Le Château d'If, Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône (13)

Le Château d'If in the centre background from Notre Dame de la Garde.

And from the Corniche.

Le Château d'If, close to the archipelago of Frioul (otherwise known as the Ratonneau and Pomègues islands) just off the coast of Marseille, is of course a tourist must which remained a prison for four hundred years, and which was made famous by Alexandre Dumas's novel Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844–46), where the fictional Edmond Dantès was incarcerated. Something like 100,000 tourists visit it a year, and the queues are long. In the castle are labelled Dumas-related locations: a fiction within a fiction. No, we didn't bother to visit it: too touristy, too false, too much of a time waste. Why trouble to take a short cruise to see this place when you can enjoy the ferries from the much more peaceful L'Estaque to Le Vieux Port or (even better) the tiny village of Les Goudes (where the fictional Fabio Montale of Jean-Claude Izzo's Marseille trilogy lives) to Le Vieux Port – or vice versa?

A mural near the ferry terminal in Les Goudes.

And the ferry approaching Marseille from Les Goudes, with Notre Dame de la Garde in the centre middleground.

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (continued): #9: Auguste Maquet

Auguste Maquet (1813–88) was an author (novelist and playwright) in his own right, but also the collaborator in, and perhaps even the writer of, many of Alexandre Dumas père's works.

The Panthéon, 5th arrondissement, Paris, France: Literary Île-de-France #44

'Histoire de Paris

Le Panthéon

Guéri en 1774 d'une grave maladie, Louis XV décide la construction d'une église dédiée à sainte Geneviève. Soufflot en est l'architecte. Le chantier, commencé en 1764, fut très long, et l'édifice faillit s'écrouler sous la Révolution. En 1791, on transforme l'église en Panthéon destiné à recevoir la dépouille des grands hommes : Voltaire et Rousseau y sont transférés en grande pompe. Rendu au culte sous le premier Empire, le Panthéon retrouve définitivement sa vocation à la mort de Victor Hugo, en 1885. Depuis 1907, y repose également une femme : il s'agit de Marcelin Berthelot. Morts le même jour, ils ont ainsi choisi de rester unis dans la tombe.'

'History of Paris

The Panthéon

Cured of a serious illness in 1744, Louis XV decided to build a church dedicated to Saint Geneviève. The architect was Soufflot. The workshop was begun in 1764 and was very long, and the building almost fell under the revolution. In 1791 the church became The Panthéon, destined to receive the remains of great men: Voltaire and Rousseau were moved here with great ceremony. Returning to religious usage under the First Empire, the Panthéon finally found its vocation as a necropolis with the death of Victor Hugo in 1885. Since 1907, a woman has also rested here: Marcelin Berthelot's wife. Both died the same day, and they both remain united in the same grave.'

Albert Bartholomé's 'Monument to Jean-Jacques Rousseau' (1907).

To the left of the central group is Music, to the right Glory.

The central group depicts Philosophy between Nature and Truth.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Alphonse-Camille Terroir's 'To Diderot and the Encyclopédistes' (1913).

Two standing female figures with the inscription 'L'Encyclopédie prépare l'idée de la Révolution' ('L'Encyclopédie prepares for the idea of revolution').

To the left: Truth.

To the right: Strength.

Bottom center: the profile of Diderot on the tomb.

In the crypt are a number of other tombs. This is Rousseau's, which was brought here in 1794.

And next to him, Voltaire's statue and tomb.

Here there are the tombs of three writers.

Alexandre Dumas (1802—70).

Victor Hugo (1802—85).

Émile Zola (1840—1902). Zola's remains were moved from Montmartre Cemetery to the Panthéon in 1908, when Alfred Dreyfus was present. And the close of the ceremony, anti-Dreyfusard Louis Grégori fired his revolver at Dreyfus, who was only slightly injured in the arm.

Aimé Césaire was buried in his native Martinique, but a wall here is dedicated to him.

