Improvement and demolition—which is not always improvement—still go on, and such of Old Paris as is not preserved by special effort is fast falling before the stride of progress.
A body was organized in 1897, under the name of the “Commission du Vieux Paris,” which is expected to do much good work in the preservation of the chronicles in stone of days long past.
The very streets are noisy with the echo of an unpeaceful past; and their frequent and unexpected turnings, even in these modern days, are suggestive of their history in a most graphic manner.
The square in front of the Fontaine des Innocents is but an ancient burial-ground; before the Hôtel de Ville came Etienne Marcel; and Charlemagne to the cathedral; the Place de la Concorde was the death-bed of the Girondins, and the Place de la Madeleine the tomb of the Capetians; and thus it is that Paris—as does no other city—mingles its centuries of strife amid a life which is known as the most vigorous and varied of its age.
To enter here into a detailed comparison between the charm of Paris of to-day and yesterday would indeed be a work of supererogation; and only in so far as it bears directly upon the scenes and incidents amid which Dumas lived is it so made.
CHAPTER X.
LA VILLE
It would be impossible to form a precise topographical itinerary of the scenes of Dumas’ romances and the wanderings of his characters, even in Paris itself. The area is so very wide, and the number of localities, which have more than an incidental interest, so very great, that the futility of such a task will at once be apparent.