Dumas' Paris Part 16

"The soldiers who were on guard in the interior of the garden hastened to resist this invasion. But at the third stroke the gate gave way, turning violently on its hinges, and through that gaping and gloomy mouth the crowd rushed impetuously.

"From the movement that was then made, the Prince de Lambesq perceived at once that an opening had been effected which allowed the escape of those whom he had considered his prisoners. He was furious with disappointment."

CHAPTER IX.

THE SECOND EMPIRE AND AFTER

The Revolution of 1848 narrowed itself down to the issue of Bourbonism or Bonapartism. n.o.body had a good word to say for the const.i.tution, and all parties took liberties with it. It was inaugurated as the most democratic of all possible charters. It gave a vote to everybody, women and children excepted. It affirmed liberty with so wide a lat.i.tude of interpretation as to leave nothing to be desired by the reddest Republican that ever wore pistols in his belt at the heels of the redoubtable M. Marc Caussidiere, or expressed faith in the social Utopia of the enthusiastic M. Proudhon.

Freedom to speak, to write, to a.s.semble, and to vote,--all were secured to all Frenchmen by this marvellous charter. When it became the law of the land, everybody began to nibble at and destroy it. The right of speaking was speedily reduced to the narrowest limits, and the liberty of the press was pared down to the merest shred. The right of meeting was placed at the tender mercies of the prefect of police, and the right of voting was attacked with even more zeal and fervour. The Revolution proved more voracious than Saturn himself, in devouring its children, and it made short work of men and reputations. It reduced MM. de Lamartine, Armand Marrast, and General Cavaignac into nothingness; sent MM. Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, and Caussidiere into the dreary exile of London, and consigned the fiery Barbes, the vindictive Blanqui, the impatient Raspail, and a host of other regenerators of the human race, to the fastnesses of Vincennes. Having done this, the Revolution left scarcely a vestige of the const.i.tution,--nothing but a few crumbs, and those were not crumbs of comfort, which remained merely to prove to the incredulous that such a thing as the const.i.tution once existed.

The former king and queen took hidden refuge in a small cottage at Honfleur, whence they were to depart a few days later for England--ever a refuge for exiled monarchists. Escape became very urgent, and the king, with an English pa.s.sport in the name of William Smith, and the queen as Madame Lebrun, crossed over to Le Havre and ultimately to England.

Lamartine evidently mistakes even the time and place of this incident, but newspaper accounts of the time, both French and English, are very full as to the details. On landing at the quai at Le Havre, the ex-royal party was conducted to the "Express" steam-packet, which had been placed at their disposal for the cross-channel journey. Dumas takes the very incident as a detail for his story of "Pauline," and his treatment thereof does not differ greatly from the facts as above set forth. Two years later (August 26, 1850), at Claremont, in Surrey, in the presence of the queen and several members of his family, Louis-Philippe died. He was the last of the Bourbons, with whom Dumas proudly claimed acquaintanceship, and as such, only a short time before, was one of the mightiest of the world's monarchs, standing on one of the loftiest pinnacles of an ambition which, in the mind of a stronger or more wilful personality, might have accomplished with success much that with him resulted in defeat.

After the maelstrom of discontent--the Revolution of 1848--had settled down, there came a series of events well-nigh as disturbing. Events in Paris were rapidly ripening for a change. The known determination of Louis Napoleon to prolong his power, either as president for another term of four years, or for life, or as consul or emperor of the French, and the support which his pretensions received from large ma.s.ses of the people and from the rank and file of the army, had brought him into collision with a rival--General Changarnier--almost as powerful as himself, and with an ambition quite as daring as his own.

What Louis Napoleon wanted was evident. There was no secret about his designs. The partisans of Henri V. looked to Changarnier for the restoration of peace and legitimacy, and the Orleanists considered that he was the most likely man in France to bring back the house of Orleans, and the comfortable days of bribery, corruption, and a thriving trade; while the fat _bourgeoisie_ venerated him as the unflinching foe of the disturbers of order, and the great bulwark against Communism and the Red Republic.

