Elizabeth felt full of energy and enthusiasm that morning.The lascivious nighttime marital activities they now enjoyed, being happily — very happily that is — married gotbettereach night as she became more used to Darcy’s body, and he to her desires.
This morning was a sunny bright day, though the air still felt thin and cold whenever one stood in the shade.Unfortunately it was still cold enough that Elizabeth needed to wear a heavy coat yet.There had been no rain for the previous several days, so there was little of the horse droppings turned into a particularly grotesque mud by the rain waiting to be thrown up by the passing carriages careening loudly through the city center.
They walked down theRue de Richelieu, until they reached the area around the Palace of the Louvre and the Tuileries.There the couple paused to admire the large and fine triumphal arch Napoleon built there to celebrate his victory at Austerlitz.
They also admired the Palace of the Tuileries where twenty years prior the famous battle between the king’s regiment of Swiss guards and the forces of the National Assembly had occurred, and the Swiss guards had been killed almost to a man following their defeat.
“I can imagine those proudly uniformed men standing there, shouting refusal to the offer to surrender.”Elizabeth shivered.“I wonder what went through their minds in such an extremity.”
“They knew their duty to their king, and they fulfilled it,” Darcy replied, admiringly.
The palace was at present the residence of King Louis XVIII.After a moment’s discussion, wishing to enjoy the sunny morning, they refrained from inquiring of the staff if they might be given a tour of the public rooms of the palace.
Directly adjacent to the Palace of the Tuileries was the large Palace of the Louvre, and the two palaces together formed a massive C.For Elizabeth theMuseum du Roiin the Louvre was a far greater draw than seeing that portion of a royal residence which the general public might visit.
They resisted the pull of famed art — though only for the moment, Elizabeth knew she soon would return to admire all the paintings in the great gallery of the Louvre — and instead walked through a passageway built into the Palace of the Louvre, and out to the bank of the Seine.
There was a busy traffic of carriages and street vendors along this area, and the river rushed merrily along lightly murmuring.Many bridges crossed the river, all filled with traffic.
Elizabeth had command of the guidebook, and Darcy had declared that he was in her hands today in determining which way to go.She looked both directions and then studied the map before her.The choice was whether to go east along the riverbank, and reach shortly the Garden of the Tuileries, or to go to the west, and cross to the Île de la Cité, which was, according to the guidebook, the oldest inhabited part of the city.
The island contained a great many churches, most notably the Cathedral of the Notre Dame, which the guidebook insisted was well worth looking upon, and the tourist ought, it said, inquire of the doorman to be admitted in to admire the paintings.
However the promise of a garden which looked upon their map to be similar in size to St.James’s Park, though far smaller than Hyde Park, won Elizabeth’s preference.
She quickly grew disillusioned though with the garden.The bulk of land was made up of squares of evenly ordered trees trimmed so that the branches and leaves did not grow low enough for even Mr.Darcy to ever need to duck his head, and the tops had been trimmed so that they were all of an even size and did not interfere with each other.
All this order and unnatural attempt at perfection surrounded several giant ponds whose borders were made up of giant circles of concrete, without any irregularity.“This is the French mode of formal design at its very worst!”
Darcy laughingly replied, “We are in a royal garden in the center of France, what else could you expect?”
“I have never seen a place of such an artificial appearance, with such false adornment,” Elizabeth replied heatedly.“I have never seen a park where nature has been permitted to dolessand where natural beauty has been so much counteracted by awkward taste.”
Darcy laughed.“I like to see you so passionately determined upon a point — especially when it is not a passionate determination against me.”
Elizabeth smiled brilliantly at him, her anger forgotten for a moment.“You really do like to see me in such a mode?”
“Exceedingly well, it brings out the fine color in your eyes, and the sparkles in your cheeks, and makes your dewy skin to glow yet brighter.I do dearly love to see you, in all your modes and expressions.”
He took her in his arms and swung her around, giggling.
“Ah, well in that case,” Elizabeth said smilingly to Darcy, still leaning against him with her arms around his neck, and feeling her breasts pressed against his muscular chest.“In that case I must rage against many more gardens for your entertainment.”
“Not so bad, I think.”Darcy replied, “Perhaps if we saw it in summer, or in spring, with all the flowers abloom, and the full growth of leaves on the trees.I believe the smell might be quite delightful.”
“It would yet be hideous.Designed by a geometer!Each tree the same distance from every other tree, in a square grid.When I ask you, when, whilst wandering in a forest, have you ever encountered trees which grow in a square grid?”
“You shall like my estate at Pemberley exceedingly well — the philosophy of design there was entirely the opposite of here.”
Elizabeth smiled at him.“Do you really think — I do hope one day I can return to our home, and see it with you.”
“I as well, but even if that day of safety never arrives, I would far rather live in exile with you than in Pemberley itself without you.”
Arm in arm they walked to the end of the park.
The section on the far side from the Tuileries palace, while still not to Elizabeth’s taste, permitted more of irregularity.Then they crossed the street, and walked back along the high embankment built up to contain the flow of the Seine towards the bridge atPont Neufwhich was the first place they could cross over to the island.
The Île de la Cité was filled with tight packed streets, even tighter than theRue de Richelieu, and the tall buildings occluded the sun, and left Elizabeth and Darcy to shiver at the sudden return of winter, but when they had walked through the whole island, they found on the far side a large square with the large Cathedral on one side of it.
