Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/126

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116
AN ADVENTURE

of anything so considerable would have been in the catalogue.

Even should it be proved that a cinematograph had been taken that very day, it would not be a possible explanation to us. The groups we saw were small and isolated from one another. There was the deepest silence everywhere, and no sunshine; whilst the light was the worst possible for a picture, for the sky was overcast. And though whilst we stood there an indefinable air of strangeness dropped over everything, including the tall forest trees, it was not of a kind that could be accounted for by fictitious scenery. The people moved and spoke as usual, but their words were extraordinarily difficult to catch.

In September, 1910, the question of such representation was settled by an enquiry of the authorities. No leave to take cinematographs had been granted in August, 1901. The fête had been on June 27th, and the photographs of it had been taken sufficiently near the time to be published in the July number of Versailles Illustré. Not one of the pictures in this number is in the least like what, we saw either in the matter of subjects, costumes, or places. The