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
institution, 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 passes the front of the
Luxembourg Palace, and the Rue Cassette, 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.
[Illustration: CARMELITE FRIARY, RUE VAUGIRARD]
Both sides of the river, and, indeed, the Cite itself, are alive with the
association 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.
Perhaps it was one of these,--the present Hotel de France, for
instance,--but there are no existing records to tell us beyond doubt that
this is so.
There is another inn which Dumas mentions in "The Forty-Five Guardsmen,"
not so famous, and not traceable to-day, but his description of it is
highly interesting and amusing.
"Near the Porte Buci," says Chapter VII. of the book before mentioned,
"where we must now transport our readers, to follow some of their
acquaintances, and to make new ones, a hum, like that in a beehive at
sunset, was heard proceeding from a house tinted rose colour, and
ornamented with blue and white pointings, which was known by the sign of
'The Sword of the Brave Chevalier,' and which was an immense inn, recently
built in this new quarter. This house was decorated to suit all tastes. On
the entablature was painted a representation of a combat between an
archangel and a dragon breathing flame and smoke, and in which the artist,
animated by sentiments at once heroic and pious, had depicted in the hands
of 'the brave chevalier,' not a sword, but an immense cross, with which he
hacked in pieces the unlucky dragon, of which the bleeding pieces were
seen lying on the ground. At the bottom of the picture crowds of
spectators were represented raising their arms to heaven, while from above
angels were extending over the chevalier laurels and palms. Then, as if to
prove that he could paint in every style, the artist had grouped around
gourds, grapes, a snail on a rose, and two rabbits, one white and the
other gray.
"Assuredly the proprietor must have been difficult to please, if he were
not satisfied, for the artist had filled every inch of space--there was
scarcely room to have added a caterpillar. In spite, however, of this
attractive exterior, the hotel did not prosper--it was never more than
half full, though it was large and comfortable. Unfortunately, from its
proximity to the Pre-aux-Clercs, it was frequented by so many persons
either going or ready to fight, that those more peaceably disposed avoided
it. Indeed, the cupids with which the interior was decorated had been
ornamented with moustaches in charcoal by the _habitues_; and Dame
Fournichon, the landlady, always affirmed that the sign had brought them
ill-luck, and that, had her wishes been attended to, and the painting
represented more pleasing things, such as the rose-tree of love surrounded
by flaming hearts, all tender couples would have flocked to them.
"M. Fournichon, however, stuck to his sign, and replied that he preferred
fighting men, and that one of them drank as much as six lovers."
Dumas' reference to this curiously disposed "happy family" calls to mind
the anecdote which he recounts in "The Taking of the Bastille," concerning
salamanders:
"The famous trunk, which had now been dignified with the name of desk, had
become, thanks to its vastness, and the numerous compartments with which
Pitou had decorated its interior, a sort of Noah's ark, containing a
couple of every species of climbing, crawling, or flying reptiles. There
were lizards, adders, ant-eaters, beetles, and frogs, which reptiles
became so much dearer to Pitou from their being the cause of his being
subjected to punishment more or less severe.
"It was in his walks during the week that Pitou made collections for his
menagerie. He had wished for salamanders, which were very popular at
Villers-Cotterets, being the crest of Francois I., and who had them
sculptured on every chimneypiece in the chateau. He had succeeded in
obtaining them; only one thing had strongly preoccupied his mind, and he
ended by placing this thing among the number of those which were beyond
his intelligence; it was, that he had constantly found in the water these
reptiles which poets have pretended exist only in fire. This circumstance
had given to Pitou, who was a lad of precise mind, a profound contempt for
poets."
* * * * *
Here, at "The Sword of the Brave Chevalier," first met the "Forty-Five
Guardsmen." In the same street is, or was until recently, a modernized and
vulgarized inn of similar name, which was more likely to have been an
adaption from the pages of Dumas than a direct descendant of the original,
if it ever existed. It is the Hotel la Tremouille, near the Luxembourg,
that figures in the pages of "Les Trois Mousquetaires," but the hotel of
the Duc de Treville, in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier, has disappeared in a
rebuilding or widening of this street, which runs from the Place de St.
Sulpice to the Place de la Croix-Rouge.
All these places centre around that famous _affaire_ which took place
before the Carmelite establishment on the Rue Vaugirard: that gallant
sword-play of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis,--helped by the not unwilling
D'Artagnan,--against Richelieu's minions, headed by Jussac.
