Dumas' Paris Part 11

By 1830, after he had left official work, Dumas had produced that drama of the Valois, "Henri III.," at the Theatre Francais, where more than a century before Voltaire had produced his first play, "Oedipe," and where the "Hernani" of Victor Hugo had just been produced.

It was a splendid and gorgeous event, and the adventures of the d.u.c.h.esse de Guise, St. Megrin, Henri III. and his satellites proved to the large and distinguished audience present no inconspicuous element in the success of the future king of romance. It was a veritable triumph, and for the time the author was more talked of and better known than was Hugo, who had already entered the arena, but whose a.s.sured fame scarcely dates from before "Hernani," whose first presentation--though it was afterward performed over three hundred times in the same theatre--was in February of the same year.

Voltaire had been dead scarce a half-century, but already the dust lay thick on his dramatic works, and the world of Paris was looking eagerly forward to the achievements of the new school. One cannot perhaps claim for Dumas that he was in direct lineage of Shakespeare,--as was claimed for Hugo, and with some merit,--but he was undoubtedly one of the first of the race of the popular French playwrights whose fame is perpetuated to-day by Sardou. At any rate, it was a cla.s.sic struggle which was inaugurated in France--by literature and the drama--in the early half of the nineteenth century, and one which was a frank rebellion against the rigid rules by which their arts had been restrained--especially dramatic art.

[Ill.u.s.tration: D'ARTAGNAN

From the Dumas Statue by Gustave Dore]

With all due credit, then, to Hugo, it was Dumas who led the romanticists through the breach that was slowly opening; though at the same time one may properly enough recall the names of Alfred de Musset, Theophile Gautier, and Gerard de Nerval.

Dumas' next play was in "cla.s.sical form"--"Christine."

Mere chance brought Dumas into an acquaintance with the history of Christine of Sweden, and, though the play was written and accepted before "Henri III. et Sa Cour," it was not until some time later that it was produced at the Odeon; the recollection of which also brings up the name of Mlle. Mars.

The statue in Paris in the Place Malesherbes, erected to the memory of Dumas, has been highly commended in conception and execution. It was the work of Gustave Dore, and, truth to tell, it has some wonderfully effective sculptures in bronze. A group of three symbolical figures _en face_, and a lifelike and life-sized representation of the courageous D'Artagnan _d'arriere_. These details are charming when reproduced on paper by process of photography or the hand of an artist. Indeed, they are of much the same quality when viewed as details, but in the ensemble, combined with a cold, inartistic base or pedestal, which is crowned by a seated effigy of Dumas--also life-size--clad in the unlovely raiment of the latter nineteenth century, there is much to be desired.

Statues, be they bronze or marble, are often artistically successful when their figures are covered with picturesque mediaeval garments, but they are invariably a failure, in an artistic sense, when clothed in latter-day garb. Doublet and hose, and sword and cloak lend themselves unmistakably to artistic expression. Trousers and top-hats do not. Just back of the Place Malesherbes is the Avenue de Villiers--a street of fine houses, many of them studio apartments, of Paris's most famous artists. Here at No. 94 lived Alexandre Dumas during the later years of his life; so it is fitting that his monument should be placed in this vicinity. The house was afterward occupied by Dumas _fils_, and more lately by his widow, but now it has pa.s.sed into other hands.

Of interest to Americans is the fact which has been recorded by some one who was _au courant_ with Parisian affairs of the day, "that the United States Minister to France, Mr. John Bigelow, breakfasted with Dumas at St.

Gratien, near Paris," when it came out that he (Dumas) had a notion to go out to America as a war correspondent for the French papers; the Civil War was not then over. Unhappily for all of us, he did not go, and so a truly great book was lost to the world.

In this same connection it has been said that Dumas' "quadroon autographs"

were sold in the United States, to provide additional funds for the widows and orphans of slain abolitionists. As it is apocryphally said that they sold for a matter of a hundred and twenty dollars each, the sum must have reached considerable proportions, if their number was great.

CHAPTER VI.

