Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-26

this prison, and here it is written under your
very eyes"
But that's just-just to please the tourist.
monsieur"
You mean it's hokum?" The tourist glared.
II don't believe it. You can't tell me the au-
thorities would put up this tablet IL it wasn't
true know you French people are too careful
to do anything like that around your old monu-
ments. What is this mystery, after all?"
"You know I wasn't here when Edmond was
supposed to have been brought to Chateau DIFF
in 1915 for helping Napolean to escape from
Eba," the custodian protested weakly I'VE
have always been told by chief that the
story was all romance but the legend grew up
that DanteS and Able Faria were in these dun
geons, and so some put up the plaques.
That was long before my time. If you want my
opinion monsieur"
The tourist stepped over to the next dungeon
and read the name on the plaque: Able Faria.
You certainly have me guessing, oldtimer.
And is there really a tunnel between these two
dungeons?"
The custodian nodded af1rmatively and hung
his head In shame. There exactly the sort
Of tunnel Dumas had described in 1.-The Count
Of Monte Cristo" If Dantes was not in the
dungeon in 1915, the Dumas or one of the aides
In his romance factory certainly visited it in
1874!
81 give In" the tourist admitted with a
shrug of helplessness. I'm bafded"
All the evidence shows that Dumas got the
idea for this gripping novel from book by
Peuchet, published about 1925. Peuchet who
had been a Paris police official during and after
the Napoleonic regime, made some tragic rev.
elations about political prisoners who had been
sent to state prison on charges of plotting to
aid the Emperor to return from Elba and kept
there until they died. This furnished the nov
elist with the germ Of plot, but the characters
and their exploits were entirely fictitious
The Chateau DIFF was a military fortress built
in HOY tHn
Marseille. 1t Is on a small rocky island only
TOO feet long and $50 feet wide, that lies about
three miles from the port. The Notifications,
which are an interesting specimen of the mill
tary art OF the sixteenth century, consists Of o
central fort with circular towers at each Of the
four corners, and this mass surrounded bv a
huge wall. Cannon were originally mounted ON
The upper platforms of the towers.
/ IKE most old fortresSes, the castle was also
used as prison. In the eighteenth CEN
fury the Chateau DIFF was the most important
establishment for political prisoners after the
Bastille In Paris, and one nobleman, Glandeves
de Niozelles, was put away there for six years
because he forgot to take off his hat before
Louis XIV At every period when some one
was making trouble for the King, up to 1851,
the suspects were sent of there generally to be
forgotten until they died. When Napoleon was
at Elba In 1915 hosts Of his sympathizers were
Thrown 1nto Dir on charges OF plotting to help
MIN escape. So far as known, not a single
person escaped from the island In almost four
centuries.
Dumas could not have found more grim.
authentic and awe-inspring background for his
Imaginary hero, as the lower dungeons there are
all that such things should be. Heaven only
knows how many hundreds Of men rotted away
IA us Shiny cachots." apparently forgotten and
then. when the end had happily come, Nero
tossed out into the sea IN sacks
The novelist was on solid ground In USING
taaas EGasm 1oR his hero and this gave his
SoEy eeach realistic AaR -. ~.
(Copyright, 1879