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Dumas' Paris
_UNIFORM VOLUMES_
Dickens' London
BY FRANCIS MILTOUN
Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top $2.00
The Same, 3/4 levant morocco 5.00
Milton's England
BY LUCIA AMES MEAD
Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top 2.00
The Same, 3/4 levant morocco 5.00
Dumas' Paris
BY FRANCIS MILTOUN
Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top _net_ 1.60
_postpaid_ 1.75
The Same, 3/4 levant morocco _net_ 4.00
_postpaid_ 4.15
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
New England Building
Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: _Alexandre Dumas_]
Dumas' Paris
By Francis Miltoun
Author of "Dickens' London," "Cathedrals of Southern
France," "Cathedrals of Northern France," etc.
With two Maps and many Illustrations
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
MDCCCCV
_Copyright, 1904_
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published November, 1904
_COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A._
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1
II. DUMAS' EARLY LIFE IN PARIS 14
III. DUMAS' LITERARY CAREER 33
IV. DUMAS' CONTEMPORARIES 68
V. THE PARIS OF DUMAS 83
VI. OLD PARIS 126
VII. WAYS AND MEANS OF COMMUNICATION 147
VIII. THE BANKS OF THE SEINE 165
IX. THE SECOND EMPIRE AND AFTER 178
X. LA VILLE 195
XI. LA CITE 235
XII. L'UNIVERSITE QUARTIER 244
XIII. THE LOUVRE 257
XIV. THE PALAIS ROYAL 266
XV. THE BASTILLE 278
XVI. THE ROYAL PARKS AND PALACES 297
XVII. THE FRENCH PROVINCES 321
XVIII. LES PAYS ETRANGERS 359
APPENDICES 373
INDEX 377
List of Illustrations
PAGE
ALEXANDRE DUMAS _Frontispiece_
DUMAS' HOUSE AT VILLERS-COTTERETS 7
STATUE OF DUMAS AT VILLERS-COTTERETS 14
FACSIMILE OF DUMAS' OWN STATEMENT OF HIS BIRTH 26
FACSIMILE OF A MANUSCRIPT PAGE FROM ONE OF
DUMAS' PLAYS 37
D'ARTAGNAN 48
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, _Fils_ 64
TWO FAMOUS CARICATURES OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS 68
TOMB OF ABELARD AND HELOISE 82
GENERAL FOY'S RESIDENCE 84
D'ARTAGNAN, FROM THE DUMAS STATUE BY GUSTAVE DORE 123
PONT NEUF--PONT AU CHANGE 135
PORTRAIT OF HENRY IV. 143
GRAND BUREAU DE LA POSTE 154
THE ODEON IN 1818 167
PALAIS ROYAL, STREET FRONT 183
77 RUE D'AMSTERDAM--RUE DE ST. DENIS 188
PLACE DE LA GREVE 197
TOUR DE ST. JACQUES LA BOUCHERIE (MERYON'S
ETCHING, "LE STRYGE") 198
HOTEL DES MOUSQUETAIRES, RUE D'ARBRE SEC 207
D'ARTAGNAN'S LODGINGS, RUE TIQUETONNE 214
109 RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. DENIS (DESCAMPS' STUDIO) 221
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS 235
PLAN OF LA CITE 236
CARMELITE FRIARY, RUE VAUGIRARD 246
PLAN OF THE LOUVRE 257
THE GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES 265
THE ORLEANS BUREAU, PALAIS ROYAL 268
THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE 284
INN OF THE PONT DE SEVRES 302
BOIS DE BOULOGNE--BOIS DE VINCENNES--FORET DE
VILLERS-COTTERETS 315
CHATEAU OF THE DUCS DE VALOIS, CREPY 318
CASTLE OF PIERREFONDS 324
NOTRE DAME DE CHARTRES 329
CASTLE OF ANGERS--CHATEAU OF BLOIS 333
Dumas' Paris
CHAPTER I.
A GENERAL INTRODUCTION
There have been many erudite works, in French and other languages,
describing the antiquities and historical annals of Paris from the
earliest times; and in English the mid-Victorian era turned out--there are
no other words for it--innumerable "books of travel" which recounted
alleged adventures, strewn here and there with bits of historical lore and
anecdotes, none too relevant, and in most cases not of undoubted
authenticity.
Of the actual life of the people in the city of light and learning, from
the times of Napoleon onward, one has to go to the fountainhead of written
records, the acknowledged masterworks in the language of the country
itself, the reports and _annuaires_ of various _societes_, _commissions_,
and what not, and collect therefrom such information as he finds may suit
his purpose.
