THE LOUVRE
"_Paris renferme beaucoup de palais; mais le vrai palais de Paris, le vrai
palais de la France, tout le monde l'a nomme,--c'est le Louvre._"
Upon the first appearance of "Marguerite de Valois," a critic writing in
_Blackwood's Magazine_, has chosen to commend Dumas' directness of plot
and purpose in a manner which every lover of Dumas and student of history
will not fail to appreciate. He says: "Dumas, according to his custom,
introduces a vast array of characters, for the most part historical, all
spiritedly drawn and well sustained. In various respects the author may be
held up as an example to our own history-spoilers, and self-styled writers
of historical romance. One does not find him profaning public edifices by
causing all sorts of absurdities to pass, and of twaddle to be spoken,
within their precincts; neither does he make his king and beggar,
high-born dame and private soldier use the very same language, all
equally tame, colourless, and devoid of character. The spirited and varied
dialogue, in which his romances abound, illustrates and brings out the
qualities and characteristics of his actors, and is not used for the sole
purpose of making a chapter out of what would be better told in a page. In
many instances, indeed, it would be difficult for him to tell his story,
by the barest narrative, in fewer words than he does by pithy and pointed
dialogue."
No edifice in Paris itself, nor, indeed, in all France, is more closely
identified with the characters and plots of Dumas' romances than the
Louvre. In the Valois cycle alone, the personages are continually flocking
and stalking thither; some mere puppets,--walking gentlemen and
ladies,--but many more, even, who are personages so very real that even in
the pages of Dumas one forgets that it is romance pure and simple, and is
almost ready to accept his word as history. This it is not, as is well
recognized, but still it is a pleasant manner of bringing before the
omnivorous reader many facts which otherwise he might ignore or perhaps
overlook.
It really is not possible to particularize all the action of Dumas'
romances which centred around the Louvre. To do so would be to write the
mediaeval history of the famous building, or to produce an analytical index
to the works of Dumas which would somewhat approach in bulk the celebrated
Chinese encyclopaedia.
We learn from "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" of D'Artagnan's great familiarity
with the life which went on in the old chateau of the Louvre. "I will tell
you where M. d'Artagnan is," said Raoul; "he is now in Paris; when on
duty, he is to be met at the Louvre; when not so, in the Rue des
Lombards."
This describes the situation exactly: when the characters of the
D'Artagnan and the Valois romances are not actually within the precincts
of the Louvre, they have either just left it or are about to return
thither, or some momentous event is being enacted there which bears upon
the plot.
Perhaps the most dramatic incident in connection with the Louvre mentioned
by Dumas, was that of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's night, "that
bloody deed which culminated from the great struggle which devastated
France in the latter part of the sixteenth century."
Dumas throws in his lot with such historians as Ranke and Soldain, who
prefer to think that the massacre which took place on the fete-day of St.
Bartholomew was not the result of a long premeditated plot, but was
rather the fruit of a momentary fanatical terror aroused by the
unsuccessful attempt on the life of Coligny.
This aspect is apart from the question. The principal fact with which the
novelist and ourselves are concerned is that the event took place much as
stated: that it was from the Louvre that the plot--if plot it
were--emanated, and that the sounding bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois did,
on that fateful night, indicate to those present in the Louvre the fact
that the bloody massacre had begun.
The fabric itself--the work of many hands, at the instigation of so many
minds--is an enduring monument to the fame of those who projected it, or
who were memorialized thereby: Philippe-Auguste, Marie de Medici, Francois
I., Charles IX., Henri IV., Louis XIV., Napoleon I.,--who did but little,
it is true,--and Napoleon III.--who did much, and did it badly.
Besides history, bloody deeds, and intrigue, there is also much of
sentiment to be gathered from an observation of its walls; as witness the
sculptures and decorations of Goujon and Lescot, the interlaced monogram
G. H., of Henri and Gabrielle d'Estrees, and the superimposed crescents of
the fair Diane de Poitiers. But such romances as these are best read in
the pages of Dumas.
"To the French the Louvre is more than a palace; it is a sanctuary," said
an enthusiastic Frenchman. As such it is a shrine to be worshipped by
itself, though it is pardonable to wish to know to-day just where and when
the historic events of its career took place.
One can trace the outline, in white marble, of the ancient Chateau du
Louvre, in the easterly courtyard of the present establishment; can admire
the justly celebrated eastern colonnade, though so defective was the
architect in his original plans that it overlaps the side walls of the
connecting buildings some dozen or more feet; can follow clearly all the
various erections of monarchs and eras, and finally contemplate the tiny
columns set about in the garden of the Tuileries, which mark all that is
left of that ambitious edifice.
