In the course of the narrative the scene shifts from prisons, galleys, and chain-gangs, backward and forward, until we get the whole gamut of the criminal’s life.
Gabriel, in the days of his early life at Trouville, had acquired the art of skilled penmanship, and used it wherever he could for his own advantage, by fabricating the handwriting of others—and some honest work of a similar nature.
Finally the call of Paris came strong upon him, and he set forth by Pont l’Evêque and Rouen to the metropolis, where his downfall was speedily consummated, to the sorrow and resentment of his old friends of the little Norman fishing-village, and more particularly to Marie Granger, his country sweetheart, who longed to follow him to Paris, not suspecting the actual turn affairs had taken.
In “The Count of Monte Cristo,” Dumas again evinces his fondness for, and acquaintance with, the coast of Normandy.
It is a brief reference, to be sure, but it shows that Dumas had some considerable liking for the sea, and a more or less minute knowledge of the coast of France. This is further evinced by the details into which he launches once and again, with reference to the littoral of the Mediterranean, Belle Ile, and its surroundings, and the coasts of Normandy, Brittany, and the Pas de Calais.
In “The Count of Monte Cristo,” Dantès says to his companion, Bertuccio:
“‘I am desirous of having an estate by the seaside in Normandy—for instance, between Havre and Boulogne. You see, I give you a wide range. It will be absolutely necessary that the place you may select have a small harbour, creek, or bay, into which my vessel can enter and remain at anchor. She merely draws fifteen feet water. She must be kept in constant readiness to sail immediately I think proper to give the signal. Make the requisite inquiries for a place of this description, and when you have met with an eligible spot, visit it, and if it possess the advantages desired, purchase it at once in your own name. The corvette must now, I think, be on her way to Fécamp, must she not?’”
With Brittany, Dumas is quite as familiar. In “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” he gives minute, though not wearisome, details of Belle Ile and the Breton coast around about. Aramis, it seems, had acquired Belle Ile, and had risen to high ecclesiastical rank, making his home thereon.
NÔTRE DAME DE CHARTRES