Larger Image
THE BUILDERS OF THE LOUVRE
(1) François I.,1546; (2) Catherine de Medici,1566-1578; (3) Catherine de Medici,1564(destroyed at the Commune); (4) Louis XIII.,1524; (5) Louis XIV.,1660-1670; (6) Napoleon I.,1806; (7) Louis XVIII.,1816; (8) Napoleon III.,1852-1857; (9) Napoleon III.,1863-1868.
“Paris renferme beaucoup de palais; mais le vrai palais de Paris, le vrai palais de la France, tout le monde l’a nommé,—c’est le Louvre.”
Uponthe first appearance of “Marguerite de Valois,” a critic writing inBlackwood’s Magazine, has chosen to commend Dumas’ directness of plot and purpose in a manner which every lover of Dumas and student of history will not fail to appreciate. He says: “Dumas, according to his custom, introduces a vast array of characters, for the most part historical, all spiritedly drawn and well sustained. In various respects the author may be held up as an example to our own history-spoilers, and self-styled writers of historical romance. One does not find him profaning public edifices by causing all sorts of absurdities to pass, and of twaddle to be spoken, within their precincts; neither does he make his king and beggar, high-born dame and private soldier usethe very same language, all equally tame, colourless, and devoid of character. The spirited and varied dialogue, in which his romances abound, illustrates and brings out the qualities and characteristics of his actors, and is not used for the sole purpose of making a chapter out of what would be better told in a page. In many instances, indeed, it would be difficult for him to tell his story, by the barest narrative, in fewer words than he does by pithy and pointed dialogue.”
No edifice in Paris itself, nor, indeed, in all France, is more closely identified with the characters and plots of Dumas’ romances than the Louvre. In the Valois cycle alone, the personages are continually flocking and stalking thither; some mere puppets,—walking gentlemen and ladies,—but many more, even, who are personages so very real that even in the pages of Dumas one forgets that it is romance pure and simple, and is almost ready to accept his word as history. This it is not, as is well recognized, but still it is a pleasant manner of bringing before the omnivorous reader many facts which otherwise he might ignore or perhaps overlook.
It really is not possible to particularize all the action of Dumas’ romances which centred around the Louvre. To do so would be to write themediæval history of the famous building, or to produce an analytical index to the works of Dumas which would somewhat approach in bulk the celebrated Chinese encyclopædia.
We learn from “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” of D’Artagnan’s great familiarity with the life which went on in the old château of the Louvre. “I will tell you where M. d’Artagnan is,” said Raoul; “he is now in Paris; when on duty, he is to be met at the Louvre; when not so, in the Rue des Lombards.”
This describes the situation exactly: when the characters of the D’Artagnan and the Valois romances are not actually within the precincts of the Louvre, they have either just left it or are about to return thither, or some momentous event is being enacted there which bears upon the plot.
Perhaps the most dramatic incident in connection with the Louvre mentioned by Dumas, was that of the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s night, “that bloody deed which culminated from the great struggle which devastated France in the latter part of the sixteenth century.”
Dumas throws in his lot with such historians as Ranke and Soldain, who prefer to think that the massacre which took place on the fête-day of St. Bartholomew was not the result of a longpremeditated plot, but was rather the fruit of a momentary fanatical terror aroused by the unsuccessful attempt on the life of Coligny.
This aspect is apart from the question. The principal fact with which the novelist and ourselves are concerned is that the event took place much as stated: that it was from the Louvre that the plot—if plot it were—emanated, and that the sounding bell of St. Germain l’Auxerrois did, on that fateful night, indicate to those present in the Louvre the fact that the bloody massacre had begun.
The fabric itself—the work of many hands, at the instigation of so many minds—is an enduring monument to the fame of those who projected it, or who were memorialized thereby: Philippe-Auguste, Marie de Medici, François I., Charles IX., Henri IV., Louis XIV., Napoleon I.,—who did but little, it is true,—and Napoleon III.—who did much, and did it badly.
Besides history, bloody deeds, and intrigue, there is also much of sentiment to be gathered from an observation of its walls; as witness the sculptures and decorations of Goujon and Lescot, the interlaced monogram G. H., of Henri and Gabrielle d’Estrées, and the superimposed crescents of the fair Diane de Poitiers. But such romances as these are best read in the pages of Dumas.
“To the French the Louvre is more than a palace; it is a sanctuary,” said an enthusiastic Frenchman. As such it is a shrine to be worshipped by itself, though it is pardonable to wish to know to-day just where and when the historic events of its career took place.
One can trace the outline, in white marble, of the ancient Château du Louvre, in the easterly courtyard of the present establishment; can admire the justly celebrated eastern colonnade, though so defective was the architect in his original plans that it overlaps the side walls of the connecting buildings some dozen or more feet; can follow clearly all the various erections of monarchs and eras, and finally contemplate the tiny columns set about in the garden of the Tuileries, which mark all that is left of that ambitious edifice.
The best description of the Tuileries by Dumas comes into the scene in “The Count of Monte Cristo,” when Villefort,—who shares with Danglars and Fernand the distinction of being the villain of the piece,—after travelling with all speed from Marseilles to Paris, “penetrates the two or three apartments which precede it, and enters the small cabinet of the Tuileries with the arched window, so well known as having been the favouritecabinet of Napoleon and Louis XVIII., as also that of Louis-Philippe.
“There, in this closet, seated before a walnut-tree table he had brought with him from Hartwell, and to which, from one of those fancies not uncommon to great people, he was particularly attached, the king, Louis XVIII., was carelessly listening to a man of fifty or fifty-two years of age, with gray hair, aristocratic bearing, and exceedingly gentlemanly attire, whilst he was making a note in a volume of Horace, Gryphius’s edition, which was much indebted to the sagacious observations of the philosophical monarch.”
