Automobile travel; France -- Description and travel
The other side of the picture, told by an eye-witness, Madame Campan,
is far different, at least as regards the standing of the frail du
Barry. Therein we find her treated with indulgence by Louis XVI. and
Marie Antoinette, and we are told that with the latter she was, during
the dark days of the terror, in constant communication, giving the
queen all the information which she worked so hard to obtain,--that
her grief over the tragedy of the Queen was intense, and that she
desired to dispose of all she possessed in their favour, in re-payment
for the infinite goodness of the King and Queen towards herself.
Returning to France to join the man she loved, de Bressac, she was
forced to gaze upon his severed head carried on a pike past her windows
in Versailles.
Betrayed at last by the negro boy Zamore, whom she had benefited and
protected for years, she was guillotined.
She was evil, doubtless, but was there not enough good there to admit
of the hope of a greeting in another world such as came to the woman of
Palestine, "Neither do I condemn thee?"
The figures of history come trooping to us as we roll onward towards
Versailles, to which we give but a passing glance. Later on, we glide
through the woods where Racine first learned the language of poetry and
so on to Rambouillet, where Francis I. ended his days murmuring to his
son, "Beware of the Guise." The château is a gloomy pile of red brick,
and it was in a chamber in its great round tower that the soul of the
merry monarch sailed forth on its long journey, scarcely faster I think
we glide away from his palace to-day.
To me, properly dressed, this ride is delightful. I find a lined
leather jacket to be of all things the most comfortable, but poor
Narcissus is chattering with cold and so we leave the Château de
Maintenon for inspection on our return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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