The military museum of to-day, which is enclosed by the palace walls, possesses a remarkable collection of its kind, but has no intimate lien upon the history of the palace.
The _parterre_ before the palace is cut off from the forest of Saint Germain by three ornate iron gates. It was relaid, a transformation from designs originally conceived in 1676, by Le Notre, modified in 1750 and much reduced in size and beauty in the nineteenth century, though later enlarged by taking three hectares of ground from the forest and turning them into the accepted form of an English garden.
A peninsula of a superficial area of over ten thousand acres snugly enfolded in one of the great horseshoe bends of the Seine contains the Foret de Saint Germain. A line drawn across the neck of the peninsula from Saint Germain to Poissy, following the Route de Poissy, completely cuts off this tongue of land which is as wild and wooded to-day as in the times of Francis, the Henris and the Louis.
The _routes_ and _allees_ of the forest are traced with regularity and precision, and historians have written them down as of a length of nearly four hundred leagues, a statement which a glance at any map of the forest will well substantiate.
High upon its plateau sits this historic wildwood, for the most part of a soil dry and sandy, with here and there some great _mamelon_ (Druidical or Pagan, as the case may be) rising somewhat above the average level. Francis I, huntsman and lover of art and nature, did much to preserve this great forest, and Louis XIV in his time developed its system of roads and paths, "chiefly to make hunting easy," says history, though it is difficult to follow this. At all events the forest remains to-day the most extensive unspoiled breathing-spot of its cla.s.s near Paris.
Within this maze of paths and alleys are many famed historic spots, the Chene Saint Fiacre, the Croix de Noailles, the Croix Saint Simon, the Croix du Main (erected in 1709 in honour of the son of Louis XIV), the etoile des Amazones, the Patte d"Oie, the Chene du Capitaine and many more which are continually referred to in the history of the palace, the forest of Saint Germain-en-Laye, and of the Abbaye de Poissy.
The forest is not wholly separated from the mundane world for occasionally a faint echo of the Rouen railway is heard, a toot from a river tug-boat bringing coal up-river to Paris, the strident notes of automobile horns, or that of a hooting steam-tram which scorches along the princ.i.p.al roadway over which state coaches of kings and courtiers formerly rolled. The contrast is not particularly offensive, but the railway threatens to make further inroads, so one hardly knows the future that may be in store for the patriarch oaks and elms and chestnuts which make up this secular wildwood. Their ages may not in all cases approach those of the great Fontainebleau trees, and in point of fact the forest is by no means as solitary, nor ever was. One of the most celebrated, certainly one of the most spectacular, duels of history took place in the park at Saint Germain-en-Laye.
Gui Chabot de Jarnac lived a prodigal and profligate life at the expense--it was said--of the favours of the d.u.c.h.esse d"etampes. The dauphin, Henri, making an accusation, deemed wholly uncalled for, a "_duel judiciaire_" took place, with La Chataigneraie as the dauphin"s subst.i.tute as adversary of de Jarnac who sought no apology but combat.
It was because Henri meantime had become king and issued his first Letters Patent to his council concerning the "_duel judiciaire_,"
whereby he absolved himself of the right to partake, that he appointed his dear friend Francois de Vivonne, "Seigneur de la Chataigneraie," to play the role for him.
Unfortunately the young man could not justify by victory the honour of his king and before the monarch and the a.s.sembled court he was laid low by his adversary.
This was one of the last of the "_duels judiciaires_" in France. What Saint Louis and Philippe-le-Bel had vainly sought to suppress, the procedure having cost at least a hundred thousand _livres_, was practically accomplished by Henri II by a stroke of the pen.
CHAPTER XVIII
MAINTENON
Out from Paris, on the old Route d"Espagne, running from the capital to the frontier, down which rolled the royal corteges of old, lie Maintenon and its famous chateau, some sixty odd kilometres from Paris and twenty from Rambouillet.
Just beyond Versailles, on the road to Maintenon, lies the trim little townlet of Saint Cyr, known to-day as the West Point of France, the military school founded by Napoleon I giving it its chief distinction.
Going back into the remote past one learns that the village grew up from a foundation of Louis XIV, who bought for ninety-one thousand _livres_ "a chateau and a convent for women," that Madame de Maintenon might establish a girls" school therein. She reserved an apartment for herself, and one suspects indeed that it was simply another project of the Widow Scarron to have a place of rendezvous near the capital.
Certainly under the circ.u.mstances, taking into consideration the good that she was doing for orphaned girls, she might at least have been allowed the right of a roof to shelter her when she wished. She was absolutely dominant within, though never actually in residence for any length of time. It was here that "Esther" and "Athalie," which Racine had composed expressly for Madame de Maintenon"s pensionnaires, were produced for the first time.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fauteuil _of_ Mme. _de_ Maintenon _Worked by the_ Demoiselles _of_ Saint Cyr]
When not actually living at Saint Cyr it was Madame de Maintenon"s custom to come hither from Paris each day, arriving between seven and eight in the morning, pa.s.sing the day and returning to town for the evening, much as a celebrated American millionaire journalist, whose country-house overlooks the famous convent garden, does to-day.
