Hard by, in the Parc Monceau, is the statue of Guy de Maupassant, and so the memory of the sinful mount is perpetuated to us.
Dumas did not make the use of this banal attribute of Paris that many other realists and romancists alike have done, but he frequently refers to it in his “Mémoires.”
Madame de la Motte, the scheming adventuress of the “Collier de la Reine,” lived at No. 57 Rue Charlot, in the Quartier des Infants-Rouges. It was here, at the Hôtel Boulainvilliers, where the Marquise de Boulainvilliers brought up the young girl of the blood royal of the Valois, who afterward became known as Madame de la Motte.
Near by, in the same street, is the superb hôtel of Gabrielle d’Estrées, who herself was not altogether unknown to the court. The Rue de Valois, leading from the Rue St. Honoré to the Rue Beaujolais, beside the Palais Royal, as might be supposed, especially appealed to Dumas, and he laid one of the most cheerful scenes of the “Chevalier d’Harmental” in the hotel, No. 10, built by Richelieu for L’Abbé Metel de Bois-Robert, the founder of the Académie Française.
Off the Rue Sourdière, was the Couloir St. Hyacinthe, where lived Jean Paul Marat—“the friend of the people,” whose description by Dumas, in “La Comtesse de Charny,” does not differ greatly from others of this notorious person.
In the early pages of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” one’s attention is transferred from Marseilles to Paris, to No. 13 Rue Coq-Héron, where lived M. Noirtier, to whom the luckless Dantès was commissioned to deliver the fateful packet, which was left in his care by the dying Captain Leclerc.
The incident of the handing over of this letter to the député procureur du roi is recounted thus by Dumas:
“‘Stop a moment,’ said the deputy, as Dantès took his hat and gloves. ‘To whom is it addressed?’
“‘To M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, Paris.’ Had a thunderbolt fallen into the room, Villefort could not have been more stupefied. He sank into his seat, and, hastily turning over the packet, drew forth the fatal letter, at which he glanced with an expression of terror.
“‘M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, No. 13,’ murmured he, growing still paler.