Of course, an author of to-day would have expressed it somewhat differently, but at the time in which Dumas wrote, the little cabinet did exist, and up to the time of the destruction of the palace, at the Commune, was doubtless as much of a showplace in its way as is the window of the Louvre from which Charles IX. was supposed to have fired upon the fleeing Huguenots—with this difference: that the cabinet had a real identity, while the window in question has been more recently ascertained as not having been built at the time of the event.
Some one has mentioned Paris, the forgetter, as if modern Paris and its gay life—for assuredly itis gay, regardless of what theblaséfolk may say or think—had entirely blotted out from its memory the horrors of St. Bartholomew’s night, the tragedies of La Roquette, the Conciergerie, or the Bastille.
This is so in a measure, however, though one has only to cross the square which lies before Les Halles, La Tour St. Jacques, or Notre Dame, to recall most vividly the tragedies which have before been enacted there.
The Louvre literally reeks with the intrigue and bloodshed of political and religious warfare; and Dumas’ picture of the murder of the admiral, and his version of the somewhat apocryphal incident of Charles IX. potting at the Protestant victims, with a specially made and garnished firearm, is sufficiently convincing, when once read, to suggest the recollections, at least, of the heartless act. From the Louvre it is but a step—since the Tuileries has been destroyed—to the Place de la Concorde.
When this great square, now given over to bird-fanciers, automobilists, and photograph-sellers, was first cleared, it was known as the Place de la Révolution. In the later volumes of the Valois romances one reads of a great calendar of scenes and incidents which were consummated here. It is too large a list to even catalogue, but one will recollect thathere, in this statue surrounded place, with playing fountains glittering in the sunlight, is buried under a brilliance—very foreign to its former aspect—many a grim tragedy of profound political purport.
It was here that Louis XVI. said, “I die innocent; I forgive my enemies, and pray God to avert his vengeance for my blood, and to bless my people.” To-day one sees only the ornate space, thevoituresand automobiles, the tricolour floating high on the Louvre, and this forgetful Paris, brilliant with sunlight, green with trees, beautified by good government, which offers in itskiosks, cafés, and theatres the fulness of the moment at every turn. Paris itself truly forgets, if one does not.
The Louvre as it is known to-day is a highly intricate composition. Its various parts have grown, not under one hand, but from a common root, until it blossomed forth in its full glory when the western front of Catherine de Medici took form. Unfortunately, with its disappearance at the Commune the completeness of this elaborate edifice went for ever.
One is apt to overlook the fact that the old Louvre, theancienne Palais du Louvre, was a mediæval battlemented and turreted structure, which bore little resemblance to the Louvre of to-day, oreven that of Charles, Henri, Catherine, or Marguerite, of whom Dumas wrote in the Valois romances.
THE GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES
The general ground-plan of the two distinct portions is the same, except for some minor additions of Napoleon I. and the connecting links built by Napoleon III., and many of the apartments are of course much the same, but there has been a general laying out of the courts anew, and tree-planting and grading of the streets and quais in the immediate neighbourhood; so much so that almost the entire aspect is changed. In spite of its compositeness, there is a certain aspect of uniformity of outline, though not of excellence of design.
The only relics of the Palace of the Tuileries are the colonnettes set about in the garden and surmounted by gilded balls.
Itseems hardly necessary to more than mention the name of the Palais Royal, in connection with either the life or the writings of Alexandre Dumas, to induce a line of thought which is practically limitless. It was identified with Dumas’ first employment in the capital, and it has been the scene of much of the action of both the D’Artagnan and the Valois romances.
More than all else, however, though one is apt to overlook it somewhat, it is so closely identified with Richelieu that it is difficult to separate it from any event of French political history of the period.
It was built by Richelieu in 1629, on the site occupied by the Hôtels de Mercœur and Rambouillet, and was originally intended to have borne the name of Hôtel Richelieu. Toward 1634 it was enlarged, and was known as the Palais Cardinal. Finally it was presented, in 1642, to Louis XIII., and at his death came to Anne of Austria, when the royalfamily removed thither and it became known as the Palais Royal.
The incident of the flight of the royal family and Mazarin to St. Germain is one of the historic and dramatic incidents which Dumas used as one of the events in which D’Artagnan participated.
The court never returned to make use of the Palais Royal as a royal residence, and it became the refuge of Henriette de France, Queen of England and widow of Charles I. Thirty years later Louis XIV., who had fled from its walls when a child, gave it to his nephew Philippe d’Orleans, Duc de Chartres.
It was during theRégencethat the famousfêtesof the Palais Royal were organized,—they even extended to what the unsympathetic have called orgies,—but it is certain that no town residences of kings were ever as celebrated for their splendid functions as was the Palais Royal in the seventeenth century.
In 1763 a fire brought about certain reconstructions at the expense of the city of Paris. In 1781, it became again the prey of fire; and Philippe-Égalité, who was then Duc de Chartres, constructed the three vast galleries which surround the Palais of to-day.
Theboutiquesof the galleries were let tomerchants of all manner of foibles, and it became the most lively quarter of Paris.
The public adopted the galleries as fashionable promenades, which became, for the time, “un bazar européen et un rendez-vous d’affaires et de galanterie.”
It was in 1783 that the Duc d’Orleans constructed “une salle de spectacle,” which to-day is the Théâtre du Palais Royal, and in the middle of the garden acirquewhich ultimately came to be transformed into a restaurant.
