by Susie Kelly
CHAPTER THREE
Small is Beautiful, Less is More
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris
WE woke to brilliant sunshine, and went to the long-term underground car park to arrange to leave our car for the three weeks we’d be away. The manager went to great lengths explaining the procedure for using the ticket, and the benefits it would heap upon us. He printed out an invoice, then a receipt, and then a ticket, and showed us how to put the ticket into the machine. Whether it was because we looked particularly witless, or because we were English and he suspected we might be fools too, he showed us again, just to make sure that we understood. He was absolutely charming and very handsome, and I said “You look very much like …” but before I could finish he laughed and said: “Yes, I know, Zinedine Zidane – everybody tells me that.”
While I was assuring him that we wouldn’t lose the ticket, understood the repercussions if we did, and would remember how to use it, and thanking him for all his help, Terry had unearthed an exciting discovery in an underground workshop that was part of the garage: twelve Ferraris being overhauled. It isn’t often you see a dozen Ferraris together. I think that for him this was probably the highlight of our visit to Versailles.
In a cheerful mood induced by the change in the weather, we packed our belongings carefully and cycled back to the park of Versailles. With our record of nearly always arriving at places when they are closed, we should not have been surprised that just as the palace was in the throes of renovation, so too were the gardens. All the ponds and fountains were empty; heavy machinery was digging up channels and laying new pipes, and there were mounds of muddy earth all over the place. There was nothing in bloom, and everything was either green, or path-coloured. We roamed around the gardens of the palace, down the side of the Grand Canal, along the endless, perfectly hedged lanes, and through dozens of groves with their statues and empty ornamental ponds. Considering that the Sun King had enlarged his palace and herded his nobles under its roof so that he could keep his eye on them and nip in the bud any potential treachery, it seemed strange to me that there were so very many secluded places in the grounds where people so inclined could meet in secrecy. The labyrinthine layout was a perfect milieu for intrigue and clandestine encounters. If I had been in his high-heeled, beribboned shoes, I’d have had the whole place dug up and lawned so that nobody had anywhere to hide.
As a wedding gift, young Louis gave Marie-Antoinette the little palace known as Le Petit Trianon originally built for Madame de Pompadour by Louis XV. Dignified, elegant and small enough to be homely, it became the Queen’s refuge from the tiresome etiquette demanded at court. A sanctuary where she could let down her hair, kick off her shoes and entertain her friends.
Madame Campan describes in her “Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie-Antoinette,” the relaxed lifestyle enjoyed by everybody at the Petit Trianon, where admission was strictly by invitation of the Queen, and where she and her close friends amused themselves with games or pastimes.
‘There was but little room in the small château of Trianon. Madame Elisabeth” (the King’s sister) “accompanied the Queen there, but the ladies of honour and ladies of the palace had no establishment at Trianon. When invited by the Queen, they came from Versailles to dinner. The King and Princes came regularly to sup. A white gown, a gauze kerchief, and a straw hat were the uniform dress of the Princesses.’
Madame Campan continues that although the Queen was notorious for her extravagance, this was unwarranted and she could in fact be rather stingy.
‘…she amused herself with improving the gardens, without allowing any addition to the building, or any change in the furniture, which was very shabby, and remained, in 1789, in the same state as during the reign of Louis XV. Everything there, without exception, was preserved; and the Queen slept in a faded bed, which had been used by the Comtesse du Barry. The charge of extravagance, generally made against the Queen, is the most unaccountable of all the popular errors respecting her character. She had exactly the contrary failing; and I could prove that she often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony actually blameable, especially in a sovereign.’
I don’t know how many of the current materials in Petit Trianon are original, as the building had just undergone extensive renovations, but as we walked up the marble steps of the staircase, I wondered whose feet had trodden there, and whose hands had touched the black and gold stair rail. Had Marie Antoinette, and later Napoléon, looked out of the same window to admire the colourful flowery gardens behind the house, just as we were doing? I put a light fingertip on a marble fireplace, in case one of them had previously touched it. “Ne touchez pas!” snapped an officious girl sitting in the corner on a chair. Too late, I already had.
