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CHAPTER XVII.
THE FRENCH PROVINCES

Dumas’ acquaintance with the French provinces was very comprehensive, though it is of the region northeast of Paris that he was most fond; of the beloved forest region around Crépy and Villers-Cotterets; the road to Calais, and Picardie and Flanders. Dumas was ever fond of, and familiar with, the road from Paris to Calais. The National Route ran through Crépy, and the byroad through his native Villers-Cotterets. In the “Vicomte de Bragelonne,” he calls the region “The Land of God,” a sentiment which mostly has not been endorsed by other writers; still, it is a beautiful country, and with its thickly wooded plantations, its industrious though conglomerate population, it is to-day – save for the Cantal and the Auvergne – that part of France of which English-speaking folk know the least. And this, too, on the direct road between London and Paris!

Dumas, in the above-mentioned book, describes the journey through this region which was made by Buckingham and De Wardes.

“Arriving at Calais, at the end of the sixth day, they chartered a boat for the purpose of joining the yacht that was to convey them to England, and which was then tacking about in full view.”

The old port of Calais must have been made use of by the personages of whom Dumas wrote, who trafficked forth between England and France.

Calais has ever been the most important terminus of cross-channel traffic, and there be those who know, who say that the boat service is not improved in comfort in all these ages, and certainly Calais, which most English travellers know only by fleeting glimpses, might with profit be visited more frequently, if only to follow in the wake of Sterne’s sentimental footsteps.

The old port, of course, exists no more; new dykes, breakwaters, and the gare maritime have taken the place of the ancient landing-places, where royalties and others used to embark in frail sailing-vessels for the English ports across the channel.

The old belfry still exists, and forms a beacon by day, at least, much as it did of yore. By night the new electric-light flashes its beams twenty odd miles across the channel on Dover Cliff, in a way which would have astonished our forefathers in the days gone by.

It was at Calais, too, that was enacted the final scene in the life of Mary Stuart in France.

The misfortunes of Mary Stuart formed the subject of one of the series of “Les Crimes Célèbres.” In the opening words of this chapter, Dumas has said, “Of all the names predestined to misfortune in France, it is the name of Henri. Henri I. was poisoned, Henri II. was killed (maliciously, so some one has said) in a tournament, Henri III. and Henri IV. were assassinated.” In Scotland it is the name of Stuart.

The chronicle concerns France only with respect to the farewell of Mary, after having lost her mother and her spouse in the same year (1561). She journeyed to Scotland by Calais, accompanied by the Cardinals de Guise and de Lorraine, her uncles, by the Duc and Duchesse de Guise, the Duc d’Aumale, and M. de Nemours.

Here took place that heartrending farewell, which poets and painters, as well as historians and novelists, have done so much to perpetuate. “Adieu, France!” she sobbed. “Adieu, France!” And for five hours she continued to weep and sob, “Adieu, France! Adieu, France!” For the rest, the well-known historical figures are made use of by Dumas, – Darnley, Rizzio, Huntley, and Hamilton, – but the action does not, of course, return to France.

Not far south of Calais is Arras, whence came the Robespierre who was to set France aflame.

“The ancestors of the Robespierres,” says Dumas, “formed a part of those Irish colonists who came to France to inhabit our seminaries and monasteries. There they received from the Jesuits the good educations they were accustomed to give to their pupils. From father to son they were notaries; one branch of the family, that from which this great man descends, established himself at Arras, a great centre, as you know, of noblesse and the church.

“There were in this town two seigneurs, or, rather, two kings; one was the Abbé of St. Waast, the other was the Bishop of Arras, whose palace threw one-half the town into shade.”

The former palace of the Bishop of Arras is to-day the local musée. It is an extensive establishment, and it flanks an atrocious Renaissance cathedral of no appealing charm whatever, and, indeed, the one-time bishop’s palace does not look as though it was ever a very splendid establishment.

Still farther to the southward of Calais is the feudal Castle of Pierrefonds, so beloved of Porthos in “Vingt Ans Après.” It is, and has ever been since its erection in 1390 by Louis d’Orleans, the brother of Charles VI., one of the most highly impregnable and luxurious châteaux of all France.

Four times it was unsuccessfully besieged, and came finally, in 1617, to be dismantled.