OLD PARIS

The Paris of Dumas was Meryon's--though it is well on toward a half-century since either of them saw it. Hence it is no longer theirs; but the master romancer and the master etcher had much in common.

They both drew with a fine, free hand, the one in words that burn themselves in the memory, and the other in lines which, once bitten on the copper plate, are come down to us in indelible fashion. The mention of Meryon and his art is no mere rambling of the pen. Like that of Dumas, his art depicted those bold, broad impressions which rebuilt "old Paris" in a manner which is only comparable to the background which Dumas gave to "Les Trois Mousquetaires."

The iconoclastic Haussman caused much to disappear, and it is hard to trace the footsteps of many a character of history and romance, whose incomings and outgoings are otherwise very familiar to us.

There are many distinct cities which go to make up Paris itself, each differing from the other, but Dumas and Meryon drew them each and all with unerring fidelity: Dumas the University Quarter and the faubourgs in "Les Trois Mousquetaires," and Meryon the Cite in "The Stryge."

The sheer beauty and charm of old-world Paris was never more strongly suggested than in the work of these two masters, who have given a permanence to the abodes of history and romance which would otherwise have been wanting. It is a pleasurable occupation to hunt up the dwellings of those personages who may, or may not, have lived in the real flesh and blood. The mere fact that they lived in the pages of a Dumas--or for that matter of a Balzac or a Hugo--is excuse enough for most of us to seek to follow in their footsteps.

In spite of the splendour of the present and the past, Paris is by no means too great to prevent one's tracing its old outlines, streets, and landmarks, even though they have disappeared to-day, and the site of the famous Hotel Chevreuse or the Carmelite establishment in the Rue Vaugirard--against whose wall D'Artagnan and his fellows put up that gallant fight against the cardinal's guard--are in the same geographical positions that they always were, if their immediate surroundings have changed, as they a.s.suredly have.

Indeed, the st.u.r.dy wall which kept the Carmelite friars from contact with the outer world has become a mere h.o.a.rding for gaudily coloured posters, and the magnificent Hotel Chevreuse on the Boulevard St. Germain has been incorporated into a modern apartment-house, and its garden cut through by the Boulevard Raspail.

The destruction of "Old Paris"--the gabled, half-timbered, mediaeval city--is not only an artistic regret, but a personal one to all who know intimately the city's history and romance. It was inevitable, of course, but it is deplorable.

Meryon, too, like Dumas, etched details with a certain regard for effect rather than a colder preciseness, which could hardly mean so much as an impression of a mood. They both sought the picturesque element, and naturally imparted to everything modern with which they came into contact the same charm of reality which characterized the tangible results of their labours.

Nothing was left to chance, though much may--we have reason to think--have been spontaneous. The witchery of a picturesque impression is ever great, but the frequency of its occurrence is growing less and less.

To-day we have few romancers, few painters or etchers of fleeting moods or impressions, and are fast becoming schooled in the tenets of Zola and Baudry, to the glorification of realism, but to the death and deep burial of the far more healthy romanticism of the masters of a few generations since.

To the Roman occupation of Paris succeeded that of the Franks, and Clovis, son of Childerie and grandson of Merovee, after his conversion to Christianity at Reims, established the seat of his empire at Paris.

Childebert, the descendant of Clovis,--who had taken unto himself the t.i.tle King of Paris,--in 524 laid the foundation of the first eglise de Notre Dame.

The kings of the second race lived in Paris but little, and under the feeble successors of Charlemagne the city became the particular domain of the hereditary counts. In the year 845 the Normans came up the river by boat and razed all of that part known even to-day as La Cite, hence the extreme improbability of there being existing remains of an earlier date than this, which are to-day recognizable. After successive disasters and invasions, it became necessary that new _quartiers_ and new streets should be formed and populated, and under the reign of Louis VII. the walls were extended to include, on the right bank, Le Bourg l'Abbe, Le Bourg Thibourg, Le Beau-Bourg, Le Bourg St. Martin,--regions which have since been occupied by the Rues St. Martin, Beaubourg, Bourtebourg, and Bourg l'Abbe,--and, on the right bank, St. Germain des Pres, St. Victor, and St.