Still, this was manifestly not to be, though no one seemed to care a straw about Louis Napoleon's republic, or whether or no he dared to declare himself king or emperor, or whether they should be ruled by Bonapartist, Bourbon, or Orleanist.

These were truly perilous times for France; and, though they did not culminate in disaster until twenty years after, Louis Napoleon availed himself of every opportunity to efface from the Second Republic, of which he was at this time the head, every vestige of the democratic features which it ought to have borne.

At the same time he surrounded himself with imposing state and pomp, so regal in character that it was evidently intended to accustom the public to see in him the object of that homage which is usually reserved for crowned heads alone, and thus gradually and imperceptibly to prepare the nation to witness, without surprise, his a.s.suming, when the favourable occasion offered, the purple and diadem of the empire.

For instance, he took up his residence in the ancient palace of the sovereigns of France, the Tuileries, and gave banquets and b.a.l.l.s of regal magnificence; he ordered his effigy to be struck upon the coinage of the nation, surrounded by the words "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte," without any t.i.tle, whether as president or otherwise, being affixed. He restored the imperial eagles to the standards of the army; the official organ, the _Moniteur_, recommended the restoration of the t.i.tles and orders of hereditary n.o.bility; the trees of liberty were uprooted everywhere; the Republican motto, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," was erased from the public edifices; the colossal statue of Liberty, surmounted by a Phrygian cap, which stood in the centre of the Place de Bourgogne, behind the Legislative a.s.sembly, was demolished; and the old anti-Republican names of the streets were restored, so that the Palais National again became the Palais Royal; the Theatre de la Nation, the Theatre Francais; the Rue de la Concorde, the Rue Royal, etc.; and, in short, to all appearances, Louis Napoleon began early in his tenure of office to a.s.siduously pave the way to the throne of the empire as Napoleon III.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALAIS ROYAL, STREET FRONT]

The _London Times_ correspondent of that day related a characteristic exercise of this sweeping instruction of the Minister of the Interior to erase the words "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" from all public buildings.

(The three revolutionary watchwords had, in fact, been erased the previous year from the princ.i.p.al entrance to the Elysee, and the words "Republique Francaise," in large letters, were subst.i.tuted.)

"There is, I believe, only one public monument in Paris--the Ecole de Droit--where the workmen employed in effacing that inscription will have a double duty. They will have to interfere with the 'Liberalism' of two generations. Immediately under the coat of yellow paint which covered the facade of the building, and on which time and the inclemency of the seasons have done their work, may still be traced, above the modern device, the following words, inscribed by order of the Commune of Paris during the Reign of Terror: 'Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, Unite, Indivisibilite de la Republique Francaise!' As the effacing of the inscription of 1848 is not now by means of whitewash or paint, but by erasure, both the inscriptions will disappear at the same moment."

Among the most important demolitions and renovations of the sixties was the work undertaken on the Louvre at the orders of the ambitious emperor, Napoleon III. The structure was cloven to the foundations, through the slated roof, the gilded and painted ceiling, the parqueted floors; and, where one formerly enjoyed an artistic feast that had taken four centuries to provide, one gazed upon, from the pavement to the roof, a tarpaulin that closed a vista which might otherwise have been a quarter of a mile in length.

Builders toiled day and night to connect the Louvre with the main body of the Palace of the Tuileries, which itself was to disappear within so short a time. Meanwhile so great a displacement of the art treasures was undergone, that _habitues_ knew not which way to turn for favourite pictures, with which the last fifty years had made them so familiar.

To those of our elders who knew the Paris of the early fifties, the present-day aspect--in spite of all its glorious wealth of boulevards and architectural splendour--will suggest the mutability of all things.