The great Napoleon purchased it after the Revolution, and finally, through the liberality of Napoleon III., – one of the few acts which redound to his credit, – it was restored, by Viollet-le-Duc, at a cost of over five million francs.

In “Pauline,” that fragment which Dumas extracted from one of his “Impressions du Voyage,” the author comes down to modern times, and gives us, as he does in his journals of travel, his “Mémoires,” and others of his lighter pieces of fiction, many charming pen-portraits of localities familiar not only to his pen, but to his personal experiences.

He draws in “Pauline” a delightful picture of the old fishing-village of Trouville – before it became a resort of fashion. In his own words he describes it as follows:

“I took the steamer from Havre, and two hours later was at Honfleur; the next morning I was at Trouville.”

To-day the fly-by-day tourist does the whole journey in a couple of hours – if he does not linger over the attractions of “Les Petits Chevaux” or “Trente et Quarante,” at Honfleur’s pretty Casino.

“You know the little town with its population of fisher-folk. It is one of the most picturesque in Normandy. I stayed there a few days, exploring the neighbourhood, and in the evening I used to sit in the chimney-corner with my worthy hostess, Madame Oseraie. There I heard strange tales of adventures which had been enacted in Calvados, Loiret, and La Manche.”

Continuing, the author, evidently having become imbued with the local colour of the vicinity, describes, more or less superficially, perhaps, but still with vividness, if not minuteness, those treasure-chests of history, the towns and villages of Normandy: – Caen, Lisieux, Falaise, the cradle of the Conqueror William, “the fertile plains” around Pont Audemer, Havre, and Alençon.

Normandy, too, was the locale of the early life of Gabriel Lambert, the unappealing leading-man of that dramatic story of a counterfeiter’s life, which bears the same title.

Dumas’ first acquaintance with the character in real life, – if he had any real personality, as one is inclined to think he had, – was at Toulon, where the unfortunate man was imprisoned and made to work in the galleys.

In the course of the narrative the scene shifts from prisons, galleys, and chain-gangs, backward and forward, until we get the whole gamut of the criminal’s life.

Gabriel, in the days of his early life at Trouville, had acquired the art of skilled penmanship, and used it wherever he could for his own advantage, by fabricating the handwriting of others – and some honest work of a similar nature.

Finally the call of Paris came strong upon him, and he set forth by Pont l’Evêque and Rouen to the metropolis, where his downfall was speedily consummated, to the sorrow and resentment of his old friends of the little Norman fishing-village, and more particularly to Marie Granger, his country sweetheart, who longed to follow him to Paris, not suspecting the actual turn affairs had taken.

In “The Count of Monte Cristo,” Dumas again evinces his fondness for, and acquaintance with, the coast of Normandy.

It is a brief reference, to be sure, but it shows that Dumas had some considerable liking for the sea, and a more or less minute knowledge of the coast of France. This is further evinced by the details into which he launches once and again, with reference to the littoral of the Mediterranean, Belle Ile, and its surroundings, and the coasts of Normandy, Brittany, and the Pas de Calais.

In “The Count of Monte Cristo,” Dantès says to his companion, Bertuccio:

“‘I am desirous of having an estate by the seaside in Normandy – for instance, between Havre and Boulogne. You see, I give you a wide range. It will be absolutely necessary that the place you may select have a small harbour, creek, or bay, into which my vessel can enter and remain at anchor. She merely draws fifteen feet water. She must be kept in constant readiness to sail immediately I think proper to give the signal. Make the requisite inquiries for a place of this description, and when you have met with an eligible spot, visit it, and if it possess the advantages desired, purchase it at once in your own name. The corvette must now, I think, be on her way to Fécamp, must she not?’”

With Brittany, Dumas is quite as familiar. In “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” he gives minute, though not wearisome, details of Belle Ile and the Breton coast around about. Aramis, it seems, had acquired Belle Ile, and had risen to high ecclesiastical rank, making his home thereon.

Dumas’ love and knowledge of gastronomy comes to the fore again here. When D’Artagnan undertook his famous journey to Belle Ile, on the coast of Brittany, as messenger of Louis XIV., whom he called his sun, after he had bought that snuff-coloured bidet which would have disgraced a corporal, and after he had shortened his name to Agnan, – to complete his disguise, – he put in one night at La Roche-Bernard, “a tolerably important city at the mouth of the Vilaine, and prepared to sup at a hotel.” And he did sup; “off a teal and a torteau, and in order to wash down these two distinctive Breton dishes, ordered some cider, which, the moment it touched his lips, he perceived to be more Breton still.”