In this manner may be built up a fabric which shall be authentic and
proper, varied and, most likely, quite different in its plan, outline, and
scope from other works of a similar purport, which may be recalled in
connection therewith.
Paris has been rich in topographical historians, and, indeed, in her
chroniclers in all departments, and there is no end of relative matter
which may be evolved from an intimacy with these sources of supply. In a
way, however, this information ought to be supplemented by a personal
knowledge on the part of the compiler, which should make localities,
distances, and environments--to say nothing of the actual facts and dates
of history--appear as something more than a shrine to be worshipped from
afar.
Given, then, these ingredients, with a love of the subject,--no less than
of the city of its domicile,--it has formed a pleasant itinerary in the
experiences of the writer of this book to have followed in the footsteps
of Dumas _pere_, through the streets that he knew and loved, taking note
meanwhile of such contemporary shadows as were thrown across his path,
and such events of importance or significance as blended in with the
scheme of the literary life of the times in which he lived, none the less
than of those of the characters in his books.
Nearly all the great artists have adored Paris--poets, painters, actors,
and, above all, novelists.
From which it follows that Paris is the ideal city for the novelist, who,
whether he finds his special subjects in her streets or not, must be
inspired by this unique fulness and variety of human life. Nearly all the
great French novelists have adored Paris. Dumas loved it; Victor Hugo
spent years of his time in riding about her streets on omnibuses; Daudet
said splendid things of it, and nearly, if not quite, all the great names
of the artistic world of France are indissolubly linked with it.
Paris to-day means not "La Ville," "La Cite," or "L'Universite," but the
whole triumvirate. Victor Hugo very happily compared the three cities to a
little old woman between two handsome, strapping daughters.
It was Beranger who announced his predilection for Paris as a birthplace.
Dumas must have felt something of the same emotion, for he early
gravitated to the "City of Liberty and Equality," in which--even before
the great Revolution--misfortune was at all times alleviated by sympathy.
* * * * *
From the stones of Paris have been built up many a lordly volume--and many
a slight one, for that matter--which might naturally be presumed to have
recounted the last word which may justifiably have been said concerning
the various aspects of the life and historic events which have encircled
around the city since the beginning of the _moyen age_.
This is true or not, according as one embraces a wide or a contracted
horizon in one's view.
For most books there is, or was at the time of their writing, a reason for
being, and so with familiar spots, as with well-worn roads, there is
always a new panorama projecting itself before one.
The phenomenal, perennial, and still growing interest in the romances of
Dumas the elder is the excuse for the present work, which it is to be
hoped is admittedly a good one, however far short of exhaustiveness--a
much overworked word, by the way--the volume may fall.
It were not possible to produce a complete or "exhaustive" work on any
subject of a historical, topographical or aesthetic nature: so why claim
it? The last word has not yet been said on Dumas himself, and surely not
on Paris--no more has it on Pompeii, where they are still finding
evidences of a long lost civilization as great as any previously
unearthed.
It was only yesterday, too (this is written in the month of March, 1904),
that a party of frock-coated and silk-hatted benevolent-looking gentlemen
were seen issuing from a manhole in the _Universite quartier_ of Paris.
They had been inspecting a newly discovered _thermale etablissement_ of
Roman times, which led off one of the newly opened subterranean arteries
which abound beneath Paris.
It is said to be a rival of the Roman bath which is enclosed within the
walls of the present Musee Cluny, and perhaps the equal in size and
splendour of any similar remains extant.
This, then, suggests that in every land new ground, new view-points, and
new conditions of life are making possible a record which, to have its
utmost value, should be a progressively chronological one.
And after this manner the present volume has been written. There is a fund
of material to draw upon, historic fact, pertinent and contemporary
side-lights, and, above all, the environment which haloed itself around
the personality of Dumas, which lies buried in many a _cache_ which, if
not actually inaccessible, is at least not to be found in the usual books
of reference.
Perhaps some day even more will have been collected, and a truly
satisfying biographical work compiled. If so, it will be the work of some
ardent Frenchman of a generation following that in which Alexandre Dumas
lived, and not by one of the contemporaries of even his later years.
Albert Vandam, perhaps, might have done it as it should have been done;
but he did not do so, and so an intimate personal record has been lost.
Paris has ever been written down in the book of man as the city of light,
of gaiety, and of a trembling vivacity which has been in turn profligate,
riotous, and finally criminal.
All this is perhaps true enough, but no more in degree than in most
capitals which have endured so long, and have risen to such greatness.
