The French Lesson by Hallie Rubenhold

Author:Hallie Rubenhold
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446463420
Publisher: Transworld

Chapter 17

HERE, I FEEL obliged to say something of my position at the Palais-Royal. Do not mistake me, had the upheaval of the Revolution not prevailed and altered everything about the routine of existence within those walls, one with a name as humble as mine would never have been permitted to reside there. At the time when my belongings were carried into my rooms, the Palais-Royal was but a shadow of its former glory and a palace in name only. One might have likened it to a commodious St James’s townhouse occupied by a nobleman whose finances and character were in a state of decline. Curiously, this reduced mode of life seemed to suit Orléans’s ambitions to appear always the ‘Champion of the People’. Madame de Buffon too was quite content to live amongst its empty state rooms and preside, where appropriate, as its informal hostess. It was this, more than anything, which gave fuel to her detractors. How incensed were those friends of the former Duchesse d’Orléans to learn that La Buffon had situated herself in her lover’s wife’s rooms. To those royalists such as Madame de Flaghac and others of Mrs Elliot’s acquaintance, there were now few places so corrupted, so depraved and devoid of decency as the Petits Appartements of the Palais-Royal. It was here where I was invited to live.

In accordance with Madame de Buffon’s wishes, I was granted a set of apartments across a landing, near to hers. They were as gilt-touched as you might imagine. The walls were decorated with pilasters of gold, the ceilings painted with floating gods; Mercury and Venus ascended like balloons into a cloud-strewn cerulean heaven. Every wall winked with mirrors so that the daylight blazed from the windows into each corner. I cannot well describe the impression these rooms left upon me, for, in spite of their luxury – the perfumed bed of fringed crimson damask, the dressing table whose looking glass was held aloft by golden putti, the altar-like marble mantels which rose nearly to the glittering squares of the architraves – they seemed the most desolate place on earth. I could not ignore the ghostly rectangular outlines that appeared upon the walls in nearly every room. Week upon week, Orléans’s creditors claimed another of his treasures. The splendid Arcadian scenes by Claude and Poussin or the portraits of double-chinned Bourbons seemed to vanish without remark. Indian ivory cabinets disappeared, as did towering blue Chinese vases. It was as if the objects of the palace were gradually abandoning the Duke in the manner of the courtiers who had once lived in it.

For the better part of a year, the Palais-Royal had been inhabited only by a modest band of servants and those assorted members of Orléans’s household whom I had met at La Volière. Where once the clack of hundreds of heels of nobles and ladies, of maids and valets, would have been regularly heard upon the parquetry floors, there now came scarcely a sound: not the trill of laughter from an adjoining set of rooms, not the plucked song of a harp through the walls.

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