On the route from Paris to the mouth of the Loire, where D’Artagnan departed for Belle Ile, is Chartres. Its Cathedral de Nôtre Dame has not often appeared in fiction. In history and books of travel, and of artistic and archæological interest, its past has been vigorously played.

Dumas, in “La Dame de Monsoreau,” has revived the miraculous legend which tradition has preserved.

It recounts a ceremony which many will consider ludicrous, and yet others sacrilegious. Dumas describes it thus:

“The month of April had arrived. The great cathedral of Chartres was hung with white, and the king was standing barefooted in the nave. The religious ceremonies, which were for the purpose of praying for an heir to the throne of France, were just finishing, when Henri, in the midst of the general silence, heard what seemed to him a stifled laugh. He turned around to see if Chicot were there, for he thought no one else would have dared to laugh at such a time. It was not, however, Chicot who had laughed at the sight of the two chemises of the Holy Virgin, which were said to have such a prolific power, and which were just being drawn from their golden box; but it was a cavalier who had just stopped at the door of the church, and who was making his way with his muddy boots through the crowd of courtiers in their penitents’ robes and sacks. Seeing the king turn, he stopped for a moment, and Henri, irritated at seeing him arrive thus, threw an angry glance at him. The newcomer, however, continued to advance until he reached the velvet chair of M. le Duc d’Anjou, by which he knelt down.”

But a step from Chartres, on the Loire, – though Orleans, the “City of the Maid,” comes between, – is Blois.

In “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” the last of the D’Artagnan series, the action comes down to later times, to that of the young king Louis XIV.

In its opening lines its scene is laid in that wonderfully ornate and impressive Château of Blois, which so many have used as a background for all manner of writing.

Dumas, with his usual directness, wasting no words on mere description, and only considering it as an accessory to his romance, refers briefly to this magnificent building – the combined product of the houses whose arms bore the hedgehog and the salamander.

“Toward the middle of the month of May, 1660, when the sun was fast absorbing the dew from the ravenelles of the Château of Blois, a little cavalcade entered the city by the bridge, without producing any effect upon the passengers of the quai-side, except a movement of the tongue to express, in the purest French then spoken in France (Touraine has ever spoken the purest tongue, as all know), ‘There is Monsieur returning from the hunt.’… It should have been a trifling source of pride to the city of Blois that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as his residence, and held his court in the ancient château of its states.”

It was in the Castle of the States of Blois that Louis XIV. received that unexpected visit from “His Majesty Charles II., King of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” of which Dumas writes in the second of the D’Artagnan series.

“‘How strange it is you are here,’ said Louis. ‘I only knew of your embarkation at Brighthelmstone, and your landing in Normandy.’…

“Blois was peaceful that morning of the royal arrival, at which announcement it was suddenly filled with all the tumult and the buzzing of a swarm of bees. In the lower city, scarce a hundred paces from the castle, is a sufficiently handsome street called the Rue Vieille, and an old and venerable edifice which, tradition says, was habited by a councillor of state, to whom Queen Catherine came, some say to visit and others to strangle.”

Not alone is Blois reminiscent of “Les Mousquetaires,” but the numberless references in the series to Langeais, Chambord, – the châteaux and their domains, – bring to mind more forcibly than by innuendo merely that Dumas himself must have had some great fondness for what has come to be the touring-ground of France par excellence.

From “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” one quotes these few lines which, significantly, suggest much: “Do you not remember, Montalais, the woods of Chaverney, and of Chambord, and the numberless poplars of Blois?” This describes the country concisely, but explicitly.

Beyond Blois, beyond even Tours, which is Blois’ next neighbour, passing down the Loire, is Angers.

In “La Dame de Monsoreau,” more commonly known in English translations as “Chicot the Jester,” much of the scene is laid in Anjou.

To Angers, with its wonderful fairylike castle, with its seventeen black-banded towers (recalling, also, that this is the “Black Angers” of Shakespeare’s “King John”), repaired the Duc d’Anjou, the brother of Charles IX. and Henri III., who then reigned at Paris.

