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84
AN ADVENTURE

ledge, and smiled at the idea as he looked at the blocked-up old doors.

In August, 1907, two other friends went to the chapel and entirely confirmed all that had been said about its ruined condition and the impossibility of the great door having been opened in 1901. Their guide told them that the big door had been Marie Antoinette's private entrance. The gallery was still standing and had two chairs on it of gilt and old red velvet; but when they asked whether it was possible to enter it, the guide laughed and pointed to the staircase. There was no other entrance, he said, and the stairs had been in that condition for the last ten years. They thought from the look of the stairs that they had probably been so for much longer.

In September, 1910, a fifth friend went to the chapel and bore witness to the impossibility of the doors having been used in 1901, and was told that the staircase had finally broken down fifteen years before.

III. From Desjardins' book we learned that the Queen's concierge had been Bonnefoy du Plan. He had rooms between the chapel and the cour d'honneur and kept his stores in a loft