The purely theatrical event of the history of the Palais Royal came on the 13th of July, 1789, when at midday—as thecoupof apetit canonrang out—a young unknownavocat, Camille Desmoulins, mounted a chair and addressed the throng of promenaders in a thrilling and vibrant voice:
“Citoyens, j’arrive de Versailles!—Necker is fled and the Baron Breteuil is in his place. Breteuil is one of those who have demanded the head of Mirabeau ... there remains but one resource, and that ‘to arms’ and to wear the cockade that we may be known.Quelle couleur voulez-vous?”
With almost a common accord the tricolour was adopted—and the next day the Bastille fell.
The Orleans Bureau, Palais Royal
Dumas’ account of the incident, taken from “The Taking of the Bastille,” is as follows:
“During this time the procession kept on advancing; it had moved obliquely to the left, and had gone down the Rue Montmartre to the Place des Victoires. When it reached the Palais Royal some great impediment prevented its passing on. A troop of men with green leaves in their hats were shouting ‘To arms!’
“It was necessary to reconnoitre. Were these men who blocked up the Rue Vivienne friends or enemies? Green was the colour of the Count d’Artois. Why then these green cockades?
“After a minute’s conference all was explained.
“On learning the dismissal of Necker, a young man had issued from the Café Foy, had jumped upon a table in the garden of the Palais Royal, and, taking a pistol from his breast, had cried ‘To arms!’
“On hearing this cry, all the persons who were walking there had assembled around him, and had shouted ‘To arms!’
“We have already said that all the foreign regiments had been collected around Paris. One might have imagined that it was an invasion by the Austrians. The names of these regiments alarmed the ears of all Frenchmen; they were Reynac, Salis Samade, Diesbach, Esterhazy, Roemer; the very naming of them was sufficient to make the crowd understand that they were the names of enemies.The young man named them; he announced that the Swiss were encamped in the Champs Elysées, with four pieces of artillery, and that they were to enter Paris the same night, preceded by the dragoons, commanded by Prince Lambesq. He proposed a new cockade which was not theirs, snatched a leaf from a chestnut-tree and placed it in the band of his hat. Upon the instant every one present followed his example. Three thousand persons had in ten minutes unleaved the trees of the Palais Royal.
“That morning no one knew the name of that young man; in the evening it was in every mouth.
“That young man’s name was Camille Desmoulins.”
After 1793 the Palais Royal was converted, by decree, into the Palais et Jardin de la Révolution; and reunited to the domains of the state. Napoleon I. granted its use to the Tribunal for its seances, and Lucien Bonaparte inhabited it for the “Hundred Days.” In 1830 Louis-Philippe, Duc d’Orleans, gave there a fête in honour of the King of Naples, who had come to pay his respects to the King of France. Charles X. assisted as an invited guest at the function, but one month after he had inhabited it as king.
Under Napoleon III. the Palais Royal was the residence of Prince Jerome, the uncle of the emperor, afterward that of his son the Prince Napoleon, when thefleur-de-lissculptured on the façade gave way before escutcheons bearing the imperial eagles, which in turn have since given way to the Republican device of “’48”—“Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”
It is with a remarkable profusion of detail—for Dumas, at any rate—that the fourteenth chapter of “The Conspirators” opens.
It is a veritable guide-book phraseology and conciseness, which describes the streets of the Palais Royal quarter:
“The evening of the same day, which was Sunday, toward eight o’clock, at the moment when a considerable group of men and women, assembled around a street singer, who was playing at the same time the cymbals with his knees and the tambourine with his hands, obstructed the entrance to the Rue de Valois, a musketeer and two of the light horse descended a back staircase of the Palais Royal, and advanced toward the Passage du Lycée, which, as every one knows, opened on to that street; but seeing the crowd which barred the way, the three soldiers stopped and appeared to take counsel. The resultof their deliberation was doubtless that they must take another route, for the musketeer, setting the example of a new manœuvre, threaded the Cour des Fontaines, turned the corner of the Rue des Bons Enfants, and, walking rapidly,—though he was extremely corpulent,—arrived at No. 22, which opened as by enchantment at his approach, and closed again on him and his two companions.
“... The crowd dispersed. A great many men left the circle, singly, or two and two, turning toward each other with an imperceptible gesture of the hand, some by the Rue de Valois, some by the Cour des Fontaines, some by the Palais Royal itself, thus surrounding the Rue des Bons Enfants, which seemed to be the centre of the rendezvous.”
The locality has not changed greatly since the times of which Dumas wrote, and if one would see for himself this Rue de Bons Enfants, Numéro 22, and try to find out how the Regent of France was able to climb over the roof-tops to the Palais Royal, for a wager, he may still do so, for apparently the roof-tops have changed but little. The especial connection of the Rue des Bons Enfants with literature is perhaps Sylvestre’s establishment, which will, for a price, sell you almost any French celebrity’s autograph, be he king, prince, painter, or litterateur.
In the “Vicomte de Bragelonne” there is a wonderfully interesting chapter, which describes Mazarin’s gaming-party at the Palais Royal.
In that it enters somewhat more into detail than is usual with Dumas, it appears worth quoting here, if only for its description of the furnishing of thesallein which the event took place, and its most graphic and truthful picture of the great cardinal himself:
“In a large chamber of the Palais Royal, covered with a dark-coloured velvet, which threw into strong relief the gilded frames of a great number of magnificent pictures, on the evening of the arrival of the two Frenchmen, the whole court was assembled before the alcove of M. le Cardinal de Mazarin, who gave a party, for the purposes of play, to the king and queen. A small screen separated three prepared tables. At one of these tables the king and the two queens were seated. Louis XIV., placed opposite to the young queen, his wife, smiled upon her with an expression of real happiness. Anne of Austria held the cards against the cardinal, and her daughter-in-law assisted her in her game, when she was not engaged in smiling at her husband. As for the cardinal, who was reclining on his bed, his cards were held by the Comtesse de Soissons,and he watched them with an incessant look of interest and cupidity.