To this “secret residence” the duc came. Dumas puts it thus:

“‘Gentlemen!’ cried the duke, ‘I have come to throw myself into my good city of Angers. At Paris the most terrible dangers have menaced my life.’… The people then cried out, ‘Long live our seigneur!’”

Bussy, who had made the way clear for the duc, lived, says Dumas, “in a tumble-down old house near the ramparts.” The ducal palace was actually outside the castle walls, but the frowning battlement was relied upon to shelter royalty when occasion required, the suite quartering themselves in the Gothic château, which is still to be seen in the débris-cluttered lumber-yard, to which the interior of the fortress has to-day descended.

In other respects than the shocking care, or, rather, the lack of care, which is given to its interior, the Castle of Angers, with its battalion of tours, now without their turrets, its deep, machicolated walls, and its now dry fosse, presents in every way an awe-inspiring stronghold.

Beyond Angers, toward the sea, is Nantes, famous for the Edict, and, in “The Regent’s Daughter” of Dumas, the massacre of the four Breton conspirators.

Gaston, the hero of the tale, had ridden posthaste from Paris to save his fellows. He was preceded, by two hours, by the order for their execution, and the reprieve which he held would be valueless did he arrive too late.

“On reaching the gates of Nantes his horse stumbled, but Gaston did not lose his stirrups, pulled him up sharply, and, driving the spurs into his sides, he made him recover himself.

“The night was dark, no one appeared upon the ramparts, the very sentinels were hidden in the gloom; it seemed like a deserted city.

“But as he passed the gate a sentinel said something which Gaston did not even hear.

“He held on his way.

“At the Rue du Château his horse stumbled and fell, this time to rise no more.

“What mattered it to Gaston now? – he had arrived…

“He passed right through the castle, when he perceived the esplanade, a scaffold, and a crowd. He tried to cry, but no one heard him; to wave his handkerchief, but no one saw him… Another mounts the scaffold, and, uttering a cry, Gaston threw himself down below… Four men died who might have been saved had Gaston but arrived five minutes before, and, by a remarkable contretemps, Gaston himself shared the same fate.”

In “The Regent’s Daughter,” Dumas describes the journey to Nantes with great preciseness, though with no excess of detail. The third chapter opens thus:

“Three nights after that on which we have seen the regent, first at Chelles, and then at Meudon, a scene passed in the environs of Nantes which cannot be omitted in this history; we will therefore exercise our privilege of transporting the reader to that place.

“On the road to Clisson, two or three miles from Nantes, – near the convent known as the residence of Abelard, – was a large dark house, surrounded by thick, stunted trees; hedges everywhere surrounded the enclosure outside the walls, hedges impervious to the sight, and only interrupted by a wicket gate.

“This gate led into a garden, at the end of which was a wall, having a small, massive, and closed door. From a distance this grave and dismal residence appeared like a prison; it was, however, a convent, full of young Augustines, subject to a rule lenient as compared with provincial customs, but rigid as compared with those of Paris.

“The house was inaccessible on three sides, but the fourth, which did not face the road, abutted on a large sheet of water; and ten feet above its surface were the windows of the refectory.

“This little lake was carefully guarded, and was surrounded by high wooden palisades. A single iron gate opened into it, and at the same time gave a passage to the waters of a small rivulet which fed the lake, and the water had egress at the opposite end.”

From this point on, the action of “The Regent’s Daughter” runs riotously rapid, until it finally culminates, so far as Nantes is concerned, in the quintuple execution before the château, brought about by the five minutes’ delay of Gaston with the reprieve.

Dumas’ knowledge of and love of the Mediterranean was great, and he knew its western shores intimately.

In 1830 he resolved to visit all the shores of the Mediterranean in a yacht, which he had had specially built for the purpose, called the Emma.

He arrived in Sicily, however, at the moment of the Garibaldian struggle against the King of Italy, with the result that the heroic elements of that event so appealed to him, that he forewent the other more tranquil pleasure of continuing his voyage, and went over to the mainland.

