The Arc de Triomphe d'Étoile, of course, remains as it always has since its erection at the instigation of Napoleon I.; while the Bois de Boulogne came into existence as a municipal pleasure-ground only in the early fifties, and has since endured as the great open-air attraction of Paris for those who did not wish to go farther afield. The churches have not changed greatly in all this time, except that they had some narrow escapes during the Franco-Prussian War, and still narrower ones during the Commune. It may be remarked here _en passant_ that, for the first time in seventy years, so say the records, there has just been taken down the scaffolding which, in one part or another, has surrounded the church of St. Eustache. Here, then, is something tangible which has not changed until recently (March, 1904), since the days when Dumas first came to Paris. The Paris of the nineteenth century is, as might naturally be inferred, that of which the most is known; the eighteenth and seventeenth are indeed difficult to follow with accuracy as to the exact locale of their events; but the sixteenth looms up--curiously enough--more plainly than either of the two centuries which followed. The histories, and even the guide-books, will explain why this is so, so it shall have no place here. Order, of a sort, immediately came forth from out the chaos of the Revolution. The great Napoleon began the process, and, in a way, it was continued by the plebeian Louis-Philippe, elaborated in the Second Empire, and perfected--if a great capital such as Paris ever really is perfected--under the Third Republic. Improvement and demolition--which is not always improvement--still go on, and such of Old Paris as is not preserved by special effort is fast falling before the stride of progress. A body was organized in 1897, under the name of the "_Commission du Vieux Paris_," which is expected to do much good work in the preservation of the chronicles in stone of days long past. The very streets are noisy with the echo of an unpeaceful past; and their frequent and unexpected turnings, even in these modern days, are suggestive of their history in a most graphic manner. The square in front of the Fontaine des Innocents is but an ancient burial-ground; before the Hôtel de Ville came Etienne Marcel; and Charlemagne to the cathedral; the Place de la Concorde was the death-bed of the Girondins, and the Place de la Madeleine the tomb of the Capetians; and thus it is that Paris--as does no other city--mingles its centuries of strife amid a life which is known as the most vigorous and varied of its age. To enter here into a detailed comparison between the charm of Paris of to-day and yesterday would indeed be a work of supererogation; and only in so far as it bears directly upon the scenes and incidents amid which Dumas lived is it so made. CHAPTER X. LA VILLE