The Revolution of 1848 narrowed itself down to the issue of Bourbonism or Bonapartism. Nobody had a good word to say for the constitution, and all parties took liberties with it. It was inaugurated as the most democratic of all possible charters. It gave a vote to everybody, women and children excepted. It affirmed liberty with so wide a latitude of interpretation as to leave nothing to be desired by the reddest Republican that ever wore pistols in his belt at the heels of the redoubtable M. Marc CaussidiÈre, or expressed faith in the social Utopia of the enthusiastic M. Proudhon. Freedom to speak, to write, to assemble, and to vote,—all were secured to all Frenchmen by this marvellous charter. When it became the law of the land, everybody began to nibble at and destroy it. The right of speaking was speedily reduced to the narrowest limits, and the liberty of the press was pared down to the merest shred. The right of meeting was placed at the tender mercies of the prefect of police, and the right of voting was attacked with even more zeal and fervour. The Revolution proved more voracious than Saturn himself, in devouring its children, and it made short work of men and reputations. It reduced MM. de Lamartine, Armand Marrast, and General Cavaignac into nothingness; sent MM. Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, and CaussidiÈre into the dreary exile of London, and consigned the fiery BarbÉs, the vindictive Blanqui, the impatient Raspail, and a host of other regenerators of the human race, to the fastnesses of Vincennes. Having done this, the Revolution left scarcely a vestige of the constitution,—nothing but a few crumbs, and those were not crumbs of comfort, which remained merely to prove to the incredulous that such a thing as the constitution once existed.

The former king and queen took hidden refuge in a small cottage at Honfleur, whence they were to depart a few days later for England—ever a refuge for exiled monarchists. Escape became very urgent, and the king, with an English passport in the name of William Smith, and the queen as Madame Lebrun, crossed over to Le Havre and ultimately to England. Lamartine evidently mistakes even the time and place of this incident, but newspaper accounts of the time, both French and English, are very full as to the details. On landing at the quai at Le Havre, the ex-royal party was conducted to the “Express” steam-packet, which had been placed at their disposal for the cross-channel journey. Dumas takes the very incident as a detail for his story of “Pauline,” and his treatment thereof does not differ greatly from the facts as above set forth. Two years later (August 26, 1850), at Claremont, in Surrey, in the presence of the queen and several members of his family, Louis-Philippe died. He was the last of the Bourbons, with whom Dumas proudly claimed acquaintanceship, and as such, only a short time before, was one of the mightiest of the world’s monarchs, standing on one of the loftiest pinnacles of an ambition which, in the mind of a stronger or more wilful personality, might have accomplished with success much that with him resulted in defeat.

After the maelstrom of discontent—the Revolution of 1848—had settled down, there came a series of events well-nigh as disturbing. Events in Paris were rapidly ripening for a change. The known determination of Louis Napoleon to prolong his power, either as president for another term of four years, or for life, or as consul or emperor of the French, and the support which his pretensions received from large masses of the people and from the rank and file of the army, had brought him into collision with a rival—General Changarnier—almost as powerful as himself, and with an ambition quite as daring as his own.

What Louis Napoleon wanted was evident. There was no secret about his designs. The partisans of Henri V. looked to Changarnier for the restoration of peace and legitimacy, and the Orleanists considered that he was the most likely man in France to bring back the house of Orleans, and the comfortable days of bribery, corruption, and a thriving trade; while the fat bourgeoisie venerated him as the unflinching foe of the disturbers of order, and the great bulwark against Communism and the Red Republic.

Still, this was manifestly not to be, though no one seemed to care a straw about Louis Napoleon’s republic, or whether or no he dared to declare himself king or emperor, or whether they should be ruled by Bonapartist, Bourbon, or Orleanist.

These were truly perilous times for France; and, though they did not culminate in disaster until twenty years after, Louis Napoleon availed himself of every opportunity to efface from the Second Republic, of which he was at this time the head, every vestige of the democratic features which it ought to have borne.

At the same time he surrounded himself with imposing state and pomp, so regal in character that it was evidently intended to accustom the public to see in him the object of that homage which is usually reserved for crowned heads alone, and thus gradually and imperceptibly to prepare the nation to witness, without surprise, his assuming, when the favourable occasion offered, the purple and diadem of the empire.

For instance, he took up his residence in the ancient palace of the sovereigns of France, the Tuileries, and gave banquets and balls of regal magnificence; he ordered his effigy to be struck upon the coinage of the nation, surrounded by the words “Louis Napoleon Bonaparte,” without any title, whether as president or otherwise, being affixed. He restored the imperial eagles to the standards of the army; the official organ, the Moniteur, recommended the restoration of the titles and orders of hereditary nobility; the trees of liberty were uprooted everywhere; the Republican motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” was erased from the public edifices; the colossal statue of Liberty, surmounted by a Phrygian cap, which stood in the centre of the Place de Bourgogne, behind the Legislative Assembly, was demolished; and the old anti-Republican names of the streets were restored, so that the Palais National again became the Palais Royal; the ThÉÂtre de la Nation, the ThÉÂtre FranÇais; the Rue de la Concorde, the Rue Royal, etc.; and, in short, to all appearances, Louis Napoleon began early in his tenure of office to assiduously pave the way to the throne of the empire as Napoleon III.

