Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  Both grand and comic opera flourish in Paris, where you may hear splendid voices and excellent orchestras. The good theatres are devoted to problem plays and light comedy, both of which are apt to bore you unless you fully understand French, which we did not. The acting is good, though. Cheaper theatres are on the variety order, and these seem quite what we call “Parisian.” I will describe one for example. You first enter a long room with a fountain in the center, beyond which is the door to the theatre proper (liable, alas! to be improper), which is much like our own theatres. Between the acts, which are fifteen or twenty minutes in duration, everyone goes into the foyer, a big room with a gallery where there is a female orchestra and a bar both upstairs and down. Here are also booths of fortune tellers, jugglers, Egyptian dancing girls, a shooting gallery, punching-bags, a Japanese bazaar, etcetera. People amuse themselves here and drink until a bell calls them to the next act. In the vaudeville theatres half the house is devoted to seats and the rear to tables where refreshments are served. Here and in the concert gardens you encounter the elaborately painted and gowned demi-monde, distinct products of Paris, which remind you of the wax models in the show windows at home. In the open air concert gardens an elaborate stage is erected and vaudeville stars perform while you sit at a table and dull your anguish with absinthe. You pay no admission fee but your first order includes the price.

  The cafe chantants or cabarets of the Quartier Latin are the most interesting places of amusement in Paris We attended one where composers played their own music and sang their own songs, where poets recited their own verses and dramatists acted in their own little plays. They were all people of some note in Paris. It was a dingy little place, patronized mostly by its special habitues, and on the walls were painted many charming sketches and water colors by well known artists, who esteem highly the privilege of contributing such work to a famous cabaret. Just above me was a fine drawing by Mucha. No admission is charged in these places, but your first glass of wine or beer costs you 2 francs. After that you pay a half franc. There is no scenery used, and no costuming. The little scenes are enacted on a raised platform in the center.

  I am saving my description of Versailles and Fontainebleau for my next letter, but by that time I expect we will be on the steamer, homeward bound.

  LETTER XIX. SOMEWHERE AT SEA

  Steamer Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Somewhere at Sea

  One of the most enjoyable days of our trip was spent at Fontainebleau, a place rich in historic romance. The palace was erected by Francis I. in the sixteenth century, but for six hundred years this was the favorite hunting seat of the kings of France.

  We enter the building by the famous horseshoe staircase built by Louis XIII, who was born here. The entire palace is maintained exactly as it was in the days of the royalists. In the chapel Louis XV was married and the King of Rome, Napoleon’s only child, was baptized. Box-like pews are partitioned off for members of the royal family, and each of these has its own altar and confessional. Over one I noticed a crown with the monogram “A. A.,” which meant Anne of Austria. Another had “M. A.” for Marie Antoinette, and there were many others. The chapel contains beautiful paintings, stained glass windows and a marble pavement.

  The apartments of Napoleon I consist of a bedroom, work room, bathroom, council room and throne room. The table where he signed his abdication before he went to Elba is still here. The emperor’s bed is heavily gilt, ornamented with bees, and has an “N” surmounted by a crown at the head. We saw the writing table which he carried in all his campaigns and which formerly was the property of Marie Antoinette. Also he occupied Marie Antoinette’s bedroom and bathroom at Fontainebleau. The walls of the bathroom are covered with mirrors, on which are painted dainty cupids and flowers. The floors are covered with exquisite Gobelin rugs and the walls hung with Gobelin tapestries. The chairs and other furniture were upholstered in Beauvais tapestry. All the ceilings are beautifully painted and have heavy gilt ornamentation in stucco or wood relief.

  The throne room contains the only throne used by Napoleon that is now extant. It is a small arm chair, heavily gilded and covered with tapestry, and above it is the “N” and crown.

  All the chandeliers of the palace are rock crystal. In the apartments of Marie Antoinette the bed chamber was hung with handsome silks woven for her at the time of her marriage and presented to her by the city of Lyons. The gilding in all her rooms is gorgeous. Her music room contains her piano, some Sevres vases, a handsome table, and much delicate furniture, besides the hangings.

  The library of the palace contains thirty-five thousand books, and on a table under glass we found displayed the prayer books of Madame de Maintenon, du Barry, Pompadour, Louis XIV and XV, and of Marie Antoinette. The room is two-hundred sixty-four feet in length and very magnificent. The State Apartments consist of the Tapestry Chamber, the Salon of Francis I, and the Salon of Louis XIII, the latter being the room in which the monarch was born. It contains the first mirror brought to France. Beyond this we come to the Ball Room of Henry II, the most splendid room in all Europe. The decorations are exceedingly elaborate and bear everywhere the monogram of Henry II, while the polished floor of inlaid woods is a masterpiece of art.

  The private apartments of Madame de Maintenon are quite plainly furnished and decorated in white and gold. A private passage connected these rooms with those of the king. The apartments of the “white queens,” or widows of Kings of France, so called because they always dressed in white, were used by Napoleon as the prison for Pope Pius II, confined here for eighteen months because he refused to grant the emperor a divorce from Josephine. They point out the spot where Napoleon once boxed the Pope’s ears. The beds and furniture used by the queens and the pope, and afterward by Queen Victoria, are still in these rooms. All the bedrooms of the palace have exquisite wash bowls and pitchers of china, of graceful shapes but holding scarcely a pint of water. The most precious tapestries are in the rooms of Anne of Austria, said to be the finest examples of Gobelin in existence.

  The theater of the palace, built by Eugenie on the birth of her son, is a gem of a place, hung in rich colored silks and beautifully painted. The royal box contains three golden chairs, that for the child being very small. The theater was never used more than a dozen times.

