THE PALAIS ROYAL
It seems hardly necessary to more than mention the name of the Palais
Royal, in connection with either the life or the writings of Alexandre
Dumas, to induce a line of thought which is practically limitless. It was
identified with Dumas' first employment in the capital, and it has been
the scene of much of the action of both the D'Artagnan and the Valois
romances.
More than all else, however, though one is apt to overlook it somewhat, it
is so closely identified with Richelieu that it is difficult to separate
it from any event of French political history of the period.
It was built by Richelieu in 1629, on the site occupied by the Hotels de
Mercoeur and Rambouillet, and was originally intended to have borne the
name of Hotel Richelieu. Toward 1634 it was enlarged, and was known as the
Palais Cardinal. Finally it was presented, in 1642, to Louis XIII., and at
his death came to Anne of Austria, when the royal family removed thither
and it became known as the Palais Royal.
The incident of the flight of the royal family and Mazarin to St. Germain
is one of the historic and dramatic incidents which Dumas used as one of
the events in which D'Artagnan participated.
The court never returned to make use of the Palais Royal as a royal
residence, and it became the refuge of Henriette de France, Queen of
England and widow of Charles I. Thirty years later Louis XIV., who had
fled from its walls when a child, gave it to his nephew Philippe
d'Orleans, Duc de Chartres.
It was during the _Regence_ that the famous _fetes_ of the Palais Royal
were organized,--they even extended to what the unsympathetic have called
orgies,--but it is certain that no town residences of kings were ever as
celebrated for their splendid functions as was the Palais Royal in the
seventeenth century.
In 1763 a fire brought about certain reconstructions at the expense of the
city of Paris. In 1781, it became again the prey of fire; and
Philippe-Egalite, who was then Duc de Chartres, constructed the three vast
galleries which surround the Palais of to-day.
The _boutiques_ of the galleries were let to merchants of all manner of
foibles, and it became the most lively quarter of Paris.
The public adopted the galleries as fashionable promenades, which became,
for the time, "_un bazar europeen et un rendez-vous d'affaires et de
galanterie_."
It was in 1783 that the Duc d'Orleans constructed "_une salle de
spectacle_," which to-day is the Theatre du Palais Royal, and in the
middle of the garden a _cirque_ which ultimately came to be transformed
into a restaurant.
The purely theatrical event of the history of the Palais Royal came on the
13th of July, 1789, when at midday--as the _coup_ of a _petit canon_ rang
out--a young unknown _avocat_, Camille Desmoulins, mounted a chair and
addressed the throng of promenaders in a thrilling and vibrant voice:
"_Citoyens, j'arrive de Versailles!_--Necker is fled and the Baron
Breteuil is in his place. Breteuil is one of those who have demanded the
head of Mirabeau ... there remains but one resource, and that 'to arms'
and to wear the cockade that we may be known. _Quelle couleur
voulez-vous?_"
With almost a common accord the tricolour was adopted--and the next day
the Bastille fell.
[Illustration: The Orleans Bureau, Palais Royal]
Dumas' account of the incident, taken from "The Taking of the Bastille,"
is as follows:
"During this time the procession kept on advancing; it had moved obliquely
to the left, and had gone down the Rue Montmartre to the Place des
Victoires. When it reached the Palais Royal some great impediment
prevented its passing on. A troop of men with green leaves in their hats
were shouting 'To arms!'
"It was necessary to reconnoitre. Were these men who blocked up the Rue
Vivienne friends or enemies? Green was the colour of the Count d'Artois.
Why then these green cockades?
"After a minute's conference all was explained.
"On learning the dismissal of Necker, a young man had issued from the Cafe
Foy, had jumped upon a table in the garden of the Palais Royal, and,
taking a pistol from his breast, had cried 'To arms!'
"On hearing this cry, all the persons who were walking there had assembled
around him, and had shouted 'To arms!'