“The cardinal had been painted by Bernouin; but the rouge, which glowed only on his cheeks, threw into stronger contrast the sickly pallor of the rest of his countenance and the shining yellow of his brow. His eyes alone acquired a more lively expression from this auxiliary, and upon those sick man’s eyes were, from time to time, turned the uneasy looks of the king, the queen, and the courtiers. The fact is, that the two eyes of Mazarin were the stars more or less brilliant in which the France of the seventeenth century read its destiny every evening and every morning. Monseigneur neither won nor lost; he was, therefore, neither gay nor sad. It was a stagnation in which, full of pity for him, Anne of Austria would not have willingly left him; but in order to attract the attention of the sick man by some brilliant stroke, she must have either won or lost. To win would have been dangerous, because Mazarin would have changed his indifference for an ugly grimace; to lose would likewise have been dangerous, because she must have cheated, and the Infanta, who watched her game, would, doubtless, have exclaimed against her partiality for Mazarin. Profiting by this calm, the courtiers were chatting. When not in a badhumour, M. de Mazarin was a very debonnaire prince, and he, who prevented nobody from singing, provided they paid, was not tyrant enough to prevent people from talking, provided they made up their minds to lose. They were chatting, then. At the first table, the king’s younger brother, Philip, Duc d’Anjou, was admiring his handsome face in the glass of a box. His favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, leaning over thefauteuilof the prince, was listening, with secret envy, to the Comte de Guiche, another of Philip’s favourites, who was relating in choice terms the various vicissitudes of fortune of the royal adventurer, Charles II. He told, as so many fabulous events, all the history of his peregrinations in Scotland, and his terrors when the enemy’s party was so closely on his track; of nights passed in trees, and days passed in hunger and combats. By degrees, the fate of the unfortunate king interested his auditors so greatly, that the play languished even at the royal table, and the young king, with a pensive look and downcast eye, followed, without appearing to give any attention to it, the smallest details of this Odyssey, very picturesquely related by the Comte de Guiche.”
Again mention of the Palais Royal enters into the action of “The Queen’s Necklace.” WhenMadame de la Motte and her companion wereen routeto Versailles by cabriolet, “they met a delay at the gates of the Palais Royal, where, in a courtyard, which had been thrown open, were a host of beggars crowding around fires which had been lighted there, and receiving soup, which the servants of M. le Duc d’Orleans were distributing to them in earthen basins; and as in Paris a crowd collects to see everything, the number of the spectators of this scene far exceeded that of the actors.
“Here, then, they were again obliged to stop, and, to their dismay, began to hear distinctly from behind loud cries of ‘Down with the cabriolet! down with those that crush the poor!’
“‘Can it be that those cries are addressed to us?’ said the elder lady to her companion.
“‘Indeed, madame, I fear so,’ she replied.
“‘Have we, do you think, run over any one?’
“‘I am sure you have not.’
“‘To the magistrate! to the magistrate!’ cried several voices.
“‘What in heaven’s name does it all mean?’ said the lady.
“‘The crowd reproaches you, madame, with having braved the police order which appeared this morning, prohibiting all cabriolets from driving through the streets until the spring.’”
This must have been something considerable of an embargo on pleasure, and one which would hardly obtain to-day, though asphalted pavements covered with a film of frost must offer untold dangers, as compared with the streets of Paris as they were then—in the latter years of the eighteenth century.
Theworshipper at the shrines made famous by Dumas—no less than history—will look in vain for the prison of La Roquette, the Bastille, the hôtel of the Duc de Guise, at No. 12 Rue du Chaume, that of Coligny in the Rue de Bethusy, or of the Montmorencies, “near the Louvre.”
They existed, of course, in reality, as they did in the Valois romances, but to-day they have disappeared, and not even the “Commission des Monuments Historiques” has preserved a pictorial representation of the three latter.
One of Dumas’ most absorbing romances deals with the fateful events which culminated at the Bastille on the 14th Thermidor, 1789. “This monument, this seal of feudality, imprinted on the forehead of Paris,” said Dumas, “was the Bastille,” and those who know French history know that he wrote truly.
The action of “The Taking of the Bastille,” so far as it deals with the actual assault upon it, is brief. So was the event itself. Dumas romances but little in this instance; he went direct to fact for his details. He says:
“When once a man became acquainted with the Bastille, by order of the king, that man was forgotten, sequestrated, interred, annihilated....
“Moreover, in France there was not only one Bastille; there were twenty other Bastilles, which were called Fort l’Evêque, St. Lazare, the Châtelet, the Conciergerie, Vincennes, the Castle of La Roche, the Castle of If, the Isles of St. Marguerite, Pignerolles, etc.
“Only the fortress at the Gate St. Antoine was calledthe Bastille, asRomewas calledthecity....
“During nearly a whole century the governorship of the Bastille had continued in one and the same family.
“The grandfather of this elect race was M. de Chateauneuf; his son Lavrillière succeeded him, who, in turn, was succeeded by his grandson, St. Florentin. The dynasty became extinct in 1777....
“Among the prisoners, it will be recollected, the following were of the greatest note:
“The Iron Mask, Lauzun, Latude.
“The Jesuits were connoisseurs; for greater security they confessed the prisoners.
“For greater security still, the prisoners were buried under supposititious names.
“The Iron Mask, it will be remembered, was buried under the name of Marchiali. He had remained forty-five years in prison.
“Lauzun remained there fourteen years.
“Latude, thirty years....
“But, at all events, the Iron Mask and Lauzun had committed heinous crimes.
“The Iron Mask, whether brother or not of Louis XIV., it is asserted, resembled King Louis XIV. so strongly, that it was almost impossible to distinguish the one from the other.