  We saw the famous carp pond and fed the fishes, some of which are over a hundred years old. On an island in the center of the pond is a small glass house where Napoleon held his secret conferences. It could only be approached by boat and the occupants could detect any spy through the glass sides. Napoleon had a horror of being overheard and would often exclaim: “Walls have ears.” But here he was perfectly safe from intrusion.

  The Forest of Fontainebleau covers forty-two-thousand acres and has splendid roads running through it in all directions. The vistas obtained when driving along these avenues are certainly charming, and the forest itself contains much of interest. During our two hours’ drive we saw the oldest tree in the forest, the brigand’s cave, the moving rock and an especially beautiful group of trees called “the king’s bouquet.”

  And now I must tell you something of Versailles, which was to me intensely interesting. We first visited the Grand Trianon, which was built for Maintenon by Louis XIV. It has also been occupied by Louis XV, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Josephine and Louis Philippe. It consists of but one story, with a grand entrance facing the canal down which the king was accustomed to row from the palace to visit Maintenon. Very little of the original furniture remains, but we saw a bath, bed and table of Napoleon and some statuary and vases of Louis XV.

  The gardens all about the Trianons are beautiful, being laid out in stately fashion, with much statuary, and trees clipped into odd shapes. The Petit Trianon was built by Louis XV for du Barry and afterward given by Louis XVI to Marie Antoinette. The wall decorations are from the time of du Barry, but the furniture remaining is all Marie Antoinette’s. You may see her bedroom just as she left it, the cradle of her son, many home-like relics of
this boy, and the Queen’s favorite piano. Everything is exquisite and dainty, as you would imagine the belongings of this dainty queen must be.

  Between the two Trianons is a dining pavilion where the king and queen used to meet for dinner. The grounds here are rarely beautiful and the gardens are less artificial and more enjoyable. There is also a pretty little theater where Marie Antoinette’s favorite orchestra was wont to play. It has a music room built on a rocky knoll, which is reached by means of a rustic bridge. The Temple of Love is built on the lines of a Greek temple and is as large as a good sized summerhouse.

  All of the queen’s Swiss Village remains, the mill with its water-wheel, the large farm house with its smaller buildings, the butter and milk house and poultry house. It was here the queen and court amused themselves playing farmers, and they sold their eggs, butter and produce and gave the money to the poor.

  I believe there are two hundred fountains at Versailles, which on occasion are made to play at one time. The grounds surrounding the palace are the most beautiful in France, which gives them an edge on most other countries. There is a display of state carriages used by the two Napoleons, Charles X and, others, and sleighs used by du Barry and Marie Antoinette. Once du Barry wanted a sleigh ride in July, so they froze a place for her with salt and in consequence Paris was without any saline flavoring for several days. But the king didn’t mind, so long as du Barry got her sleigh ride. These things made the royalists very popular with the people, but it may have been a mistake to allow the cannaille to get fresh.

  The palace is an immense and very imposing structure. It was first a hunting lodge for Louis XIII, and afterward made into a palace by Louis XIV, and added to and beautified by Louis XV and Louis XVI. It was to me interesting to stand in the court where the market women assembled to clamor for the life of Marie Antoinette, and to look up at the balcony where the queen appeared with her baby in her arms and appealed to them for mercy. There is another balcony where a king’s death was always announced and his successor acclaimed with cheers. In the room of Louis XIV is the bed in which he died, supported in Maintenon’s arms. The ante-room where the king’s favorites waited is just off this. All the royal beds are protected from too close examination by gold and velvet cord railings.

  The Coronation room has pictures of Napoleon as First Consul, grouped with Josephine, as crowned king, grouped with Louise, presenting the Roman Eagles to the guard, and one of the emperor at the battle of Aboukir. These paintings represent Napoleon in the glory of his power. But in the center of the room is a statue of Napoleon during his last days at St. Helena, and we find him a weary, disappointed man with a pitiful, cowed expression. “What’s the use?” Fortune exaggerated both her favors and her frowns in the case of the little Corsican; but the memory of his greatness will outlive his disgrace.

  The Gallery of Battles is a room four-hundred feet in length, the walls covered with big canvasses representing the famous battles in the history of France. The queen’s rooms are merely interesting because they were used by Marie Antoinette. But the State Ball Room is magnificent, and runs the entire length of the main palace. The pictures on the wall depict the glory of Louis XIV, the greatest king of France. There is a wonderful collection of clocks in the Palace of Versailles, there being one of a different design in each prominent room. One was the work of Louis XVI himself. It stopped on the hour he was guillotined, and no one has been able to make it go since.

  Most of the palace is now a picture gallery, works depicting incidents in the history of France being congregated and preserved in this manner.

  The theater of the palace is now used for the election of French presidents, and has been entirely remodeled since the Empire. From the windows are fine views of the gardens, statuary, fountains and canal.

  LETTER XX. FINAL WORDS AT HOME

  We sailed from Cherbourg on the largest passenger steamer afloat, a very luxurious boat which carried us home in a steady, comfortable manner that fitly ended our very delightful trip abroad. And you can imagine how eager we were, after five long months, to see the dear ones at home.

  Also we were mighty glad to see the shores of America. L. F. said the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor was the most beautiful sight he had seen since he left home. He thinks too much of his comforts, for Europe is not very comfortable. We live better and more sensibly in America.

  I have had a rare treat, for which I am grateful. I shall never forget the majesty of Egypt’s peerless monuments, the fascination of the desert, the charm of the blue Mediterranean, the restrained but menacing power of mighty Vesuvius, the grandeur of Etna, the unearthed treasures of Pompeii, the glory of Florence, the enchantments of Venice, the beauty of the Swiss Alps and lakes, or the delights of Paris. It is good to know these places. It broadens one and sharpens the intellect.

  But I thank God I am an American and live in the United States.

  Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California — Baum’s final resting place

  Baum’s grave