Taking the Bastille - Alexandre Dumas
On the borders of Picardy and the province of Soissons, and on that part of the national territory which, under the name of the Isle of France, formed a portion of the ancient patrimony of our kings, and in the centre of an immense crescent formed by a forest of fifty thousand acres which stretches its horns to the north and south, rises, almost buried amid the shades of a vast park planted by Francis I. and Henry II., the small city of Villers-Cotterftts.
This royal chateau had become almost uninhabited since the death of Louis- Philippe of Orleans; his son, Philippe d' Orleans, afterwards called Egalite, had made it descend from the rank of a royal residence to that of a mere hunting rendezvous. At the period at which this history commences, royal affairs, though already somewhat tottering, had not yet fallen to the low degree to which they have fallen in our days.
The chateau was no longer inhabited by a prince, 'tis true, but it had not yet become the abode of beggars; it was simply uninhabited, excepting the indispensable attendants required for its preservation; among whom were to be remarked the doorkeeper, the master of the tennis court, and the house steward; and therefore the windows of this immense edifice fronting the park, and others on a large ccort which was aristocratically called the square of the chateau, were all dosed, which added not a litue to the gloominess and solitary appearance of this square, at one of the extremities of which rose a small house, regarding which the reader, we hope, will permit us to say a few words.
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