Dumas' Paris Part 14

Paris--Auxerre 4 " " "

All of these services catered for pa.s.sengers and goods, and were, if not rapid, certainly a popular and comfortable means of communication.

An even more popular journey, and one which partook more particularly of a pleasure-trip, was that of the _galiote_, which left each day from below the Pont-Royal for St. Cloud, giving a day's outing by river which to-day, even, is the most fascinating of the many _pet.i.ts voyages_ to be undertaken around Paris.

The other recognized public means of communication between the metropolis and the provincial towns and cities were the "Messageries Royales," and two other similar companies, "La Compagne Lafitte et Caillard" and "Les Francaises."

These companies put also before the Parisian public two other cla.s.ses of vehicular accommodation, the "_pataches suspendues_," small carriages with but one horse, which ran between Paris and Strasburg, Metz, Nancy, and Lyons at the price of ten sous per hour.

Again there was another means of travel which originated in Paris; it was known as the "Messageries a Cheval." Travellers rode _on_ horses, which were furnished by the company, their _bagages_ being transported in advance by a "_chariot_." In fine weather this must certainly have been an agreeable and romantic mode of travel in those days; what would be thought of it to-day, when one, if he does not fly over the kilometres in a Sud--or Orient--Express, is as likely as not covering the _Route Nationale_ at sixty or more kilometres the hour in an automobile, it is doubtful to say.

Finally came the famous _diligence_, which to-day, outside the "Rollo"

books and the reprints of old-time travel literature, is seldom met with in print.

"These immense structures," says an observant French writer, "which lost sometimes their centre of gravity, in spite of all precaution and care on the part of the driver and the guard, were, by an _Ordonnance Royale_ of the 16th of July, 1828, limited as to their dimensions, weight, and design."

Each _diligence_ carried as many spare parts as does a modern automobile, and workshops and supply-depots were situated at equal distances along the routes. Hugo said that the complexity of it all represented to him "the perfect image of a nation; its const.i.tution and its government. In the _diligence_ was to be found, as in the state, the aristocracy in the coupe, the _bourgeoisie_ in the interior, the people in _la rotonde_, and, finally, 'the artists, the thinkers, and the uncla.s.sed' in the utmost height, the _imperiale_, beside the _conducteur_, who represented the law of the state.

"This great _diligence_, with its body painted in staring yellow, and its five horses, carries one in a diminutive s.p.a.ce through all the sleeping villages and hamlets of the countryside."

From Paris, in 1830, the journey by _diligence_ to Toulouse--182 French leagues--took eight days; to Rouen, thirteen hours; to Lyons, _par_ Auxerre, four days, and to Calais, two and a half days.

The _diligence_ was certainly an energetic mode of travel, but not without its discomforts, particularly in bad weather. Prosper Merimee gave up his winter journey overland to Madrid in 1859, and took ship at Bordeaux for Alicante in Spain, because, as he says, "all the inside places had been taken for a month ahead."

The coming of the _chemin de fer_ can hardly be dealt with here. Its advent is comparatively modern history, and is familiar to all.

Paris, as might naturally be supposed, was the hub from which radiated the great spokes of iron which bound the uttermost frontiers intimately with the capital.

There were three short lines of rail laid down in the provinces before Paris itself took up with the innovation: at Roanne, St.

Etienne-Andrezieux, Epinac, and Alais.

By _la loi du 9 Juillet_, 1835, a line was built from Paris to St.

Germain, seventeen kilometres, and its official opening for traffic, which took place two years later, was celebrated by a _dejeuner de circonstance_ at the Restaurant du Pavillon Henri Quatre at St. Germain.

Then came "Le Nord" to Lille, Boulogne, and Calais; "L'Ouest" to Havre, Rouen, Cherbourg, and Brest; "L'Est" to Toul and Nancy; "L'Orleans" to Orleans and the Loire Valley; and, finally, the "P. L. M." (Paris-Lyon et Mediterranee) to the south of France. "Then it was that Paris really became the rich neighbour of all the provincial towns and cities. Before, she had been a sort of pompous and distant relative"--as a whimsical Frenchman has put it.

The mutability of time and the advent of mechanical traction is fast changing all things--in France and elsewhere. The Chevaux Blancs, Deux Pigeons, Cloches d'Or, and the Hotels de la Poste, de la Croix, and du Grand Cerf are fast disappearing from the large towns, and the way of iron is, or will be, a source of inspiration to the poets of the future, as has the _postillon_, the _diligence_, and the _chaise de poste_ in the past.

Here is a quatrain written by a despairing _aubergiste_ of the little town of Salons, which indicates how the innovation was received by the provincials--in spite of its undeniable serviceability:

"En l'an neuf cent, machine lourde A tretous farfit d.a.m.ne et mal, Gens moult rioient d'icelle bourde, Au campas renovoient cheval."

The railways which centre upon Paris are indeed the ties that bind Paris to the rest of France, and vice versa. Their termini--the great _gares_--are at all times the very concentrated epitome of the life of the day.

The new _gares_ of the P. L. M. and the Orleans railways are truly splendid and palatial establishments, with--at first glance--little of the odour of the railway about them, and much of the ceremonial appointments of a great civic inst.i.tution; with gorgeous _salles a manger_, waiting-rooms, and--bearing the P. L. M. in mind in particular--not a little of the aspect of an art-gallery.