With Paris it is quantity, with no sacrifice of quality, that has placed
it in so preeminent a position among great cities, and the life of
Paris--using the phrase in its most commonly recognized aspect--is
accordingly more brilliant or the reverse, as one views it from the
_boulevards_ or from the _villettes_.
[Illustration: DUMAS' HOUSE AT VILLERS-COTTERETS]
French writers, the novelists in particular, have well known and made
use of this; painters and poets, too, have perpetuated it in a manner
which has not been applied to any other city in the world.
To realize the conditions of the life of Paris to the full one has to go
back to Rousseau--perhaps even farther. His observation that "_Les maisons
font la ville, mais le citoyens font la cite_," was true when written, and
it is true to-day, with this modification, that the delimitation of the
confines of _la ville_ should be extended so far as to include all
workaday Paris--the shuffling, bustling world of energy and spirit which
has ever insinuated itself into the daily life of the people.
The love and knowledge of Alexandre Dumas _pere_ for Paris was great, and
the accessory and detail of his novels, so far as he drew upon the
capital, was more correct and apropos. It was something more than a mere
dash of local colour scattered upon the canvas from a haphazard palette.
In _minutiae_ it was not drawn as fine as the later Zola was wont to
accomplish, but it showed no less detail did one but comprehend its full
meaning.
Though born in the provincial town Villers-Cotterets,--seventy-eight
kilometres from Paris on the road to Soissons,--Dumas came early in touch
with the metropolis, having in a sort of runaway journey broken loose
from his old associations and finally becoming settled in the capital as a
clerk in the Bureau d'Orleans, at the immature age of twenty. Thus it was
that his impressions and knowledge of Paris were founded upon an
experience which was prolonged and intimate, extending, with brief
intervals of travel, for over fifty years.
He had journeyed meantime to Switzerland, England, Corsica, Naples, the
Rhine, Belgium,--with a brief residence in Italy in 1840-42,--then
visiting Spain, Russia, the Caucasus, and Germany.
This covered a period from 1822, when he first came to Paris, until his
death at Puys, near Dieppe, in 1870; nearly a full half-century amid
activities in matters literary, artistic, and social, which were scarce
equalled in brilliancy elsewhere--before or since.
In spite of his intimate association with the affairs of the capital,--he
became, it is recalled, a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies at the
time of the Second Republic,--Dumas himself has recorded, in a preface
contributed to a "Histoire de l'Eure," by M. Charpillon (1879), that if he
were ever to compile a history of France he should first search for _les
pierres angulaires_ of his edifice in the provinces.
This bespeaks a catholicity which, perhaps, after all, is, or should be,
the birthright of every historical novelist.
He said further, in this really valuable and interesting contribution,
which seems to have been entirely overlooked by the bibliographers, that
"to write the history of France would take a hundred volumes"--and no
doubt he was right, though it has been attempted in less.
And again that "the aggrandizement of Paris has only been accomplished by
a weakening process having been undergone by the provinces." The egg from
which Paris grew was deposited in the nest of _la cite_, the same as are
the eggs laid _par un cygne_.
He says further that in writing the history of Paris he would have founded
on "Lutetia (or Louchetia) the _Villa de Jules_, and would erect in the
Place de Notre Dame a temple or altar to Ceres; at which epoch would have
been erected another to Mercury, on the Mount of Ste. Genevieve; to Apollo
in the Rue de la Barillerie, where to-day is erected that part of
Tuileries built by Louis XIV., and which is called _Le Pavillon de Flore_.
"Then one would naturally follow with _Les Thermes de Julien_, which grew
up from the _Villa de Jules_; the reunion under Charlemagne which
accomplished the Sorbonne (_Sora bona_), which in turn became the
favourite place of residence of Hugues Capet, the stronghold of
Philippe-Auguste, the _bibliotheque_ of Charles V., the monumental capital
of Henri VI. d'Angleterre; and so on through the founding of the first
printing establishment in France by Louis XI.; the new school of painting
by Francois I.; of the Academie by Richelieu; ... to the final curtailment
of monarchial power with the horrors of the Revolution and the significant
events which centred around the Bastille, Versailles, and the Tuileries."
Leaving the events of the latter years of the eighteenth century, and
coming to the day in which Dumas wrote (1867), Paris was truly--and in
every sense--
"The capital of France, and its history became not only the history of
France but the history of the world.... The city will yet become the
capital of humanity, and, since Napoleon repudiated his provincial
residences and made Paris _sa residence imperiale_, the man of destiny who
reigns in Paris in reality reigns throughout the universe."
There may be those who will take exception to these brilliant words of
Dumas. The Frenchman has always been an ardent and _soi-disant_ bundle of
enthusiasm, but those who love him must pardon his pride, which is
harmless to himself and others alike, and is a far more admirable quality
than the indifference and apathy born of other lands.
