over the chapel, reached by the now broken-down old staircase. The window of this attic still looks over the French garden, and from it, in old days, he would have seen anyone approaching the house from that side. The name of the suisse (the porter) in charge of the porte du perron de la chapelle in 1789 was Lagrange. His rooms were immediately behind the chapel, looking into the avenue.[1] He could easily have been sent through the chapel to interview strangers on the terrace.
IV. We did not lose sight of the man when he came to us. As it is now he must have gone quite out of sight, down one flight of steps outside the chapel door, and (after passing under a high wall) have reached the terrace (where we were standing) by a second set of steps. The present wall of the chapel courtyard is so high as to hide half the door, and a large chestnut tree in the courtyard hides it from the part of the terrace on which we were,—even in winter.
In April, 1907, we discovered that a continuous ground-floor passage from the kitchens once passed the chapel door to the house.
- ↑ Desjardins', Le Petit Trianon, pp. 188, 189.
