"The ship-owner, smiling, followed him with his eyes until he saw him spring out on the quai and disappear in the midst of the throng, which, from five o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night, choke up this famous street of La Canebière, of which the modern Phocéens are so proud, and say, with all the gravity in the world, and with that accent which gives so much character to what is said, 'If Paris had La Canebière, Paris would be a second Marseilles.'" The Château d'If, far more than the island of Monte Cristo itself, is the _locale_ which is mostly recalled with regard to the romance of "Monte Cristo." Dumas has, of course, made melodramatic use of it; in fact, it seems almost as if he had built the romance around its own restricted _pied à terre_, but, nevertheless, it is the one element which we are pleased to call up as representative of the story when mention is made thereof. Not a line, not a word, is misplaced in the chapters in which Dumas treats of Dantès' incarceration in his island prison. Description does not crowd upon action or characterization, nor the reverse. "Through the grating of the window of the carriage, Dantès saw they were passing through the Rue Caisserie, and by the Quai St. Laurent and the Rue Taramis, to the port. They advanced toward a boat which a custom-house officer held by a chain near the quai. A shove sent the boat adrift, and the oarsman plied it rapidly toward the Pilon. At a shout the chain that closes the port was lowered, and in a second they were outside the harbour.... They had passed the Tête de More, and were now in front of the lighthouse and about to double the battery.... They had left the isle Ratonneau, where the lighthouse stood, on the right, and were now opposite the Point des Catalans. "'Tell me where you are conducting me?' asked Dantès of his guard. "'You are a native of Marseilles, and a sailor, and yet you do not know where you are going?' "'On my honour, I have no idea.' "'That is impossible.' "'I swear to you it is true. Tell me, I entreat.' "'But my orders.' "'Your orders do not forbid your telling me what I must know in ten minutes, in half an hour, or an hour. You see, I cannot escape, even if I intended.' "'Unless you are blind, or have never been outside the harbour, you must know.' "'I do not.' "'Look around you, then.' Dantès rose and looked forward, when he saw rise within a hundred yards of him the black and frowning rock on which stands the Château d'If. This gloomy fortress, which has for more than three hundred years furnished food for so many wild legends, seemed to Dantès like a scaffold to a malefactor. "'The Château d'If?' cried he. 'What are we going there for?' The gendarme smiled. "'I am not going there to be imprisoned,' said Dantès; 'it is only used for political prisoners. I have committed no crime. Are there any magistrates or judges at the Château d'If?'