Of Marie-Antoinette and Louis’ marriage, Stefan Zweig, in his book Marie-Antoinette – Portrait of an Average Woman (Grove, 2002), says that despite the fact that the couple were absolute opposites in all respects, their union was a happy one. Louis was not physically attractive, nor quick-witted or extrovert, but he was well read, courteous and kind, and paid his wife’s bills. She dutifully produced four children for him, and to them he was a doting father. According to a letter written by her brother, the Emperor of Austria, she felt that after producing four children she had sufficiently fulfilled her obligations to France in the matrimonial bed and wished to be allowed to withdraw from it.
There has always been speculation as to whether or not Marie-Antoinette had an affair with the handsome Swedish diplomat Axel Fersen. She had long been accused by her enemies of infidelity, lesbianism and all manner of depravity; she might as well have been hung for a sheep as a lamb. Whether or not their relationship was more than platonic we will probably never know. We do know though, from letters that remain, that they were in love, but beyond that there is only conjecture. Madame Campan, like the loyal servant she was, never mentions their relationship. It doesn’t seem that Louis was unduly disturbed by her retreat from his bed, and there is no record of him ever having any sort of involvement with another woman. I hope that the Queen did enjoy some boudoir pleasures with Fersen, in recompense for her dutiful coupling with Louis, so that she had at least some sweet memories during her future ordeal. That’s what was going through my mind as we stood in the bedroom, looking at the exquisite, very small bed.
Originally the Petit Trianon garden comprised formal flowerbeds and massive, expensive hot houses where exotic plants and fruits grew. Under Marie-Antoinette’s ownership up, down and out these were ripped, to be replaced with a bucolic landscape of a wiggling stream, lakes, waterfalls and grottoes, arbours and follies, meadows of wild flowers and beautiful specimen trees; a transformation to the simplicity which she craved but which, ironically, was only achieved at scandalous expense.
We followed a pathway towards the Queen’s little hamlet, past a very ordinary tortoiseshell cat with a red collar curled up beneath a shrub, watching us through slitted eyes with a rather smug expression.
Whilst we were walking around the quaint collection of timbered, thatched cottages where the Queen used to entertain herself pretending to be a milkmaid or shepherdess, a group of 6-year-old French schoolgirls surrounded Terry, jumping about and asking him questions in fractured English. He hadn’t very much idea what they were saying, and they could barely understand a word he said, so each exchange sent them into an eruption of giggles. When their teachers ushered them away, they queued up to kiss Terry’s cheek, then skipped away, stopping once or twice to wave at him, leaving him flattered and quite bemused. French children can be so enchanting.
In June of 1787 the royal parents lost their youngest child, baby Sophie-Beatrix, just before her first birthday. Almost exactly two years later they were mourning the death from tuberculosis of their eldest son, the seven-year-old Dauphin Louis-Joseph, frail, crippled and deformed. In her private letters, Marie-Antoinette had expressed her hopes and fears for the ailing c
hild. He was a little better, the fever had left him. Maybe it was only teething that was making him so ill. The physicians were worried again. The little boy had been moved to the château at Meudon, where his father, as a sickly child, had profited from the cleaner air – and just look what a strapping chap he had become. Louis-Joseph seems much improved. He is giving cause for alarm. The physicians don’t believe he will last the night, but he rallies. The next day the little boy they had tried for so long to produce, and of whom they were so proud, dies.
Maybe the couple were so wrapped in grief that they failed to recognise the gravity of the situation as the political crisis that had long been brewing in France neared its zenith. Maybe that’s why Louis hunted and Marie-Antoinette played at being a peasant in her twee hamlet. But all the while she was living her rural idyll, or treading the boards in her private theatre, and Louis was galloping around killing wildlife, the common people of France were getting increasingly hungry, and very angry. They stormed the Bastille. But in the palace of Versailles, nobody took much notice.
