Dumas' Paris Part 30

Le Foret de Compiegne is as beautiful and unspoiled as any, and is, moreover, not overrun with tourists and trippers, as is Fontainebleau.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHaTEAU OF THE DUCS DE VALOIS, CRePY]

Its area approximates 60,000 acres, and its circ.u.mference sixty miles.

In short, the whole domain forms a charming and delightful place of retreat, which must have been duly appreciated during the troublous times of Louis' reign.

It was here, in the Foret de Compiegne, that the great hunting was held, which is treated in "Chicot the Jester."

The Bois de Vincennes was a famous duelling-ground--and is to-day, _sub rosa_. It was here that Louis de Franchi, in the "Corsican Brothers," who forewarned of his fate, died in the duel with Rene de Chateaurien, just as he had predicted; at exactly "_neuf heures dix_."

This park is by no means the rival of the Bois de Boulogne in the affections of the Parisian public, but it is a wide expanse of tree-covered park land, and possesses all the characteristics of the other suburban _forets_ which surround Paris on all sides.

It has, moreover, a chateau, a former retreat or country residence of the Kings of France, though to-day it has been made over to the ministry of war, whereas the Chateau de Madrid, the former possession of the Bois de Boulogne, has disappeared. The Chateau de Vincennes is not one of the sights of Paris. For a fact, it is quite inaccessible, being surrounded by the ramparts of the Fort de Vincennes, and therefore forbidden to the inquisitive.

It was here in the Chateau de Vincennes that Charles IX. died a lingering death, "by the poison prepared for another," as Dumas has it in "Marguerite de Valois."

Among the many ill.u.s.trious prisoners of the Chateau de Vincennes have been the King of Navarre (1574), Conde (1650), Cardinal de Retz (1652), Fouquet (1661), Mirabeau (1777), the Duc d'Enghien (1804), and many others, most of whom have lived and breathed in Dumas' pages, in the same parts which they played in real life.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FRENCH PROVINCES

Dumas' acquaintance with the French provinces was very comprehensive, though it is of the region northeast of Paris that he was most fond; of the beloved forest region around Crepy and Villers-Cotterets; the road to Calais, and Picardie and Flanders. Dumas was ever fond of, and familiar with, the road from Paris to Calais. The National Route ran through Crepy, and the byroad through his native Villers-Cotterets. In the "Vicomte de Bragelonne," he calls the region "The Land of G.o.d," a sentiment which mostly has not been endorsed by other writers; still, it is a beautiful country, and with its thickly wooded plantations, its industrious though conglomerate population, it is to-day--save for the Cantal and the Auvergne--that part of France of which English-speaking folk know the least. And this, too, on the direct road between London and Paris!

Dumas, in the above-mentioned book, describes the journey through this region which was made by Buckingham and De Wardes.

"Arriving at Calais, at the end of the sixth day, they chartered a boat for the purpose of joining the yacht that was to convey them to England, and which was then tacking about in full view."

The old port of Calais must have been made use of by the personages of whom Dumas wrote, who trafficked forth between England and France.

Calais has ever been the most important terminus of cross-channel traffic, and there be those who know, who say that the boat service is not improved in comfort in all these ages, and certainly Calais, which most English travellers know only by fleeting glimpses, might with profit be visited more frequently, if only to follow in the wake of Sterne's sentimental footsteps.

The old port, of course, exists no more; new d.y.k.es, breakwaters, and the _gare maritime_ have taken the place of the ancient landing-places, where royalties and others used to embark in frail sailing-vessels for the English ports across the channel.

The old belfry still exists, and forms a beacon by day, at least, much as it did of yore. By night the new electric-light flashes its beams twenty odd miles across the channel on Dover Cliff, in a way which would have astonished our forefathers in the days gone by.

It was at Calais, too, that was enacted the final scene in the life of Mary Stuart in France.

The misfortunes of Mary Stuart formed the subject of one of the series of "Les Crimes Celebres." In the opening words of this chapter, Dumas has said, "Of all the names predestined to misfortune in France, it is the name of Henri. Henri I. was poisoned, Henri II. was killed (maliciously, so some one has said) in a tournament, Henri III. and Henri IV. were a.s.sa.s.sinated." In Scotland it is the name of Stuart.

The chronicle concerns France only with respect to the farewell of Mary, after having lost her mother and her spouse in the same year (1561). She journeyed to Scotland by Calais, accompanied by the Cardinals de Guise and de Lorraine, her uncles, by the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse de Guise, the Duc d'Aumale, and M. de Nemours.

Here took place that heartrending farewell, which poets and painters, as well as historians and novelists, have done so much to perpetuate. "Adieu, France!" she sobbed. "Adieu, France!" And for five hours she continued to weep and sob, "Adieu, France! Adieu, France!" For the rest, the well-known historical figures are made use of by Dumas,--Darnley, Rizzio, Huntley, and Hamilton,--but the action does not, of course, return to France.