'AIMÉ CÉSAIRE

POÈTE, DRAMATURGE, HOMME POLITIQUE MARTINIQUAISE (1913—2008)

DÉPUTÉ DE LA MARTINIQUE (1915—99) ET MAIRE DE FORT-DE-FRANCE (1945—2001)

INLASSABLE ARTISAN DE LA DÉCOLONISATION, BÂTISSEUR

D'UNE "NÉGRITUDE" FONDÉE SUR L'UNIVERSALITÉ DES DROITS

DE L'HOMME "BOUCHE  DES MALHEURS QUI N'ONT POINT DE
BOUCHE", IL A VOULU DONNER AU MONDE, PAR SES ÉCRITS ET

SON ACTION "LA FORCE DE REGARDER DEMAIN"

"J'HABITE UNE BLESSURE SACRÉE
J'HABITE DES ANCÊTRES IMAGINAIRES

J'HABITE UN VOULOIR OBSCUR

J'HABITE UN LONG SILENCE

J'HABITE UNE SOIF IRRÉMÉDIABLE"

Alexandre Dumas in Le Port-Marly, Yvelines (78), France: Literary Île-de-France #17

Following his great success with The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) and Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Alexandre Dumas was rich and at the height of his fame in 1844. At the time he lived in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, but returning from Versailles on foot on one occasion, he decided to build a country house on the hills of Le Port-Marly. On consulting architect Hyppolyte Durand about it, Durand told him the earth was clayey and unsuited for building on. Dumas told him to dig down to the rock, Durand told him it would cost him hundreds of thousands of francs, and Dumas replied: 'I should hope so!'.

And so, at a cost of 200,000 francs, the Renaissance castle was ready in 1847, with 600 there to see the result. But it didn't have a name, which is said to have come from Madame Mélingue, an actor visiting Dumas who took a carriage from Saint-Germain-en-Laye and was trying to explain to the coach driver where she wanted to go: 'Monsieur Dumas, Monte-Cristo!' And so, Dumas decided, the Château de Monte-Cristo it would be.

And overlooking the château — on an analogy with a place of the same name just off the coast of Marseilles — Dumas's gothic work studio became Le Château d'If ('if' incidentally being the French for yew tree.)

And surrounding all this is an English park with rocks, a lawn, and grottos.

The dragon well. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the château itself, whose most visually impressive room is the Moorish 'Salon Mauresque'. A great traveler ('Traveling is living in the fullest sense of the word'), in 1846 Dumas was in Tunis and recruited two artists — France Younis and his son Mohammed — to build a room in his château similar to the splendors he'd seen in the Alhambra Palace in Grenada, the Alcazar in Seville, and the Palais de Bey in Tunis. In 1985, King Hassan II of Morocco restored the room to its original magnificence.

Back to the Château d'If, which, as Dumas required, is surrounded by water.

Around the walls are inscribed the names of 88 of Dumas's works, and some of his characters.

And a bonus here is that, although it's not possible to enter, at least the public can see through the glass entrance.

And what is seen is a reconstruction of Dumas's writing desk.

Dumas's stay here was very short: he was excessively generous, had to support not only his family but also his mistresses, traveled a great deal, etc. The upshot was that he had to sell his furniture as early as 1848, and the estate itself the following year. Various owners followed, but the château gradually fell into decay.

The property here was scheduled for demolition in 1969 and a huge housing operation planned. Fortunately, the joint communes of Marly le Roi, Pecq and Le Port-Marly would have no such obscene vandalism, and L'Association des amis d'Alexandre Dumas, much aided by Alain Decaux, restored the property and after a number of years of hard work it opened its doors in 1994.

Quite by chance, I was lucky enough to run into a woman living nearby who'd worked on the restoration of the roof, and she was only too pleased to talk about it.

Sifting through material for this post also reminds me that, in St-Germain-en-Laye, I ran into June and Ross Norsworthy from Florida, and they were on their way to Versailles. June wrote me the details of the Musée National de la Photographie in Bièvres, which she described as a 'must see'. And which I still didn't find time for. Which is a good excuse, as if it were needed, to come this way again soon — I also missed Émile Zola's house at Médan, and Elsa Triolet and Louis Aragon's house at Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, and...
 

And here's an odd sculpture I can't resist posting — Claude Debussy was born in St-Germain-en-Laye.