Nineteen years after Marie Antoinette’s triumphant arrival to marry the Dauphin, a furious and vicious mob of knife-wielding harridans, several thousand strong, surrounded the royal family and those faithful friends who had remained with them at Versailles, and forcibly marched them off to Paris. The King and Queen would not see Versailles ever again.
The morning was drifting away. We had to cycle to Paris that afternoon, so we began making our way back through the gardens to our chambre d’hôte to collect our luggage. As we passed the lake a shoal of carp, each large enough to make a meal for six people, surged through the water towards us and poked their heads up, opening and closing their mouths silently, plainly saying “Feed us.” They followed us hopefully around the edge of the water, until they spotted some more people arriving, and splashed away to try their chances with them.
We stopped in one of the glades at a place selling drinks and fast-food snacks, and ordered a couple of coffees from a softly spoken, smiling black man. While he was preparing them, an American customer came up to the counter and queried his bill – he thought he’d been overcharged. The black man listened politely, opened and checked the till, apologised to the customer and handed him a few coins. A swarthy man in a camouflage jacket, matching trousers tucked into black boots, and very dark glasses appeared from behind some shelves, and harangued the black man loudly. Although we were embarrassed, the man himself seemed quite composed and after a few minutes wandered off to chat to another swarthy person also dressed in paramilitary clothing. When we stood up to leave, that person yelled “Oi!” and pointed at the two plastic cups we had left on the table, and told us rudely to put them into the bin. He could have taken four steps and put them there himself, if he unglued himself from the wall against which he was lolling. Giving Terry an order is tantamount to tweaking Mike Tyson’s nose and asking him what he’s going to do about it. Before he had time to react, I picked up the cups and threw them into the bin: the swarthy man looked as if he was hoping for an excuse to pull out an Uzi and blow us away.
It left us wondering whether visitors to Versailles deserved mediocre refreshments from an enterprise that appeared to be run by some sort of Eastern European mafia who were rude to their staff and customers. Do pizza and Coke and plastic cups fit into the fabled sophistication of the place? Should there not be tisanes, infusions, hot chocolate and delicate savouries and pastries served by demure French wenches in Bo-Peep costumes, or deferential flunkeys in frogged livery?
By early afternoon we’d seen as much as we wanted, and the weather looked to be deteriorating, so after loading our bikes we had set off on the hair-raising ride to our hotel in Paris. I doubted that Marie-Antoinette could have been more terrified on her final journey from Versailles to the capital than I was on this, my first.
Online map Ourcq Canal
CHAPTER FOUR
The City of Blood
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”
Sir Paul McCartney
The Géode at La Villette
THE next morning we were still asleep when the orange bedroom of our hotel was rocked by a mild tremor accompanied by sinister grinding and clanking noises, as if a battalion of tanks was surrounding the area. Terry drew back the curtains in time to see the earth-moving bucket gliding past our balcony. The road-diggers were back at work. Above the neighbouring rooftops the sky was decked with ominous grey clouds. I retreated beneath the covers. Terry was already dressing, anxious to be on the move.
With less enthusiasm than I should have felt, I squished into the Lycra cycling clothes. Photographs of cyclists generally show bronzed limbs, sculpted bodies and shiny, vibrantly coloured clothing. When we bought our equipment for the journey, I had imagined that I would look like that, but six months of winter had left my face and limbs pasty-white, and six months of warming winter food had expanded my waistline beyond anything it had ever achieved before. The vibrantly coloured garments clung cruelly, and emphasized every bulge. The gusset of our shorts and trousers were equipped with the thick pad of some sort of foam designed to ease the pressure on the most delicate area of the cyclist’s anatomy. It was like wearing a sanitary towel, and reminded me of matron’s weekly visit to the dormitory at boarding school, when she stood in the doorway with a large packet under her arm, heedless of any embarrassment she might be causing pubescent girls, shouting: “Who needs some bunnies’ ears?”