In “The Count of Monte Cristo” is given one of Dumas’ best bits of descriptive writing. At any rate, it describes one of the aspects of the brilliantly blue Mediterranean, which is only comparable to one’s personal contemplation of its charms. It is apropos of the voyage to the island of Monte Cristo – which lies between Elba and Corsica, and has become fabled in the minds of present-day readers solely by Dumas’ efforts – that he wrote the following:

“It was about six o’clock in the evening; an opal-coloured light, through which an autumnal sun shed its golden rays, descended on the blue sea. The heat of the day had gradually decreased, and a light breeze arose, seeming like the respiration of nature on awakening from the burning siesta of the south; a delicious zephyr played along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and wafted from shore to shore the sweet perfume of plants, mingled with the fresh smell of the sea.

“A light yacht, chaste and elegant in its form, was gliding amidst the first dews of night over the immense lake, extending from Gibraltar to the Dardanelles, and from Tunis to Venice. The motion resembled that of a swan with its wings opened toward the wind, gliding on the water. It advanced, at the same time, swiftly and gracefully, leaving behind it a glittering track. By degrees the sun disappeared behind the western horizon; but, as though to prove the truth of the fanciful ideas in heathen mythology, its indiscreet rays reappeared on the summit of each wave, seeming to reveal that the god of fire had just enfolded himself in the bosom of Amphitrite, who in vain endeavoured to hide her lover beneath her azure mantle.”

Of the island of Monte Cristo itself, Dumas’ description is equally gratifying. In the earlier chapters he gives it thus:

“The isle of Monte Cristo loomed large in the horizon… They were just abreast of Mareciana, and beyond the flat but verdant isle of La Pianosa. The peak of Monte Cristo, reddened by the burning sun, was seen against the azure sky… About five o’clock in the evening the island was quite distinct, and everything on it was plainly perceptible, owing to that clearness of the atmosphere which is peculiar to the light which the rays of the sun cast at its setting.

“Edmond gazed most earnestly at the mass of rocks which gave out all the variety of twilight colours, from the brightest pink to the deepest blue; and from time to time his cheeks flushed, his brow became purple, and a mist passed over his eyes… In spite of his usual command over himself, Dantès could not restrain his impetuosity. He was the first who jumped on shore; and had he dared, he would, like Lucius Brutus, have ‘kissed his mother earth.’ It was dark, but at eleven o’clock the moon rose in the midst of the ocean, whose every wave she silvered, and then, ‘ascending high,’ played in floods of pale light on the rocky hills of this second Pelion.

“The island was familiar to the crew of La Jeune Amélie– it was one of her halting-places. As to Dantès, he had passed it on his voyages to and from the Levant, but never touched at it.”

It is unquestionable that “The Count of Monte Cristo” is the most popular and the best known of all Dumas’ works. There is a deal of action, of personality and characterization, and, above all, an ever-shifting panorama, which extends from the boulevards of Marseilles to the faubourgs of Paris, and from the island Château d’If to the equally melancholy allées of Père la Chaise, which M. de Villefort, a true Parisian, considered alone worthy of receiving the remains of a Parisian family, as it was there only that they would be surrounded by worthy associates.

All travellers for the East, via the Mediterranean, know well the ancient Phœnician port of Marseilles. One does not need even the words of Dumas to recall its picturesqueness and importance – to-day as in ages past. Still, the opening lines of “The Count of Monte Cristo” do form a word-picture which few have equalled in the pages of romance; and there is not a word too much; nothing superfluous or extraneous.

“On the 28th of February, 1815, the watchtower of Notre Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon, from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.

“As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and, rounding the Château d’If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and the isle of Rion.

“Immediately, and according to custom, the platform of Fort Saint-Jean was covered with lookers-on; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, had been built, rigged, and laden on the stocks of the old Phocée, and belonged to an owner of the city.

“The ship drew on: it had safely passed the strait, which some volcanic shock has made between the isle of Calasareigne and the isle of Jaros; had doubled Pomègue, and approached the harbour under topsails, jib, and foresail, but so slowly and sedately that the idlers, with that instinct which misfortune sends before it, asked one another what misfortune could have happened on board. However, those experienced in navigation saw plainly that, if any accident had occurred, it was not to the vessel herself, for she bore down with all the evidence of being skilfully handled, the anchor ready to be dropped, the bowsprit-shrouds loose, and, beside the pilot, who was steering the Pharaon by the narrow entrance of the port Marseilles, was a young man, who, with activity and vigilant eye, watched every motion of the ship, and repeated each direction of the pilot.

“The vague disquietude which prevailed amongst the spectators had so much affected one of the crowd that he did not await the arrival of the vessel in harbour, but, jumping into a small skiff, desired to be pulled alongside the Pharaon, which he reached as she rounded the creek of La Réserve.”