"We have already said that all the foreign regiments had been collected
around Paris. One might have imagined that it was an invasion by the
Austrians. The names of these regiments alarmed the ears of all Frenchmen;
they were Reynac, Salis Samade, Diesbach, Esterhazy, Roemer; the very
naming of them was sufficient to make the crowd understand that they were
the names of enemies. The young man named them; he announced that the
Swiss were encamped in the Champs Elysees, with four pieces of artillery,
and that they were to enter Paris the same night, preceded by the
dragoons, commanded by Prince Lambesq. He proposed a new cockade which was
not theirs, snatched a leaf from a chestnut-tree and placed it in the band
of his hat. Upon the instant every one present followed his example. Three
thousand persons had in ten minutes unleaved the trees of the Palais
Royal.
"That morning no one knew the name of that young man; in the evening it
was in every mouth.
"That young man's name was Camille Desmoulins."
* * * * *
After 1793 the Palais Royal was converted, by decree, into the Palais et
Jardin de la Revolution; and reunited to the domains of the state.
Napoleon I. granted its use to the Tribunal for its seances, and Lucien
Bonaparte inhabited it for the "Hundred Days." In 1830 Louis-Philippe, Duc
d'Orleans, gave there a fete in honour of the King of Naples, who had come
to pay his respects to the King of France. Charles X. assisted as an
invited guest at the function, but one month after he had inhabited it as
king.
Under Napoleon III. the Palais Royal was the residence of Prince Jerome,
the uncle of the emperor, afterward that of his son the Prince Napoleon,
when the _fleur-de-lis_ sculptured on the facade gave way before
escutcheons bearing the imperial eagles, which in turn have since given
way to the Republican device of "'48"--"Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite."
* * * * *
It is with a remarkable profusion of detail--for Dumas, at any rate--that
the fourteenth chapter of "The Conspirators" opens.
It is a veritable guide-book phraseology and conciseness, which describes
the streets of the Palais Royal quarter:
"The evening of the same day, which was Sunday, toward eight o'clock, at
the moment when a considerable group of men and women, assembled around a
street singer, who was playing at the same time the cymbals with his knees
and the tambourine with his hands, obstructed the entrance to the Rue de
Valois, a musketeer and two of the light horse descended a back staircase
of the Palais Royal, and advanced toward the Passage du Lycee, which, as
every one knows, opened on to that street; but seeing the crowd which
barred the way, the three soldiers stopped and appeared to take counsel.
The result of their deliberation was doubtless that they must take
another route, for the musketeer, setting the example of a new
manoeuvre, threaded the Cour des Fontaines, turned the corner of the Rue
des Bons Enfants, and, walking rapidly,--though he was extremely
corpulent,--arrived at No. 22, which opened as by enchantment at his
approach, and closed again on him and his two companions.
"... The crowd dispersed. A great many men left the circle, singly, or two
and two, turning toward each other with an imperceptible gesture of the
hand, some by the Rue de Valois, some by the Cour des Fontaines, some by
the Palais Royal itself, thus surrounding the Rue des Bons Enfants, which
seemed to be the centre of the rendezvous."
The locality has not changed greatly since the times of which Dumas wrote,
and if one would see for himself this Rue de Bons Enfants, Numero 22, and
try to find out how the Regent of France was able to climb over the
roof-tops to the Palais Royal, for a wager, he may still do so, for
apparently the roof-tops have changed but little. The especial connection
of the Rue des Bons Enfants with literature is perhaps Sylvestre's
establishment, which will, for a price, sell you almost any French
celebrity's autograph, be he king, prince, painter, or litterateur.
In the "Vicomte de Bragelonne" there is a wonderfully interesting chapter,
which describes Mazarin's gaming-party at the Palais Royal.
In that it enters somewhat more into detail than is usual with Dumas, it
appears worth quoting here, if only for its description of the furnishing
of the _salle_ in which the event took place, and its most graphic and
truthful picture of the great cardinal himself:
"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.