The Paris of the Novelists
The Paris of the Novelists is a book written by Arthur Bartlett Maurice published by Doubleday, Page & Co. in 1919.
Not only in Paris as the title mentions, but also throughout France, the author lists locations where characters of famous novelists are set in France. Arthur Conan Doyle's works are mentioned in chapter "IX. Some of the later Englishmen" (Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Brigadier Gerard and The Refugees) and "XIV. Chimes of Normandy" (Conan Doyle's Uncle Bernac) and in an annexe map. The book is similar to the previous one "The New York of the novelists" (1917) by the same author.
Extracts about Conan Doyle
Chapter IX. Some of the later Englishmen
...
To find the invented character closest to the heart of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be a matter, not of visiting the rooms in Upper Baker Street, London, to encounter the most widely known personage in all fiction enveloped in a dressing gown and thick clouds of shag tobacco smoke, but of prowling among certain Paris cafes of 1845 or thereabouts in search of a talkative vieux grognard of the First Empire with a strong Gascon accent. For despite the world-wide popularity of his creation Doyle never loved Sherlock Holmes, whereas he has always adored Colonel Etienne Gerard of the Hussar of Conflans. The exploits of Gerard do not, in themselves, save in a few instances, belong to Paris; they are the tales of Russian ice and snow> of castles of gloom in Poland, of treachery lurking in moldy canal-laved houses of Venice, of mountain peaks in Portugal, of the English prison of Dartmoor, of the lonely rock of St. Helena. But the telling of them does, and, through the medium of the grizzled Brigadier sipping his glass of wine, garrulous as the memory of the great days through which he has lived surge within him, yet feeling the call of the. beloved Gascony of his boyhood, Doyle has poured out all his joyously acquired and marvellously transmuted knowledge of the Napoleonic period, and the men with the hairy knapsacks and the hearts of steel whose tramp shook the continent for so many years.
Immensely proud is Conan Doyle of that collection of Napoleonic military memoirs out of which grew the vainglorious yet altogether delightful Gerard. Glowingly he told of it in "Through the Magic Door," perhaps the least read although one of the finest of all his books. "Here," he said, "is Marbot, the first of all soldier books in the world. Marbot gives you the point of view of the officer. So does De Segfur and De Fezensac and Colonel Gonville, each in some different branch of the service. But some are from the pens of the men in the ranks, and they are even more graphic than the others. Here, for example, are the papers of good old Cogniet, who was a grenadier of the Guard, and could neither read nor write until the great wars were over. A tougher soldier never went into battle. Here is Sergeant Bourgogne, also with his dreadful account of that nightmare campaign in Russia, and the gallant Chevillet, trumpeter of Chasseurs, with his matter-of-fact account of all that he saw, where the daily 'combat' is sandwiched in between the real business of the day, which was foraging for his frugal breakfast and supper." Where was the café honoured by the patronage and reminiscence of Gerard? That is a matter for the pleasant, harmless play of the imagination. Any haunt will do, such a one, for example, as Thackeray sang in "The Chronicle of the Drum":
- At Paris, hard by the Maine barriers.
- Whoever will choose to repair.
- Midst a dozen of wooden legged warriors
- May haply fall in with old Pierre.
- On the sunshiny side of a tavern
- He sits and he prates of old wars.
- And moistens his pipe of tobacco
- With a drink that is named after Mars.
There is, of course, no such thing as a Sherlock Holmes Paris trail. But every now and then in the stories occur references to the French capital, allusions to hurried trips made by the great man across the Channel, either for professional purposes or for relaxation after some particularly baffling problem has been solved. Also we know that there was constant communication between Upper Baker Street and the French secret service, and Holmes was forever tossing across the table to Watson cablegrams filled with such expressions of admiration as "magnifique" and "coup-de-mattre." Perhaps some day, when Doyle sees fit to tell us more of his hero's activities in the Great War than he related in "His Last Bow," we shall be introduced to a M. Sherlock Holmes, temporarily at least, citoyen de Paris.
There is a very concrete old Paris of Conan Doyle. It is the city of "The Refugees," a tale which began in the France of the later life of Louis XIV, when that monarch, under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, was reviving with extreme severity the edicts against those of the Huguenot faith. Much research went into the making of that book with the result that there is to the story the genuine flavour of old streets. At the comer of the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue de Biron was the house of the merchant Catinat, the father of the heroine Adele, "a narrow building, four stories in height, grim and grave like its owner, with high peaked roof, long diamond paned windows, a framework of black wood, with gray plaster filling the interstices, and five stone steps which led up to the narrow and sombre door." That structure was the scene of the Paris half of "The Refugees," when the tale was not revolving about the sun-like magnificence of the royal Louis. From there the little party bound for the religious freedom promised by the New World made its way by night to the city gates, thence to Rouen, and then by boat through the winding Seine to the open sea.
...
-
p. 124, Chapter IX.
-
p. 131
-
p. 132
-
p. 133
-
p. 134
-
p. 135
Chapter XIV. Chimes of Normandy
...
All about the town when Napoleon was gathering his legions there for the projected descent upon England were the scenes of Conan Doyle's "Uncle Bernac," and the Pilgrim knows of no book in any language that, within so brief a space, gives a more vivid picture of the many sides of the great Corsican.
...
-
p. 209, Chapter XIV.
-
p. 212
Annexe: A map indicating the invasion of France by certain English and American works of fiction
- 15. The Refugees (Conan Doyle)
- 16., 17. Exploits and Adventures of Gerard (Conan Doyle)
- 52. Uncle Bernac (Conan Doyle)
- 71. Sir Nigel (Conan Doyle)
- 72. The White Company (Conan Doyle)