Michel.

Since this time Paris has been divided into three distinct parts: La Ville, to the north of the Seine, La Cite, in the centre, and L'Universite, in the south.

The second _enceinte_ did not long suffice to enclose the habitations of the people, and in the year 1190 Philippe-Auguste constructed the third wall, which was strengthened by five hundred towers and surrounded by a deep _fosse_, perpetuated to-day as the Rempart des Fosses. At this time the first attempts were made at paving the city streets, princ.i.p.ally at the instigation of the wealthy Gerard de Poissy, whose name has since been given to an imposing street on the south bank.

Again, in 1356, the famous Etienne Marcel commenced the work of the fourth _enceinte_. On the south, the walls were not greatly extended, but on the north they underwent a considerable aggrandizement. Fortified gateways were erected at the extremity of the Rue de St. Antoine, and others were known variously as the Porte du Temple and Porte St. Denis. Other chief features of the time--landmarks one may call them--were the Porte St.

Honore, which was connected with the river-bank by a prolonged wall, the Tour du Bois, and a new fortification--as a guardian against internal warfare, it would seem--at the upper end of the Ile de la Cite.

Toward the end of the reign of Louis XI. the city had become repeopled, after many preceding years of flood, ravage, and famine, and contained, it is said, nearly three hundred thousand souls.

From this reign, too, dates the establishment of the first printing-shop in Paris, the letter-post, and the _poste-chaise_. Charles VII., the son of Louis XI., united with the Bibliotheque Royal those of the Kings of Naples.

Louis XII., who followed, did little to beautify the city, but his parental care for the inhabitants reduced the income of the tax-gatherer and endeared his name to all as the _Pere du Peuple_.

Francois I.--whose glorious name as the instigator of much that has since become national in French art--considerably enlarged the fortifications on the west, and executed the most momentous embellishments which had yet taken place in the city. In public edifices he employed, or caused his architects to employ, the Greek orders, and the paintings by Italian hands and the sculptures of Goujon were the highest expressions of the art of the Renaissance, which had grown so abundantly from the seed sown by Charles VIII. upon his return from his wanderings in Italy.

It may be questioned if the art of the Renaissance is really beautiful; it is, however, undeniably effective in its luxuriant, if often ill-a.s.sorted, details; so why revile it here? It was the prime cause, more than all others put together, of the real adornment of Paris; and, in truth, was far more successful in the application of its principles here than elsewhere.

During the reign of Francois I. were built, or rebuilt, the great eglises de St. Gervais, St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and St. Merry, as well as the Hotel de Ville. The Louvre was reconstructed on a new plan, and the Faubourg St. Germain was laid out anew.

Under Henri II. the work on the Louvre was completed, and the Hopital des Pet.i.tes Maisons constructed. It was Henri II., too, who first ordained that the effigies of the kings should be placed upon all coins.

The princ.i.p.al edifices built under Charles IX. were the Palais des Tuileries, Hotel de Soissons, the Jesuit College, and the Hopital du St.

Jacques du Haut Pas.

Henri III. erected the church of the Jesuits in the Rue St. Antoine, the eglise de St. Paul et St. Louis, the Monastere des Feuillants, the Hotel de Bourgogne, and the Theatre Italien.

Under Henri IV. was achieved the Pont Neuf, whose centre piers just impinge upon the lower end of the Ile de la Cite; the Quais de l'a.r.s.enal, de l'Horloge, des Orphelins, de l'Ecole, de la Megisserie, de Conti, and des Augustins; la Place Dauphine, and the Rue Dauphine. The Place Royale came to replace--in the _Quartier du Marais_--the old Palais des Tournelles, the pleasure of so many kings, Francois I. in particular.

Louis XIII., the feeble king who reigned without governing, saw many improvements, which, however, grew up in spite of the monarch rather than because of him.