“It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to resemble a king.
“Lauzun had been very near marrying, or did actually marry, the Grande Mademoiselle.
“It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to marry the niece of King Louis XIII., the granddaughter of Henri IV.
“But Latude, poor devil, what had he done?
“He had dared to fall in love with Mlle. Poisson, Dame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress.
“He had written a note to her.
“This note, which a respectable woman wouldhave sent back to the man who wrote it, was handed by Madame de Pompadour to M. de Sartines, the lieutenant-general of police.”
“To the Bastille!” was the cry upon which Dumas built up his story.
“‘To the Bastille!’
“Only that it was a senseless idea, as the soldiers had remarked, that the Bastille could be taken.
“The Bastille had provisions, a garrison, artillery.
“The Bastille had walls, which were fifteen feet thick at their summit, and forty at their base.
“The Bastille had a governor, whose name was De Launay, who had stored thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder in his cellars, and who had sworn, in case of being surprised by acoup de main, to blow up the Bastille, and with it half the Faubourg St. Antoine.”
Dumas was never more chary of tiresome description than in the opening chapters of this book. Chapter XVI. opens as follows:
“We will not describe the Bastille—it would be useless.
“It lives as an eternal image, both in the memory of the old and in the imagination of the young.
“We shall content ourselves with merely stating, that, seen from the boulevard, it presented, in frontof the square then called Place de la Bastille, two twin towers, while its two fronts ran parallel with the banks of the canal which now exists.
“The entrance to the Bastille was defended, in the first place, by a guard-house, then by two lines of sentinels, and besides these by two drawbridges.
“After having passed through these several obstacles, you came to the courtyard of the government-house—that is to say, the residence of the governor.
“From this courtyard a gallery led to the ditches of the Bastille.
“At this other entrance, which opened upon the ditches, was a drawbridge, a guard-house, and an iron gate.”
Then follow some pages of incident and action, which may be fact or may be fiction. The detail which comes after is picturesque and necessary to the plot:
“The interior court, in which the governor was waiting for Billot, was the courtyard which served as a promenade to the prisoners. It was guarded by eight towers—that is to say, by eight giants. No window opened into it. Never did the sun shine on its pavement, which was damp and almost muddy. It might have been thought the bottom of an immense well.
“In this courtyard was a clock, supported by figures representing enchained captives, which measured the hours, from which fell the regular and slow sounds of the minutes as they passed by, as in a dungeon the droppings from the ceiling eat into the pavement slabs on which they fall.
“At the bottom of this well, the prisoner, lost amid the abyss of stone, for a moment contemplated its cold nakedness, and soon asked to be allowed to return to his room....
“At the Bastille, all the places were sold to the highest bidder, from that of the governor himself, down to that of the scullion. The governor of the Bastille was a gaoler on a grand scale, an eating-house keeper wearing epaulets, who added to his salary of sixty thousand livres sixty thousand more, which he extorted and plundered....
“M. de Launay, in point of avarice, far surpassed his predecessors. This might, perhaps, have arisen from his having paid more for the place, and having foreseen that he would not remain in it so long as they did.
“He fed his whole house at the expense of his prisoners. He had reduced the quantity of firing, and doubled the hire of furniture in each room.
“He had the right of bringing yearly into Paris a hundred pipes of wine, free of duty. He soldhis right to a tavern-keeper, who brought in wines of excellent quality. Then, with a tenth part of this duty, he purchased the vinegar with which he supplied his prisoners.”
The rest of Dumas’ treatment of the fall of the Bastille is of the historical kind. He does not blame De Launay for the fall, but by no means does he make a hero of him.
“A flash of fire, lost in a cloud of smoke, crowned the summit of a tower; a detonation resounded; cries of pain were heard issuing from the closely pressed crowd; the first cannon-shot had been fired from the Bastille; the first blood had been spilled. The battle had commenced....
“On hearing the detonation we have spoken of, the two soldiers who were still watching M. de Launay threw themselves upon him; a third snatched up the match, and then extinguished it by placing his heel upon it.
“De Launay drew the sword which was concealed in his cane, and would have turned it against his own breast, but the soldiers seized it and snapped it in two.
“He then felt that all he could do was to resign himself to the result; he therefore tranquilly awaited it.
THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE
“The people rush forward; the garrison opentheir arms to them; and the Bastille is taken by assault—by main force, without a capitulation.
“The reason for this was that, for more than a hundred years, the royal fortress had not merely imprisoned inert matter within its walls—it had imprisoned thought also. Thought had thrown down the walls of the Bastille, and the people entered by the breach.”
The life-history of the Bastille was more extended than was commonly recalled. Still the great incident in its life covered but fifteen short days,—from the 30th June to the 14th July, 1789,—when it fell before the attack of the Revolutionists. There is rather vague markings in the pavement on the Boulevard Henri Quatre and the Rue St. Antoine, which suggest the former limits of this gruesome building.
It were not possible to catalogue all the scenes of action celebrated or perpetuated by Alexandre Dumas.
In his “Crimes Célèbres” he—with great definiteness—pictures dark scenes which are known to all readers of history; from that terrible affair of the Cenci, which took place on the terrace of the Château de Rocca Petrella, in 1598, to the assassination of Kotzebue by Karl Ludwig Sand in 1819.
Not all of these crimes deal with Paris, nor with France.
The most notable was the poisoning affair of the Marquise de Brinvilliers (1676), who was forced to make the “amende honorable” after the usual manner, on the Parvis du Nôtre Dame, that little tree-covered place just before the west façade of the cathedral.
