The present aspect of St. Germain-en-Laye is hardly what it was in the days of which Dumas wrote in “Marguerite de Valois” or in “Vingt Ans Après.” Le Bois or Le Forêt looks to-day in parts, at least—much as it did in the days when royalty hunted its domain, and the glorious façade château has endured well.
Beyond this, the romance and history have well-nigh evaporated into air. The whole neighbourhood is quite given over to a holiday, pleasure-making crowd, which, though it is typically French, and therefore interesting, is little in keeping with the splendid scenes of its past.
To-day peasants from Brittany, heavily booted cavalry and artillery, ouvriers, children and nursemaids, and touristes of all nationalities throng the allées of the forest and the corridors of the château, where once royalty and its retainers held forth.
Vesinet, on the road from Paris to St. Germain,—just before one reaches Pecq, and the twentieth-century chemin-de-fer begins to climb that long, inclined viaduct, which crosses the Seine and rises ultimately to the platform on which sits the Vieux Château,—was a favourite hawking-ground of Charles IX. Indeed, it was here that that monarch was warned of “a fresh calumny against his poor Harry” (Henri de Navarre), as one reads in the pages of “Marguerite de Valois.”
A further description follows of Charles’ celebrated falcon, Bec de Fer, which is assuredly one of the most extraordinary descriptions of a hunting-scene extant in the written page of romance.
Much hunting took place in all of Dumas’ romances, and the near-by forests of France, i. e., near either to Paris or to the royal residences elsewhere, were the scenes of many gay meetings, where the stag, the boar, the cerf, and all manner of footed beasts and winged fowl were hunted in pure sport; though, after all, it is not recorded that it was as brutal a variety as the battues of the present day.
St. Germain, its château and its forêt, enters once and again, and again, into both the Valois series and the Mousquetaire romances. Of all the royal, suburban palaces, none have been more admired and loved for its splendid appointments and the splendid functions which have taken place there, than St. Germain.
It had early come into favour as the residence of the French kings, the existing chapel being the foundation of St. Louis, while the Château Neuf was built mainly by Henri II. To-day but a solitary pavillon—that known as Henri IV.—remains, while the Vieux Château, as it was formerly known, is to-day acknowledged as the Château.
The most significant incident laid here by Dumas, is that of the flight of Anne of Austria, Louis XIV., and the court, from Paris to the Château of St. Germain. This plan was amplified, according to Dumas, and furthered by D’Artagnan and Athos; and since it is an acknowledged fact of history, this points once again to the worth of the historical romance from an exceedingly edifying view-point. At the time of the flight Louis was but a mere boy, and it may be recalled here that he was born at St. Germain in 1638.
The architectural glories of St. Germain are hardly so great as to warrant comparison with Versailles, to which Louis subsequently removed his court; indeed, the Château Neuf, with the exception of the pavillon before mentioned, is not even a dignified ruin, being but scattered piles of débris, which, since 1776, when the structure was razed, have been left lying about in most desultory fashion.