With D’Artagnan and Aramis this was not so true. D’Artagnan, it would seem, could not leave his beloved Palais Royal quarter, though his lodgings in the hôtel in the Rue Tiquetonne could have been in no way luxurious, judging from present-day appearances.
In the Université quarter, running squarely up from the Seine is a short, unpretentious, though not unlovely, street—the Rue Guenegard.
It runs by the Hôtel de la Monnaie, and embouches on the Quai Conti, but if you ask for it from the average stroller on the quais, he will reply that he never heard of it.
It was here, however, at “Au Grand Roi Charlemagne,” “a respectable inn,” that Athos lived during his later years.
In the course of three hundred years this inn has disappeared,—if it ever existed,—though there are two hôtels, now somewhat decrepit, on the short length of the street.
Perhaps it was one of these,—the present Hôtel de France, for instance,—but there are no existing records to tell us beyond doubt that this is so.
There is another inn which Dumas mentions in “The Forty-Five Guardsmen,” not so famous, and not traceable to-day, but his description of it is highly interesting and amusing.
“Near the Porte Buci,” says Chapter VII. of the book before mentioned, “where we must now transport our readers, to follow some of their acquaintances, and to make new ones, a hum, like that in a beehive at sunset, was heard proceeding from a house tinted rose colour, and ornamented with blue and white pointings, which was known by the sign of ‘The Sword of the Brave Chevalier,’ and which was an immense inn, recently built in this new quarter. This house was decorated to suit all tastes. On the entablature was painted a representation of a combat between an archangel and a dragon breathing flame and smoke, and in which the artist, animated by sentiments at once heroic and pious, had depicted in the hands of ‘the brave chevalier,’ not a sword, but an immense cross, with which he hacked in pieces the unlucky dragon, of which the bleeding pieces were seen lying on the ground. At the bottom of the picture crowds of spectators were represented raising their arms to heaven, while from above angels were extending over the chevalier laurels and palms. Then, as if to prove that he could paint in every style, the artist had grouped around gourds, grapes, a snail on a rose, and two rabbits, one white and the other gray.
“Assuredly the proprietor must have been difficult to please, if he were not satisfied, for the artist had filled every inch of space—there was scarcely room to have added a caterpillar. In spite, however, of this attractive exterior, the hôtel did not prosper—it was never more than half full, though it was large and comfortable. Unfortunately, from its proximity to the Pré-aux-Clercs, it was frequented by so many persons either going or ready to fight, that those more peaceably disposed avoided it. Indeed, the cupids with which the interior was decorated had been ornamented with moustaches in charcoal by the habitués; and Dame Fournichon, the landlady, always affirmed that the sign had brought them ill-luck, and that, had her wishes been attended to, and the painting represented more pleasing things, such as the rose-tree of love surrounded by flaming hearts, all tender couples would have flocked to them.
“M. Fournichon, however, stuck to his sign, and replied that he preferred fighting men, and that one of them drank as much as six lovers.”