Paris: The Novel

Trianon became the favorite retreat of poor Queen Marie Antoinette in the years before the Revolution.
    “And now, my friends, if you will permit me, I will offer you this reflection upon the meaning of Versailles. Consider first: It was almost entirely built by Louis XIV with additions by his successor Louis XV, in variations of the classical style. Architecturally, it has unity. Second, let us remember an astonishing fact of French history. The Sun King livedso long that he saw his son and grandson die before him. As a result, it was his great-grandson, a little child, who succeeded him. From 1643 until 1774—over a hundred and thirty years—France was ruled by only those two kings, Louis XIV and XV. Add the quarter century of the next reign—that of Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette—and you are at the French Revolution. From the seventeenth century until the Revolution, with very little interruption, France is ruled not from Paris, but from the court of Versailles.
    “But now let me tell you why, for me, Versailles has a certain melancholy. Think of the Sun King, so anxious to bring order to France, aided by the Catholic Church, which is fighting back with all its baroque power against the Protestant Reformation. He seems to succeed, he makes France the greatest power in Europe. But he overreaches himself, becomes involved in ruinous wars, sees his family die and instead of a secure succession, leaves a half-ruined kingdom to another child, just as he was. Imagine what his grief must have been.
    “The new century sees a gilded age, and the Enlightenment, to be sure. But also financial difficulties, the loss of France’s colonies in Canada and India to the British, and ends with the Revolution, when the Paris mob forces poor Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to return to Paris, and the guillotine. With this, the age of Versailles comes to an end. Everything its builder had hoped for has been utterly destroyed.
    “Yet perhaps that is why Versailles is so haunting. It is an entire world that suddenly ended, and remains in all its perfection, frozen forever, just as it was when they dragged the king and queen away to their deaths.”

    There was one last site to visit. It was quite close by. While Roland walked ahead with Marie and her brother, Fox followed with Hadley.
    Fox liked this intelligent American friend of Marie’s brother. They chatted briefly about their visit. “De Cygne’s an excellent guide,” said Fox.
    “Yes.” Hadley gazed at the three people ahead of them. “They make a handsome couple, our aristocrat and Marie, don’t you think? Blond, blue-eyed … He’d be quite a catch for her, wouldn’t he?”
    “I suppose so,” said Fox calmly. “Has he made any declaration?”
    “Not yet. Marc would have told me, I’m sure.”
    “What about Marc?” Fox inquired. He asked partly to make conversation,and partly because, if he was going to have any chance in his hopeless quest for Marie, he’d better discover everything he could about the family.
    Hadley chuckled.
    “Not exactly. My friend’s in a rather different kind of trouble.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Do you keep secrets?”
    “Every day of my professional life.”
    “Well, Marc’s got himself in a bit of trouble with a girl. Hardly uncommon. But his father’s so angry he’s cut off his allowance.” And he gave Fox a brief account of the circumstances.
    “It’s unfortunate, but hardly a scandal,” Fox remarked when Hadley had finished. “As a lawyer, I see something similar almost every week.”
    “It’s the choice of family, I think. Marc’s father feels bad about that. And that the girl’s family are going to throw her out. Blanchard feels responsible for her.”
    “I commend him for it. Plenty of rich men wouldn’t. Have they made any plans for the girl, and the baby, assuming it’s born?”
    “Not yet.”
    Fox was thoughtful. It might be that Hadley had just told him something rather useful.

    And now they had come to the one little corner, among all the huge palaces and formal spaces of Versailles, that was completely eccentric.
    “Voilà!” cried de Cygne. “The Hamlet.”
    Marc had heard of the artificial village where Queen Marie Antoinette liked to dress up in a simple muslin dress and a straw hat and play at being a peasant woman. With its mill, and dairy and dovecote, the little hamlet was her private domain where no one could enter without permission.
    “It was just a toy village to