Dumas' Paris Part 20

Again, from the same work, the following estimate of Napoleon's position at Elba was, if not original, at least opinionated:

"The emperor, now king of the petty isle of Elba, after having held sovereign sway over one-half of the world, counting us, his subjects, a small population of twenty millions,--after having been accustomed to hear the '_Vive Napoleons_' of at least six times that number of human beings, uttered in nearly every language of the globe,--was looked upon among the _haute societe_ of Ma.r.s.eilles as a ruined man, separated for ever from any fresh connection with France or claim to her throne."

Firstly the Faubourg St. Denis is a.s.sociated with Dumas' early life in Paris. He lived at No. 53 of the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis in 1824.

When one walks past the Porte St. Denis and looks up at that seventeenth-century arch of triumph, built to commemorate the German victories of Louis Quatorze, one just misses the historical significance and architectural fitness of the arch. It is not merely an incident in the boulevard. It belongs not so much to the newer boulevard, as to the ancient Rue St. Denis, and it is only by proceeding some distance up this street, the ancient route of the pilgrims to the tomb of the saint, that the meaning of the Porte St. Denis can truly be appreciated. The arch may be heavy,--it has been described as hideous, and it truly is,--but seen in the Rue St. Denis, whose roadway pa.s.ses under it, it forms a typical view even to-day of Old Paris, and of the Paris which entered so largely into Dumas' romances of the Louis.

The more ancient Porte St. Denis, the gateway which lay between the faubourg, the plain, and the ville, performed a function quite different from that of the Renaissance gateway which exists to-day; in just what manner will be readily inferred when it is recalled that, with the Porte St. Antoine, the Porte St. Denis was the scene of much riot and bloodshed in the early history of Paris.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 109 RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. DENIS (DeSCAMPS' STUDIO)]

There are no tram-cars or omnibuses pa.s.sing through its arch, as through the Place du Carrousel, or the courtyards of the Louvre, to take away the sentiment of romance; though the traffic which swirls and eddies around its st.u.r.dy piers and walls is of a manifest up-to-date, twentieth-century variety.

Through its great arch runs the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, where, at No.

109, was the studio of Gabriel Descamps, celebrated in "Capitaine Pamphile."

In "Marguerite de Valois" we have a graphic reference--though rather more sentimental than was the author's wont--to the Cimetiere des Innocents:

"On the day which succeeded that terrible ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew's night, in 1572, a hawthorn-tree," said Dumas, and it is also recognized history, as well, "which had blossomed in the spring, and which, according to custom, had lost its odorous flower in the month of June, had strangely reblossomed during the night, and the Catholics, who saw in this even a miracle, and who by rendering this miracle popular made the Deity their accomplice, went in procession, cross and banner at their head, to the Cemetery of the Innocents, where this hawthorn was blooming."

Amidst the cries of "_Vive le roi!_" "_Vive la messe!_" "_Mort aux Huguenots_," the accomplished Marguerite herself went to witness the phenomenon.

"When they reached the top of the Rue des Prouvelles, they met some men who were dragging a carca.s.s without any head. It was that of 'the admiral'

(Coligny).... The men were going to hang it by the feet at Montfaucon...."

"They entered the Cemetery of St. Innocents, and the clergy, forewarned of the visit of the king and the queen mother, awaited their Majesties to harangue them."

The cemetery--or signs of it--have now disappeared, though the mortal victims of the ma.s.sacre, and countless other souls besides, rest beneath the flagstones adjacent to Les Halles, the great market-house of Paris.

The Fontaine des Innocents formerly marked the site, but now it is removed to the other side of Les Halles.

This graceful Renaissance fountain was first erected in 1550, from designs of Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon. It stood formerly before the eglise des Innocents, which was demolished in 1783.

The Fontaine des Innocents, in spite of its migrations, is a charming oasis of green trees and running water, in the midst of the rather enc.u.mbered market-square of Les Halles. Not that the region around about is at all unsavoury; far from it. There is debris of green vegetables and ripe fruits everywhere about, but it has not yet reached the unsavoury stage; before it does all will be swept away, and on the morrow the clamour and traffic will start fresh anew.

The Place Royale, now called the Place des Vosges, is so largely identified with "La Comtesse de Charny" that no special mention can well be made of any action which here took place.

At No. 21, now of course long since departed, lived "a gentleman entirely devoted to your Majesty," said Dumas, and the adventuress, Lady de Winter, whom D'Artagnan was wont to visit, was given domicile by Dumas at No. 6.

Likely enough it was her true residence, though there is no opportunity of tracing it to-day, and one perforce must be satisfied with locating the houses of Madame de Sevigne and Victor Hugo, each of which bear tablets to that effect.

The Place des Vosges is a charming square, reminiscent, in a way, of the courtyard of the Palais Royal, though lacking its splendour. The iron gateway to the central garden was a gift of Louis XIV., in 1685, when the square was known as the Place Royale. Richelieu caused to be set up here a magnificent equestrian statue of Louis XIII., which, however, was overturned in the Revolution, though it has since been replaced by another statue. The horse was the work of Ricciarelli de Volterre, a pupil of Michelangelo, and the figure was by Biard.

The first great historical event held here was the _carrousel_ given in 1612, two years after the tragic death of Henri IV. at the hands of the a.s.sa.s.sin Ravaillac. It was a function of Marie de Medici's to celebrate the alliance of France and Spain.

Under Richelieu, the place became a celebrated duelling-ground, the most famous duel being that between the Duc de Guise and Coligny _fils_, the son of the admiral.

The Place Royale soon became the most fashionable _quartier_, the houses around about being greatly in demand of the _n.o.blesse_.