Madame de Maintenon actually went into retirement at Saint Cyr upon the death of Louis XIV, and for four years, until her death, never left it.
She died from old age, rather than from any grave malady, in this "Maison d"Education," which she had inaugurated, and was buried in the chapel, beneath an elaborate tomb which the Duc de Noailles, who married her niece, caused to be erected. The tomb was destroyed during the Revolution and the "Maison Royale de Saint Cyr," of which nothing had been changed since its foundation, was suppressed, the edifice itself being pillaged and the remains of Madame de Maintenon sadly profaned, finally to be recovered and deposited again in the chapel where a simple black marble slab marks them in these graven words:
Cy-Git Madame De Maintenon 1635-1719-1836
Napoleon I established the ecole Militaire at Saint Cyr, from which are graduated each year more than four hundred subaltern officers.
The ancient gardens of Madame de Maintenon"s time now form the "Champs de Mars," or drill ground, of the military school.
South from Saint Cyr runs the great international highroad, the old Route Royale of the monarchy. It rises and falls, but mostly straight as the flight of the crow, until it crosses the great National Forest of Rambouillet. Following the valley of the Eure almost to its headwaters it finally comes to Maintenon, a town of a couple of thousand souls, whose most ill.u.s.trious inhabitant was that granddaughter of Theodore-Agrippa d"Aubigne, named Francoise, and who came in time to be the Marquise de Maintenon.
The Chateau de Maintenon was royal in all but name. The Tresorier des Finances under Louis XI, Jean Cottereau (a public official who made good it seems, since he also served in the same capacity for Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I), had a single daughter, Isabeau, who, in 1526, married Jacques d"Angennes, who at the time was already Seigneur de Rambouillet.
As a dot this daughter acquired the lands of Maintenon. The property was afterwards sold to the Marquis de Villeray, from whom Louis XIV bought it in 1674 and disposed of it as a royal gift to Francoise d"Aubigne, the fascinator of kings, who was afterwards to become (in 1688) Madame La Marquise de Maintenon.
This ambitious woman subsequently married her niece to the Duc d"Ayen, son of the Marechal de Noailles, and as a marriage portion--or possibly to avoid unpleasant consequences--turned over the property of Maintenon to the young bride and her husband to whose family, the Noailles, it has ever since belonged.
To-day the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse de Noailles make lengthy stays in this delightful seigneurial dwelling, and since the apartments are full to overflowing of historical souvenirs of their family it may be truly said that their twentieth century life is to some considerable extent in accord with the traditions of other days.
The existence of this princely residence is an agreeable reminder of the life of luxury of the olden time albeit certain modernities which we to-day think necessities are lacking.
Maintenon is certainly one of the most beautiful so-called royal chateaux of France, if not by its actual importance at least by many of the attributes of its architecture, the extent of the domain and the history connected therewith. It bridges the span between the private chateau and those which may properly be called royal.
In the moyen-age Maintenon was a veritable chateau-fort, forming a quadrilateral edifice flanked by round towers at three of its angles, and at the fourth by a great square ma.s.s of a donjon, all of which was united by a vast expanse of solidly built wall which possessed all the cla.s.sic attributes of the best military architecture of its time.
Entrance was only over a deep moat spanned by a drawbridge.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Chateau de Maintenon_]
Jean Cottereau made his acquisition of the domain towards 1490 and immediately planned a new scheme of being for the old fortress which, according to a more esthetic conception, would thus be brought into the cla.s.s of a luxurious residential chateau. He destroyed the _courtines_ which attached the great donjon to the rest of the building, and opened up the courtyard so that it faced directly upon the park. He ornamented sumptuously the window framings, the dormer windows, and the turrets, and framed in the entrance portal with a series of sculptured motives which he also added to the entrance to the great inner stairway. In short it was an enlargement and embellishment that was undertaken, but so thoroughly was it done that the edifice quite lost its original character in the process. Like all the chateaux built at this epoch Maintenon was no longer a mere fortress, but a palatial retreat, luxurious in all its appointments, and shorn of all the manifest militant attributes which it had formerly possessed.
The sh.e.l.l was there, following closely the original outlines, but the added ornamentation had effectually disguised its primordial existence.
Living rooms needed light and air, while a fortress or quarters for troops might well be ordained on other lines. The Renaissance livened up considerably the severe lines of the Gothic chateaux of France, and though invariably the marks of the transition are visible to the expert eye it is also true, as in the case of Maintenon, that there is frequently a h.o.m.ogeneousness which is sufficiently pleasing to effectually cover up any discrepancies which might otherwise be apparent. The warrior aspect is invariably lost in the transition, and thus a Renaissance residential chateau enters at once into a different cla.s.s from that of the feudal fortress regardless of the fact that such may have been its original status.
