Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/154

 scarcely any part was left bringing to mind the sojourn there of Madame de Pompadour, but the house itself, and the little ménagerie with its vacherie, bergerie, and poulaillers, or of Madame du Barry, but the formal French garden, the chapel, with the kitchens beyond.

In the stuffy dirty loge the royal family had resigned itself to a melancholy silence, the Dauphin was sleeping across her knee, and the Queen surrendered herself to a trance-like condition in which she saw again with extreme vividness and longing the place of former enjoyment. She was again free, opening all the gates with her own passe-partout, and wandering into all the corners of the grounds. The beautiful trees planted by the two Richards in rich variety were, she recollected, in full summer foliage, and she would fain have felt some breath of the cool evening air, which she knew well must be blowing at that moment, though not for her. Or she was again in the