CHAPTER XII

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L'UNIVERSITE QUARTIER

L'Universite is the _quartier_ which foregathered its components, more or less unconsciously, around the Sorbonne.

To-day the name still means what it always did; the Ecole de Medicine, the Ecole de Droit, the Beaux Arts, the Observatoire, and the student ateliers of the Latin Quarter, all go to make it something quite foreign to any other section of Paris.

The present structure known as "The Sorbonne" was built by Richelieu in 1629, as a sort of glorified successor to the ancient foundation of Robert de Sorbonne, confessor to St. Louis in 1253. The present Universite, as an institution, was founded, among many other good and valuable things, which he has not always been given credit for, by the astute Napoleon I.

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With the work of the romancer, it is the unexpected that always happens. But this very unexpectedness is only another expression of naturalness; which raises the question: Is not the romancist more of a realist than is commonly supposed?

Dumas often accomplished the unconventional, and often the miraculous, but the gallant attack of D'Artagnan and his three whilom adversaries against the Cardinal's Guard is by no means an impossible or unreasonable incident. Considering Dumas' ingenuity and freedom, it would be unreasonable to expect that things might not take the turn that they did.

Of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" alone, the scheme of adventure and incident is as orderly and sagacious as though it had been laid down by the wily cardinal himself; and therein is Dumas' success as the romancist _par excellence_ of his time. A romancist who was at least enough of a realist to be natural, if unconventional.

Dumas is supposed to have fallen from the heights scaled by means of "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when he wrote "Vingt Ans Apres." As a piece of literary workmanship, this perhaps is so; as a chronicle of great interest to the reader, who would trace the movement of its plot by existing stones and shrines, it is hardly the case.

One can get up a wonderful enthusiasm for the old Luxembourg quarter, which the Gascon Don Quixote entered by one of the southern gates, astride his Rosinante. The whole neighbourhood abounds with reminiscences of the characters of the tale: D'Artagnan, with the Rue des Fossoyeurs, now the Rue Servandoni; Athos with the Rue Ferou; Aramis, with the Rue de la Harpe, and so on.

There is, however, a certain tangible sentimentality connected with the adventures of Athos, Aramis, D'Artagnan, and Porthos in "Twenty Years After," that is not equalled by the earlier book, the reputed scenes of which have, to some extent, to be taken on faith.

In "Vingt Ans Apres," the scene shifts rapidly and constantly: from the Rue Tiquetonne, in Paris, to the more luxurious precincts of the Palais Royal; countrywards to Compiegne, to Pierrefonds--which ultimately came into the possession of Porthos; to England, even; and southward as far as Blois in Touraine, near to which was the country estate of Athos.

At the corner of the Rue Vaugirard, which passes the front of the Luxembourg Palace, and the Rue Cassette, is the wall of the Carmelite Friary, where D'Artagnan repaired to fulfil his duelling engagements with the three musketeers of the company of De Treville, after the incidents of the shoulder of Athos, the baldric of Porthos, and the handkerchief of Aramis.

[Illustration: CARMELITE FRIARY, RUE VAUGIRARD]

Both sides of the river, and, indeed, the Cite itself, are alive with the association of the King's Musketeers and the Cardinal's Guards; so much so that one, with even a most superficial knowledge of Paris and the D'Artagnan romances, cannot fail to follow the shifting of the scenes from the neighbourhood of the Palais du Luxembourg, in "Les Trois Mousquetaires," to the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, in "Vingt Ans Apres" and the "Vicomte de Bragelonne."

In "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," the fraternal _mousquetaires_ take somewhat varying paths from those which they pursued in the first two volumes of the series. Porthos and Athos had arrived at distinction and wealth, and surrounded themselves accordingly; though, when they came to Paris, they were doubtless frequenters--at times--of their old haunts, but they had perforce to live up to their exalted stations.

With D'Artagnan and Aramis this was not so true. D'Artagnan, it would seem, could not leave his beloved Palais Royal quarter, though his lodgings in the hotel in the Rue Tiquetonne could have been in no way luxurious, judging from present-day appearances.

In the Universite quarter, running squarely up from the Seine is a short, unpretentious, though not unlovely, street--the Rue Guenegard.

It runs by the Hotel de la Monnaie, and embouches on the Quai Conti, but if you ask for it from the average stroller on the quais, he will reply that he never heard of it.

It was here, however, at "Au Grand Roi Charlemagne," "a respectable inn," that Athos lived during his later years.

In the course of three hundred years this inn has disappeared,--if it ever existed,--though there are two hotels, now somewhat decrepit, on the short length of the street.

Perhaps it was one of these,--the present Hotel de France, for instance,--but there are no existing records to tell us beyond doubt that this is so.

There is another inn which Dumas mentions in "The Forty-Five Guardsmen," not so famous, and not traceable to-day, but his description of it is highly interesting and amusing.

"Near the Porte Buci," says