CHAPTER XII.
L’UNIVERSITÉ QUARTIER
L’Université is the quartier which foregathered its components, more or less unconsciously, around the Sorbonne.
To-day the name still means what it always did; the Ecole de Médicine, the Ecole de Droit, the Beaux Arts, the Observatoire, and the student ateliers of the Latin Quarter, all go to make it something quite foreign to any other section of Paris.
The present structure known as “The Sorbonne” was built by Richelieu in 1629, as a sort of glorified successor to the ancient foundation of Robert de Sorbonne, confessor to St. Louis in 1253. The present Université, as an institution, was founded, among many other good and valuable things, which he has not always been given credit for, by the astute Napoleon I.
With the work of the romancer, it is the unexpected that always happens. But this very unexpectedness is only another expression of naturalness; which raises the question: Is not the romancist more of a realist than is commonly supposed?
Dumas often accomplished the unconventional, and often the miraculous, but the gallant attack of D’Artagnan and his three whilom adversaries against the Cardinal’s Guard is by no means an impossible or unreasonable incident. Considering Dumas’ ingenuity and freedom, it would be unreasonable to expect that things might not take the turn that they did.