The best description of the Tuileries by Dumas comes into the scene in
"The Count of Monte Cristo," when Villefort,--who shares with Danglars and
Fernand the distinction of being the villain of the piece,--after
travelling with all speed from Marseilles to Paris, "penetrates the two or
three apartments which precede it, and enters the small cabinet of the
Tuileries with the arched window, so well known as having been the
favourite cabinet of Napoleon and Louis XVIII., as also that of
Louis-Philippe.
"There, in this closet, seated before a walnut-tree table he had brought
with him from Hartwell, and to which, from one of those fancies not
uncommon to great people, he was particularly attached, the king, Louis
XVIII., was carelessly listening to a man of fifty or fifty-two years of
age, with gray hair, aristocratic bearing, and exceedingly gentlemanly
attire, whilst he was making a note in a volume of Horace, Gryphius's
edition, which was much indebted to the sagacious observations of the
philosophical monarch."
Of course, an author of to-day would have expressed it somewhat
differently, but at the time in which Dumas wrote, the little cabinet did
exist, and up to the time of the destruction of the palace, at the
Commune, was doubtless as much of a showplace in its way as is the window
of the Louvre from which Charles IX. was supposed to have fired upon the
fleeing Huguenots--with this difference: that the cabinet had a real
identity, while the window in question has been more recently ascertained
as not having been built at the time of the event.
* * * * *
Some one has mentioned Paris, the forgetter, as if modern Paris and its
gay life--for assuredly it is gay, regardless of what the _blase_ folk
may say or think--had entirely blotted out from its memory the horrors of
St. Bartholomew's night, the tragedies of La Roquette, the Conciergerie,
or the Bastille.
This is so in a measure, however, though one has only to cross the square
which lies before Les Halles, La Tour St. Jacques, or Notre Dame, to
recall most vividly the tragedies which have before been enacted there.
The Louvre literally reeks with the intrigue and bloodshed of political
and religious warfare; and Dumas' picture of the murder of the admiral,
and his version of the somewhat apocryphal incident of Charles IX. potting
at the Protestant victims, with a specially made and garnished firearm, is
sufficiently convincing, when once read, to suggest the recollections, at
least, of the heartless act. From the Louvre it is but a step--since the
Tuileries has been destroyed--to the Place de la Concorde.
When this great square, now given over to bird-fanciers, automobilists,
and photograph-sellers, was first cleared, it was known as the Place de la
Revolution. In the later volumes of the Valois romances one reads of a
great calendar of scenes and incidents which were consummated here. It is
too large a list to even catalogue, but one will recollect that here, in
this statue surrounded place, with playing fountains glittering in the
sunlight, is buried under a brilliance--very foreign to its former
aspect--many a grim tragedy of profound political purport.
It was here that Louis XVI. said, "I die innocent; I forgive my enemies,
and pray God to avert his vengeance for my blood, and to bless my people."
To-day one sees only the ornate space, the _voitures_ and automobiles, the
tricolour floating high on the Louvre, and this forgetful Paris, brilliant
with sunlight, green with trees, beautified by good government, which
offers in its _kiosks_, cafes, and theatres the fulness of the moment at
every turn. Paris itself truly forgets, if one does not.
* * * * *
The Louvre as it is known to-day is a highly intricate composition. Its
various parts have grown, not under one hand, but from a common root,
until it blossomed forth in its full glory when the western front of
Catherine de Medici took form. Unfortunately, with its disappearance at
the Commune the completeness of this elaborate edifice went for ever.
One is apt to overlook the fact that the old Louvre, the _ancienne Palais
du Louvre_, was a mediaeval battlemented and turreted structure, which bore
little resemblance to the Louvre of to-day, or even that of Charles,
Henri, Catherine, or Marguerite, of whom Dumas wrote in the Valois
romances.
[Illustration: THE GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES]
The general ground-plan of the two distinct portions is the same, except
for some minor additions of Napoleon I. and the connecting links built by
Napoleon III., and many of the apartments are of course much the same, but
there has been a general laying out of the courts anew, and tree-planting
and grading of the streets and quais in the immediate neighbourhood; so
much so that almost the entire aspect is changed. In spite of its
compositeness, there is a certain aspect of uniformity of outline, though
not of excellence of design.
The only relics of the Palace of the Tuileries are the colonnettes set
about in the garden and surmounted by gilded balls.