Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
*Paris.
*Temple. Fortified dwelling established in Paris by the Knights Templar in 1128 and converted into a prison by the eighteenth century. (The prison was subsequently destroyed in 1810, after which its site was occupied by the Marché du Temple, one of the city’s major commercial centers.) In Dumas’s novel, the wall of the prison fringing the rue Portefoin supports a wooden construction that functions as an alehouse for its guardsmen. Dixmer purchases a house in the rue de la Corderie (on the site where number 20 now stands) in order that his accomplices might dig a tunnel under the gardens to reach the alehouse, through which Marie Antoinette and her family might escape; it is the discovery of this plot that causes her removal to the Conciergerie.
*Conciergerie (kon-see-ehrj-ur-ee). Prison of the Palais de Justice, a group of buildings on the Ile de la Cité in the heart of Paris. The Conciergerie itself had once been a royal palace, built on the site of a Roman prefectorium. At the time of the novel it was flanked by the quai des Lunettes and the quai aux Fleurs. Its gates opened on to the Pont-au-Change, across which those condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal were transported to the guillotine in the place de la Révolution. At the height of the Terror, commitment to the Conciergerie was a virtual guarantee of a speedy execution, for which reason it was ironically characterized as the “Inn of Death.”
Although the rooms occupied by Marie Antoinette and her family were destroyed by the Commune, the rest of the prison is still standing. The large vaulted hall of the Palais de Justice, known as La Salle des Pas-Perdus, is a key setting in the later phases of the novel. The curious ancestry of Paris’s prisons, most of which were former palaces or religious houses, is further emphasized by the tour that Maurice makes while searching for Geneviève after her arrest, taking in the Carmelites, the Port Libre, the Madelonnettes, Saint Lazare, and the Luxembourg.
*Old rue Saint Jacques. Street in Paris’s Fauborg Victor district, so described to distinguish it from another Parisian street of the same name. Here, not far from the jardin des Plantes, Dixmer’s house is located. Although Maurice does not realize its importance when he first offers the mysterious woman safe conduct, it becomes the setting for all the key scenes of his unfolding misfortune. He is imprisoned there, then becomes a frequent visitor as he is unwittingly drawn into Dixmer’s schemes. Having previously observed Geneviève secretly from the garden, it is from that vantage point that he finally learns the extent of her involvement with the queen’s allies.
*Rue de Roule. Location of Maurice’s house, not far from the rue Sainte-Avoie; he is secretary of the rue Lepelletier section of the Civic Guard section, whose base is nearby.