Dumas' Paris

“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 assembled 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 assisted 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 nobody 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 glass 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 passed in trees, and days passed 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 hôtel 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 assault 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’Evêque, St. Lazare, the Châtelet, 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 Lavrillière 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 supposititious 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 asserted, 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.

“Lauzun had been very near marrying, or did actually marry, the Grande Mademoiselle.

“It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to marry the niece of King Louis XIII., the granddaughter of Henri IV.

“But Latude, poor devil, what had he done?

“He had dared to fall in love with Mlle. Poisson, Dame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress.

“He had written a note to her.

“This note, which a respectable woman would have sent back to the man who wrote it, was handed by Madame de Pompadour to M. de Sartines, the lieutenant-general of police.”

“To the Bastille!” was the cry upon which Dumas built up his story.

“‘To the Bastille!’

“Only that it was a senseless idea, as the soldiers had remarked, that the Bastille could be taken.

“The Bastille had provisions, a garrison, artillery.

“The Bastille had walls, which were fifteen feet thick at their summit, and forty at their base.

“The Bastille had a governor, whose name was De Launay, who had stored thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder in his cellars, and who had sworn, in case of being surprised by a coup de main, to blow up the Bastille, and with it half the Faubourg St. Antoine.”

Dumas was never more chary of tiresome description than in the opening chapters of this book. Chapter XVI. opens as follows:

“We will not describe the Bastille – it would be useless.

“It lives as an eternal image, both in the memory of the old and in the imagination of the young.

“We shall content ourselves with merely stating, that, seen from the boulevard, it presented, in front of the square then called Place de la Bastille, two twin towers, while its two fronts ran parallel with the banks of the canal which now exists.

“The entrance to the Bastille was defended, in the first place, by a guard-house, then by two lines of sentinels, and besides these by two drawbridges.

“After having passed through these several obstacles, you came to the courtyard of the government-house – that is to say, the residence of the governor.

“From this courtyard a gallery led to the ditches of the Bastille.

“At this other entrance, which opened upon the ditches, was a drawbridge, a guard-house, and an iron gate.”

Then follow some pages of incident and action, which may be fact or may be fiction. The detail which comes after is picturesque and necessary to the plot:

“The interior court, in which the governor was waiting for Billot, was the courtyard which served as a promenade to the prisoners. It was guarded by eight towers – that is to say, by eight giants. No window opened into it. Never did the sun shine on its pavement, which was damp and almost muddy. It might have been thought the bottom of an immense well.

“In this courtyard was a clock, supported by figures representing enchained captives, which measured the hours, from which fell the regular and slow sounds of the minutes as they passed by, as in a dungeon the droppings from the ceiling eat into the pavement slabs on which they fall.

“At the bottom of this well, the prisoner, lost amid the abyss of stone, for a moment contemplated its cold nakedness, and soon asked to be allowed to return to his room…

“At the Bastille, all the places were sold to the highest bidder, from that of the governor himself, down to that of the scullion. The governor of the Bastille was a gaoler on a grand scale, an eating-house keeper wearing epaulets, who added to his salary of sixty thousand livres sixty thousand more, which he extorted and plundered…

“M. de Launay, in point of avarice, far surpassed his predecessors. This might, perhaps, have arisen from his having paid more for the place, and having foreseen that he would not remain in it so long as they did.

“He fed his whole house at the expense of his prisoners. He had reduced the quantity of firing, and doubled the hire of furniture in each room.

“He had the right of bringing yearly into Paris a hundred pipes of wine, free of duty. He sold his right to a tavern-keeper, who brought in wines of excellent quality. Then, with a tenth part of this duty, he purchased the vinegar with which he supplied his prisoners.”

The rest of Dumas’ treatment of the fall of the Bastille is of the historical kind. He does not blame De Launay for the fall, but by no means does he make a hero of him.

“A flash of fire, lost in a cloud of smoke, crowned the summit of a tower; a detonation resounded; cries of pain were heard issuing from the closely pressed crowd; the first cannon-shot had been fired from the Bastille; the first blood had been spilled. The battle had commenced…

“On hearing the detonation we have spoken of, the two soldiers who were still watching M. de Launay threw themselves upon him; a third snatched up the match, and then extinguished it by placing his heel upon it.

“De Launay drew the sword which was concealed in his cane, and would have turned it against his own breast, but the soldiers seized it and snapped it in two.

“He then felt that all he could do was to resign himself to the result; he therefore tranquilly awaited it.

“The people rush forward; the garrison open their arms to them; and the Bastille is taken by assault – by main force, without a capitulation.

“The reason for this was that, for more than a hundred years, the royal fortress had not merely imprisoned inert matter within its walls – it had imprisoned thought also. Thought had thrown down the walls of the Bastille, and the people entered by the breach.”

The life-history of the Bastille was more extended than was commonly recalled. Still the great incident in its life covered but fifteen short days, – from the 30th June to the 14th July, 1789, – when it fell before the attack of the Revolutionists. There is rather vague markings in the pavement on the Boulevard Henri Quatre and the Rue St. Antoine, which suggest the former limits of this gruesome building.

