anded with flowers, betrays no
sinister qualities. But any visitor who approaches looking at his
reflection where at the left the side panels meet the angle of the wall,
will be greeted by a sight similar to that whose tragic suggestion made
even the haughty Queen pause a moment in her reckless career. For in the
innocent appearing mirrors the gazer is reflected without a head.

It was through this liliputian suite, this strip of homeliness so
artfully introduced into a palace, that Marie Antoinette fled on that
fateful August morning when the mob of infuriated women invaded the
Chateau.

Knowing this, I was puzzling over the transparent fact that either of
the apparent exits would have led her directly into the hands of the
enemy, when the idea of a secret staircase suggested itself. A little
judicious inquiry elicited the information that one did exist. "But it
is not seen. It is locked. To view it, an order from the
Commissary--that is necessary," explained the old guide.

To know that a secret staircase, and one of such vivid historical
importance, was at hand, and not to have seen it would have been too
tantalising. The "Commissary" was an unknown quantity, and for a space
it seemed as though our desire would be ungratified. Happily the
knowledge of our interest awoke a kindly reciprocity in our guide, who,
hurrying off, quickly returned with the venerable custodian of the key.
A moment later, the unobtrusive panel that concealed the exit flew open
at its touch, and the secret staircase, dark, narrow, and hoary with the
dust of years, lay before us.

[Illustration: The Secret Stair]

Many must have been the romantic meetings aided by those diminutive
steps, but, peering into their shadows, we saw nothing but a vision of
Marie Antoinette, half clad in dishevelled wrappings of petticoat and
shawl, flying distracted from the vengeance of the furies through the
refuge of the low-roofed stairway.

In my ingenuous youth, when studying French history, I evolved a theory
which seemed, to myself at least, to account satisfactorily for the
radical differences distinguishing Louis XVI. from his brothers and
antecedents. Finding that, when a delicate infant, he had been sent to
the country to nurse, I rushed to the conclusion that the royal infant
had died, and that his foster-mother, fearful of the consequences, had
substituted a child of her own in his place. The literature of the
nursery is full of instances that see