Not far south of Calais is Arras, whence came the Robespierre who was to set France aflame.

"The ancestors of the Robespierres," says Dumas, "formed a part of those Irish colonists who came to France to inhabit our seminaries and monasteries. There they received from the Jesuits the good educations they were accustomed to give to their pupils. From father to son they were notaries; one branch of the family, that from which this great man descends, established himself at Arras, a great centre, as you know, of n.o.blesse and the church.

"There were in this town two _seigneurs_, or, rather, two kings; one was the Abbe of St. Waast, the other was the Bishop of Arras, whose palace threw one-half the town into shade."

The former palace of the Bishop of Arras is to-day the local _musee_. It is an extensive establishment, and it flanks an atrocious Renaissance cathedral of no appealing charm whatever, and, indeed, the one-time bishop's palace does not look as though it was ever a very splendid establishment.

Still farther to the southward of Calais is the feudal Castle of Pierrefonds, so beloved of Porthos in "Vingt Ans Apres." It is, and has ever been since its erection in 1390 by Louis d'Orleans, the brother of Charles VI., one of the most highly impregnable and luxurious chateaux of all France.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTLE OF PIERREFONDS]

Four times it was unsuccessfully besieged, and came finally, in 1617, to be dismantled.

The great Napoleon purchased it after the Revolution, and finally, through the liberality of Napoleon III.,--one of the few acts which redound to his credit,--it was restored, by Viollet-le-Duc, at a cost of over five million francs.

In "Pauline," that fragment which Dumas extracted from one of his "Impressions du Voyage," the author comes down to modern times, and gives us, as he does in his journals of travel, his "Memoires," and others of his lighter pieces of fiction, many charming pen-portraits of localities familiar not only to his pen, but to his personal experiences.

He draws in "Pauline" a delightful picture of the old fishing-village of Trouville--before it became a resort of fashion. In his own words he describes it as follows:

"I took the steamer from Havre, and two hours later was at Honfleur; the next morning I was at Trouville."

To-day the fly-by-day tourist does the whole journey in a couple of hours--if he does not linger over the attractions of "Les Pet.i.ts Chevaux"

or "Trente et Quarante," at Honfleur's pretty Casino.

"You know the little town with its population of fisher-folk. It is one of the most picturesque in Normandy. I stayed there a few days, exploring the neighbourhood, and in the evening I used to sit in the chimney-corner with my worthy hostess, Madame Oseraie. There I heard strange tales of adventures which had been enacted in Calvados, Loiret, and La Manche."

Continuing, the author, evidently having become imbued with the local colour of the vicinity, describes, more or less superficially, perhaps, but still with vividness, if not minuteness, those treasure-chests of history, the towns and villages of Normandy:--Caen, Lisieux, Falaise, the cradle of the Conqueror William, "the fertile plains" around Pont Audemer, Havre, and Alencon.

Normandy, too, was the _locale_ of the early life of Gabriel Lambert, the unappealing leading-man of that dramatic story of a counterfeiter's life, which bears the same t.i.tle.

Dumas' first acquaintance with the character in real life,--if he had any real personality, as one is inclined to think he had,--was at Toulon, where the unfortunate man was imprisoned and made to work in the galleys.

In the course of the narrative the scene shifts from prisons, galleys, and chain-gangs, backward and forward, until we get the whole gamut of the criminal's life.

Gabriel, in the days of his early life at Trouville, had acquired the art of skilled penmanship, and used it wherever he could for his own advantage, by fabricating the handwriting of others--and some honest work of a similar nature.

Finally the call of Paris came strong upon him, and he set forth by Pont l'Eveque and Rouen to the metropolis, where his downfall was speedily consummated, to the sorrow and resentment of his old friends of the little Norman fishing-village, and more particularly to Marie Granger, his country sweetheart, who longed to follow him to Paris, not suspecting the actual turn affairs had taken.

In "The Count of Monte Cristo," Dumas again evinces his fondness for, and acquaintance with, the coast of Normandy.

It is a brief reference, to be sure, but it shows that Dumas had some considerable liking for the sea, and a more or less minute knowledge of the coast of France. This is further evinced by the details into which he launches once and again, with reference to the littoral of the Mediterranean, Belle Ile, and its surroundings, and the coasts of Normandy, Brittany, and the Pas de Calais.

In "The Count of Monte Cristo," Dantes says to his companion, Bertuccio:

"'I am desirous of having an estate by the seaside in Normandy--for instance, between Havre and Boulogne. You see, I give you a wide range. It will be absolutely necessary that the place you may select have a small harbour, creek, or bay, into which my vessel can enter and remain at anchor. She merely draws fifteen feet water. She must be kept in constant readiness to sail immediately I think proper to give the signal. Make the requisite inquiries for a place of this description, and when you have met with an eligible spot, visit it, and if it possess the advantages desired, purchase it at once in your own name. The corvette must now, I think, be on her way to Fecamp, must she not?'"