Mingled up with all this regal and military magnificence is a world of
whimsical and make-shift detail. A great part of the huge edifice is cut up
into little chambers and nestling-places for retainers of the court,
dependents on retainers, and hangers-on of dependents. Some are squeezed
into narrow entre-sols, those low, dark, intermediate slices of apartments
between floors, the inhabitants of which seem shoved in edgewise, like
books between narrow shelves; others are perched like swallows, under the
eaves; the high roofs, too, which are as tall and steep as a French cocked
hat, have rows of little dormant windows, tier above tier, just large
enough to admit light and air for some dormitory, and to enable its
occupant to peep out at the sky. Even to the very ridge of the roof may be
seen here and there one of these air-holes, with a stove pipe beside it, to
carry off the smoke from the handful of fuel with which its weazen-faced
tenant simmers his _demi-tasse_ of coffee.
On approaching the palace from the Pont Royal, you take in at a glance all
the various strata of inhabitants; the garreteer in the roof; the retainer
in the entre-sol; the courtiers at the casements of the royal apartments;
while on the ground-floor a steam of savory odors and a score or two of
cooks, in white caps, bobbing their heads about the windows, betray that
scientific and all-important laboratory, the Royal Kitchen.
Go into the grand ante-chamber of the royal apartments on Sunday and see
the mixture of Old and New France; the old emigrés, returned with the
Bourbons; little withered, spindle-shanked old noblemen, clad in court
dresses, that figured in these saloons before the revolution, and have been
carefully treasured up during their exile; with the solitaires and _ailes
de pigeon_ of former days; and the court swords strutting out behind,
like pins stuck through dry beetles. See them haunting the scenes of their
former splendor, in hopes of a restitution of estates, like ghosts haunting
the vicinity of buried treasure; while around them you see the Young
France, that have grown up in the fighting school of Napoleon; all equipped
_en militaire_; tall, hardy, frank, vigorous, sunburned,
fierce-whiskered; with tramping boots, towering crests, and glittering
breast-plates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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