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CHAPTER XVI.
THE ROYAL PARKS AND PALACES

Since the romances of Dumas deal so largely with Paris, it is but natural that much of their action should take place at the near-by country residences of the royalty and nobility who form the casts of these great series of historical tales.

To-day Fontainebleau, St. Germain, Versailles, and even Chantilly, Compiègne, and Rambouillet are but mere attractions for the tourist of the butterfly order. The real Parisian never visits them or their precincts, save as he rushes through their tree-lined avenues in an automobile; and thus they have all come to be regarded merely as monuments of splendid scenes, which have been played, and on which the curtain has been rung down.

This is by no means the real case, and one has only to read Dumas, and do the round of the parks and châteaux which environ Paris, to revivify many of the scenes of which he writes.

Versailles is the most popular, Fontainebleau the most grand, St. Germain the most theatrical, Rambouillet the most rural-like, and Compiègne and Chantilly the most delicate and dainty.

Still nearer to Paris, and more under the influence of town life, were the châteaux of Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, and of Vincennes, at the other extremity of the city.

All these are quite in a class by themselves; though, of course, in a way, they performed the same functions when royalty was in residence, as the urban palaces.

Dumas’ final appreciation of the charms of Fontainebleau does not come till one reaches the last pages of “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.” True, it was not until the period of which this romance deals with Fontainebleau, its château, its forêt, and its fêtes, actually came to that prominence which to this day has never left them.

When the king required to give his fête at Fontainebleau, as we learn from Dumas, and history, too, he required of Fouquet four millions of francs, “in order to keep an open house for fifteen days,” said he. How he got them, and with what result, is best read in the pages of the romance.

“Life at the Palais Royal having become somewhat tame, the king had directed that Fontainebleau should be prepared for the reception of the court.” Here, then, took place the fêtes which were predicted, and Dumas, with his usual directness and brilliance, has given us a marvellous description of the gaiety of court life, surrounded by the noble forest, over which artists and sentimentalists have ever rhapsodized.

Continuing, from the pages of Dumas which immediately follow, one reads:

“For four days, every kind of enchantment brought together in the magnificent gardens of Fontainebleau, had converted this spot into a place of the most perfect enjoyment. M. Colbert seemed gifted with ubiquity. In the morning, there were the accounts of the previous night’s expenses to settle; during the day, programmes, essays, enlistments, payments. M. Colbert had amassed four millions of francs, and dispersed them with a prudent economy. He was horrified at the expenses which mythology involved; every wood-nymph, every dryad, did not cost less than a hundred francs a day. The dresses alone amounted to three hundred francs. The expense of powder and sulphur for fireworks amounted, every night, to a hundred thousand francs. In addition to these, the illuminations on the borders of the sheet of water cost thirty thousand francs every evening. The fêtes had been magnificent; and Colbert could not restrain his delight. From time to time he noticed Madame and the king setting forth on hunting expeditions, or preparing for the reception of different fantastic personages, solemn ceremonials, which had been extemporized a fortnight before, and in which Madame’s sparkling wit and the king’s magnificence were equally displayed.”

The “Inn of the Beautiful Peacock,” celebrated by Dumas in “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” is not directly traceable to-day in the many neighbouring hostelries of Fontainebleau. Just what Dumas had in mind is vague, though his description might apply to any house for travellers, wherever it may have been situated in this beautiful wildwood.

It was to this inn of the “Beau Paon” that Aramis repaired, after he had left Fouquet and had donned the costume of the cavalier once more. “Where,” said Dumas, “he (Aramis) had, by letters previously sent, directed an apartment or a room to be retained for him. He chose the room, which was on the first floor, whereas the apartment was on the second.”

The description of the establishment given by Dumas is as follows:

“In the first place, let us supply our readers with a few details about the inn called the Beau Paon. It owed its name to its sign, which represented a peacock spreading out its tail. But, in imitation of some painters who had bestowed the face of a handsome young man upon the serpent which tempted Eve, the painter of this sign had conferred upon the peacock the features of a woman. This inn, a living epigram against that half of the human race which renders existence delightful, was situated at Fontainebleau, in the first turning on the left-hand side, which divides on the road from Paris, that large artery which constitutes in itself along the entire town of Fontainebleau. The side street in question was then known as the Rue de Lyon, doubtless because geographically it advanced in the direction of the second capital of the kingdom.”