The other _embarcaderes_ are less up-to-date--that vague term which we twentieth-century folk are wont to make use of in describing the latest innovations. The Gare St. Lazare is an enormous establishment, with a hotel appendage, which of itself is of great size; the Gare du Nord is equally imposing, but architecturally unbeautiful; while the Gare de l'Est still holds in its tympanum the melancholy symbolical figure of the late lamented Ville de Strasbourg, the companion in tears, one may say, of that other funereally decorated statue on the Place de la Concorde.

Paris, too, is well served by her tramways propelled by horses,--which have not yet wholly disappeared,--and by steam and electricity, applied in a most ingenious manner. By this means Paris has indeed been transformed from its interior thoroughfares to its uttermost _banlieu_.

The last two words on the subject have reference to the advent and development of the bicycle and the automobile, as swift, safe, and economical means of transport.

The reign of the bicycle as a pure fad was comparatively short, whatever may have been its charm of infatuation. As a utile thing it is perhaps more worthy of consideration, for it cannot be denied that its development--and of its later gigantic offspring, the automobile--has had a great deal to do with the better construction and up-keep of modern roadways, whether urban or suburban.

"_La pet.i.te reine bicyclette_" has been feted in light verse many times, but no one seems to have hit off its salient features as did Charles Monselet. Others have referred to riders of the "new means of locomotion"

as "cads on casters," and a writer in _Le Gaulois_ stigmatized them as "_imbeciles a roulettes_," which is much the same; while no less a personage than Francisque Sarcey demanded, in the journal _La France_, that the police should suppress forthwith this _eccentricite_.

Charles Monselet's eight short lines are more appreciative:

"Instrument raide En fer battu Qui depossede Le char torlu; Velocipede Rail impromptu, Fils d'Archimede, D'ou nous viens-tu?"

Though it is apart from the era of Dumas, this discursion into a phase of present-day Paris is, perhaps, allowable in drawing a comparison between the city of to-day and that even of the Second Empire, which was, at its height, contemporary with Dumas' prime.

If Paris was blooming suddenly forth into beauty and grace in the period which extended from the Revolution to the Franco-Prussian War, she has certainly, since that time, not ceased to shed her radiance; indeed, she flowers more abundantly than ever, though, truth to tell, it is all due to the patronage which the state has ever given, in France, to the fostering of the arts as well as industries.

And so Paris has grown,--beautiful and great,--and the stranger within her gates, whether he come by road or rail, by automobile or railway-coach, is sure to be duly impressed with the fact that Paris is for one and all alike a city founded of and for the people.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BANKS OF THE SEINE

The city of the ancient Parisii is the one particular spot throughout the length of the sea-green Seine--that "winding river" whose name, says Thierry, in his "Histoire des Gaulois," is derived from a Celtic word having this signification--where is resuscitated the historical being of the entire French nation.

Here it circles around the Ile St. Louis, cutting it apart from the Ile de la Cite, and rushing up against the northern bank, periodically throws up a ma.s.s of gravelly sand, just in the precise spot where, in mediaeval times, was an open market-place.

Here the inhabitants of the city met the country dealers, who landed produce from their boats, traded, purchased, and sold, and departed whence they came, into the regions of the upper Seine or the Marne, or downward to the lower river cities of Meulan, Mantes, and Vernon.

At this time Paris began rapidly to grow on each side of the stream, and became the great market or trading-place where the swains who lived up-river mingled with the hewers of wood from the forests of La Brie and the reapers of corn from the sunny plains of La Beauce.

These country folk, it would appear, preferred the northern part of Paris to the southern--it was less ceremonious, less ecclesiastical. If they approached the city from rearward of the Universite, by the Orleans highroad, they paid exorbitant toll to the Abbot of St. Germain des Pres.

Here they paid considerably less to the Prevot of Paris. And thus from very early times the distinction was made, and grew with advancing years, between the town, or La Ville, which distinguished it from the Cite and the Universite.

This sandy river-bank gradually evolved itself into the Quai and Place de la Greve,--its etymology will not be difficult to trace,--and endured in the full liberty of its olden functions as late as the day of Louis XV.

Here might have been seen great stacks of firewood, charcoal, corn, wine, hay, and straw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ODeON IN 1818]

Aside from its artistic and economic value, the Seine plays no great part in the story of Paris. It does not divide what is glorious from what is sordid, as does "London's river." When one crosses any one of its numerous bridges, one does not exchange thriftiness and sublimity for the commonplace. Les Invalides, L'Inst.i.tut, the Luxembourg, the Pantheon, the Odeon, the Universite,--whose buildings cl.u.s.ter around the ancient Sorbonne,--the Hotel de Cluny, and the churches of St. Sulpice, St.

Etienne du Mont, and St. Severin, and, last but not least, the Chamber of Deputies, all are on the south side of Paris, and do not shrink greatly in artistic or historical importance from Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Tour St. Jacques, the Place de la Bastille, the Palais Royal, or the Theatre-Francais.

The greatest function of the Seine, when one tries to focus the memory on its past, is to recall to us that old Paris was a trinity. Born of the river itself rose the Cite, the home of the Church and state, scarce finding room for her palaces and churches, while close to her side, on the south bank, the Universite spread herself out, and on the right bank the Ville hummed with trade and became the home of the great munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions.

Dumas shifts the scenes of his Parisian romances first from one side to the other, but always his mediaeval Paris is the same grand, luxurious, and lively stage setting. Certainly no historian could hope to have done better.