His closing words are not without a cynical truth, and withal a pride in
Paris:
"It is true that if we can say with pride, we Parisians, 'It was Paris
which overthrew the Bastille,' you of the provinces can say with equal
pride, 'It was we who made the Revolution.'"
As if to ease the hurt, he wrote further these two lines only:
"At this epoch the sister nations should erect a gigantic statue of Peace.
This statue will be Paris, and its pedestal will represent _La Province_."
His wish--it was not prophecy--did not, however, come true, as the world
in general and France and poor rent Alsace et Lorraine in particular know
to their sorrow; and all through a whim of a self-appointed, though
weakling, monarch.
The era of the true peace of the world and the monument to its glory came
when the French nation presented to the New World that grand work of
Bartholdi, "Liberty Enlightening the World," which stands in New York
harbour, and whose smaller replica now terminates the Allee des Cygnes.
The grasp that Dumas had of the events of romance and history served his
purpose well, and in the life of the fifties in Paris his was a name and
personality that was on everybody's lips.
How he found time to live the full life that he did is a marvel; it
certainly does not bear out the theory of heredity when one considers the
race of his birth and the "dark-skinned" languor which was supposedly his
heritage.
One edition of his work comprises two hundred and seventy-seven volumes,
and within the year a London publisher has announced some sixty volumes
"never before translated." Dumas himself has said that he was the author
of over seven hundred works.
In point of time his romances go back to the days of the house of Valois
and the Anglo-French wars (1328), and to recount their contents is to
abstract many splendid chapters from out the pages of French history.
It would seem as though nearly every personage of royalty and celebrity
(if these democratic times will allow the yoking together of the two; real
genuine _red_ republicans would probably link royalty and notoriety)
stalked majestically through his pages, and the record runs from the
fourteenth nearly to the end of the nineteenth century, with the exception
of the reign of Louis XI.
An ardent admirer of Sir Walter Scott has commented upon this lapse as
being accounted for by the apparent futility of attempting to improve upon
"Quentin Durward." This is interesting, significant, and characteristic,
but it is not charitable, generous, or broad-minded.
CHAPTER II.
DUMAS' EARLY LIFE IN PARIS
At fifteen (1817), Dumas entered the law-office of one Mennesson at
Villers-Cotterets as a _saute-ruisseau_ (gutter-snipe), as he himself
called it, and from this time on he was forced to forego what had been his
passion heretofore: bird-catching, shooting, and all manner of woodcraft.
When still living at Villers-Cotterets Dumas had made acquaintance with
the art of the dramatist, so far as it was embodied in the person of
Adolphe de Leuven, with whom he collaborated in certain immature
melodramas and vaudevilles, which De Leuven himself took to Paris for
disposal.
"No doubt managers would welcome them with enthusiasm," said Dumas, "and
likely enough we shall divert a branch of that Pactolus River which is
irrigating the domains of M. Scribe" (1822).
Later on in his "Memoires" he says: "Complete humiliation; we were refused
everywhere."
[Illustration: STATUE OF DUMAS AT VILLERS-COTTERETS]
From Villers-Cotterets the scene of Dumas' labours was transferred to
Crepy, three and a half leagues distant, a small town to which he made his
way on foot, his belongings in a little bundle "_not more bulky than that
of a Savoyard when he leaves his native mountains_."
In his new duties, still as a lawyer's clerk, Dumas found life very
wearisome, and, though the ancient capital of the Valois must have made an
impress upon him,--as one learns from the Valois romances,--he pined for
the somewhat more free life which he had previously lived; or, taking the
bull by the horns, deliberated as to how he might get into the very vortex
of things by pushing on to the capital.
As he tritely says, "To arrive it was necessary to make a start," and the
problem was how to arrive in Paris from Crepy in the existing condition of
his finances.
By dint of ingenuity and considerable activity Dumas left Crepy in company
with a friend on a sort of a runaway holiday, and made his third entrance
into Paris.
It would appear that Dumas' culinary and gastronomic capabilities early
came into play, as we learn from the "Memoires" that, when he was not yet
out of his teens, and serving in the notary's office at Crepy, he
proposed to his colleague that they take this three days' holiday in
Paris.
They could muster but thirty-five francs between them, so Dumas proposed
that they should shoot game _en route_. Said Dumas, "We can kill, shall I
say, one hare, two partridges, and a quail.... We reach Dammartin, get the
hinder part of our hare roasted and the front part jugged, then we eat and
drink." "And what then?" said his friend. "What then? Bless you, why we
pay for our wine, bread, and seasoning with the two partridges, and we tip
the waiter with the quail."