Lyons itself is treated by Dumas at some length in “Chicot the Jester,” particularly with reference to Chicot’s interception of the Pope’s messenger, who brought the documents which were to establish the Duc de Guise’s priority as to rights to the throne of France.

“The inn of the Beau Paon had its principal front toward the main street; but upon the Rue de Lyon there were two ranges of buildings, divided by courtyards, which comprised sets of apartments for the reception of all classes of travellers, whether on foot or on horseback, or even with their own carriages, and in which could be supplied, not only board and lodging, but also accommodation for exercise or opportunities of solitude for even the wealthiest courtiers, whenever, after having received some check at the court, they wished to shut themselves up with their own society, either to devour an affront or to brood over their revenge. From the windows of this part of the building the travellers could perceive, in the first place, the street with the grass growing between the stones, which were being gradually loosened by it; next, the beautiful hedges of elder and thorn, which embraced, as though within two green and flowering arms, the houses of which we have spoken; and then, in the spaces between those houses, forming the groundwork of the picture, and appearing like an almost impassable barrier, a line of thick trees, the advanced sentinels of the vast forest, which extends itself in front of Fontainebleau.”

On the road to Versailles, where the Seine is crossed by the not beautiful Pont de Sèvres, is the little inn of the Bridge of Sèvres, in which the story of “La Comtesse de Charny” opens, and, indeed, in which all its early action takes place. The inn, or even its direct descendant, is not discernible to-day. The Pont de Sèvres is there, linking one of those thumblike peninsulas made by the windings of the Seine with the Bois de Meudon, and the traffic inward and outward from Paris is as great and varied as it always was, probably greater, but there is no inn to suggest that which Dumas had in mind. The rural aspect is somewhat changed, the towering stacks of the china-factory chimneys, the still more towering – though distant – Tour Eiffel, which fortunately is soon to be razed, and the iron rails of the “Ceinture” and the “Quest,” all tend to estrange one’s sentiments from true romance.

Farther on to the westward lies Versailles, with its theatrical, though splendid, palais and parc, the Trianons and Les Grandes Eaux, beloved by the tourist and the Parisian alike.

Still farther to the northward by the same road is the pretty town of St. Germain-en-Laye, with the remains of its Château Neuf, once the most splendid and gorgeous country residence of Henri II. and Henri IV., continuing, also, in the favour of the court until the birth here of Louis XIV. James II. of England made his residence here after his exile.

Dumas’ references to St. Germain are largely found in “Vingt Ans Après.”

It was near St. Germain, too, that Dumas set about erecting his famous “Châtelet du Monte Cristo.” In fact, he did erect it, on his usual extravagant ideas, but his tenure there was short-lived, and, altogether, it was not a creditable undertaking, as after-events proved.

The gaiety of the life at St. Germain departed suddenly, but it is said of Dumas’ life there, that he surrounded himself with a coterie which bespoke somewhat its former abandon and luxuriance. It was somewhat of a Bohemian life that he lived there, no doubt, but it was not of the sordid or humble kind; it was most gorgeous and extravagant.

Of all the royal parks and palaces in the neighbourhood of Paris, Versailles has the most popularly sentimental interest. A whim of Louis XIV., it was called by Voltaire “an abyss of expense,” and so it truly was, as all familiar with its history know.

In the later volumes of Dumas’ “La Comtesse de Charnay,” “The Queen’s Necklace,” and “The Taking of the Bastille,” frequent mention is made but he does not write of it with the same affection that he does of Fontainebleau or St. Germain. The details which Dumas presents in “The Taking of the Bastille” shows this full well.

“At half-past ten, in ordinary times, every one in Versailles would have been in bed and wrapped in the profoundest slumber; but that night no eye was closed at Versailles. They had felt the counter-shock of the terrible concussion with which Paris was still trembling.

“The French Guards, the body-guards, the Swiss drawn up in platoons, and grouped near the openings of all the principal streets, were conversing among themselves, or with those of the citizens whose fidelity to the monarchy inspired them with confidence.