PALAIS ROYAL, STREET FRONT

The London Times correspondent of that day related a characteristic exercise of this sweeping instruction of the Minister of the Interior to erase the words “LibertÉ, EgalitÉ, FraternitÉ” from all public buildings. (The three revolutionary watchwords had, in fact, been erased the previous year from the principal entrance to the ElysÉe, and the words “RÉpublique FranÇaise,” in large letters, were substituted.)

“There is, I believe, only one public monument in Paris—the Ecole de Droit—where the workmen employed in effacing that inscription will have a double duty. They will have to interfere with the ‘Liberalism’ of two generations. Immediately under the coat of yellow paint which covered the faÇade of the building, and on which time and the inclemency of the seasons have done their work, may still be traced, above the modern device, the following words, inscribed by order of the Commune of Paris during the Reign of Terror: ‘LibertÉ, EgalitÉ, FraternitÉ, UnitÉ, IndivisibilitÉ de la RÉpublique FranÇaise!’ As the effacing of the inscription of 1848 is not now by means of whitewash or paint, but by erasure, both the inscriptions will disappear at the same moment.”

Among the most important demolitions and renovations of the sixties was the work undertaken on the Louvre at the orders of the ambitious emperor, Napoleon III. The structure was cloven to the foundations, through the slated roof, the gilded and painted ceiling, the parqueted floors; and, where one formerly enjoyed an artistic feast that had taken four centuries to provide, one gazed upon, from the pavement to the roof, a tarpaulin that closed a vista which might otherwise have been a quarter of a mile in length.

Builders toiled day and night to connect the Louvre with the main body of the Palace of the Tuileries, which itself was to disappear within so short a time. Meanwhile so great a displacement of the art treasures was undergone, that habituÉs knew not which way to turn for favourite pictures, with which the last fifty years had made them so familiar.

To those of our elders who knew the Paris of the early fifties, the present-day aspect—in spite of all its glorious wealth of boulevards and architectural splendour—will suggest the mutability of all things.

It serves our purpose, however, to realize that much of the character has gone from the Quartier Latin; that the Tuileries disappeared with the Commune, and that the old distinctions between Old Paris, the faubourgs, and the Communal Annexes, have become practically non-existent with the opening up of the Haussman boulevards, at the instigation of the wary Napoleon III. Paris is still, however, an “ancienne ville et une ville neuve,” and the paradox is inexplicable.

The differences between the past and the present are indeed great, but nowhere—not even in the Tower of London, which is usually given as an example of the contrast and progress of the ages—is a more tangible and specific opposition shown, than in what remains to-day of mediÆval Paris, in juxtaposition with the later architectural embellishments. In many instances is seen the newest of the “art nouveau”—as it is popularly known—cheek by jowl with some mediÆval shrine.

It is difficult at this time to say what effect these swirls and blobs, which are daily thrusting themselves into every form of architectural display throughout Continental Europe, would have had on these masters who built the Gothic splendours of France, or even the hybrid rococo style, which, be it not denied, is in many instances beautiful in spite of its idiosyncrasies.

To those who are familiar with the “sights” of Paris, there is nothing left but to study the aspects of the life of the streets, the boulevards, the quais, the gardens, the restaurants, and the cafÉs. Here at least is to be found daily, and hourly, new sensations and old ones, but at all events it is an ever-shifting scene, such as no other city in the world knows.

The life of the faubourgs and of the quartiers has ever been made the special province of artists and authors, and to wander through them, to sit beneath the trees of the squares and gardens, or even outside a cafÉ, is to contemplate, in no small degree, much of the incident and temperament of life which others have already perpetuated and made famous.

There is little new or original effort which can be made, though once and again a new performer comes upon the stage,—a poet who sings songs of vagabondage, a painter who catches a fleeting impression, which at least, if not new, seems new. But in the main one has to hark back to former generations, if one would feel the real spirit of romance and tradition. There are few who, like Monet, can stop before a shrine and see in it forty-three varying moods—or some other incredible number, as did that artist when he limned his impressions of the faÇade of the Cathedral of NÔtre Dame de Rouen.

Such landmarks as the Place de la Bastille, the Pantheon,—anciently the site of the Abbey de Ste. GeneviÈve,—the Chambre des DÉputÉs,—the former Palais Bourbon,—the Tour St. Jacques, the Fountain des Innocents, St. Germain l’Auxerrois, the Palais du Luxembourg, the Louvre, and quite all the historic and notable buildings one sees, are all pictured with fidelity, and more or less minuteness, in the pages of Dumas’ romances.

Again, in such other localities as the Boulevard des Italiens, the CafÉ de Paris, the ThÉÂtre FranÇais, the OdÊon, the Palais Royal,—where, in the “Orleans Bureau,” Dumas found his first occupation in Paris,—took place many incidents of Dumas’ life, which are of personal import.

For recollections and reminders of the author’s contemporaries, there are countless other localities too numerous to mention. In the Rue Pigalle, at No. 12, died Eugene Scribe; in the Rue de Douai lived Edmond About, while in the Rue d’Amsterdam, at No. 77, lived Dumas himself, and in the Rue St. Lazare, Madame George Sand. Montmartre is sacred to the name of Zola in the minds of most readers of latter-day French fiction, while many more famous names of all ranks, of litterateurs, of actors, of artists and statesmen,—all contemporaries and many of them friends of Dumas,—will be found on the tombstones of PÈre la Chaise.

The motive, then, to be deduced from these pages is that they are a record of many things associated with Alexandre Dumas, his life, and his work. Equally so is a fleeting itinerary of strolls around and about the Paris of Dumas’ romances, with occasional journeys into the provinces.