The Chevalier Gaudin de Ste. Croix, captain of the Regiment de Tracy, had been arrested in the name of the king, by process of the “lettre de cachet” and forthwith incarcerated in the Bastille, which is once more made use of by Dumas, though in this case, as in many others, it is historic fact as well. The story, which is more or less one of conjugal and filial immorality, as well as political intrigue, shifts its scene once and again to the Cul-de-sac des Marchands des Chevaux, in the Place Maubert, to the Forêt de l’Aigue—within four leagues of Compiègne, the Place du Châtelet, the Conciergerie, and the Bastille.
Here, too, Dumas’ account of the “question by water,” or, rather, the notes on the subject, which accompanied the first (1839) edition of “Les Crimes Célèbres,” form interesting, if rather horrible, reading.
Not alone in the Bastille was this horrible torture practised, but in most of the prisons of the time.
“Pour la ‘question ordinaire,’ quatre coquemars pleins d’eau, et contenant chacun deux pintes et demi, et pour ‘la question extraordinaire’ huit de même grandeur.”
This was poured into the victim through a funnel, which entered the mouth, and sooner or later drowned or stifled him or her, or induced confession.
The final act and end of the unnatural Marquise de Brinvilliers took place at the Place de la Grève, which before and since was the truly celebrated place of many noted crimes, though in this case it was justice that was meted out.
As a sort of sequel to “The Conspirators,” Dumas adds “A Postscriptum,” wherein is recounted the arrest of Richelieu, as foreordained by Mlle. de Valois. He was incarcerated in the Bastille; but his captivity was but a new triumph for the crafty churchman.
“It was reported that the handsome prisoner had obtained permission to walk on the terrace of the Bastille. The Rue St. Antoine was filled with most elegant carriages, and became, in twenty-four hours, the fashionable promenade. The regent—who declared that he had proofs of the treason of M. deRichelieu, sufficient to lose him four heads if he had them—would not, however, risk his popularity with the fair sex by keeping him long in prison. Richelieu, again at liberty, after a captivity of three months, was more brilliant and more sought after than ever; but the closet had been walled up, and Mlle. de Valois became Duchesse de Modena.”
Not only in the “Vicomte de Bragelonne” and “The Taking of the Bastille” does Dumas make mention of “The Man in the Iron Mask,” but, to still greater length, in the supplementary volume, called in the English translations “The Man in the Iron Mask,” though why it is difficult to see, since it is but the second volume of “The Vicomte de Bragelonne.”
This historical mystery has provided penmen of all calibres with an everlasting motive for argumentative conjecture, but Dumas without hesitancy comes out strongly for “a prince of the royal blood,” probably the brother of Louis XIV.
It has been said that Voltaire invented “the Man in the Iron Mask.”
There was nothing singular—for the France of that day—in the man himself, his offence, or his punishment; but the mask and the mystery—chiefly of Voltaire’s creation—fascinated the public, as the veil of Mokanna fascinated his worshippers.Here are some of the Voltairean myths about this mysterious prisoner: One day he wrote something with his knife on a silver plate and threw it down to a fisherman, who took it to the governor of the prison. “Have you read it?” asked the governor, sternly. “I cannot read,” replied the fisherman. “That has saved your life,” rejoined the governor. Another day a young lad found beneath the prison tower a shirt written closely all over. He took it to the governor, who asked, anxiously. “Have you read it?” The boy again and again assured him that he had not. Nevertheless, two days later the boy was found dead in his bed. When the Iron Mask went to mass he was forbidden to speak or unmask himself on pain of being then and there shot down by the invalids, who stood by with loaded carbines to carry out the threat. Here are some of the personages the Iron Mask was supposed to be: An illegitimate son of Anne of Austria; a twin brother of Louis XIV., put out of the way by Cardinal Richelieu to avoid the risk of a disputed succession; the Count of Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis XIV.; Fouquet, Louis’ minister; the Duke of Beaufort, a hero of the Fronde; the Duke of Monmouth, the English pretender; Avedick, the Armenian patriarch; and of late it hasalmost come to be accepted that he was Mattioli, a Piedmontese political prisoner, who died in 1703.
Dumas, at any rate, took the plausible and acceptable popular solution; and it certainly furnished him with a highly fascinating theme for a romance, which, however, never apparently achieved any great popularity.
“The clock was striking seven as Aramis passed before the Rue du Petit Muse and stopped at the Rue Tourelles, at the gateway of the Bastille....
“Of the governor of the prison Aramis—now Bishop of Vannes—asked, ‘How many prisoners have you? Sixty?’...
“‘For a prince of the blood I have fifty francs a day, ... thirty-six for a marechal de France, lieutenant-generals and brigadiers pay twenty-six francs, and councillors of parliament fifteen, but for an ordinary judge, or an ecclesiastic, I receive only ten francs.’”
Here Dumas’ knowledge and love of good eating again crops out. Continuing the dialogue between the bishop and the governor, he says:
“‘A tolerably sized fowl costs a franc and a half, and a good-sized fish four or five francs. Three meals a day are served, and, as the prisoners have nothing to do, they are always eating. Aprisoner from whom I get ten francs costs me seven francs and a half.’
“‘Have you no prisoners, then, at less than ten francs?’ queried Aramis.
“‘Oh, yes,’ said the governor, ‘citizens and lawyers.’
“‘But do they not eat, too?... Do not the prisoners leave some scraps?’ continued Aramis.
“‘Yes, and I delight the heart of some poor little tradesman or clerk by sending him a wing of a red partridge, a slice of venison, or a slice of a truffled pasty, dishes which he never tasted except in his dreams (these are the leavings of the twenty-four-franc prisoners); and he eats and drinks, and at dessert cries, “Long live the king!” and blesses the Bastille. With a couple of bottles of champagne, which cost me five sous, I make him tipsy every Sunday. That class of people call down blessings upon me, and are sorry to leave the prison. Do you know that I have remarked, and it does me infinite honour, that certain prisoners, who have been set at liberty, have almost immediately afterward got imprisoned again? Why should this be the case, unless it be to enjoy the pleasures of my kitchen? It is really the fact.’ Aramis smiled with an expression of incredulity.”