It serves our purpose, however, to realize that much of the character has gone from the Quartier Latin; that the Tuileries disappeared with the Commune, and that the old distinctions between Old Paris, the faubourgs, and the Communal Annexes, have become practically non-existent with the opening up of the Haussman boulevards, at the instigation of the wary Napoleon III. Paris is still, however, an "_ancienne ville et une ville neuve_," and the paradox is inexplicable.

The differences between the past and the present are indeed great, but nowhere--not even in the Tower of London, which is usually given as an example of the contrast and progress of the ages--is a more tangible and specific opposition shown, than in what remains to-day of mediaeval Paris, in juxtaposition with the later architectural embellishments. In many instances is seen the newest of the "_art nouveau_"--as it is popularly known--cheek by jowl with some mediaeval shrine.

It is difficult at this time to say what effect these swirls and blobs, which are daily thrusting themselves into every form of architectural display throughout Continental Europe, would have had on these masters who built the Gothic splendours of France, or even the hybrid _rococo_ style, which, be it not denied, is in many instances beautiful in spite of its idiosyncrasies.

To those who are familiar with the "sights" of Paris, there is nothing left but to study the aspects of the life of the streets, the boulevards, the quais, the gardens, the restaurants, and the cafes. Here at least is to be found daily, and hourly, new sensations and old ones, but at all events it is an ever-shifting scene, such as no other city in the world knows.

The life of the _faubourgs_ and of the _quartiers_ has ever been made the special province of artists and authors, and to wander through them, to sit beneath the trees of the squares and gardens, or even outside a cafe, is to contemplate, in no small degree, much of the incident and temperament of life which others have already perpetuated and made famous.

There is little new or original effort which can be made, though once and again a new performer comes upon the stage,--a poet who sings songs of vagabondage, a painter who catches a fleeting impression, which at least, if not new, seems new. But in the main one has to hark back to former generations, if one would feel the real spirit of romance and tradition.

There are few who, like Monet, can stop before a shrine and see in it forty-three varying moods--or some other incredible number, as did that artist when he limned his impressions of the facade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Rouen.

Such landmarks as the Place de la Bastille, the Pantheon,--anciently the site of the Abbey de Ste. Genevieve,--the Chambre des Deputes,--the former Palais Bourbon,--the Tour St. Jacques, the Fountain des Innocents, St.

Germain l'Auxerrois, the Palais du Luxembourg, the Louvre, and quite all the historic and notable buildings one sees, are all pictured with fidelity, and more or less minuteness, in the pages of Dumas' romances.

Again, in such other localities as the Boulevard des Italiens, the Cafe de Paris, the Theatre Francais, the Odeon, the Palais Royal,--where, in the "Orleans Bureau," Dumas found his first occupation in Paris,--took place many incidents of Dumas' life, which are of personal import.

For recollections and reminders of the author's contemporaries, there are countless other localities too numerous to mention. In the Rue Pigalle, at No. 12, died Eugene Scribe; in the Rue de Douai lived Edmond About, while in the Rue d'Amsterdam, at No. 77, lived Dumas himself, and in the Rue St.

Lazare, Madame George Sand. Montmartre is sacred to the name of Zola in the minds of most readers of latter-day French fiction, while many more famous names of all ranks, of litterateurs, of actors, of artists and statesmen,--all contemporaries and many of them friends of Dumas,--will be found on the tombstones of Pere la Chaise.

The motive, then, to be deduced from these pages is that they are a record of many things a.s.sociated with Alexandre Dumas, his life, and his work.

