Dumas' Paris Part 29

"'Now, then, M. de Beaulieu,' said Henri, 'have the kindness to show me my chamber. I am desirous of reaching it, as I am very much fatigued with my day's toil.'

"'Here, monseigneur,' said Beaulieu, showing Henri an open door.

"'No. 2!' said Henri. 'And why not No. 1?'

"'Because it is reserved, monseigneur.'

"'Ah! that is another thing,' said Henri, and he became even more pensive.

"He wondered who was to occupy No. 1.

"The governor, with a thousand apologies, installed Henri in his apartment, made many excuses for his deficiencies, and, placing two soldiers at the door, retired.

"'Now,' said the governor, addressing the turnkey, 'let us visit the others.'"

The present aspect of St. Germain-en-Laye is hardly what it was in the days of which Dumas wrote in "Marguerite de Valois" or in "Vingt Ans Apres." Le Bois or Le Foret looks to-day in parts, at least--much as it did in the days when royalty hunted its domain, and the glorious facade chateau has endured well.

Beyond this, the romance and history have well-nigh evaporated into air.

The whole neighbourhood is quite given over to a holiday, pleasure-making crowd, which, though it is typically French, and therefore interesting, is little in keeping with the splendid scenes of its past.

To-day peasants from Brittany, heavily booted cavalry and artillery, _ouvriers_, children and nursemaids, and _touristes_ of all nationalities throng the _allees_ of the forest and the corridors of the chateau, where once royalty and its retainers held forth.

Vesinet, on the road from Paris to St. Germain,--just before one reaches Pecq, and the twentieth-century _chemin-de-fer_ begins to climb that long, inclined viaduct, which crosses the Seine and rises ultimately to the platform on which sits the Vieux Chateau,--was a favourite hawking-ground of Charles IX. Indeed, it was here that that monarch was warned of "a fresh calumny against his poor Harry" (Henri de Navarre), as one reads in the pages of "Marguerite de Valois."

A further description follows of Charles' celebrated falcon, Bec de Fer, which is a.s.suredly one of the most extraordinary descriptions of a hunting-scene extant in the written page of romance.

Much hunting took place in all of Dumas' romances, and the near-by forests of France, _i. e._, near either to Paris or to the royal residences elsewhere, were the scenes of many gay meetings, where the stag, the boar, the _cerf_, and all manner of footed beasts and winged fowl were hunted in pure sport; though, after all, it is not recorded that it was as brutal a variety as the _battues_ of the present day.

St. Germain, its chateau and its _foret_, enters once and again, and again, into both the Valois series and the Mousquetaire romances. Of all the royal, suburban palaces, none have been more admired and loved for its splendid appointments and the splendid functions which have taken place there, than St. Germain.

It had early come into favour as the residence of the French kings, the existing chapel being the foundation of St. Louis, while the Chateau Neuf was built mainly by Henri II. To-day but a solitary _pavillon_--that known as Henri IV.--remains, while the Vieux Chateau, as it was formerly known, is to-day acknowledged as _the_ Chateau.

The most significant incident laid here by Dumas, is that of the flight of Anne of Austria, Louis XIV., and the court, from Paris to the Chateau of St. Germain. This plan was amplified, according to Dumas, and furthered by D'Artagnan and Athos; and since it is an acknowledged fact of history, this points once again to the worth of the historical romance from an exceedingly edifying view-point. At the time of the flight Louis was but a mere boy, and it may be recalled here that he was born at St. Germain in 1638.

The architectural glories of St. Germain are hardly so great as to warrant comparison with Versailles, to which Louis subsequently removed his court; indeed, the Chateau Neuf, with the exception of the _pavillon_ before mentioned, is not even a dignified ruin, being but scattered piles of debris, which, since 1776, when the structure was razed, have been left lying about in most desultory fas.h.i.+on.

The Vieux Chateau was made use of by the great Napoleon as a sort of a barracks, and again as a prison, but has since been restored according to the original plans of the architect Ducercen, who, under Francois I., was to have carried it to completion.

Once St. Germain was the home of royalty and all the gaiety of the court life of the Louis, and once again it was on the eve of becoming the fas.h.i.+onable Paris suburb, but now it is the resort of "trippers," and its chateau, or what was left of it after the vandalism of the eighteenth century, is a sad ruin, though the view from its heights is as lovely as ever--that portion which remains being but an aggravation, when one recalls the glories that once were. Save the Vieux Chateau, all that is left is the lovely view. Paris-wards one sees a panorama--a veritable _vol-d'oiseaux_--of the slender, silvery loops of the Seine as it bends around Port Marly, Argenteuil, Courbevoie, St. Denis, and St. Cloud; while in the dimmest of the dim distance the Eiffel Tower looms all its ugliness up into the sky, and the domed heights of Montmartre and the b.u.t.tes Chaumont look really beautiful--which they do not on closer view.

