Dumas' Paris Part 25

After 1793 the Palais Royal was converted, by decree, into the Palais et Jardin de la Revolution; and reunited to the domains of the state.

Napoleon I. granted its use to the Tribunal for its seances, and Lucien Bonaparte inhabited it for the "Hundred Days." In 1830 Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, gave there a fete in honour of the King of Naples, who had come to pay his respects to the King of France. Charles X. a.s.sisted as an invited guest at the function, but one month after he had inhabited it as king.

Under Napoleon III. the Palais Royal was the residence of Prince Jerome, the uncle of the emperor, afterward that of his son the Prince Napoleon, when the _fleur-de-lis_ sculptured on the facade gave way before escutcheons bearing the imperial eagles, which in turn have since given way to the Republican device of "'48"--"Liberte, egalite, Fraternite."

It is with a remarkable profusion of detail--for Dumas, at any rate--that the fourteenth chapter of "The Conspirators" opens.

It is a veritable guide-book phraseology and conciseness, which describes the streets of the Palais Royal quarter:

"The evening of the same day, which was Sunday, toward eight o'clock, at the moment when a considerable group of men and women, a.s.sembled around a street singer, who was playing at the same time the cymbals with his knees and the tambourine with his hands, obstructed the entrance to the Rue de Valois, a musketeer and two of the light horse descended a back staircase of the Palais Royal, and advanced toward the Pa.s.sage du Lycee, which, as every one knows, opened on to that street; but seeing the crowd which barred the way, the three soldiers stopped and appeared to take counsel.

The result of their deliberation was doubtless that they must take another route, for the musketeer, setting the example of a new manoeuvre, threaded the Cour des Fontaines, turned the corner of the Rue des Bons Enfants, and, walking rapidly,--though he was extremely corpulent,--arrived at No. 22, which opened as by enchantment at his approach, and closed again on him and his two companions.

"... The crowd dispersed. A great many men left the circle, singly, or two and two, turning toward each other with an imperceptible gesture of the hand, some by the Rue de Valois, some by the Cour des Fontaines, some by the Palais Royal itself, thus surrounding the Rue des Bons Enfants, which seemed to be the centre of the rendezvous."

The locality has not changed greatly since the times of which Dumas wrote, and if one would see for himself this Rue de Bons Enfants, Numero 22, and try to find out how the Regent of France was able to climb over the roof-tops to the Palais Royal, for a wager, he may still do so, for apparently the roof-tops have changed but little. The especial connection of the Rue des Bons Enfants with literature is perhaps Sylvestre's establishment, which will, for a price, sell you almost any French celebrity's autograph, be he king, prince, painter, or litterateur.

In the "Vicomte de Bragelonne" there is a wonderfully interesting chapter, which describes Mazarin's gaming-party at the Palais Royal.

In that it enters somewhat more into detail than is usual with Dumas, it appears worth quoting here, if only for its description of the furnishing of the _salle_ in which the event took place, and its most graphic and truthful picture of the great cardinal himself:

"In a large chamber of the Palais Royal, covered with a dark-coloured velvet, which threw into strong relief the gilded frames of a great number of magnificent pictures, on the evening of the arrival of the two Frenchmen, the whole court was a.s.sembled before the alcove of M. le Cardinal de Mazarin, who gave a party, for the purposes of play, to the king and queen. A small screen separated three prepared tables. At one of these tables the king and the two queens were seated. Louis XIV., placed opposite to the young queen, his wife, smiled upon her with an expression of real happiness. Anne of Austria held the cards against the cardinal, and her daughter-in-law a.s.sisted her in her game, when she was not engaged in smiling at her husband. As for the cardinal, who was reclining on his bed, his cards were held by the Comtesse de Soissons, and he watched them with an incessant look of interest and cupidity.

"The cardinal had been painted by Bernouin; but the rouge, which glowed only on his cheeks, threw into stronger contrast the sickly pallor of the rest of his countenance and the shining yellow of his brow. His eyes alone acquired a more lively expression from this auxiliary, and upon those sick man's eyes were, from time to time, turned the uneasy looks of the king, the queen, and the courtiers. The fact is, that the two eyes of Mazarin were the stars more or less brilliant in which the France of the seventeenth century read its destiny every evening and every morning.

Monseigneur neither won nor lost; he was, therefore, neither gay nor sad.

It was a stagnation in which, full of pity for him, Anne of Austria would not have willingly left him; but in order to attract the attention of the sick man by some brilliant stroke, she must have either won or lost. To win would have been dangerous, because Mazarin would have changed his indifference for an ugly grimace; to lose would likewise have been dangerous, because she must have cheated, and the Infanta, who watched her game, would, doubtless, have exclaimed against her partiality for Mazarin.