A visit to the prisoners themselves follows, butthe reader of these lines is referred to “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” for further details.
The following few lines must suffice here:
“The number of bolts, gratings, and locks for the courtyard would have sufficed for the safety of an entire city. Aramis was neither an imaginative nor a sensitive man; he had been somewhat of a poet in his youth, but his heart was hard and indifferent, as the heart of every man of fifty-five years of age is, who has been frequently and passionately attached to women in his lifetime, or rather who has been passionately loved by them. But when he placed his foot upon the worn stone steps, along which so many unhappy wretches had passed, when he felt himself impregnated, as it were, with the atmosphere of those gloomy dungeons, moistened with tears, there could be but little doubt he was overcome by his feelings, for his head was bowed and his eyes became dim, as he followed Baisemeaux, the governor, without uttering a syllable.”
Dumas gives a further description, of similar import, in “The Regent’s Daughter:”
“And now, with the reader’s permission, we will enter the Bastille—that formidable building at which even the passing traveller trembled, and which, to the whole neighbourhood, was an annoyance and cause of alarm; for often at night thecries of the unfortunate prisoners who were under torture might be heard piercing the thick walls, so much so, that the Duchesse de Lesdequieres once wrote to the governor, that, if he did not prevent his patients from making such a noise, she should complain to the king.
“At this time, however, under the reign of Philippe d’Orleans, there were no cries to be heard; the society was select, and too well bred to disturb the repose of a lady.
“In a room in the Du Coin tower, on the first floor, was a prisoner alone.... He had, however, been but one day in the Bastille, and yet already he paced his vast chamber, examining the iron-barred doors, looking through the grated windows, listening, sighing, waiting....
“A noise of bolts and creaking hinges drew the prisoner from this sad occupation, and he saw the man enter before whom he had been taken the day before. This man, about thirty years of age, with an agreeable appearance and polite bearing, was the governor, M. De Launay, father of that De Launay who died at his post in ’89....
“‘M. de Chanlay,’ said the governor, bowing, ‘I come to know if you have passed a good night, and are satisfied with the fare of the house and theconduct of the employés’—thus M. De Launay, in his politeness, called the turnkeys and jailors.
“‘Yes, monsieur; and these attentions paid to a prisoner have surprised me, I own.’
“‘The bed is hard and old, but yet it is one of the best; luxury being forbidden by our rules. Your room, monsieur, is the best in the Bastille; it has been occupied by the Duc d’Angoulême, by the Marquis de Bassompierre, and by the Marshals de Luxembourg and Biron; it is here that I lodge the princes when his Majesty does me the honour to send them to me.’
“‘It is an excellent lodging,’ said Gaston, smiling, ‘though ill furnished; can I have some books, some paper, and pens?’
“‘Books, monsieur, are strictly forbidden; but if you very much wish to read, as many things are allowed to a prisoner who isennuyé, come and see me, then you can put in your pocket one of those volumes which my wife or I leave about; you will hide it from all eyes; on a second visit you will take the second volume, and to this abstraction we will close our eyes.’
“‘And paper, pens, ink?’ said Gaston. ‘I wish most particularly to write.’
“‘No one writes here, monsieur; or, at least, only to the king, the regent, the minister, or to me;but they draw, and I can let you have drawing-paper and pencils.’”
All of the above is the authenticated fact of history, as written records prove, but it is much better told by Dumas, the novelist, than by most historians.
Still other evidence of the good things set before the guests at the “Hôtel de la Bastille” is shown by the following. If Dumas drew the facts from historical records, all well and good; if they were menus composed by himself,—though unconventional ones, as allbon vivantswill know,—why, still all is well.
“‘A fifteen-franc boarder does not suffer, my lord,’ said De Baisemeaux.—‘He suffers imprisonment, at all events.’—‘No doubt, but his suffering is sweetened for him. You must admit this young fellow was not born to eat such things as he now has before him. A pasty; crayfish from the river Marne—almost as big as lobsters; and a bottle of Volnay.’”
The potency of the Bastille as a preventative, or, rather, a fit punishment for crime, has been nowhere more effectually set forth than by the letter which Cagliostro wrote from London (in the “Queen’s Necklace”).
In this letter, after attacking king, queen,cardinal, and even M. de Breteuil, Cagliostro said: “Yes, I repeat, now free after my imprisonment, there is no crime that would not be expiated by six months in the Bastille. They ask me if I shall ever return to France. Yes, I reply, when the Bastille becomes a public promenade. You have all that is necessary to happiness, you Frenchmen; a fertile soil and genial climate, good hearts, gay tempers, genius, and grace. You only want, my friends, one little thing—to feel sure of sleeping quietly in your beds when you are innocent.”
To-day “The Bastille,” as it is commonly known and referred to, meaning the Place de la Bastille, has become a public promenade, and its bygone terrors are but a memory.
Sincethe romances of Dumas deal so largely with Paris, it is but natural that much of their action should take place at the near-by country residences of the royalty and nobility who form the casts of these great series of historical tales.
To-day Fontainebleau, St. Germain, Versailles, and even Chantilly, Compiègne, and Rambouillet are but mere attractions for the tourist of the butterfly order. The real Parisian never visits them or their precincts, save as he rushes through their tree-lined avenues in an automobile; and thus they have all come to be regarded merely as monuments of splendid scenes, which have been played, and on which the curtain has been rung down.
