancy the girl’s evil face scowling at the unconscious Queen, before she leaves to pen those inflammatory pamphlets which are to prove the Sovereign’s undoing and her own. For by some whim of fate Madame Roland was executed on the very scaffold to which her envenomed writings had driven Marie Antoinette.

A spectre that impresses as wearing rags under a gorgeous robe, lurks among the foliage of the quiet bosquet beyond the orangerie. It is the infamous Madame de la Motte, chief of adventuresses, and it was in that secluded grove that her tool, Cardinal de Rohan, had his pretended interview with the Queen. Poor, perfidious Contesse! what an existence of alternate beggarly poverty and beggarly riches was hers before that last scene of all when she lay broken and bruised almost beyond human semblance in that dingy London courtyard beneath the window from which, in a mad attempt to escape arrest, she had thrown herself.

Through the Royal salons flits a presence whereat the shades of the Royal Princesses look askance: that of the frolicsome, good-natured, irresponsible Du Barry. A soulless ephemera she, with no ambitions or aspirations, save that, having quitted the grub stage, she desires to be as brilliant a butterfly as possible. Close in attendance on her moves an ebon shadow Zamora, the ingrate foundling who, reared by the Duchesse, swore that he would make his benefactress ascend the scaffold, and kept his oath. For our last sight of the prodigal, warm-hearted Du Barry, plaything of the aged King, is on the guillotine, where in agonies of terror she fruitlessly appeals to her executioner’s clemency.

But of all the bygone dames who haunt the grand Chateau, the only one I detest is probably the most irreproachable of all Madame de Maintenon. There is something so repulsively sanctimonious in her aspect, something so crafty in the method wherewith, under the cloak of religion, she wormed her way into high places, ousting always in the name of propriety those who had helped her. Her stepping-stone to Royal favour was handsome, impetuous Madame de Montespan, who, taking compassion on her widowed poverty, appointed Madame Scarron, as she then was, governess of her children, only to find her protegee usurp her place both in the honours of the King and in the affections of their children.

The natural heart rebels against the “unco guid,” and Madame de Maintenon, with her smooth expression, double chin, sober garments and ever-present symbols of piety, revolts me. I know it is wrong. I know that historians laud her for the wholesome influence she exercised upon the mind of a king who had grown timorous with years; that the dying Queen declared that she owed the King’s kindness to her during the last twenty years of her life entirely to Madame de Maintenon. But we know also that six months after the Queen’s death an unwonted light showed at midnight in the Chapel Royal, where Madame de Maintenon the child of a prison cell was becoming the legal though unacknowledged wife of Louis XIV. The impassioned, uncalculating de Montespan had given the handsome Monarch her all without stipulation. Truly the career of Madame de Maintenon was a triumph of virtue over vice; and yet of all that heedless, wanton throng, my soul detests only her.