Profiting by this calm, the courtiers were chatting. When not in a bad humour, M. de Mazarin was a very debonnaire prince, and he, who prevented n.o.body from singing, provided they paid, was not tyrant enough to prevent people from talking, provided they made up their minds to lose. They were chatting, then. At the first table, the king's younger brother, Philip, Duc d'Anjou, was admiring his handsome face in the gla.s.s of a box. His favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, leaning over the _fauteuil_ of the prince, was listening, with secret envy, to the Comte de Guiche, another of Philip's favourites, who was relating in choice terms the various vicissitudes of fortune of the royal adventurer, Charles II. He told, as so many fabulous events, all the history of his peregrinations in Scotland, and his terrors when the enemy's party was so closely on his track; of nights pa.s.sed in trees, and days pa.s.sed in hunger and combats.

By degrees, the fate of the unfortunate king interested his auditors so greatly, that the play languished even at the royal table, and the young king, with a pensive look and downcast eye, followed, without appearing to give any attention to it, the smallest details of this Odyssey, very picturesquely related by the Comte de Guiche."

Again mention of the Palais Royal enters into the action of "The Queen's Necklace." When Madame de la Motte and her companion were _en route_ to Versailles by cabriolet, "they met a delay at the gates of the Palais Royal, where, in a courtyard, which had been thrown open, were a host of beggars crowding around fires which had been lighted there, and receiving soup, which the servants of M. le Duc d'Orleans were distributing to them in earthen basins; and as in Paris a crowd collects to see everything, the number of the spectators of this scene far exceeded that of the actors.

"Here, then, they were again obliged to stop, and, to their dismay, began to hear distinctly from behind loud cries of 'Down with the cabriolet!

down with those that crush the poor!'

"'Can it be that those cries are addressed to us?' said the elder lady to her companion.

"'Indeed, madame, I fear so,' she replied.

"'Have we, do you think, run over any one?'

"'I am sure you have not.'

"'To the magistrate! to the magistrate!' cried several voices.

"'What in heaven's name does it all mean?' said the lady.

"'The crowd reproaches you, madame, with having braved the police order which appeared this morning, prohibiting all cabriolets from driving through the streets until the spring.'"

This must have been something considerable of an embargo on pleasure, and one which would hardly obtain to-day, though asphalted pavements covered with a film of frost must offer untold dangers, as compared with the streets of Paris as they were then--in the latter years of the eighteenth century.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BASTILLE

The worshipper at the shrines made famous by Dumas--no less than history--will look in vain for the prison of La Roquette, the Bastille, the hotel of the Duc de Guise, at No. 12 Rue du Chaume, that of Coligny in the Rue de Bethusy, or of the Montmorencies, "near the Louvre."

They existed, of course, in reality, as they did in the Valois romances, but to-day they have disappeared, and not even the "_Commission des Monuments Historiques_" has preserved a pictorial representation of the three latter.

One of Dumas' most absorbing romances deals with the fateful events which culminated at the Bastille on the 14th Thermidor, 1789. "This monument, this seal of feudality, imprinted on the forehead of Paris," said Dumas, "was the Bastille," and those who know French history know that he wrote truly.

The action of "The Taking of the Bastille," so far as it deals with the actual a.s.sault upon it, is brief. So was the event itself. Dumas romances but little in this instance; he went direct to fact for his details. He says:

"When once a man became acquainted with the Bastille, by order of the king, that man was forgotten, sequestrated, interred, annihilated....

"Moreover, in France there was not only one Bastille; there were twenty other Bastilles, which were called Fort l'Eveque, St. Lazare, the Chatelet, the Conciergerie, Vincennes, the Castle of La Roche, the Castle of If, the Isles of St. Marguerite, Pignerolles, etc.

"Only the fortress at the Gate St. Antoine was called _the Bastille_, as _Rome_ was called _the_ city....

"During nearly a whole century the governorship of the Bastille had continued in one and the same family.

"The grandfather of this elect race was M. de Chateauneuf; his son Lavrilliere succeeded him, who, in turn, was succeeded by his grandson, St. Florentin. The dynasty became extinct in 1777....

"Among the prisoners, it will be recollected, the following were of the greatest note:

"The Iron Mask, Lauzun, Latude.

"The Jesuits were connoisseurs; for greater security they confessed the prisoners.

"For greater security still, the prisoners were buried under supposit.i.tious names.

"The Iron Mask, it will be remembered, was buried under the name of Marchiali. He had remained forty-five years in prison.

"Lauzun remained there fourteen years.

"Latude, thirty years....

"But, at all events, the Iron Mask and Lauzun had committed heinous crimes.

"The Iron Mask, whether brother or not of Louis XIV., it is a.s.serted, resembled King Louis XIV. so strongly, that it was almost impossible to distinguish the one from the other.

"It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to resemble a king.