Note 11 — Chapter XV · VERSAILLES—THE RIVAL ACTRESSES—THE DISCOVERY

The gossips of the Rue de la Harpe and Rue des Mathurins were well aware of the cause of this unwonted excitement. There were portières in those days as at present; and they were just as garrulous. The old woman who kept the gate of the Hôtel de Cluny had heard the news from Maître Picard’s housekeeper; and it was soon known in the Quartier Latin that the Garde Bourgeois of that division were to have the honour of waiting upon their monarch at Versailles that evening, where a fete was to be given upon an unusual scale of splendour; a large part of the gardens being covered in and richly decorated, to accommodate the number of guests that it was expected would not find room in the palace;11 for the building as it then stood was comparatively small, being little more than the chateau built by the preceding monarch as his hunting-lodge, upon the site of the windmill purchased from Jean de Soissy.