The journey was accomplished in due order, and he and his friend put up at
the Hotel du Vieux-Augustins, reaching there at ten at night.
In the morning he set out to find his collaborateur De Leuven, but the
fascination of Paris was such that it nearly made him forswear regard for
the flight of time.
He says of the Palais Royale: "I found myself within its courtyard, and
stopped before the Theatre Francais, and on the bill I saw:
"'Demain, Lundi
Sylla
Tragedie dans cinq Actes
Par M. de Jouy'
"I solemnly swore that by some means or other ... I would see Sylla, and
all the more so because, in large letters, under the above notice, were
the words, 'The character of Sylla will be taken by M. Talma.'"
In his "Memoires" Dumas states that it was at this time he had the
temerity to call on the great Talma. "Talma was short-sighted," said he,
"and was at his toilet; his hair was close cut, and his aspect under these
conditions was remarkably un-poetic.... Talma was for me a god--a god
unknown, it is true, as was Jupiter to Semele."
And here comes a most delicious bit of Dumas himself, Dumas the egotist:
"Ah, Talma! were you but twenty years younger or I twenty years older! I
know the past, you cannot foretell the future.... Had you known, Talma,
that the hand you had just touched would ultimately write sixty or eighty
dramas ... in each of which you would have found the material for a
marvellous creation...."
Dumas may be said to have at once entered the world of art and letters in
this, his third visit to Paris, which took place so early in life, but in
the years so ripe with ambition.
Having seen the great Talma in Sylla, in his dressing-room at the Theatre
Francais, he met Delavigne, who was then just completing his "Ecole des
Viellards," Lucien Arnault, who had just brought out "Regulus;" Soumet,
fresh from the double triumph of "Saul" and "Clymnestre;" here, too, were
Lemercier, Delrien, Viennet, and Jouy himself; and he had met at the Cafe
du Roi, Theadlon, Francis, Rochefort, and De Merle; indeed by his friend
De Leuven he was introduced to the assemblage there as a "future
Corneille," in spite of the fact that he was but a notary's clerk.
Leaving what must have been to Dumas _the presence_, he shot a parting
remark, "Ah, yes, I shall come to Paris for good, I warrant you that."
In "The Taking of the Bastille" Dumas traces again, in the characters of
Pitou and old Father Billot, much of the route which he himself took on
his first visit to Paris. The journey, then, is recounted from first-hand
information, and there will be no difficulty on the part of any one in
tracing the similarity of the itinerary.
Chapter I., of the work in question, brings us at once on familiar ground,
and gives a description of Villers-Cotterets and its inhabitants in a
manner which shows Dumas' hand so unmistakably as to remove any doubts as
to the volume of assistance he may have received from others, on this
particular book at least.
"On the borders of Picardy and the province of Soissons, and on that part
of the national territory which, under the name of the Isle of France,
formed a portion of the ancient patrimony of our kings, and in the centre
of an immense crescent, formed by a forest of fifty thousand acres, which
stretches its horns to the north and south, rises, almost buried amid the
shades of a vast park planted by Francois I. and Henri II., the small city
of Villers-Cotterets. This place is celebrated from having given birth to
Charles Albert Demoustier, who, at the period when our present history
commences, was there writing his Letters to Emilie on Mythology, to the
unbounded satisfaction of the pretty women of those days, who eagerly
snatched his publications from each other as soon as printed.
"Let us add, to complete the poetical reputation of this little city,
whose detractors, notwithstanding its royal chateau and its two thousand
four hundred inhabitants, obstinately persist in calling it a mere
village--let us add, we say, to complete its poetical reputation, that it
is situated at two leagues distance from Laferte-Milan, where Racine was
born, and eight leagues from Chateau-Thierry, the birthplace of La
Fontaine.
"Let us also state that the mother of the author of 'Britannicus' and
'Athalie' was from Villers-Cotterets.
"But now we must return to its royal chateau and its two thousand four
hundred inhabitants.
"This royal chateau, begun by Francois I., whose salamanders still
decorate it, and finished by Henri II., whose cipher it bears entwined
with that of Catherine de Medici and encircled by the three crescents of
Diana of Poictiers, after having sheltered the loves of the knight king
with Madame d'Etampes, and those of Louis Philippe of Orleans with the
beautiful Madame de Montesson, had become almost uninhabited since the
death of this last prince; his son, Philippe d'Orleans, afterward called
Egalite, having made it descend from the rank of a royal residence to that
of a mere hunting rendezvous.