Worst of all, though, was my disastrous hair, the outcome of the hairdresser having an off day, coupled with a last-minute home colouring that had gone terribly wrong. The “golden copper” had turned out a violent shade of beetroot, and given my hair the texture of medium grain wire wool. The whole ensemble, from top of head to sole of foot, was utterly catastrophic. I believed that a crash helmet was vital, as I expected to fall off onto my head frequently; a friend had warned, however, that if I did, the helmet would not only fail to protect my skull, but its straps would snap my neck. Still, I wore it anyway. Flowing garments in large prints, and a wide-brimmed floppy hat would have been kinder to my image, but impractical. High-tech fabrics, although they don’t come in large prints, are lightweight and quick drying, and somehow manage to be warm when it’s cold, and cool when it’s hot. Magic, really. They also, according to their explanatory labels, ‘wick away moisture’ to keep the wearer dry. I don’t know what happens to the moisture, but I imagined tiny clouds of it following us across France.
As we went down to the cellar for breakfast we passed Ben in the reception area, back on duty again, and talking on the phone. He gave us a thumbs-up sign and pointed to a narrow iron grill like a portcullis at the foot of the stairs. It required a hefty shove to push it open, and the staircase continued down and into what was more of a dungeon than a cellar. A display of vicious medieval weaponry and a full suit of armour occupied one wall. The low vaulted ceilings and walls were of attractive dressed stone, but I had to fight back the desire to rush up the stairs, past the portcullis and into the daylight. The dungeon-like environment was accentuated by a woman at the table behind us, as thin as a rake, with a deathly white complexion and elbow-length jet-black hair. Long fingernails varnished black, with little silver stars on them; a long, thin black dress. Narrow, pointy-toed black shoes with long, thin heels. Masses of heavy black eye make-up. Morticia Adams in the slender flesh. Incongruously, her partner looked like a latter-day General Custer wearing jeans, a checked shirt and high-heeled cowboy boots and sporting long blonde hair and a blonde forked beard. They could have been going to a fancy-dress party, except that it was 8.00 am, and they were studying a map of the Metro and discussing the places they were going to visit that day in Paris.
All of the other guests in the dungeon were Japanese, and they were all eating Japanese Pot Noodles.
We discussed our plans for the day. We’d cycle a couple of miles up the road to the La Villette basin. From there on we’d be on towpaths. We’d stop
for lunch somewhere along the way, and spend the night camping at Meaux. A distance of about thirty miles in all.
We lugged our panniers and paraphernalia down the stairs, and Ben, after making us promise that we would take great care, and have a very good time, phoned the Comte de Paris, who arrived again in his carpet slippers and took us back to collect our bikes. By 9.00 am the skies had cleared from dreary grey to watery blue, but Bertrand wasn’t convinced.
“If you were going south, or west, you’d be fine. But east – the forecast isn’t very good. You may get wet,” he said gloomily. “And it will be very cold at night.”
“We’ll be fine,” I laughed. “We’ve nice warm sleeping bags.” I patted them where they were strapped onto the baking tray. Bertrand shrugged, shook our hands, and stood watching as we pushed away from the pavement. He raised a hand in the air when I looked back, but I needed both of mine on the handlebars, so I waved to him by waggling my elbows up and down, like an ungainly bird struggling to take off.
Terry led the way along the Rue Lafayette with élan. I followed more cautiously. Although we had hit the morning rush hour, we managed to avoid any noteworthy incidents, apart from when Terry shouted at me to follow him past a traffic light that was turning red. In consequence I found myself surrounded by hostile, hooting traffic and whistling, hissing drivers. I had to climb off and trudge, mortified, weaving the bike through angry vehicles.
