by A L Berridge
The Hôtel de Roland is never pinpointed beyond its frontage on the Rue de Roi de Sicile, but Jacques’ reference to roses on the wall suggests it backed on to an alley running from the Rue des Rosières itself, although no such alley appears on the period maps. Other locations mentioned in Paris are true to what we know of the time, although the modern reader may be disconcerted by the fact that so many names have since changed. The Place Royale, for instance, is now the Place des Vosges, while the Place de Grève is simply the Place du Hôtel de Ville.
Another name that puzzled me was the border village of ‘Éspehy’, but the 1588 Routes et Chemins de la Somme gives this as an old name for modern Épehy. There was a Malassise Farm there even in the 1640s, though it is better known to us today as the site of a major battle in the last days of the First World War. All the other towns and villages mentioned are easy to locate, and sufficient of the original fortifications survive at Saint-Jean Aux Bois to give us a picture of how it appeared even in 1641.
The only location of which I have found no trace at all is the little hamlet mentioned by Jacques as having been destroyed by the Spaniards. The village of Grouches-Luchuel exists indeed on the road between Lucheux and Milly, but there is neither record nor memory of a Petit-Grouche itself. That in itself, perhaps, is the most telling indication of the reality of the world in which André de Roland lived.
Edward Morton, March 2011