"It is well known that the chateau and forest of Villers-Cotterets formed
part of the appanage settled by Louis XIV. on his brother Monsieur, when
the second son of Anne of Austria married the sister of Charles II., the
Princess Henrietta of England.
"As to the two thousand four hundred inhabitants of whom we have promised
our readers to say a word, they were, as in all localities where two
thousand four hundred people are united, a heterogeneous assemblage.
"Firstly: Of the few nobles, who spent their summers in the neighbouring
chateaux and their winters in Paris, and who, mimicking the prince, had
only a lodging-place in the city.
"Secondly: Of a goodly number of citizens, who could be seen, let the
weather be what it might, leaving their houses after dinner, umbrella in
hand, to take their daily walk, a walk which was regularly bounded by a
deep, invisible ditch which separated the park from the forest, situated
about a quarter of a league from the town, and which was called, doubtless
on account of the exclamation which the sight of it drew from the
asthmatic lungs of the promenaders, satisfied at finding themselves not
too much out of breath, the 'Ha, ha!'
"Thirdly: Of a considerably greater number of artisans who worked the
whole of the week and only allowed themselves to take a walk on the
Sunday; whereas their fellow townsmen, more favoured by fortune, could
enjoy it every day.
"Fourthly and finally: Of some miserable proletarians, for whom the week
had not even a Sabbath, and who, after having toiled six days in the pay
of the nobles, the citizens, or even of the artisans, wandered on the
seventh day through the forest to gather up dry wood or branches of the
lofty trees, torn from them by the storm, that mower of the forest, to
whom oak-trees are but ears of wheat, and which it scattered over the
humid soil beneath the lofty trees, the magnificent appanage of a prince.
"If Villers-Cotterets (Villerii ad Cotiam Retiae) had been, unfortunately,
a town of sufficient importance in history to induce archaeologists to
ascertain and follow up its successive changes from a village to a town
and from a town to a city--the last, as we have said, being strongly
contested, they would certainly have proved this fact, that the village
had begun by being a row of houses on either side of the road from Paris
to Soissons; then they would have added that its situation on the borders
of a beautiful forest having, though by slow degrees, brought to it a
great increase of inhabitants, other streets were added to the first,
diverging like the rays of a star and leading toward other small villages
with which it was important to keep up communication, and converging
toward a point which naturally became the centre, that is to say, what in
the provinces is called _Le Carrefour_,--and sometimes even the Square,
whatever might be its shape,--and around which the handsomest buildings of
the village, now become a burgh, were erected, and in the middle of which
rises a fountain, now decorated with a quadruple dial; in short, they
would have fixed the precise date when, near the modest village church,
the first want of a people, arose the first turrets of the vast chateau,
the last caprice of a king; a chateau which, after having been, as we have
already said, by turns a royal and a princely residence, has in our days
become a melancholy and hideous receptacle for mendicants under the
direction of the Prefecture of the Seine, and to whom M. Marrast issues
his mandates through delegates of whom he has not, nor probably will ever
have, either the time or the care to ascertain the names."
The last sentence seems rather superfluous,--if it was justifiable,--but,
after all, no harm probably was done, and Dumas as a rule was never
vituperative.
Continuing, these first pages give us an account of the difficulties under
which poor Louis Ange Pitou acquired his knowledge of Latin, which is
remarkably like the account which Dumas gives in the "Memoires" of his
early acquaintance with the classics.
When Pitou leaves Haramont, his native village, and takes to the road, and
visits Billot at "Bruyere aux Loups," knowing well the road, as he did
that to Damploux, Compiegne, and Vivieres, he was but covering ground
equally well known to Dumas' own youth.
Finally, as he is joined by Billot _en route_ for Paris, and takes the
highroad from Villers-Cotterets, near Gondeville, passing Nanteuil,
Dammartin, and Ermenonville, arriving at Paris at La Villette, he follows
almost the exact itinerary taken by the venturesome Dumas on his runaway
journey from the notary's office at Crepy-en-Valois.
Crepy-en-Valois was the near neighbour of Villers-Cotterets, which
jealously attempted to rival it, and does even to-day. In "The Taking of
the Bastille" Dumas only mentions it in connection with Mother Sabot's
_ane_, "which was shod,"--the only ass which Pitou had ever known which
wore shoes,--and performed the duty of carrying the mails between Crepy
and Villers-Cotterets.
At Villers-Cotterets one may come into close contact with the chateau
which is referred to in the later pages of the "Vicomte de Bragelonne."
"Situated in the middle of the forest, where we shall lead a most
sentimental life, the very same where my grandfather," said Monseigneur
the Prince, "Henri IV. did with 'La Belle Gabrielle.'"