It were not possible to catalogue all the scenes of action celebrated or perpetuated by Alexandre Dumas.

In his “Crimes Célèbres” he – with great definiteness – pictures dark scenes which are known to all readers of history; from that terrible affair of the Cenci, which took place on the terrace of the Château de Rocca Petrella, in 1598, to the assassination of Kotzebue by Karl Ludwig Sand in 1819.

Not all of these crimes deal with Paris, nor with France.

The most notable was the poisoning affair of the Marquise de Brinvilliers (1676), who was forced to make the “amende honorable” after the usual manner, on the Parvis du Nôtre Dame, that little tree-covered place just before the west façade of the cathedral.

The Chevalier Gaudin de Ste. Croix, captain of the Regiment de Tracy, had been arrested in the name of the king, by process of the “lettre de cachet” and forthwith incarcerated in the Bastille, which is once more made use of by Dumas, though in this case, as in many others, it is historic fact as well. The story, which is more or less one of conjugal and filial immorality, as well as political intrigue, shifts its scene once and again to the Cul-de-sac des Marchands des Chevaux, in the Place Maubert, to the Forêt de l’Aigue – within four leagues of Compiègne, the Place du Châtelet, the Conciergerie, and the Bastille.

Here, too, Dumas’ account of the “question by water,” or, rather, the notes on the subject, which accompanied the first (1839) edition of “Les Crimes Célèbres,” form interesting, if rather horrible, reading.

Not alone in the Bastille was this horrible torture practised, but in most of the prisons of the time.

“Pour la ‘question ordinaire,’ quatre coquemars pleins d’eau, et contenant chacun deux pintes et demi, et pour ‘la question extraordinaire’ huit de même grandeur.”

This was poured into the victim through a funnel, which entered the mouth, and sooner or later drowned or stifled him or her, or induced confession.

The final act and end of the unnatural Marquise de Brinvilliers took place at the Place de la Grève, which before and since was the truly celebrated place of many noted crimes, though in this case it was justice that was meted out.

As a sort of sequel to “The Conspirators,” Dumas adds “A Postscriptum,” wherein is recounted the arrest of Richelieu, as foreordained by Mlle. de Valois. He was incarcerated in the Bastille; but his captivity was but a new triumph for the crafty churchman.

“It was reported that the handsome prisoner had obtained permission to walk on the terrace of the Bastille. The Rue St. Antoine was filled with most elegant carriages, and became, in twenty-four hours, the fashionable promenade. The regent – who declared that he had proofs of the treason of M. de Richelieu, sufficient to lose him four heads if he had them – would not, however, risk his popularity with the fair sex by keeping him long in prison. Richelieu, again at liberty, after a captivity of three months, was more brilliant and more sought after than ever; but the closet had been walled up, and Mlle. de Valois became Duchesse de Modena.”

Not only in the “Vicomte de Bragelonne” and “The Taking of the Bastille” does Dumas make mention of “The Man in the Iron Mask,” but, to still greater length, in the supplementary volume, called in the English translations “The Man in the Iron Mask,” though why it is difficult to see, since it is but the second volume of “The Vicomte de Bragelonne.”

This historical mystery has provided penmen of all calibres with an everlasting motive for argumentative conjecture, but Dumas without hesitancy comes out strongly for “a prince of the royal blood,” probably the brother of Louis XIV.

It has been said that Voltaire invented “the Man in the Iron Mask.”

There was nothing singular – for the France of that day – in the man himself, his offence, or his punishment; but the mask and the mystery – chiefly of Voltaire’s creation – fascinated the public, as the veil of Mokanna fascinated his worshippers. Here are some of the Voltairean myths about this mysterious prisoner: One day he wrote something with his knife on a silver plate and threw it down to a fisherman, who took it to the governor of the prison. “Have you read it?” asked the governor, sternly. “I cannot read,” replied the fisherman. “That has saved your life,” rejoined the governor. Another day a young lad found beneath the prison tower a shirt written closely all over. He took it to the governor, who asked, anxiously. “Have you read it?” The boy again and again assured him that he had not. Nevertheless, two days later the boy was found dead in his bed. When the Iron Mask went to mass he was forbidden to speak or unmask himself on pain of being then and there shot down by the invalids, who stood by with loaded carbines to carry out the threat. Here are some of the personages the Iron Mask was supposed to be: An illegitimate son of Anne of Austria; a twin brother of Louis XIV., put out of the way by Cardinal Richelieu to avoid the risk of a disputed succession; the Count of Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis XIV.; Fouquet, Louis’ minister; the Duke of Beaufort, a hero of the Fronde; the Duke of Monmouth, the English pretender; Avedick, the Armenian patriarch; and of late it has almost come to be accepted that he was Mattioli, a Piedmontese political prisoner, who died in 1703.

Dumas, at any rate, took the plausible and acceptable popular solution; and it certainly furnished him with a highly fascinating theme for a romance, which, however, never apparently achieved any great popularity.