Within the immediate neighbourhood, too, is much of the _locale_ of "Les
Trois Mousquetaires." Here the four friends themselves lodged, "just
around the corner, within two steps of the Luxembourg," though Porthos
more specifically claimed his residence as in the Rue de Vieux-Colombier.
"That is my abode," said he, as he proudly pointed to its gorgeous
doorway.
The Hotel de Chevreuse of "_la Frondeuse duchesse_," famed alike in
history and the pages of Dumas, is yet to be seen in somewhat changed form
at No. 201 Boulevard St. Germain; its garden cut away by the Boulevard
Raspail.
At No. 12 or 14 Rue des Fossoyeurs, beside the Pantheon,--still much as it
was of yore,--was D'Artagnan's own "sort of a garret." One may not be able
to exactly place it, but any of the decrepitly picturesque houses will
answer the description.
* * * * *
It is a wonderfully varied and interesting collection of buildings which
is found on the height of Ste. Genevieve, overlooking the Jardin and
Palais du Luxembourg: the hybrid St. Etienne du Mont, the pagan Pantheon,
the tower of the ancient Abbaye de Ste. Genevieve, and the Bibliotheque,
which also bears the name of Paris's patron saint.
The old abbey must have had many and varied functions, if history and
romance are to be believed, and to-day its tower and a few short lengths
of wall, built into the Lycee Henri Quatre, are all that remain, unless it
be that the crypt and dungeons, of which one reads in "Chicot the Jester,"
are still existent. Probably they are, but, if so, they have most likely
degenerated into mere lumber-rooms.
The incident as given by Dumas relates briefly to the plot of the Guises
to induce Charles IX., on the plea of some religious ceremony, to enter
one of the monkish _caches_, and there compel him to sign his abdication.
The plot, according to the novelist, was frustrated by the ingenious
Chicot.
At all events, the ensemble to-day is one most unusual, and the whole
locality literally reeks with the associations of tradition.
Architecturally it is a jumble, good in parts, but again shocking in other
parts.
The Eglise St. Etienne du Mont is a weird contrast of architectural style,
but its interior is truly beautiful, and on the wall near the south
transept are two tablets, on which one may read the facts concerning Ste.
Genevieve, which likely enough have for the moment been forgotten by most
of us.
The old abbey must have been a delightful place, in spite of the lurid
picture which Dumas draws of it.
* * * * *
Probably in none of Dumas' romances is there more lively action than in
"The Queen's Necklace." The characters are in a continual migration
between one and another of the faubourgs. Here, again, Dumas does not
forget or ignore the Luxembourg and its environment. He seems, indeed, to
have a special fondness for its neighbourhood. It was useful to him in
most of the Valois series, and doubly so in the D'Artagnan romances.
Beausire, one of the thieves who sought to steal the famous necklace,
"took refuge in a small _cabaret_ in the Luxembourg quarter." The
particular _cabaret_ is likely enough in existence to-day, as the event
took place but a hundred years ago, and Dumas is known to have "drawn from
life" even his pen-portraits of the _locale_ of his stories. At any rate,
there is many a _cabaret_ near the Luxembourg which might fill the bill.
The gardens of the Luxembourg were another favourite haunt of the
characters of Dumas' romances, and in "The Queen's Necklace" they are made
use of again, this time, as usual, as a suitable place for a promenade or
a rendezvous of the fair Oliva, who so much resembled Marie Antoinette.
* * * * *
Like the Rue du Helder, celebrated in "The Corsican Brothers," the Rue de
Lille, where lived, at No. 29, De Franchi's friend, Adrien de Boissy, is
possessed of an air of semi-luxuriousness, or, at any rate, of a certain
middle-class comfort.
It lies on the opposite side of the Seine from the river side of the
Louvre, and runs just back of the site formerly occupied by the Duc de
Montmorenci, where was held the gorgeous ceremony of the marriage of the
Marquis St. Luc, of which one reads in "Chicot the Jester."
There is not much of splendour or romance about the present-day Rue de
Lille; indeed, it is rather commonplace, but as Dumas places the
particular house in which De Boissy lived with definiteness, and,
moreover, in that it exists to-day practically unaltered, there seems
every good reason why it should be catalogued here.
[Illustration: THE BUILDERS OF THE LOUVRE
(1) Francois I., _1546_; (2) Catherine de Medici, _1566-1578_; (3)
Catherine de Medici, _1564_ (destroyed at the Commune); (4) Louis XIII.,
_1524_; (5) Louis XIV., _1660-1670_; (6) Napoleon I., _1806_; (7) Louis
XVIII., _1816_; (8) Napoleon III., _1852-1857_; (9) Napoleon III.,
_1863-1868_.]