Among its ill.u.s.trious inhabitants have been the Rohans, the D'Alegres, Corneille, Conde, St. Vincent de Paul, Moliere, Turenne, Madame de Longueville, Cinq-Mars, and Richelieu.

By _un arrete_ of the 17th Ventose, year VII., it was declared that the name of the department which should pay the largest part of its contributions by the 20th Germinal would be given to that of the princ.i.p.al place or square of Paris. The Department of the Vosges was the first to pay up, and the Place Royale became the Place des Vosges.

A great deal of the action of the D'Artagnan romances took place in the Place Royale, and in the neighbouring _quartiers_ of St. Antoine and La Bastille, the place being the scene of the notable reunion of the four gallants in "Vingt Ans Apres."

La Roquette, the prison, has disappeared, like the Bastille itself, but they are both perpetuated to-day, the former in the Rue Roquette, and the latter in the Place de la Bastille.

Dumas does not project their horrors unduly, though the Bastille crops up in many of the chapters of the Valois romances, and one entire volume is devoted to "The Taking of the Bastille."

D'Artagnan himself was doomed, by an order of arrest issued by Richelieu, to be incarcerated therein; but the gallant _mousquetaire_, by a subtle scheme, got hold of the warrant and made a present of it to the intriguing cardinal himself.

The sombre and sinister guillotine, since become so famous, is made by Dumas subject of a weirdly fascinating chapter in "La Comtesse de Charny." Dumas' description is as follows:

"When Guilbert got out of the carriage he saw that he was in the court of a prison, and at once recognized it as the Bicetre. A fine misty rain fell diagonally and stained the gray walls. In the middle of the court five or six carpenters, under the direction of a master workman, and a little man clad in black, who seemed to direct everybody, put a machine of a hitherto strange and unknown form. Guilbert shuddered; he recognized Doctor Guillotin, and the machine itself was the one of which he had seen a model in the cellar of the editor of '_l'ami du peuple_.'... The very workmen were as yet ignorant of the secret of this novel machine. 'There,' said Doctor Guillotin, ... 'it is now only necessary to put the knife in the groove.'... This was the form of the machine: a platform fifteen feet square, reached by a simple staircase, on each side of this platform two grooved uprights, ten or twelve feet high. In the grooves slid a kind of crescent-shaped knife. A little opening was made between two beams, through which a man's head could be pa.s.sed.... 'Gentlemen,' said Guillotin, 'all being here, we will begin.'"

Then follows the same vivid record of executing and blood-spurting that has attracted many other writers perhaps as gifted as Dumas, but none have told it more graphically, simply, or truthfully.

Every one knows the Mount of Martyrs, its history, and its modern aspect, which has sadly degenerated of late.

To-day it is simply a hilltop of cheap gaiety, whose patrons are catered for by the Moulin Rouge, the Moulin de la Galette, and a score of "eccentric cafes," though its past is burdened with Christian tragedy. Up its slope St. Denis is fabulously supposed to have carried his head after his martyrdom, and the quiet, almost forlorn Rue St. Eleuthere still perpetuates the name of his companion in misery. Long afterward, in the chapel erected on this spot, Ignatius Loyola and his companions solemnly vowed themselves to their great work. So here on sinful Montmartre, above Paris, was born the Society of Jesus. The Revolution saw another band of martyrs, when the nuns of the Abbaye de Montmartre, old and young, chanted their progress to the guillotine, and little more than thirty years ago the Commune precipitated its terrible struggle in Montmartre. It was in the Rue des Rosiers, on the 18th of March, 1871, that the blood of Generals Lecomte and Clement-Thomas was shed.

Hard by, in the Parc Monceau, is the statue of Guy de Maupa.s.sant, and so the memory of the sinful mount is perpetuated to us.

Dumas did not make the use of this ba.n.a.l attribute of Paris that many other realists and romancists alike have done, but he frequently refers to it in his "Memoires."

Madame de la Motte, the scheming adventuress of the "Collier de la Reine,"

lived at No. 57 Rue Charlot, in the Quartier des Infants-Rouges. It was here, at the Hotel Boulainvilliers, where the Marquise de Boulainvilliers brought up the young girl of the blood royal of the Valois, who afterward became known as Madame de la Motte.

Near by, in the same street, is the superb hotel of Gabrielle d'Estrees, who herself was not altogether unknown to the court. The Rue de Valois, leading from the Rue St. Honore to the Rue Beaujolais, beside the Palais Royal, as might be supposed, especially appealed to Dumas, and he laid one of the most cheerful scenes of the "Chevalier d'Harmental" in the hotel, No. 10, built by Richelieu for L'Abbe Metel de Bois-Robert, the founder of the Academie Francaise.

Off the Rue Sourdiere, was the Couloir St. Hyacinthe, where lived Jean Paul Marat--"the friend of the people," whose description by Dumas, in "La Comtesse de Charny," does not differ greatly from others of this notorious person.

In the early pages of "The Count of Monte Cristo," one's attention is transferred from Ma.r.s.eilles to Paris, to No. 13 Rue Coq-Heron, where lived M. Noirtier, to whom the luckless Dantes was commissioned to deliver the fateful packet, which was left in his care by the dying Captain Leclerc.

The incident of the handing over of this letter to the depute procureur du roi is recounted thus by Dumas:

"'Stop a moment,' said the deputy, as Dantes took his hat and gloves. 'To whom is it addressed?'

"'To M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Heron, Paris.' Had a thunderbolt fallen into the room, Villefort could not have been more stupefied. He sank into his seat, and, hastily turning over the packet, drew forth the fatal letter, at which he glanced with an expression of terror.

"'M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Heron, No. 13,' murmured he, growing still paler.