The process of coming into harbour at Marseilles does not differ greatly to-day from the description given by Dumas.

New harbour works have been constructed, and sailing-ships have mostly given way to great steamers, but the channel winds and twists as of old under the lofty brow, capped by the sailors’ church of Notre Dame de la Garde, which is to-day a tawdry, bizarre shrine, as compared with the motive which inspired the devout to ascend its heights to pray for those who go down to the sea in ships.

Marseilles, of all cities of France, more even than Bordeaux or Lyons, is possessed of that individuality which stands out strong on the background of France – the land and the nation.

In the commercial world its importance gives it a high rank, and its affaires are regulated by no clues sent each morning by post or by telegraph from the world’s other marts of trade. It has, moreover, in the Canebière, one of the truly great streets of the world. Dumas remarked it, and so, too, have many others, who know its gay cosmopolitan aspect at all the hours of day and night.

From “The Count of Monte Cristo,” the following lines describe it justly and truly, and in a way that fits it admirably, in spite of the fact that Dumas wrote of it as it was a hundred years ago:

“The young sailor jumped into the skiff, and sat down in the stern, desiring to be put ashore at the Canebière. The two rowers bent to their work, and the little boat glided away as rapidly as possible in the midst of the thousand vessels which choke up the narrow way which leads between the two rows of ships from the mouth of the harbour to the Quai d’Orléans.

“The ship-owner, smiling, followed him with his eyes until he saw him spring out on the quai and disappear in the midst of the throng, which, from five o’clock in the morning until nine o’clock at night, choke up this famous street of La Canebière, of which the modern Phocéens are so proud, and say, with all the gravity in the world, and with that accent which gives so much character to what is said, ‘If Paris had La Canebière, Paris would be a second Marseilles.’”

The Château d’If, far more than the island of Monte Cristo itself, is the locale which is mostly recalled with regard to the romance of “Monte Cristo.”

Dumas has, of course, made melodramatic use of it; in fact, it seems almost as if he had built the romance around its own restricted pied à terre, but, nevertheless, it is the one element which we are pleased to call up as representative of the story when mention is made thereof.

Not a line, not a word, is misplaced in the chapters in which Dumas treats of Dantès’ incarceration in his island prison. Description does not crowd upon action or characterization, nor the reverse.

“Through the grating of the window of the carriage, Dantès saw they were passing through the Rue Caisserie, and by the Quai St. Laurent and the Rue Taramis, to the port. They advanced toward a boat which a custom-house officer held by a chain near the quai. A shove sent the boat adrift, and the oarsman plied it rapidly toward the Pilon. At a shout the chain that closes the port was lowered, and in a second they were outside the harbour… They had passed the Tête de More, and were now in front of the lighthouse and about to double the battery… They had left the isle Ratonneau, where the lighthouse stood, on the right, and were now opposite the Point des Catalans.

“‘Tell me where you are conducting me?’ asked Dantès of his guard.

“‘You are a native of Marseilles, and a sailor, and yet you do not know where you are going?’

“‘On my honour, I have no idea.’

“‘That is impossible.’

“‘I swear to you it is true. Tell me, I entreat.’

“‘But my orders.’

“‘Your orders do not forbid your telling me what I must know in ten minutes, in half an hour, or an hour. You see, I cannot escape, even if I intended.’

“‘Unless you are blind, or have never been outside the harbour, you must know.’

“‘I do not.’

“‘Look around you, then.’ Dantès rose and looked forward, when he saw rise within a hundred yards of him the black and frowning rock on which stands the Château d’If. This gloomy fortress, which has for more than three hundred years furnished food for so many wild legends, seemed to Dantès like a scaffold to a malefactor.

“‘The Château d’If?’ cried he. ‘What are we going there for?’ The gendarme smiled.

“‘I am not going there to be imprisoned,’ said Dantès; ‘it is only used for political prisoners. I have committed no crime. Are there any magistrates or judges at the Château d’If?’

“‘There are only,’ said the gendarme, ‘a governor, a garrison, turnkeys, and good thick walls. Come, come, do not look so astonished, or you will make me think you are laughing at me in return for my good nature.’ Dantès pressed the gendarme’s hand as though he would crush it.