Farewell, My Queen

held aloft, at our feet the reels of silk, we were progressively creating a wooded landscape, stitch by stitch. Chattering all the while, we were doing our best to achieve a gradation of greens.
For amusement, I told her about my afternoon at the Menagerie, and the African women. “I don’t believe it,” she said. I beg pardon? She didn’t believe it? But I had seen them, in fact more than once. Heard them, too: they were cackling louder than a henhouse. “I don’t believe it, that’s all. There are no African women at Versailles. Or in Africa, for that matter, because Africa doesn’t exist. Travelers come back and say whatever crosses their mind. Who’s going to go and see if what they say is right?” When Honorine started playing the skeptic, it always put me in a temper. I became stiff and disapproving. Not for long, however, as there was an unexpected diversion: three timid knocks at the door. A man stuck his head in; could we tell him where to find the Queen, he had something to show her. “What might that be, pray?” we asked. He hesitated, then came all the way in so we could see his whole person. “This,” he said, “is what I should like to show her.” And he stood before us, very straight, feet slightly apart. We looked the fellow over. He would have been unremarkable, were it not for his attire: he was dressed like Harlequin, in a multicolored garment all of one piece. Only instead of lozenges, what he had was stripes, and the stripes were blue, white, and red. “I’m looking for the Queen,” he said again, “so I can model this design for her; I am proposing it as a national costume.”
AN EVENING IN THE GRAND LODGINGS.
The rest of the evening, which we spent in the Grand Lodgings, had been gay and cheerful. And the supper simply royal: we were served what was left over from the King’s Table. I remember that quail were featured, as was cod from Newfoundland. Toward nine o’clock, some priests had come to sit with us. They were not hungry, because they had just been at the feast given by Cardinal de Montmorency: this was the day when he had taken his oath of loyalty to the King. They described the desserts for us: more than a hundred kinds, not counting the preserved fruit, compotes, ices, and nougatines. Father Hérissé had brought along several bottles of quince ratafia liqueur and cherry wine that he insisted we try. Honorine and I, as neither of us was accustomed to alcoholic drink, couldn’t stop laughing at the least thing that was said, and we laughed even harder when the speaker was being serious. Thus, when the diners at our table talked about the latest decree issued by Louis XVI, forbidding gentlemen in the army to strike common soldiers with the flat of a sword, we gave a great guffaw, with our noses in our drinking glasses. I am a little ashamed when I think back over it, but that is how things were at the time. There may not have been any children at Versailles, but there was plenty of childlike heedlessness in the air, and that was the air I was breathing.
The strong drink continued to circulate freely, and the merriment of the assembled company grew accordingly, though all was perfectly decent. Someone produced a fiddle, and we danced.
At about eleven in the evening, I went back to the château, which stood a few yards away from the enormous structure of the Grand Lodgings. Darkness had already descended. I was holding Honorine’s arm. We had our quarters a few rooms apart. There was still coming-and-going in the underground passage linking the château to the kitchens of the Grand Lodgings. Earlier, in the château itself, the lantern men, armed with their pikes, had lit the torchères on the corridor walls. The flames were so familiar a sight that we no longer bothered to take notice. What did surprise us, on the other hand, was to see the windows still lit up along the Ministers’ Wing of the château.
“Good heavens, is the new government already in session? Or still in session? At this hour of the night? The energy of His Lordship Baron de Breteuil is most impressive.”
“If his capacity for work is on a par with his sense of rank, we are in good hands,” added someone who greatly admired the de Breteuil family.
“I doubt whether at so late an hour the government is sitting; rather, it is settling in. The gentlemen are dividing the offices among themselves.”
“But who are they, exactly? Have all posts now been filled?” asked my friend, somewhat sobered by the cold air. Living in the sphere of the de La Tour du Pin family, a very political family, she followed closely what went on at Court.
I heard a list of names recited, which pleased me. I like lists. I like things that are numerous without necessarily requiring to be counted, things that fall naturally into ritual order.
Names can also be recited like a lullaby, when eyes are closing in sleep. And that night, in spite of the excitement of a reading session, despite my long walk early in the day, and the Captain of the Menagerie, and the knitted Harlequin, the dancing, the quince ratafia, and the cherry wine, I had difficulty closing mine. Stretched out on the bed, I stared up at the somber sky. From the woods came the calls of nocturnal birds. The ululating hoot of the screech owl, that strange sound verging on a sob, gave me the shivers. And outside there was a continuous noise of carriages, horses, a hubbub of voices. This time, too, however, it was the names that finally prevailed:
The Duke d’Argile
Monsieur de Sainte Colombe
Monsieur Desantelle, Intendant des Menus Plaisirs
Countess Ossun, Mistress of the Robes
The Duchess de Polignac, Governess of the Children of France
The Ladies of the Bedchamber
The Ladies-in-Waiting
The Queen’s Trainbearer
The Princess de