Equally so is a fleeting itinerary of strolls around and about the Paris of Dumas' romances, with occasional journeys into the provinces.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 77 Rue d'Amsterdam]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rue de St. Denis]

Thus the centuries have done their work of extending and mingling,--"_le jeu est fait_," so to speak,--but Paris, by the necessities of her growth and by her rather general devotion to one stately, towering form of domestic architecture, has often made the separation of old from new peculiarly difficult to a casual eye. It is indeed her way to be new and splendid, to be always the bride of cities, espousing human destiny. And, truly, it is in this character that we do her homage with our visits, our money, and our admiration. Out of gray, unwieldy, distributed London one flies from a vast and romantic camp to a city exact and beautiful. So exact, so beautiful, so consistent in her vivacity, so neat in her industry, so splendid in her display, that one comes to think that the ultimate way to enjoy Paris is to pa.s.s unquestioning and unsolicitous into her life, exclaiming not "Look here," and "Look there" in a fever of sightseeing, but rather baring one's breast, like Daudet's _ouvrier_, to her a.s.saults of glistening life.

The Paris of to-day is a reconstructed Paris; its old splendours not wholly eradicated, but changed in all but their a.s.sociations. The life of Paris, too, has undergone a similar evolution, from what it was even in Dumas' time.

The celebrities of the Cafe de Paris have mostly, if not quite all, pa.s.sed away. No more does the eccentric Prince Demidoff promulgate his eccentricities into the very faces of the onlookers; no more does the great Dumas make omelettes in golden sugar-bowls; and no more does he pa.s.s his criticisms--or was it encomiums?--on the _veau saute_.

The student revels of the _quartier_ have become more sedate, if not more fastidious, and there is no such Mardi Gras and Mi-Careme festivities as used to hold forth on the boulevards in the forties. And on the b.u.t.tes Chaumont and Montmartre are found batteries of questionable amus.e.m.e.nts,--especially got up for the delectation of _les Anglais_, provincials, and soldiers off duty,--in place of the _cabarets_, which, if of doubtful morality, were at least a certain social factor.

New bridges span the Seine, and new thoroughfares, from humble alleys to lordly and magnificent boulevards, have clarified many a slum, and brightened and sweetened the atmosphere; so there is some considerable gain there.

The Parisian cabby is, as he always was, a devil-may-care sort of a fellow, who would as soon run you down with his sorry old outfit as not; but perhaps even his characteristics will change sooner or later, now that the automobile is upon us in all its proclaimed perfection.

The "New Opera," that sumptuous structure which bears the inscription "Academie Nationale de Musique," begun by Garnier in 1861, and completed a dozen years later, is, in its commanding situation and splendid appointments, the peer of any other in the world. In spite of this, its fame will hardly rival that of the Comedie Francaise, or even the Opera Comique of former days, and the names of latter-day stars will have difficulty in competing with those of Rachel, Talma, and their fellow actors on the stage of other days.

Whom, if you please, have we to-day whose name and fame is as wide as those just mentioned? None, save Madame Bernhardt, who suggests to the well-informed person--who is a very considerable body--the preeminent influences which formerly emanated from Paris in the fifties. But this of itself is a subject too vast for inclusion here, and it were better pa.s.sed by. So, too, with the Parisian artists who made the art of the world in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Decamps, Delacroix, Corot, and Vernet are names with which to conjure up reminiscences as great as those of Rubens, t.i.tian, and Van d.y.k.e. This may be disputed, but, if one were given the same familiarity therewith, it is possible that one's contrary opinion would be greatly modified.

To-day, in addition to the glorious art collection of former times, there are the splendid, though ever shifting, collections of the Musee du Luxembourg, the mural paintings of the Hotel de Ville, which are a gallery in themselves, and the two spring Salon exhibitions, to say nothing of the newly attempted Salon d'Automne. Curiously enough, some of us find great pleasure in the contemplation of the decorations in the interiors of the great _gares_ of the Lyons or the Orleans railways. Certainly these last examples of applied art are of a lavishness--and even excellence--which a former generation would not have thought of.

The Arc de Triomphe d'etoile, of course, remains as it always has since its erection at the instigation of Napoleon I.; while the Bois de Boulogne came into existence as a munic.i.p.al pleasure-ground only in the early fifties, and has since endured as the great open-air attraction of Paris for those who did not wish to go farther afield.