The height of St. Germain itself--the _ville_ and the chateau--is not so very great, and it certainly is not giddy, which most of its frequenters, for one reason or another, are; but its miserable _pave_ is the curse of all automobilists, and the sinuous road which ascends from the Pont du Pecq is now "rushed," up and down, by motor-cars, to the joy of the native, when one gets stalled, as they frequently do, and to the danger to life and limb of all other road-users and pa.s.sers-by.

In all of the Valois cycle, "_la cha.s.se_" plays an important part in the pleasure of the court and the n.o.blesse. The forests in the neighbourhood of Paris are numerous and noted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOReT DE VILLERS-COTTERETS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOIS DE VINCENNES]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOIS DE BOULOGNE]

At Villers-Cotterets, Dumas' birthplace, is the Foret de Villers-Cotterets, a dependence of the Valois establishment at Crepy.

Bondy, Fontainebleau, St. Germain, Vincennes, and Rambouillet are all mentioned, and are too familiar to even casual travellers to warrant the inclusion of detailed description here.

Next to Fontainebleau, whose present-day fame rests with the artists of the Barbizon school, who have perpetuated its rocks and trees, and St.

Germain, which is mostly revered for the past splendour of its chateau, Rambouillet most frequently comes to mind.

Even Republican France has its national hunt yearly, at Rambouillet, and visiting monarchs are invariably expected to partake in the shooting.

Rambouillet, the _hameau_ and the _foret_, was anciently under the feudal authority of the Comtes de Montford, afterward (1300) under Regnault d'Augennes, Capitaine du Louvre under Charles VI., and still later under Jacques d'Augennes, Capitaine du Chateau de Rambouillet in 1547. Louis XVI. purchased the chateau for one of his residences, and Napoleon III., as well as his more ill.u.s.trious namesake, was specially fond of hunting in its forests.

Since 1870 the chateau and the forest have been under the domination of the state.

There is a chapter in Dumas' "The Regent's Daughter," ent.i.tled "A Room in the Hotel at Rambouillet," which gives some little detail respecting the town and the forest.

There is no hotel in Rambouillet to-day known as the "Royal Tiger," though there is a "Golden Lion."

"Ten minutes later the carriage stopped at the Tigre-Royal. A woman, who was waiting, came out hastily, and respectfully a.s.sisted the ladies to alight, and then guided them through the pa.s.sages of the hotel, preceded by a valet carrying lights.

"A door opened, Madame Desroches drew back to allow Helene and Sister Therese to pa.s.s and they soon found themselves on a soft and easy sofa, in front of a bright fire.

"The room was large and well furnished, but the taste was severe, for the style called rococo was not yet introduced. There were four doors; the first was that by which they had entered--the second led to the dining-room, which was already lighted and warmed--the third led into a richly appointed bedroom--the fourth did not open....

"While the things which we have related were pa.s.sing in the parlour of the Hotel Tigre-Royal, in another apartment of the same hotel, seated near a large fire, was a man shaking the snow from his boots, and untying the strings of a large portfolio. This man was dressed in the hunting livery of the house of Orleans; the coat red and silver, large boots, and a three-cornered hat, trimmed with silver. He had a quick eye, a long, pointed nose, a round and open forehead, which was contradicted by thin and compressed lips."

Compiegne, like Crepy-en-Valois, Dammartin, Villers-Cotterets, and other of the towns and villages of the district, which in the fourteenth century belonged to the younger branch of the royal house, enter largely into the romances of Dumas, as was but natural, seeing that this region was the land of his birth.

The most elaborate and purely descriptive parts are found in "The Wolf Leader," wherein are presented so many pictures of the forest life of the region, and in "The Taking of the Bastille," in that part which describes the journey of Ange Pitou to Paris.

Crepy, Compiegne, Senlis, Pierrefonds, are still more celebrated in Dumas'

writings for glorious and splendid achievements--as they are with respect to the actual fact of history, and the imposing architectural monuments which still remain to ill.u.s.trate the conditions under which life endured in mediaeval times.

At Crepy, now a sleepy old-world village, is still seen the establishment of the Valois of which Dumas wrote; and another _grande maison_ of the Valois was at Villers-Cotterets--a still more somnolent reminder of the past. At Compiegne, only, with its magnificent Hotel de Ville, does one find the activities of a modern-day life and energy.

Here in strange juxtaposition with a remarkably interesting and picturesque church, and the dainty Renaissance Hotel de Ville, with its _jacquemart_, its belfry, its pointed gable, and its ornate facade, is found a blend of past and present, which combines to produce one of those transformations or stage-settings which throughout France are so often met with and admired.

No more charming _pet.i.te ville_ exists in all France than Compiegne, one of the most favoured of all the country residences of the Kings of France.

The chateau seen to-day was an erection of Louis XV.