So far as lion-hunting goes, Dumas himself at an early age appears to have
fallen into it. He recalls in "Mes Memoires" the incident of Napoleon I.
passing through Villers-Cotterets just previous to the battle of Waterloo.
"Nearly every one made a rush for the emperor's carriage," said he;
"naturally I was one of the first.... Napoleon's pale, sickly face seemed
a block of ivory.... He raised his head and asked, 'Where are we?' 'At
Villers-Cotterets, Sire,' said a voice. 'Go on.'" Again, a few days later,
as we learn from the "Memoires," "a horseman coated with mud rushes into
the village; orders four horses for a carriage which is to follow, and
departs.... A dull rumble draws near ... a carriage stops.... 'Is it
he--the emperor?' Yes, it was the emperor, in the same position as I had
seen him before, exactly the same, pale, sickly, impassive; only the head
droops rather more.... 'Where are we?' he asked. 'At Villers-Cotterets,
Sire.' 'Go on.'"
That evening Napoleon slept at the Elysee. It was but three months since
he had returned from Elba, but in that time he came to an abyss which had
engulfed his fortune. That abyss was Waterloo; only saved to the
allies--who at four in the afternoon were practically defeated--by the
coming up of the Germans at six.
Among the books of reference and contemporary works of a varying nature
from which a writer in this generation must build up his facts anew, is
found a wide difference in years as to the date of the birth of Dumas
_pere_.
As might be expected, the weight of favour lies with the French
authorities, though by no means do they, even, agree among themselves.
His friends have said that no unbiassed, or even complete biography of the
author exists, even in French; and possibly this is so. There is about
most of them a certain indefiniteness and what Dumas himself called the
"colour of sour grapes."
The exact date of his birth, however, is unquestionably 1802, if a
photographic reproduction of his natal certificate, published in Charles
Glinel's "Alex. Dumas et Son Oeuvre," is what it seems to be.
Dumas' aristocratic parentage--for such it truly was--has been the
occasion of much scoffing and hard words. He pretended not to it himself,
but it was founded on family history, as the records plainly tell, and
whether Alexandre, the son of the brave General Dumas, the Marquis de la
Pailleterie, was prone to acknowledge it or not does not matter in the
least. The "feudal particle" existed plainly in his pedigree, and with no
discredit to any concerned.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF DUMAS' OWN STATEMENT OF HIS BIRTH]
General Dumas, his wife, and his son are buried in the cemetery of
Villers-Cotterets, where the exciting days of the childhood of Dumas, the
romancer, were spent, in a plot of ground "conceded in perpetuity to the
family." The plot forms a rectangle six metres by five, surrounded by
towering pines.
The three monuments contained therein are of the utmost simplicity, each
consisting of an inclined slab of stone.
The inscriptions are as follows:
FAMILLE
Thomas-Alexandre
Dumas
Davy de la Pailleterie
general de division
ne a Jeremie
Ile et Cote de Saint
Dominique
le 25 mars 1762,
decede
a Villers-Cotterets
le 27 fevrier 1806
ALEXANDRE
Marie-Louise-Elizabeth
Labouret
Epouse
du general de division
Dumas Davy
de la Pailleterie
nee
a Villers-Cotterets
le 4 juillet 1769
decedee
le 1er aout 1838
DUMAS
Alexandre Dumas
ne a Villers-Cotterets
le 24 juillet 1802
decede
le 5 decembre 1870
a Puys
transfere
a
Villers-Cotterets
le
15 avril 1872
There would seem to be no good reason why a book treating of Dumas' Paris
might not be composed entirely of quotations from Dumas' own works. For a
fact, such a work would be no less valuable as a record than were it
evolved by any other process. It would indeed be the best record that
could possibly be made, for Dumas' topography was generally truthful if
not always precise.
There are, however, various contemporary side-lights which are thrown upon
any canvas, no matter how small its area, and in this instance they seem
to engulf even the personality of Dumas himself, to say nothing of his
observations.
Dumas was such a part and parcel of the literary life of the times in
which he lived that mention can scarce be made of any contemporary event
that has not some bearing on his life or work, or he with it, from the
time when he first came to the metropolis (in 1822) at the impressionable
age of twenty, until the end.
It will be difficult, even, to condense the relative incidents which
entered into his life within the confines of a single volume, to say
nothing of a single chapter. The most that can be done is to present an
abridgment which shall follow along the lines of some preconceived
chronological arrangement. This is best compiled from Dumas' own words,
leaving it to the additional references of other chapters to throw a sort
of reflected glory from a more distant view-point.