The armorial device of Jean Cottereau--three unlovely lizards blazoned on a field of silver--is still to be seen sculptured on the two towers flanking the entrance portal which to-day lacks its old drawbridge before mentioned. Surrounding the edifice is a deep, unhealthful, mosquito-breeding moat which is all a mediaeval moat should be, but which is actually no great attribute to the place considering its disadvantages. One wonders that it is allowed to exist in so stagnant a condition, as the running waters of the near-by Eure might readily be made use of to change all this. The site of the chateau at the confluence of the Eure and the Voise is altogether charming.
Madame de Maintenon did much to make the property more commodious and convenient and built the great right wing which binds the donjon to the main _corps de logis_. Her own apartments were situated in the new part of the palace. She also built the gallery which leads from the Tour de Machicoulis to the pointed chapel, which was a construction of the time of Cottereau, an accessory which every self-respecting country-house of the time was bound to have. It was by this gallery that the open tribune in the little chapel was reached, thus enabling Louis XIV to pa.s.s readily to ma.s.s while he was so frequent a visitor at that period when, at Maintenon, he was overseeing the construction of his famous aqueduct.
Maintenon has had the honour, too, to count among its ill.u.s.trious guests Racine, who came at the request of Madame de Maintenon, and here wrote "Esther" and "Athalie" which were later produced at Saint Cyr by Madame de Maintenon"s celebrated band of "Demoiselles."
Louis XIV was not the last of royal race to accept the Chateau de Maintenon"s hospitality for the unhappy Charles X was obliged to ask shelter of its chatelain for himself and fleeing family. They arrived a little after midnight of a hot August night, slept as well as possible in the former apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and attended ma.s.s in the chapel on the following morning. The monarch then discharged the royal guard and the "hundred Swiss" and gave up, defeated at the game of playing monarch against the will of the people.
One enters the _Cour d"Honneur_ by a great portal of the time of Louis XIV. Immediately before one is the princ.i.p.al facade, with its towers of brick and its slender little turrets framing in so admirably the entrance door. This facade is of the fifteenth century and on the tympan of the dormer windows one may still see the monogram of its builder, Cottereau. The drawbridge has been made way with, and the turrets over the portal have been bound together by a diminutive balcony of stone, which, while a manifest superfluity, is in no way objectionable.
Under the entrance vault are doors on either side giving access to the living apartments of the _rez-de-chaussee_. In the inner courtyard is to be found the most exquisite architectural detail of the whole fabric, the tower which encloses the monumental stairway, to which entrance is had by a portal which is a veritable Gothic jewel. In the tympan of this portal, as in the dormer windows, is the device of Jean Cottereau, except in this case it is much more elaborate--a Saint Michel and the dragon, surrounded by a "_semis de coquilles_" bearing the escutcheons of the chatelain--_d"argent a lezards de sable_.
At the left of this stairway tower is the princ.i.p.al courtyard facade, supported by four arcades, pierced with great windows and surmounted by two fine dormer windows, all in the style of Louis XII, of which the same effects to be observed at Blois and in the Hotel d"Alluye are contemporary.
At the left of the inner court is the wing built by Cottereau which terminates in a great round tower, while to the right is that erected by Madame de Maintenon ending at the donjon. Directly opposite is a magnificent vista over the ca.n.a.l of ornamental water framed on either side by patriarchal trees and having as a background the silhouette of the arches of the famous aqueduct which was to lead the waters of the Eure to Versailles.
The interior of the chateau is not less remarkable than the exterior.
Entering by the tower portal one comes at once to that magnificent _grand escalier_ which is accounted one of the wonders of the French Renaissance.
The Salle a Manger of to-day was the old-time Salle des Gardes. It is garnished with a fine wainscoting and panels of Cordovan leather. The Chambre a Coucher of Louis XIV, to the left, is to-day the Salon, and here are to be seen portraits of Louis XIV, Louis XII, Francis I, Henri IV, and Louis XIII.
A tiny rotunda contains a statue of Henri IV as a child, and portraits of Madame de Maintenon and Louis XIV in their youth. A portrait gallery of restrained proportions contains effigies of Madame de Maintenon and her niece Mademoiselle d"Aubigne, the Duc de Penthievre, the Comtesse de Toulouse, the Duc de Noailles, the d.u.c.h.esse de Villars and the d.u.c.h.esse de Chaumont.
The show-piece of the chateau, albeit of recent construction, is known variously as the "Grand Galerie" and the "Longue Galerie." Its decorations are due to the Duc de Noailles, the father of the present proprietor. Virtually it is a portrait gallery of the Noailles family, going back to the times of the Crusaders and coming down to the twentieth century.