‘But, by Jove,’ he said, ‘you come just at the right moment. To-night there is an opera at the Court, a kind of birthday party for somebody or other. I am not going there because I am sulking with the marquise, with a view to getting something. But here you are: here’s a line of invitation from my Lord Duke of Aumont that I’d asked of him for somebody, I don’t remember who. You are not presented yet, it’s true, but for the theatre that isn’t necessary. Try to place yourself in his way when the king passes through the little lobby. One look and your fortune is made.’

The chevalier thanked the abbé, and, tired out by a disturbed night, and a horseback ride, he dressed himself before the inn mirror, and produced one of those careless effects which are so becoming to lovers. An untrained servant girl helped him as well as she could, and covered his spangled suit with powder. In this fashion he set out on his way to try his luck. He was twenty.

Night was falling when he reached the château. He advanced timidly to the great gate, and asked his way of the sentinel. He was shown the main staircase. There he learned from the Swiss guard that the opera had just begun, and that the king—that is, everybody—was in the hall.²

‘If my lord marquis cares to cross the courtyard,’ added the Swiss guard (just in case, refer to anybody as a marquis), ‘he will be at the theatre in a moment. If he prefers to go through the rooms—’

The chevalier did not know the palace at all. Curiosity made him answer at first that he would go through the rooms: then, as a lackey got ready to follow him as guide, a burst of vanity made him add that he had no need of being accompanied. He went on alone, not without a certain thrill.

Versailles was gleaming with light. From ground-floor to attic the candelabras and branched candlesticks, the gilded furniture, the marbles, sparkled. Apart from the queen’s rooms, the folding doors were open everywhere. As the chevalier advanced he was struck with a growing astonishment and a wonder not difficult to imagine: for what made the sight spread before his eyes absolutely miraculous was not only the beauty, the glory of the spectacle itself, it was the complete solitude in which he found himself in this sort of enchanted desert.

Indeed, to see oneself alone in a vast enclosure, be it in a temple, a cloister, or a castle, has in it something strange, one might say something mysterious. The building seems to weigh on the man. The walls watch him: the echoes listen to him: the sound of his steps disturbs such a great silence that feels an involuntary fear, and only dares walk respectfully.

At first the chevalier acted so, but soon curiosity took the upper hand and drew him on. The candelabras in the Gallery of Mirrors, reflecting themselves, shot back their flames. You know how many thousands of cupids, of nymphs, and of shepherds played with each other there along the panelling, hovered on the ceilings, and seemed to entwine the whole palace in an immense garland. Here were vast reception rooms with canopies of velvet strewn with gold, and state arm-chairs that preserved still the majestic stateliness of the great king: here, rumpled ottomans, folding chairs in disorder round a card-table: an infinite suite of drawing-rooms for ever empty, whose magnificence stood out the more, the more useless that magnificence seemed: from time to time secret doors opening on endless corridors, a thousand stairways, a thousand passages crossing as in a labyrinth; columns, stages made for giants; boudoirs disordered like a child’s playroom; an enormous canvas of Vanloo’s near a porphyry chimney-piece; a beauty-patch box lying forgotten by the side of a grotesque figure from China; at one turn an overpowering grandeur, at the next an effeminate grace; and, everywhere, amidst luxury, prodigality, and indolence, a thousand seductive odours, strange and various, the mingled perfumes of flowers and of fair ladies, an enervating soft warmth, the atmosphere of voluptuousness.

To be in such a place at twenty, amidst marvels like these, and to find oneself there alone, was assuredly reason enough for bedazzlement. The chevalier went on at random, as in a dream.

‘A true fairy palace,’ he murmured, and in truth he seemed to see realized around him one of those fairy tales in which princes who have lost their way discover enchanted palaces.