It remains, however,--in the book, at any rate,--a wonderful characterization, with its pictures of the blue Mediterranean at Toulon, the gay life of the Parisian boulevards, its miniature portrait of the great Vidocq, and the sinister account of the prison of Bicêtre, which, since the abandonment of the Place de la Grève, had become the last resort of those condemned to death. The tale is a short one, but it vibrates between the _rues_ and the boulevards, from the Hôtel de Venise in the Rue des Vieux-Augustins (now the Rue Herold), where Gabriel, upon coming to Paris, first had his lodgings, to the purlieus of the fashionable world,--the old Italian Opera in the Rue Pelletier,--and No. 11 Rue Taitbout, where afterward Gabriel had ensconced himself in a luxurious apartment. [Illustration: NÔTRE DAME DE PARIS] CHAPTER XI. LA CITÉ It is difficult to write of La Cité; it is indeed, impossible to write of it with fulness, unless one were to devote a large volume--or many large volumes--to it alone. To the tourists it is mostly recalled as being the _berceau_ of Nôtre Dame or the morgue. The latter, fortunately, is an entirely modern institution, and, though it existed in Dumas' own time, did not when the scenes of the D'Artagnan or Valois romances were laid. Looking toward Nôtre Dame from the Pont du Carrousel, one feels a veritable thrill of emotion as one regards this city of kings and revolutions. The very buildings on the Ile de la Cité mingle in a symphony of ashen memories. The statue of the great Henri IV., bowered in trees; the two old houses at the apex of the Place Dauphine, in one of which Madame Roland was born; the massive Palais de Justice; the soaring Sainte Chapelle, which St. Louis built for the Crown of Thorns, and "to the glory of God and France," and the towers of the Conciergerie, whose floor is for ever stained with the tears of Marie Antoinette. Romance and history have both set their seal upon the locality, and no one better than Dumas has told its story in romance. * * * * * Henri of Navarre being Protestant, the Church would not open its doors to him, and thus his marriage to the talented but wicked Margot, sister of Charles IX., took place on a platform erected before its doors. In the opening chapter of "Marguerite de Valois," Dumas refers to it thus: