CHAPTER VIII

MARIE ANTOINETTE

Stereotyped sights are rarely the most engrossing. At the Palace of Versailles the petits appartements de la Reine, those tiny rooms whose grey old-world furniture might have been in use yesterday, to me hold more actuality than all the regal salons in whose vast emptiness footsteps reverberate like echoes from the past.

In the pretty sitting-room the coverings to-day are a reproduction of the same pale blue satin that draped the furniture in the days when queens preferred the snug seclusion of those dainty rooms overlooking the dank inner courtyard to the frigid grandeur of their State chambers. Therein it was that Marie Leczinska was wont to instruct her young daughters in the virtues as she had known them in her girlhood's thread-bare home, not as her residence at the profligate French Court had taught her to understand them.



The heavy gilt bolts bearing the interlaced initials M.A. remind us that these, too, were the favourite rooms of Marie Antoinette, and that in all probability the cunningly entwined bolts were the handiwork of her honest spouse, who wrought at his blacksmith forge below while his wife flirted above. But in truth the petits appartements are instinct with memories of Marie Antoinette, and it is difficult to think of any save only her occupying them. The beautiful coffre presented to her with the layette of the Dauphin still stands on a table in an adjoining chamber, and the paintings on its white silk casing are scarcely faded yet, though the decorative ruching of green silk leaves has long ago fallen into decay.

A step farther is the little white and gold boudoir which still holds the mirror that gave the haughty Queen her first premonition of the catastrophe that awaited her. Viewed casually the triple mirror, lining an alcove wherein stands a couch garlanded with flowers, betrays no sinister qualities. But any visitor who approaches looking at his reflection where at the left the side panels meet the angle of the wall, will be greeted by a sight similar to that whose tragic suggestion made even the haughty Queen pause a moment in her reckless career. For in the innocent appearing mirrors the gazer is reflected without a head.

It was through this liliputian suite, this strip of homeliness so artfully introduced into a palace, that Marie Antoinette fled on that fateful August morning when the mob of infuriated women invaded the Chateau.

Knowing this, I was puzzling over the transparent fact that either of the apparent exits would have led her directly into the hands of the enemy, when the idea of a secret staircase suggested itself. A little judicious inquiry elicited the information that one did exist. "But it is not seen. It is locked. To view it, an order from the Commissary—that is necessary," explained the old guide.

To know that a secret staircase, and one of such vivid historical importance, was at hand, and not to have seen it would have been too tantalising. The "Commissary" was an unknown quantity, and for a space it seemed as though our desire would be ungratified. Happily the knowledge of our interest awoke a kindly reciprocity in our guide, who, hurrying off, quickly returned with the venerable custodian of the key. A moment later, the unobtrusive panel that concealed the exit flew open at its touch, and the secret staircase, dark, narrow, and hoary with the dust of years, lay before us.



Many must have been the romantic meetings aided by those diminutive steps, but, peering into their shadows, we saw nothing but a vision of Marie Antoinette, half clad in dishevelled wrappings of petticoat and shawl, flying distracted from the vengeance of the furies through the refuge of the low-roofed stairway.

In my ingenuous youth, when studying French history, I evolved a theory which seemed, to myself at least, to account satisfactorily for the radical differences distinguishing Louis XVI. from his brothers and antecedents. Finding that, when a delicate infant, he had been sent to the country to nurse, I rushed to the conclusion that the royal infant had died, and that his foster-mother, fearful of the consequences, had substituted a child of her own in his place. The literature of the nursery is full of instances that seemed to suggest the probability of my conjecture being correct.

As a youth, Louis had proved himself both awkward and clumsy. He was loutish, silent in company, ill at ease in his princely surroundings, and in all respects unlike his younger brothers. He was honest, sincere, pious, a faithful husband, a devoted father; amply endowed, indeed, with the middle-class virtues which at that period were but rarely found in palaces. To my childish reasoning the most convincing proof lay in his innate craving for physical labour; a craving that no ridicule could dispel.

With the romantic enthusiasm of youth, I used to fancy the peasant mother stealing into the Palace among the spectators who daily were permitted to view the royal couple at dinner, and imagine her, having seen the King, depart glorying secretly in the strategy that had raised her son to so high an estate. There was another picture, in whose dramatic misery I used to revel. It showed the unknown mother, who had discovered that by her own act she had condemned her innocent son to suffer for the sins of past generations of royal profligates, journeying to Paris (in my dreams she always wore sabots and walked the entire distance in a state of extreme physical exhaustion) with the intention of preventing his execution by declaring his lowly parentage to the mob. The final tableau revealed her, footsore and weary, reaching within sight of the guillotine just in time to see the executioner holding up her son's severed head. I think my imaginary heroine died of a broken heart at this juncture, a catastrophe that would naturally account for her secret dying with her.



During our winter stay at Versailles, my childish phantasies recurred to me, and I almost found them feasible. What an amazing irony of fate it would have shown had a son of the soil expired to expiate the crimes of sovereigns!

But more pitiful by far than the saddest of illusions is the sordid reality of a scene indelibly imprinted on my mental vision. Memory takes me back to the twilight of a spring Sunday several years ago, when in the wake of a cluster of market folks we wandered into the old Cathedral of St. Denis. Deep in the sombre shadows of the crypt a light gleamed faintly through a narrow slit in the stone wall. Approaching, we looked into a gloomy vault wherein, just visible by the ray of a solitary candle, lay two zinc coffins.

Earth holds no more dismal sepulchre than that dark vault, through the crevice in whose wall the blue-bloused marketers cast curious glances. Yet within these grim coffins lie two bodies with their severed heads, all that remains mortal of the haughty Marie Antoinette and other humble spouse.



CHAPTER IX

THE PRISONERS RELEASED

The first dread days, when the Boy, heavy with fever, seemed scarcely to realise our presence, were swiftly followed by placid hours when he lay and smiled in blissful content, craving nothing, now that we were all together again. But this state of beatitude was quickly ousted by a period of discontent, when the hunger fiend reigned supreme in the little room.

"Manger, manger, manger, tout le temps!" Thus the nurse epitomised the converse of her charges. And indeed she was right, for, from morning till night, the prisoners' solitary topic of conversation was food. During the first ten days their diet consisted solely of boiled milk, and as that time wore to a close the number of quarts consumed increased daily, until Paul, the chief porter, seemed ever ascending the little outside stair carrying full bottles of milk, or descending laden with empty ones.

"Milk doesn't count. When shall we be allowed food, real food?" was the constant cry, and their relief was abounding when, on Christmas Day, the doctor withdrew his prohibition, and permitted an approach to the desired solids. But even then the prisoners, to their loudly voiced disappointment, discovered that their only choice lay between vermicelli and tapioca, nursery dishes which at home they would have despised.

"Tapioca! Imagine tapioca for a Christmas dinner!" the invalids exclaimed with disgust. But that scorn did not prevent them devouring the mess and eagerly demanding more. And thereafter the saucepan simmering over the gas-jet in the outer room seemed ever full of savoury spoon-meat.

I doubt if any zealous mother-bird ever had a busier time feeding her fledglings than had the good Sister in satisfying the appetites of these callow cormorants. To witness the French nun seeking to allay the hunger of these voracious schoolboy aliens was to picture a wren trying to fill the ever-gaping beaks of two young cuckoos whom an adverse fate had dropped into her nest.

As the days wore by, the embargo placed upon our desire to cater for the invalids was gradually lifted, and little things such as sponge biscuits and pears crept in to vary the monotony of the milk diet.

New Year's Day held a tangible excitement, for that morning saw a modified return to ordinary food, and, in place of bottles of milk, Paul's load consisted of such tempting selections from the school meals as were deemed desirable for the invalids. Poultry not being included in the school menus, we raided a cooked-provision shop and carried off a plump, well-browned chicken. The approbation which met this venture resulted in our supplying a succession of poulettes, which, at the invalids' express desire, were smuggled into their room under my cloak. Not that there was the most remote necessity for concealment, but the invalids, whose sole interest centred in food, laboured under the absurd idea that, did the authorities know they were being supplied from without, their regular meals would be curtailed to prevent them over-eating.

The point of interest, for the Red-Cross prisoners at least, in our morning visits lay in the unveiling of the eatables we had brought. School food, however well arranged, is necessarily stereotyped, and the element of the unknown ever lurked in our packages. The sugar-sticks, chocolates, fruit, little cakes, or what we had chanced to bring, were carefully examined, criticised, and promptly devoured.

A slight refreshment was served them during our short stay, and when we departed we left them eagerly anticipating luncheon. At gloaming, when we returned, it was to find them busy with half-yards of the long crusty loaves, plates of jelly, and tumblers, filled with milk on our Boy's part, and with well diluted wine on that of his fellow sufferer.

Fear of starvation being momentarily averted, the Soeur used to light fresh candles around the tiny Holy Bebe on the still green Christmas-tree, and for a space we sat quietly enjoying the radiance. But by the time the last candle had flickered out, and the glow of a commonplace paraffin lamp lighted the gloom, nature again demanded nourishment; and we bade the prisoners farewell for the night, happy in the knowledge that supper, sleep, and breakfast would pleasantly while away the hours till our return.

The elder Red-Cross knight was a tall, good-looking lad of sixteen, the age when a boy wears painfully high collars, shaves surreptitiously—and unnecessarily—with his pen-knife, talks to his juniors about the tobacco he smokes in a week, and cherishes an undying passion for a maiden older than himself. He was ever an interesting study, though I do not think I really loved him until he confided his affairs of the heart, and entrusted me with the writing of his love-letters. I know that behind my back he invariably referred to me as "Ma"; but as he openly addressed the unconscious nun as "you giddy old girl," "Ma" might almost be termed respectful, and I think our regard was mutual.

All things come to him who waits. There came a night when for the last time we sat together around the little tree, watching the Soeur light the candles that illuminated the Holy Bebe. On the morrow the prisoners, carefully disinfected, and bearing the order of their release in the form of a medical certificate, would be set free.

It clouded our gladness to know that before the patient Sister stretched another period of isolation. Just that day another pupil had developed scarlet fever, and only awaited our boys' departure to occupy the little room. Hearing that this fresh prisoner lay under sentence of durance vile, we suggested that all the toys—chiefly remnants of shattered armies that, on hearing of the Boy's illness, we had brought from the home playroom he had outgrown—might be left for him instead of being sent away to be burnt.

The Boy's bright face dulled. "If it had been anybody else! But, mother, I don't think you know that he is the one French boy we disliked. It was he who always shouted 'a bas les Anglais!' in the playground."

The reflection that for weary weeks this obnoxious boy would be the only inmate of the boite, as the invalids delighted to call their sick-room, overcame his antipathetic feeling, and he softened so far as to indite a polite little French note offering his late enemy his sympathy, and formally bequeathing to him the reversion of his toys, including the arbre de Noel with all its decorations, except the little waxen Jesus nestling in the manger of yellow corn; the Soeur had already declared her intention of preserving that among her treasures.

The time that had opened so gloomily had passed, and now that it was over we could look back upon many happy hours spent within the dingy prison walls. And our thoughts were in unison, for the Boy, abruptly breaking the silence, said: "And after all, it hasn't been such a bad time. Do you know, I really think I've rather enjoyed it!"



L'ENVOI



Heavy skies lowered above us, the landscape seen through the driving mist-wreaths showed a depressing repetition of drabs and greys as we journeyed towards Calais. But, snugly ensconced in the train rapide, our hearts beat high with joy, for at last were we homeward bound. The weeks of exile in the stately old town had ended. For the last time the good Sister had lit us down the worn stone steps. As we sped seawards across the bleak country, our thoughts flew back to her, and to the little room with the red cross on its casement, wherein, although our prisoners were released, another term of nursing had already begun for her. In contrast with her life of cheerful self-abnegation, ours seemed selfish, meaningless, and empty.

Dear nameless Sister! She had been an angel of mercy to us in a troublous time, and though our earthly paths may never again cross, our hearts will ever hold her memory sacred.



By the same Author

OUR STOLEN SUMMER

THE RECORD OF A ROUNDABOUT TOUR

BY

MARY STUART BOYD

WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SKETCHES BY A.S. BOYD

Extracts from Reviews

THE WORLD.—"To be able to go round the world nowadays, and write a descriptive record of the tour that is vivid and fresh is a positive literary feat. It has been successfully accomplished in Our Stolen Summer by Mrs. Boyd, who with no ulterior object in making a book journeyed over four continents in company with her husband, and picked up en route matter for one of the pleasantest, most humorous, and least pretentious books of travel we have read for many a day. It is admirably illustrated by Mr. A.S. Boyd, whose sense of humour happily matches that of his observant wife, and the reader who can lay aside this picturesque and truly delightful volume without sincere regret must have a dull and dreary mind."

PUNCH.—"Our Stolen Summer is calculated to lead to wholesale breakage of the Eighth Commandment. Certainly, my Baronite, reading the fascinating record of a roundabout tour, feels prompted to steal away. Mary Stuart Boyd, who pens the record, has the great advantage of the collaboration of A.S.B., whose signature is familiar in Mr. Punch's Picture Gallery.... A charming book."

SPECTATOR.—"The writer, by the help of a ready pen and of the pencil of a skilful illustrator, has given us in this handsome volume a number of attractive pictures of distant places.... It is good to read and pleasant to look at."

TRUTH.—"You will find no pleasanter holiday reading than Our Stolen Summer."

ACADEMY.—"A fresh record, and worth the reading. Of such is Mrs. Boyd's volume, which her husband has illustrated profusely with spirited line drawings."

FIELD.—"One of the brightest books of travel that it has been our good fortune to read. The illustrations deserve a notice to themselves. They are far and away better than those which we usually get in books of this kind, and we do not know that we can bestow higher praise on them than to say that they are worthy of the letterpress which they illustrate."

LAND AND WATER.—"A delightful sketch of a delightful journey.... Our Stolen Summer is a book which will be read with equal delight on a lazy summer holiday, or in the heart of London when the streets are enveloped in fog and the rain is beating against the window panes. Mr. Boyd's sketches are simply admirable."

SPHERE.—"A delightful record of travel. Mrs. Boyd is never dull, and there is plenty of acute observation throughout her pleasant story of travel. My Boyd's illustrations which appear on practically every page, are, it need scarcely be said, up to the high level that is already familiar to students of his black-and-white work."

LADIES' FIELD.—"A singularly delightful and unaffected book of travel."

MADAME.—"One of the most delightful books of travel it has been our good fortune to read."

MORNING POST.—"If the encouragement of globe-trotting be a virtuous action, then certainly Mrs. Stuart Boyd has deserved well of her country. To read her book is to conceive an insensate desire to be off and away on 'the long trail' at all hazards and at all costs.... Mr. Boyd's illustrations add greatly to the interest and charm of the book. There is movement, atmosphere, and sunshine in them."

STANDARD.—"Mrs. Boyd went with her husband round the world, and the latter—an artist with a sense of humour—kept his hand in practice by making droll sketches of people encountered by the way, which heighten the charm of his wife's vivacious description of a Stolen Summer. Mrs. Boyd has quick eyes and an open mind, and writes with sense and sensibility."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"It is not so much what Mrs. Boyd has to tell as the invariable good humour and brightness with which she records even the most familiar things that makes the charm of her excellent diary."

DAILY CHRONICLE.—"Mrs. Boyd has written the log with sparkle and observation—seeing many things that the mere man-traveller would miss. Mr. Boyd's sketches are, of course, excellent."

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—"Mrs. Boyd writes with so much buoyancy, and her humour is so unexpected and unfailing, that it is safe to say that there is not a dull page from first to last in this record of a tour round the world... Mr. A.S. Boyd's numerous illustrations show him at his very best."

GLOBE.—"A work to acquire as well as to peruse."

WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—"The narrative from beginning to end does not contain a dull page. Of Mr. Boyd's numerous sketches it is only necessary to say that they are excellent. Altogether Our Stolen Summer will be found to be one of the most fascinating of recent books of travel."

SUNDAY TIMES.—"Brilliantly and entertainingly written, and liberally illustrated by an acknowledged master of the art of black and white."

SCOTSMAN.—"A beautiful and fascinating book.... Pen and pencil sketches alike have grace, nerve, and humour, and are alive with human interest and observation."

GLASGOW HERALD.—"One of the most delightful travel-books of recent times.... Mrs. Boyd's volume must commend itself to people who contemplate visiting the other side of the globe and to all stay-at-home travellers as well."

DAILY FREE PRESS.—"Mrs. Boyd is an admirable descriptive writer—observant, humorous, and sympathetic. Without illustrations, Our Stolen Summer would be a notable addition to the literature of travel; with Mr. Boyd's collaboration it is almost unique."

LEEDS MERCURY.—"Vivacious and diverting record."

YORKSHIRE DAILY POST.—"For such a book there could be nothing but praise if one wrote columns about it."

BIRMINGHAM DAILY POST.—"A singularly happy and interesting record of a most enjoyable tour."

NORTHERN WHIG.—"Shrewdness of observation, with not a little humour and a real literary gift, mark the story of Our Stolen Summer."

THE BOOKMAN.—"Mrs. Boyd writes with so much brightness, such vivacity and picturesqueness of style, that although the volume runs to close upon four hundred pages there is not a dull page among them. The success of Our Stolen Summer, however, is due as much to the artist as to the author; and praise must be equally divided. Mr. Boyd's sketches are spirited, clever, full of humour and sympathetic observation. Without a word of letter-press they would have formed an excellent travel-book; taken in conjunction with Mrs. Boyd's narrative they are irresistible."



LONDON AND EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS

Illustrated by A.S. Boyd

A LOWDEN SABBATH MORN

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

WITH TWENTY-SEVEN PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY A.S. BOYD

Extracts from Reviews

THE TIMES.—"The characters whom Stevenson had in his mind's eye are all cleverly pictured, and the drawings may be truthfully said to illustrate the writer's ideas—a quality that seldom resides in illustrations.... All are faithfully presented as only one who has known them intimately could present them.... Mr. Boyd's talent for black-and-white work has never found happier expression."

MORNING POST.—"It is impossible to imagine anything more likely to appeal to the sentiment of the Scottish people throughout the world than this series of pictures, instinct with the spirit of their land."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"One of the happiest combinations of author and artist which has been seen of late years. Mr. Boyd has entered thoroughly into the spirit of the lines, and his figures are instinct with graceful humour."

DAILY CHRONICLE.—"Mr. Boyd is to be congratulated (as R. L. S. would assuredly have granted) upon interpreting so vividly a notable feature in the national life of Scotland."

ATHENAEUM.—"The task of illustrating Stevenson's verses was most difficult, because it demands from the artist knowledge of local circumstances and characteristic details. Mr. Boyd's success in making us see so plainly the moods and manners of the 'restin' ploughman' while he 'daundered' in his garden and 'raxed his limbs' is the more to be enjoyed and praised."

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—"Followers of the master will appreciate this beautiful book for its accurate interpretation of the poem as well as for its excellent drawing."

ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.—"There is plenty of good Scotch character in the illustrations, and a quiet observation of the humours of a parish, with such annals as those recorded by Gait."

ACADEMY.—"An attractive book."

SATURDAY REVIEW.—"In saying therefore that Mr. Boyd's illustrations—there is a full page drawing for each verse—are not only worthy of the poem, but actually emphasise and define its merits, we give the book the highest possible praise. It is a volume which should be added to the library of every collector."

SPECTATOR.—"These illustrations to Mr. Stevenson's Scots poem are distinctly clever, especially in their characterisation of the various attendants at the village kirk."

SPEAKER.—"The book presents very vividly some of the aspects (both humorous and pathetic) of a Scottish rural lowland parish, and will doubtless touch a chord in the heart of Scotsmen throughout the world."

OUTLOOK.—"Many of Mr. Stevenson's admirers the world over have long desired that such a classic poem should be faithfully and adequately illustrated, and they will give a hearty welcome to this most handsome quarto."

SCOTSMAN.—"One way and another the book is wholly delightful."

GLASGOW EVENING NEWS.—"Mr. Boyd's contributions to a volume which ought to be popular with Scots in every part of the world, are full of pawky humour, and their realism is so pronounced that we seem to have known the models in the life."

DUNDEE ADVERTISER.—"This is a volume to be treasured alike for the sake of the poet, of the artist, and of that form of Scottish life which is rapidly disappearing before the march of progress."

ARBROATH HERALD.—"Mr. Boyd has represented these pictures in line sketches, which are characterised at once by the strength and confidence of a masterful draughtsman and the insight of a keen observer of character, who has long been familiar with the types presented in Stevenson's poem."

GOOD WORDS.—"Mr. Boyd has portrayed, with here and there a happy trait of grace or humour beyond the wording of the text, the very scene and people. Each of the illustrations has a charm and freshness of its own."

ART JOURNAL.—"Mr. Boyd's knowledge of Lothian peasants and their manners is as complete as Stevenson's. His drawings place in pictorial view the poet's thoughts, while they greatly enhance the descriptions by emphasising what the writer rightly left vague."

LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, III St. Martin's Lane

THE END