The Incredible Marquis Alexandre Dumas

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THE INCREDIBLE
MABQUIS

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

HERBERT QORMAN

PARRAR & RINEHART, INCORPORATED
On M*mr? /////, N
MCMXXIX

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FOE

JEAN WRIGHT GORMAN

Sometime* the thought of you becomes
the bright flash of a lunging sword >
the sudden roil of battle drums,
a pealing immftefs high aecord;

and then my world is but a scene
where I am something more than mm*
d*Artagmn riding for the Queen
#r Bwsy dying for Diane,

PREFACE

IN approaching Alexandra Dumas ptre one approaches a mountain.
IT rises from the fair plains of French letters, shaggy, undisciplined,
less imposing for its height than for its wide base, and curiously diffi-
cult to explore. Indeed, it would take the better part of a lifetime
to follow all its trails, ferret out all its secret caverns, and elucidate
all its incomprehensible excrescences. Yet some idea of its general
shape and orientation is possible if the major paths be traced. The
following chapters do not pretend to be exhaustive, for to present an
exhaustive portrait of Dumas would mean a work that ran to several
fat volumes. If all his devious days were traced, if all his books were
analyzed, if all his love affairs were considered, if all his lawsuits were
set forth in detail, if all his peregrinations through France, Germany,
Italy, Russia, Spain, and Africa were meticulously followed, if all his
quarrels were described, if all the stories and slanders and gossip that
sprang up in illimitable mushroom growths wherever he went were
detailed, the resultant work would resemble Behemoth among biog-
raphies. Since that is impossible I have selected, expanding those
portions of his career that seemed most revelatory to me and tele-
scoping those portions that were repetitions. First of all, I haye striven
for readablencss. It was the man's life that I was writing and not a
critical study of his work; therefore his plays and novels are consid-
ered only in relation to his career, such critical attention as has been
included being there only to realize and clarify the mind of Dumas
and its divagations.

The authorities for such an attempt are endless and often conflicting.
There is the autobiographical material put forth by Dumas himself,
Mcs MSmoircs, the Impressions dc Voyage, and the long series of chatty
causmcs in which the author wrote about himself. Students of Dumas
will observe that the first half of this book is founded rather closely
on Mcs Mimoircs, checked up wherever possible, for Dumas's memory
was, to put it politely, rather scatterbrained. I believe there is ji

vii

VU1

PREFACE

cation for introducing so much from Mes Memoires, because, though
they have been translated in English, no wide circulation was ever
attained by them in English-reading countries, I can do no more
than indicate the more important sources, besides Dumas himself,
that I have depended upon in writing this book. They are, of course,
French, and include: Alexandre Dumas, sa vie, son temps, son ceuvre,
by H. Blaze de Bury; Alexandre Dumas et son ceuvre, by Charles
Glinel; Le drame d' Alexandre Dumas, and Alexandre Dumas ptrc,
by Hippolyte Parigot; Les demises annees df Alexandre Dumas, by
Gabriel Ferry; Alexandre Dumas h la Maison d'Or, by Philibert Aude-
brand; Alexandre Dumas, by Jules Janin; Alexandre Dumas en
manches de chemise, by Benjamin Pifteau; Le soleil Alexandre
Dumas, by Madame Clemence Badere. Besides these books I have
used the memoirs and journals of Amaury Duval, Villemessant,
Theodore de Banville, Maxime du Camp, the. brothers Goncourt,
Fontaney, Hostein, Arsene Houssaye, the Comtesse Dash, Madame
Mennessier-Nodier, Madame Mathilde Shaw, and Charles Sechan.
And this is but a portion of the material I turned over, for it was
necessary to follow the history of Romanticism through a series of
books, to refer to articles in old magazines and newspapers, and to
investigate the political and social history of France from 1800 to 1870.
To pedantically indicate every source from which I extracted some
stray fact, then, would call for a rather long chapter in itself. Natu-
rally, I do not expect this work to be without flaws. There are too
many conflicting authorities, too many clashing dates, too many per-
sonal attitudes. The literature in English about Dumas is limited,
and based, for the most part, on French data. Among the works that
might be indicated are: Alexandre Dumas: His Life and Worlds, by
Arthur F. Davidson; The Life and Writings of Alexandre Dumas,
by Harry A. Spurr; The Life and Adventures of Alexandre Dumas,
by Percy Fitzgerald; and essays by Thackeray, Andrew Lang, Abra-
ham Hayward, Robert Louis Stevenson, Professor Dowden, W. E.
Henley, W. H. Pollock, and R. S. Garnett. Every complete literary
history of France, of course, contains some references to Dumas.