“For Versailles has, at all times, been a royalist city. Religious respect for the monarchy, if not for the monarch, is engrafted in the hearts of its inhabitants, as if it were a quality of its soil. Having always lived near kings, and fostered by their bounty, beneath the shade of their wonders – having always inhaled the intoxicating perfume of the fleurs-de-lis, and seen the brilliant gold of their garments, and the smiles upon their august lips, the inhabitants of Versailles, for whom kings have built a city of marble and porphyry, feel almost kings themselves; and even at the present day, even now, when moss is growing around the marble, and grass is springing up between the slabs of the pavement, now that gold has almost disappeared from the wainscoting, and that the shady walks of the parks are more solitary than a graveyard, Versailles must either belie its origin, or must consider itself as a fragment of the fallen monarchy, and no longer feeling the pride of power and wealth, must at least retain the poetical associations of regret, and the sovereign charms of melancholy. Thus, as we have already stated, all Versailles, in the night between the 14th and 15th July, 1789, was confusedly agitated, anxious to ascertain how the King of France would reply to the insult offered to the throne, and the deadly wound inflicted on his power.”

Versailles was one of the latest of the royal palaces, and since its birth, or at least since the days of “personally” and “non-conducted” tourists, has claimed, perhaps, even more than its share of popular favour. Certainly it is a rare attraction, and its past has been in turn sad, gay, brilliant, and gloomy. Event after event, some significant, others unimportant, but none mean or sordid, have taken place within its walls or amid its environment. Dumas evidently did not rank its beauties very high, – and perhaps rightly, – for while it is a gorgeous fabric and its surroundings and appointments are likewise gorgeous, it palls unmistakably by reason of its sheer artificiality. Dumas said much the same thing when he described it as “that world of automata, of statues, and boxwood forests, called Versailles.”

Much of the action of “The Queen’s Necklace” takes place at Versailles, and every line relating thereto is redolent of a first-hand observation on the part of the author. There is no scamping detail here, nor is there any excess of it.

With the fourth chapter of the romance, when Madame de la Motte drove to Versailles in her cabriolet, “built lightly, open, and fashionable, with high wheels, and a place behind for a servant to stand,” begins the record of the various incidents of the story, which either took place at Versailles or centred around it.

“‘Where are we to go?’ said Weber, who had charge of madame’s cabriolet. – ‘To Versailles.’ – ‘By the boulevards?’ – ‘No.’… ‘We are at Versailles,’ said the driver. ‘Where must I stop, ladies?’ – ‘At the Place d’Armes.’” “At this moment,” says Dumas, in the romance, “our heroines heard the clock strike from the church of St. Louis.”

Dumas’ descriptions of Versailles are singularly complete, and without verboseness. At least, he suggests more of the splendours of that gay residence of the court than he actually defines, and puts into the mouths of his characters much that others would waste on mere descriptive matter.

In the chapter headed Vincennes, in “Marguerite de Valois,” Dumas gives a most graphic description of its one-time château-prison:

“According to the order given by Charles IX., Henri was the same evening conducted to Vincennes, that famous castle of which only a fragment now remains, but colossal enough to give an idea of its past grandeur.

“At the postern of the prison they stopped. M. de Nancey alighted from his horse, opened the gate closed with a padlock, and respectfully invited the king to follow him. Henri obeyed without a word of reply. Every abode seemed to him more safe than the Louvre, and ten doors, closing on him at the same time, were between him and Catherine de Medici.

“The royal prisoner crossed the drawbridge between two soldiers, passed the three doors on the ground floor and the three doors at the foot of the staircase, and then, still preceded by M. de Nancey, went up one flight of stairs. Arrived there, Captain de Nancey requested the king to follow him through a kind of corridor, at the extremity of which was a very large and gloomy chamber.

“Henri looked around him with considerable disquietude.

“‘Where are we?’ he inquired.

“‘In the chamber of torture, monseigneur.’

“‘Ah, ah!’ replied the king, looking at it attentively.

“There was something of everything in this apartment: pitchers and trestles for the torture by water; wedges and mallets for the question of the boot; moreover, there were stone benches for the unhappy wretches who awaited the question, nearly all around the chamber; and above these seats, and to the seats themselves, and at the foot of these seats, were iron rings, mortised into the walls with no symmetry but that of the torturing art.

“‘Ah, ah!’ said Henri, ‘is this the way to my apartment?’

“‘Yes, monseigneur, and here it is,’ said a figure in the dark, who approached and then became distinguishable.

“Henri thought he recognized the voice, and, advancing toward the individual, said, ‘Ah, is it you, Beaulieu? And what the devil do you do here?’

“‘Sire, I have been nominated governor of the fortress of Vincennes.’

“‘Well, my dear sir, your début does you honour; a king for a prisoner is no bad commencement.’