This is by no means the real case, and one has only to read Dumas, and do the round of the parks and châteaux which environ Paris, to revivify many of the scenes of which he writes.
Versailles is the most popular, Fontainebleau the most grand, St. Germain the most theatrical, Rambouillet the most rural-like, and Compiègne and Chantilly the most delicate and dainty.
Still nearer to Paris, and more under the influence of town life, were the châteaux of Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, and of Vincennes, at the other extremity of the city.
All these are quite in a class by themselves; though, of course, in a way, they performed the same functions when royalty was in residence, as the urban palaces.
Dumas’ final appreciation of the charms of Fontainebleau does not come till one reaches the last pages of “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.” True, it was not until the period of which this romance deals with Fontainebleau, its château, itsforêt, and its fêtes, actually came to that prominence which to this day has never left them.
When the king required to give his fête at Fontainebleau, as we learn from Dumas, and history, too, he required of Fouquet four millions of francs, “in order to keep an open house for fifteen days,” said he. How he got them, and with what result, is best read in the pages of the romance.
“Life at the Palais Royal having become somewhat tame, the king had directed that Fontainebleaushould be prepared for the reception of the court.” Here, then, took place the fêtes which were predicted, and Dumas, with his usual directness and brilliance, has given us a marvellous description of the gaiety of court life, surrounded by the noble forest, over which artists and sentimentalists have ever rhapsodized.
Continuing, from the pages of Dumas which immediately follow, one reads:
“For four days, every kind of enchantment brought together in the magnificent gardens of Fontainebleau, had converted this spot into a place of the most perfect enjoyment. M. Colbert seemed gifted with ubiquity. In the morning, there were the accounts of the previous night’s expenses to settle; during the day, programmes, essays, enlistments, payments. M. Colbert had amassed four millions of francs, and dispersed them with a prudent economy. He was horrified at the expenses which mythology involved; every wood-nymph, every dryad, did not cost less than a hundred francs a day. The dresses alone amounted to three hundred francs. The expense of powder and sulphur for fireworks amounted, every night, to a hundred thousand francs. In addition to these, the illuminations on the borders of the sheet of water cost thirty thousand francs every evening. The fêteshad been magnificent; and Colbert could not restrain his delight. From time to time he noticed Madame and the king setting forth on hunting expeditions, or preparing for the reception of different fantastic personages, solemn ceremonials, which had been extemporized a fortnight before, and in which Madame’s sparkling wit and the king’s magnificence were equally displayed.”
The “Inn of the Beautiful Peacock,” celebrated by Dumas in “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” is not directly traceable to-day in the many neighbouring hostelries of Fontainebleau. Just what Dumas had in mind is vague, though his description might apply to any house for travellers, wherever it may have been situated in this beautiful wildwood.
It was to this inn of the “Beau Paon” that Aramis repaired, after he had left Fouquet and had donned the costume of the cavalier once more. “Where,” said Dumas, “he (Aramis) had, by letters previously sent, directed an apartment or a room to be retained for him. He chose the room, which was on the first floor, whereas the apartment was on the second.”
The description of the establishment given by Dumas is as follows:
“In the first place, let us supply our readers with a few details about the inn called the BeauPaon. It owed its name to its sign, which represented a peacock spreading out its tail. But, in imitation of some painters who had bestowed the face of a handsome young man upon the serpent which tempted Eve, the painter of this sign had conferred upon the peacock the features of a woman. This inn, a living epigram against that half of the human race which renders existence delightful, was situated at Fontainebleau, in the first turning on the left-hand side, which divides on the road from Paris, that large artery which constitutes in itself along the entire town of Fontainebleau. The side street in question was then known as the Rue de Lyon, doubtless because geographically it advanced in the direction of the second capital of the kingdom.”
Lyons itself is treated by Dumas at some length in “Chicot the Jester,” particularly with reference to Chicot’s interception of the Pope’s messenger, who brought the documents which were to establish the Duc de Guise’s priority as to rights to the throne of France.
“The inn of the Beau Paon had its principal front toward the main street; but upon the Rue de Lyon there were two ranges of buildings, divided by courtyards, which comprised sets of apartments for the reception of all classes of travellers, whetheron foot or on horseback, or even with their own carriages, and in which could be supplied, not only board and lodging, but also accommodation for exercise or opportunities of solitude for even the wealthiest courtiers, whenever, after having received some check at the court, they wished to shut themselves up with their own society, either to devour an affront or to brood over their revenge. From the windows of this part of the building the travellers could perceive, in the first place, the street with the grass growing between the stones, which were being gradually loosened by it; next, the beautiful hedges of elder and thorn, which embraced, as though within two green and flowering arms, the houses of which we have spoken; and then, in the spaces between those houses, forming the groundwork of the picture, and appearing like an almost impassable barrier, a line of thick trees, the advanced sentinels of the vast forest, which extends itself in front of Fontainebleau.”
On the road to Versailles, where the Seine is crossed by the not beautiful Pont de Sèvres, is the little inn of the Bridge of Sèvres, in which the story of “La Comtesse de Charny” opens, and, indeed, in which all its early action takes place. The inn, or even its direct descendant, is not discernible to-day. The Pont de Sèvres is there, linkingone of those thumblike peninsulas made by the windings of the Seine with the Bois de Meudon, and the traffic inward and outward from Paris is as great and varied as it always was, probably greater, but there is no inn to suggest that which Dumas had in mind. The rural aspect is somewhat changed, the towering stacks of the china-factory chimneys, the still more towering—though distant—Tour Eiffel, which fortunately is soon to be razed, and the iron rails of the “Ceinture” and the “Quest,” all tend to estrange one’s sentiments from true romance.