“The clock was striking seven as Aramis passed before the Rue du Petit Muse and stopped at the Rue Tourelles, at the gateway of the Bastille…

“Of the governor of the prison Aramis – now Bishop of Vannes – asked, ‘How many prisoners have you? Sixty?’…

“‘For a prince of the blood I have fifty francs a day, … thirty-six for a marechal de France, lieutenant-generals and brigadiers pay twenty-six francs, and councillors of parliament fifteen, but for an ordinary judge, or an ecclesiastic, I receive only ten francs.’”

Here Dumas’ knowledge and love of good eating again crops out. Continuing the dialogue between the bishop and the governor, he says:

“‘A tolerably sized fowl costs a franc and a half, and a good-sized fish four or five francs. Three meals a day are served, and, as the prisoners have nothing to do, they are always eating. A prisoner from whom I get ten francs costs me seven francs and a half.’

“‘Have you no prisoners, then, at less than ten francs?’ queried Aramis.

“‘Oh, yes,’ said the governor, ‘citizens and lawyers.’

“‘But do they not eat, too?.. Do not the prisoners leave some scraps?’ continued Aramis.

“‘Yes, and I delight the heart of some poor little tradesman or clerk by sending him a wing of a red partridge, a slice of venison, or a slice of a truffled pasty, dishes which he never tasted except in his dreams (these are the leavings of the twenty-four-franc prisoners); and he eats and drinks, and at dessert cries, “Long live the king!” and blesses the Bastille. With a couple of bottles of champagne, which cost me five sous, I make him tipsy every Sunday. That class of people call down blessings upon me, and are sorry to leave the prison. Do you know that I have remarked, and it does me infinite honour, that certain prisoners, who have been set at liberty, have almost immediately afterward got imprisoned again? Why should this be the case, unless it be to enjoy the pleasures of my kitchen? It is really the fact.’ Aramis smiled with an expression of incredulity.”

A visit to the prisoners themselves follows, but the reader of these lines is referred to “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” for further details.

The following few lines must suffice here:

“The number of bolts, gratings, and locks for the courtyard would have sufficed for the safety of an entire city. Aramis was neither an imaginative nor a sensitive man; he had been somewhat of a poet in his youth, but his heart was hard and indifferent, as the heart of every man of fifty-five years of age is, who has been frequently and passionately attached to women in his lifetime, or rather who has been passionately loved by them. But when he placed his foot upon the worn stone steps, along which so many unhappy wretches had passed, when he felt himself impregnated, as it were, with the atmosphere of those gloomy dungeons, moistened with tears, there could be but little doubt he was overcome by his feelings, for his head was bowed and his eyes became dim, as he followed Baisemeaux, the governor, without uttering a syllable.”

Dumas gives a further description, of similar import, in “The Regent’s Daughter:”

“And now, with the reader’s permission, we will enter the Bastille – that formidable building at which even the passing traveller trembled, and which, to the whole neighbourhood, was an annoyance and cause of alarm; for often at night the cries of the unfortunate prisoners who were under torture might be heard piercing the thick walls, so much so, that the Duchesse de Lesdequieres once wrote to the governor, that, if he did not prevent his patients from making such a noise, she should complain to the king.

“At this time, however, under the reign of Philippe d’Orleans, there were no cries to be heard; the society was select, and too well bred to disturb the repose of a lady.

“In a room in the Du Coin tower, on the first floor, was a prisoner alone… He had, however, been but one day in the Bastille, and yet already he paced his vast chamber, examining the iron-barred doors, looking through the grated windows, listening, sighing, waiting…

“A noise of bolts and creaking hinges drew the prisoner from this sad occupation, and he saw the man enter before whom he had been taken the day before. This man, about thirty years of age, with an agreeable appearance and polite bearing, was the governor, M. De Launay, father of that De Launay who died at his post in ’89…

“‘M. de Chanlay,’ said the governor, bowing, ‘I come to know if you have passed a good night, and are satisfied with the fare of the house and the conduct of the employés’ – thus M. De Launay, in his politeness, called the turnkeys and jailors.

“‘Yes, monsieur; and these attentions paid to a prisoner have surprised me, I own.’

“‘The bed is hard and old, but yet it is one of the best; luxury being forbidden by our rules. Your room, monsieur, is the best in the Bastille; it has been occupied by the Duc d’Angoulême, by the Marquis de Bassompierre, and by the Marshals de Luxembourg and Biron; it is here that I lodge the princes when his Majesty does me the honour to send them to me.’

“‘It is an excellent lodging,’ said Gaston, smiling, ‘though ill furnished; can I have some books, some paper, and pens?’

“‘Books, monsieur, are strictly forbidden; but if you very much wish to read, as many things are allowed to a prisoner who is ennuyé, come and see me, then you can put in your pocket one of those volumes which my wife or I leave about; you will hide it from all eyes; on a second visit you will take the second volume, and to this abstraction we will close our eyes.’