“‘Pardon me, Sire, but before I received you I had already received two gentlemen.’

“‘Who may they be? Ah! your pardon; perhaps I commit an indiscretion.’

“‘Monseigneur, I have not been bound to secrecy. They are M. de la Mole and M. de Coconnas.’

“‘Poor gentlemen! And where are they?’

“‘High up, in the fourth floor.’

“Henri gave a sigh. It was there he wished to be.

“‘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 Après.” Le Bois or Le Forêt looks to-day in parts, at least – much as it did in the days when royalty hunted its domain, and the glorious façade château 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 allées of the forest and the corridors of the château, 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 Château, – 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 assuredly 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 château and its forêt, 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 Château Neuf was built mainly by Henri II. To-day but a solitary pavillon– that known as Henri IV. – remains, while the Vieux Château, as it was formerly known, is to-day acknowledged as the Château.

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 Château 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 Château Neuf, with the exception of the pavillon before mentioned, is not even a dignified ruin, being but scattered piles of débris, which, since 1776, when the structure was razed, have been left lying about in most desultory fashion.

The Vieux Château 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 François 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 fashionable Paris suburb, but now it is the resort of “trippers,” and its château, 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 Château, 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 Buttes Chaumont look really beautiful – which they do not on closer view.

The height of St. Germain itself – the ville and the château – 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 pavé 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 passers-by.

In all of the Valois cycle, “la chasse” plays an important part in the pleasure of the court and the noblesse. The forests in the neighbourhood of Paris are numerous and noted.

At Villers-Cotterets, Dumas’ birthplace, is the Forêt de Villers-Cotterets, a dependence of the Valois establishment at Crépy.

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 château, 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 forêt, 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 Château de Rambouillet in 1547. Louis XVI. purchased the château for one of his residences, and Napoleon III., as well as his more illustrious namesake, was specially fond of hunting in its forests.

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

There is a chapter in Dumas’ “The Regent’s Daughter,” entitled “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 assisted the ladies to alight, and then guided them through the passages of the hotel, preceded by a valet carrying lights.

“A door opened, Madame Desroches drew back to allow Hélène and Sister Thêrèse to pass 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 passing in the parlour of the Hôtel 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.”

Compiègne, like Crépy-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.

Crépy, Compiègne, 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 illustrate the conditions under which life endured in mediæval times.

At Crépy, 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 Compiègne, only, with its magnificent Hôtel 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 Hôtel de Ville, with its jacquemart, its belfry, its pointed gable, and its ornate façade, 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 petite ville exists in all France than Compiègne, one of the most favoured of all the country residences of the Kings of France.

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

Le Forêt de Compiègne is as beautiful and unspoiled as any, and is, moreover, not overrun with tourists and trippers, as is Fontainebleau.

Its area approximates 60,000 acres, and its circumference sixty miles.

In short, the whole domain forms a charming and delightful place of retreat, which must have been duly appreciated during the troublous times of Louis’ reign.

It was here, in the Forêt de Compiègne, that the great hunting was held, which is treated in “Chicot the Jester.”

The Bois de Vincennes was a famous duelling-ground – and is to-day, sub rosa. It was here that Louis de Franchi, in the “Corsican Brothers,” who forewarned of his fate, died in the duel with René de Chateaurien, just as he had predicted; at exactly “neuf heures dix.”

This park is by no means the rival of the Bois de Boulogne in the affections of the Parisian public, but it is a wide expanse of tree-covered park land, and possesses all the characteristics of the other suburban forêts which surround Paris on all sides.

It has, moreover, a château, a former retreat or country residence of the Kings of France, though to-day it has been made over to the ministry of war, whereas the Château de Madrid, the former possession of the Bois de Boulogne, has disappeared. The Château de Vincennes is not one of the sights of Paris. For a fact, it is quite inaccessible, being surrounded by the ramparts of the Fort de Vincennes, and therefore forbidden to the inquisitive.

It was here in the Château de Vincennes that Charles IX. died a lingering death, “by the poison prepared for another,” as Dumas has it in “Marguerite de Valois.”

Among the many illustrious prisoners of the Château de Vincennes have been the King of Navarre (1574), Condé (1650), Cardinal de Retz (1652), Fouquet (1661), Mirabeau (1777), the Duc d’Enghien (1804), and many others, most of whom have lived and breathed in Dumas’ pages, in the same parts which they played in real life.