CHAPTER XIII.
THE LOUVRE
“Paris renferme beaucoup de palais; mais le vrai palais de Paris, le vrai palais de la France, tout le monde l’a nommé,—c’est le Louvre.”
Upon the first appearance of “Marguerite de Valois,” a critic writing in Blackwood’s Magazine, has chosen to commend Dumas’ directness of plot and purpose in a manner which every lover of Dumas and student of history will not fail to appreciate. He says: “Dumas, according to his custom, introduces a vast array of characters, for the most part historical, all spiritedly drawn and well sustained. In various respects the author may be held up as an example to our own history-spoilers, and self-styled writers of historical romance. One does not find him profaning public edifices by causing all sorts of absurdities to pass, and of twaddle to be spoken, within their precincts; neither does he make his king and beggar, high-born dame and private soldier use the very same language, all equally tame, colourless, and devoid of character. The spirited and varied dialogue, in which his romances abound, illustrates and brings out the qualities and characteristics of his actors, and is not used for the sole purpose of making a chapter out of what would be better told in a page. In many instances, indeed, it would be difficult for him to tell his story, by the barest narrative, in fewer words than he does by pithy and pointed dialogue.”
No edifice in Paris itself, nor, indeed, in all France, is more closely identified with the characters and plots of Dumas’ romances than the Louvre. In the Valois cycle alone, the personages are continually flocking and stalking thither; some mere puppets,—walking gentlemen and ladies,—but many more, even, who are personages so very real that even in the pages of Dumas one forgets that it is romance pure and simple, and is almost ready to accept his word as history. This it is not, as is well recognized, but still it is a pleasant manner of bringing before the omnivorous reader many facts which otherwise he might ignore or perhaps overlook.
It really is not possible to particularize all the action of Dumas’ romances which centred around the Louvre. To do so would be to write the mediæval history of the famous building, or to produce an analytical index to the works of Dumas which would somewhat approach in bulk the celebrated Chinese encyclopædia.
We learn from “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” of D’Artagnan’s great familiarity with the life which went on in the old château of the Louvre. “I will tell you where M. d’Artagnan is,” said Raoul; “he is now in Paris; when on duty, he is to be met at the Louvre; when not so, in the Rue des Lombards.”
This describes the situation exactly: when the characters of the D’Artagnan and the Valois romances are not actually within the precincts of the Louvre, they have either just left it or are about to return thither, or some momentous event is being enacted there which bears upon the plot.