There is but one unfortunate circumstance concerning this; the
fact is, Dantes and the Abbe Faria have never existed save in my
imagination; consequently, Dantes could not have been precipitated
from the top to the bottom of the Chateau d'If, nor could the
Abbe Faria have made pens. But that is what comes from visiting
these localities in person.

Therefore, I wished to visit Varennes before commencing my novel,
because the first chapter was to open in that city. Besides,
historically, Varennes worried me considerably; the more I perused
the historical accounts of Varennes, the less I was able to
understand, topographically, the king's arrest.

I therefore proposed to my young friend, Paul Bocage, that he
accompany me to Varennes. I was sure in advance that he would
accept. To merely propose such a trip to his picturesque and
charming mind was to make him bound from his chair to the tram.
We took the railroad to Chalons. There we bargained with a
livery-stable keeper, who agreed, for a consideration of ten
francs a day, to furnish us with a horse and carriage. We were
seven days on the trip, three days to go from Chalons to Varennes,
one day to make the requisite local researches in the city, and
three days to return from Varennes to Chalons.

I recognized with a degree of satisfaction which you will easily
comprehend, that not a single historian had been historical,
and with still greater satisfaction that M. Thiers had been the
least accurate of all these historians. I had already suspected
this, but was not certain. The only one who had been accurate,
with absolute accuracy, was Victor Hugo in his book called "The