Then one day, on the
second floor, facing the front, under the magnificent ceiling covered
with salamanders and painted ornaments which are now crumbling away,
Moliere produced for the first time _Le Bourgeois gentilhomme_. Then it
was given to the Marechal de Saxe; then to the Polignacs, and finally to
a plain soldier, Berthier. It was afterwards bought back by subscription
and presented to the Duc de Bordeaux. It has been given to everybody, as
if nobody cared to have it or desired to keep it. It looks as if it had
hardly ever been used, and as if it had always been too spacious. It is
like a deserted hostelry where transient guests have not left even their
names on the walls.
When we walked through an outside gallery to the Orleans staircase, in
order to examine the caryatids which are supposed to represent Francis
the First, M. de Chateaubriand, and Madame d'Etampes, and turned around
the celebrated lantern that terminates the big staircase, we stuck our
heads several times through the railing to look down. In the courtyard
was a little donkey nursing its mother, rubbing up against her, shaking
its long ears and playfully jumping around.
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