Dumas' Paris Part 22

and above all truthful.

It has been eulogized, or, rather, anathematized in verse by Voltaire,--

"Exterminez, grandes Dieux, de la terre ou nous sommes Quiconque avec plaisir repand le sang des hommes,"--

and historians and romancists have made profuse use of the recollections which hang about its grim walls.

To-day it stands for much that it formerly represented, but without the terrible inquisitorial methods. In fact, in the Palais de Justice, which now entirely surrounds all but the turreted facade of tourelles, which fronts the Quai de l'Horloge, has so tempered its mercies that within the past year it has taken down that wonderful crucifix and triptych, so that those who may finally call upon the court of last appeal may not be unduly or superst.i.tiously affected.

The Place de la Greve opposite was famous for something more than its commercial reputation, as readers of the Valois romances of Dumas, and of Hugo's "Dernier Jour d'un Cond.a.m.ne" will recall. It was a veritable Gehenna, a sort of Tower Hill, where a series of events as dark and b.l.o.o.d.y as those of any spot in Europe held forth, from 1310, when a poor unfortunate, Marguerite Porette, was burned as a heretic, until 1830,--well within the scope of this book,--when the headsmen, stakesmen, and hangmen, who had plied their trade here for five centuries, were abolished in favour of a less public _barriere_ on the outskirts, or else the platform of the prison near the Cimetiere du Pere la Chaise.

It was in 1830 that a low thief and murderer, Lacenaire, who was brought to the scaffold for his crimes, published in one of the Parisian papers some verses which were intended to extract sympathy for him as _un homme de lettres_. In reality they were the work of a barrister, Lemarquier by name, and failed utterly of their purpose, though their graphic lines might well have evoked sympathy, had the hoax carried:

"Slow wanes the long night, when the criminal wakes; And he curses the morn that his slumber breaks; For he dream'd of other days.

"His eyes he may close,--but the cold icy touch Of a frozen hand, and a corpse on his couch, Still comes to wither his soul.

"And the headsman's voice, and hammer'd blows Of nails that the jointed gibbet close, And the solemn chant of the dead!"

La Conciergerie was perhaps one of the greatest show-places of the city for the morbidly inclined, and permission _a visiter_ was at that time granted _avec toutes facilites_, being something more than is allowed to-day.

The a.s.sociations connected with this doleful building are great indeed, as all histories of France and the guide-books tell. It was in the chapel of this edifice that the victims of the Terror foregathered, to hear the names read out for execution, till all should have been made away.

Muller's painting in the Louvre depicts, with singular graphicness, this dreadful place of detention, where princes and princesses, counts, marquises, bishops, and all ranks were herded amid an excruciating agony.

In "The Queen's Necklace" we read of the Conciergerie--as we do of the Bastille. When that gang of conspirators, headed by Madame de la Motte,--Jeanne de St. Remy de Valois,--appeared for trial, they were brought from the Bastille to the Conciergerie.

After the trial all the prisoners were locked for the night in the Conciergerie, sentence not being p.r.o.nounced till the following day.

The public whipping and branding of Madame de la Motte in the Cour du Justice,--still the _cour_ where throngs pa.s.s and repa.s.s to the various court-rooms of the Palais de Justice,--as given by Dumas, is most realistically told, if briefly. It runs thus:

"'Who is this man?' cried Jeanne, in a fright.

"'The executioner, M. de Paris,' replied the registrar.

"The two men then took hold of her to lead her out. They took her thus into the court called Cour de Justice, where was a scaffold, and which was crowded with spectators. On a platform, raised about eight feet, was a post garnished with iron rings, and with a ladder to mount to it. This place was surrounded with soldiers....

"Numbers of the partisans of M. de Rohan had a.s.sembled to hoot her, and cries of '_A bas la Motte_, the forger!' were heard on every side, and those who tried to express pity for her were soon silenced. Then she cried in a loud voice, 'Do you know who I am? I am the blood of your kings. They strike in me, not a criminal, but a rival; not only a rival, but an accomplice. Yes,' repeated she, as the people kept silence to listen, 'an accomplice. They punish one who knows the secrets of--'

"'Take care,' interrupted the executioner.

"She turned and saw the executioner with the whip in his hand. At this sight she forgot her desire to captivate the mult.i.tude, and even her hatred, and, sinking on her knees, she said, 'Have pity!' and seized his hand; but he raised the other, and let the whip fall lightly on her shoulders. She jumped up, and was about to try and throw herself off the scaffold, when she saw the other man, who was drawing from a fire a hot iron. At this sight she uttered a perfect howl, which was echoed by the people.

"'Help! help!' she cried, trying to shake off the cord with which they were tying her hands. The executioner at last forced her on her knees, and tore open her dress; but she cried, with a voice which was heard through all the tumult, 'Cowardly Frenchmen! you do not defend me, but let me be tortured; oh! it is my own fault. If I had said all I knew of the queen I should have been--'

"She could say no more, for she was gagged by the attendants: then two men held her, while the executioner performed his office. At the touch of the iron she fainted, and was carried back insensible to the Conciergerie."

