The Green Carpet is a route through the palace gardens whose changing textures and public visibility shape several of Marie-Josèphe de la Croix’s encounters with the captive sea woman. Crossed barefoot before dawn and later approached on horseback, it becomes both a passage for private urgency and a space where the constraints of courtly order remain in view.

Setting and Physical Experience

The route extends beyond a terrace, where gravel cuts Marie-Josèphe’s bare feet, and onto grass that is cold and wet but does not cut her. Candles line the Carpet; when she runs along it before dawn, they have burned down to puddles of wax and smoking wicks. This sequence makes the path a physically specific transition from the painful gravel to softer ground, while the spent candles mark the hour and the passing of the night.

The Green Carpet lies within the gardens, where servants and courtiers may see those who cross it. Before dawn, Marie-Josèphe hurries down the stairs past surprised servants, an unusual sight at an hour when some courtiers are only then going to sleep. On a later crossing, she is anxious to leave the gardens before anyone sees her bedraggled, dew-damp, and barefoot.

A Route of Secrecy and Return

Marie-Josèphe’s early-morning passage follows her encounter with the sea woman. She comes away carrying sketches that conceal what she has learned beneath the Chevalier de Lorraine’s warm cape. The sea woman’s despair remains with her as she climbs the Green Carpet, making the route a return from an encounter whose knowledge she does not yet know how to share.

At Yves de la Croix’s room, Marie-Josèphe briefly considers leaving the sketches on his desk, then changes her mind and hides them. Her retreat along the Carpet therefore ends not in disclosure but in renewed concealment. The exposed route through the gardens contrasts with the secret she carries across it.

Horses, Display, and the Possibility of Rescue

On another occasion, Marie-Josèphe rides Zachi past marble statues overlooking the Green Carpet and welcomes a moment of peace. The statues’ serene faces offer a still contrast to the pressure surrounding her; her thoughts turn to the people who will speak for the sea woman and to the courtly arrangements continuing in her absence.

Zachi tosses her head and prances, asking to gallop. Marie-Josèphe keeps the horse to a stately pace, aware that a sudden rush might trample someone as they swooped down to steal the sea woman away. She wonders whether the sea woman can ride, perhaps on great whales through the ocean. The Green Carpet thus becomes not only a ceremonial-looking route for a measured ride but also the imagined approach to a rescue that Marie-Josèphe cannot simply carry out: she has already recognized that she lacks authority to close the sea woman’s tent.