The reputation of Dumas with the merely casual reader rests upon his
best-known romances, "Monte Cristo," 1841; "Les Trois Mousquetaires,"
1844; "Vingt Ans Apres," 1845; "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," 1847; "La Dame
de Monsoreau," 1847; and his dramas of "Henri III. et Sa Cour," 1829,
"Antony," 1831, and "Kean," 1836.
His memoirs, "Mes Memoires," are practically closed books to the mass of
English readers--the word books is used advisedly, for this remarkable
work is composed of twenty stout volumes, and they only cover ten years of
the author's life.
Therein is a mass of fact and fancy which may well be considered as
fascinating as are the "romances" themselves, and, though autobiographic,
one gets a far more satisfying judgment of the man than from the various
warped and distorted accounts which have since been published, either in
French or English.
Beginning with "Memories of My Childhood" (1802-06), Dumas launches into
a few lines anent his first visit to Paris, in company with his father,
though the auspicious--perhaps significant--event took place at a very
tender age. It seems remarkable that he should have recalled it at all,
but he was a remarkable man, and it seems not possible to ignore his
words.
"We set out for Paris, ah, that journey! I recollect it perfectly.... It
was August or September, 1805. We got down in the Rue Thiroux at the
house of one Dolle.... I had been embraced by one of the most noble ladies
who ever lived, Madame la Marquise de Montesson, widow of Louis-Philippe
d'Orleans.... The next day, putting Brune's sword between my legs and
Murat's hat upon my head, I galloped around the table; when my father
said, '_Never forget this, my boy_.'... My father consulted Corvisart, and
attempted to see the emperor, but Napoleon, the quondam general, had now
become the emperor, and he refused to see my father.... To where did we
return? I believe Villers-Cotterets."
Again on the 26th of March, 1813, Dumas entered Paris in company with his
mother, now widowed. He says of this visit:
"I was delighted at the prospect of this my second visit.... I have but
one recollection, full of light and poetry, when, with a flourish of
trumpets, a waving of banners, and shouts of 'Long live the King of Rome,'
was lifted up above the heads of fifty thousand of the National Guard the
rosy face and the fair, curly head of a child of three years--the infant
son of the great Napoleon.... Behind him was his mother,--that woman so
fatal to France, as have been all the daughters of the Caesars, Anne of
Austria, Marie Antoinette, and Marie Louise,--an indistinct, insipid
face.... The next day we started home again."
* * * * *
Through the influence of General Foy, an old friend of his father's, Dumas
succeeded in obtaining employment in the Orleans Bureau at the Palais
Royal.
His occupation there appears not to have been unduly arduous. The offices
were in the right-hand corner of the second courtyard of the Palais Royal.
He remained here in this bureau for a matter of five years, and, as he
said, "loved the hour when he came to the office," because his immediate
superior, Lassagne,--a contributor to the _Drapeau Blanc_,--was the friend
and intimate of Desaugiers, Theaulon, Armand Gouffe, Brozier, Rougemont,
and all the vaudevillists of the time.
Dumas' meeting with the Duc d'Orleans--afterward Louis-Philippe--is
described in his own words thus: "In two words I was introduced. 'My lord,
this is M. Dumas, whom I mentioned to you, General Foy's protege.' 'You
are the son of a brave man,' said the duc, 'whom Bonaparte, it seems, left
to die of starvation.'... The duc gave Oudard a nod, which I took to mean,
'He will do, he's by no means bad for a provincial.'" And so it was that
Dumas came immediately under the eye of the duc, engaged as he was at
that time on some special clerical work in connection with the duc's
provincial estates.
The affability of Dumas, so far as he himself was concerned, was a
foregone conclusion. In the great world in which he moved he knew all
sorts and conditions of men. He had his enemies, it is true, and many of
them, but he himself was the enemy of no man. To English-speaking folk he
was exceedingly agreeable, because,--quoting his own words,--said he, "It
was a part of the debt which I owed to Shakespeare and Scott." Something
of the egoist here, no doubt, but gracefully done nevertheless.
With his temperament it was perhaps but natural that Dumas should have
become a romancer. This was of itself, maybe, a foreordained sequence of
events, but no man thinks to-day that, leaving contributary conditions,
events, and opportunities out of the question, he shapes his own fate;
there are accumulated heritages of even distant ages to contend with. In
Dumas' case there was his heritage of race and colour, refined, perhaps,
by a long drawn out process, but, as he himself tells in "Mes Memoires,"
his mother's fear was that her child would be born black, and he _was_,
or, at least, purple, as he himself afterward put it.