CHAPTER XII.

L'UNIVERSITe QUARTIER

L'Universite is the _quartier_ which foregathered its components, more or less unconsciously, around the Sorbonne.

To-day the name still means what it always did; the Ecole de Medicine, the Ecole de Droit, the Beaux Arts, the Observatoire, and the student ateliers of the Latin Quarter, all go to make it something quite foreign to any other section of Paris.

The present structure known as "The Sorbonne" was built by Richelieu in 1629, as a sort of glorified successor to the ancient foundation of Robert de Sorbonne, confessor to St. Louis in 1253. The present Universite, as an inst.i.tution, was founded, among many other good and valuable things, which he has not always been given credit for, by the astute Napoleon I.

With the work of the romancer, it is the unexpected that always happens.

But this very unexpectedness is only another expression of naturalness; which raises the question: Is not the romancist more of a realist than is commonly supposed?

Dumas often accomplished the unconventional, and often the miraculous, but the gallant attack of D'Artagnan and his three whilom adversaries against the Cardinal's Guard is by no means an impossible or unreasonable incident. Considering Dumas' ingenuity and freedom, it would be unreasonable to expect that things might not take the turn that they did.

Of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" alone, the scheme of adventure and incident is as orderly and sagacious as though it had been laid down by the wily cardinal himself; and therein is Dumas' success as the romancist _par excellence_ of his time. A romancist who was at least enough of a realist to be natural, if unconventional.

Dumas is supposed to have fallen from the heights scaled by means of "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when he wrote "Vingt Ans Apres." As a piece of literary workmanship, this perhaps is so; as a chronicle of great interest to the reader, who would trace the movement of its plot by existing stones and shrines, it is hardly the case.

One can get up a wonderful enthusiasm for the old Luxembourg quarter, which the Gascon Don Quixote entered by one of the southern gates, astride his Rosinante. The whole neighbourhood abounds with reminiscences of the characters of the tale: D'Artagnan, with the Rue des Fossoyeurs, now the Rue Servandoni; Athos with the Rue Ferou; Aramis, with the Rue de la Harpe, and so on.

There is, however, a certain tangible sentimentality connected with the adventures of Athos, Aramis, D'Artagnan, and Porthos in "Twenty Years After," that is not equalled by the earlier book, the reputed scenes of which have, to some extent, to be taken on faith.

In "Vingt Ans Apres," the scene shifts rapidly and constantly: from the Rue Tiquetonne, in Paris, to the more luxurious precincts of the Palais Royal; countrywards to Compiegne, to Pierrefonds--which ultimately came into the possession of Porthos; to England, even; and southward as far as Blois in Touraine, near to which was the country estate of Athos.

At the corner of the Rue Vaugirard, which pa.s.ses the front of the Luxembourg Palace, and the Rue Ca.s.sette, is the wall of the Carmelite Friary, where D'Artagnan repaired to fulfil his duelling engagements with the three musketeers of the company of De Treville, after the incidents of the shoulder of Athos, the baldric of Porthos, and the handkerchief of Aramis.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARMELITE FRIARY, RUE VAUGIRARD]

Both sides of the river, and, indeed, the Cite itself, are alive with the a.s.sociation of the King's Musketeers and the Cardinal's Guards; so much so that one, with even a most superficial knowledge of Paris and the D'Artagnan romances, cannot fail to follow the shifting of the scenes from the neighbourhood of the Palais du Luxembourg, in "Les Trois Mousquetaires," to the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, in "Vingt Ans Apres" and the "Vicomte de Bragelonne."

In "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," the fraternal _mousquetaires_ take somewhat varying paths from those which they pursued in the first two volumes of the series. Porthos and Athos had arrived at distinction and wealth, and surrounded themselves accordingly; though, when they came to Paris, they were doubtless frequenters--at times--of their old haunts, but they had perforce to live up to their exalted stations.

With D'Artagnan and Aramis this was not so true. D'Artagnan, it would seem, could not leave his beloved Palais Royal quarter, though his lodgings in the hotel in the Rue Tiquetonne could have been in no way luxurious, judging from present-day appearances.

In the Universite quarter, running squarely up from the Seine is a short, unpretentious, though not unlovely, street--the Rue Guenegard.

It runs by the Hotel de la Monnaie, and embouches on the Quai Conti, but if you ask for it from the average stroller on the quais, he will reply that he never heard of it.

It was here, however, at "Au Grand Roi Charlemagne," "a respectable inn,"

that Athos lived during his later years.

In the course of three hundred years this inn has disappeared,--if it ever existed,--though there are two hotels, now somewhat decrepit, on the short length of the street.