It is a pleasure to set down the names of friends, acquaintances, and
kindly strangers who have assisted me with advice and books: Robert
Aron, Lewis Galantiere, Sylvia Beach, Ford Madox Ford, Carl Van

PREFACE ix

Doren, Gamaliel Bradford, R. S. Garnett, William Aspcnwall Bradley,
Coburn Gilman, Alfred Goldsmith, and Conrad Ormonde. Other
names have probably slipped my mind.

Above all, I am grateful to my wife, Jean Wright Gorman, who
has been tireless in aid, typing the entire script and catching many
errors while performing this laborious task.

HERBERT GORMAN,
April /, 1929.
New Yor\ City.

CONTENTS

Part I:

Chapter

I TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL I

II THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS l6

III THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 6l

IV SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST * 83
V THE BAPTISM OF A MAN IO/

VI TAKING THE BASTILLE I4O

VII THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION IJl

Part II: MONTE CRISTO

I THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 2I/

II NOMAD 254

III THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 283

IV THE KING OF ROMANCE 312
V THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 357

VI THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 384

VII THE CHANGED WORLD 414

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MONTE GUSTO Frontispiece

During the years of the great romances Dumas was the
uncrowned king of Paris

Facing Page

THE FATHER OF DUMAS WAS CALLED LE DIABLE NOIR BY His
CONTEMPORARIES 8

TALMA 54

The great actor blessed Dumas when the young man first came
to Paris

MADEMOISELLE MARS 55

Her "temperamental upsets" continually disturbed Dumas

PALAIS-ROYAL, STREET FRONT - 80

A VIEW UNDER THE ARCADE OF THE PALAIS-ROYAL 81

FREDERIC SOULIE . . 112

This writer was the first real literary friend that Dumas knew

LES FRERES PROVENCEAUX 113

Dumas dined many times in this famous restaurant

MONALDESCHI BEFORE QUEEN CHRISTINE I3O

The bas-relief by Mile, de Fauveau which suggested the play
Christine to Dumas

MADEMOISELLE GEORGES 131

The shadow of Bonaparte still hovered about her and made
her an object of awed curiosity to the populace

VICTOR HUGO 142

The Sun-God, in spite of his jealousy, remained a good friend
to Dumas

ALFRED DE VIGNY 143

He was one of the Romantic triumphirate with Dumas and
Hugo

DUMAS IN 1832 218

He was once more on the bright crest of the wave of
romanticism

an

xiv THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Facing Page

DELPHINE GAT * 219

The Parisian literary world called her the tenth muse

LOUISE DESPREAUX * 219

The "page" of Henri III et sa $our

BOCAGE, in the role of Antony. . . . 230

MADAME DORVAL . . 231

She entered the life of Dumas by way of a cab

BOCAGE * 248

As Buridan in La Tour dc Neslc

BOCAGE . . , 249

In Teresa

CHATEAUBRIAND . 294

The old father of Romanticism was a witness at the wedding
of Dumas

&TIENNE MELINGUE 295

As the Angel of Evil in Don Juan de Marana

THE QUADROON CHEF 314

Dumas concocting his bouillabaisse of romance

£TIENNE CARJAT'S IDEA OF DUMAS. , 315

The novelist was always excellent game for caricaturists

firiENNE MELINGUE 340

As Chicot in La Dame de Monsoreau

£TIENNE MELINGUE ...... 341

As d'Artagnan in La Jeunesse des Mousquetaires

DUMAS TOWARD 1850 . , 350

He had just passed the peak of his popularity

ALEXANDRE DUMAS, fits . . 351

EMILE DESCHAMPS .*•....*.,.,,....,» 366 i

He was one of the instigators of the Romantic Movement

SAINTE-BEUVE ^ ^

THE GONCOURT BROTHERS SPOKE OF DUMAS'S FACE AS RESEMBLING

THAT OF THE MAN IN THE MOON .......,.,..». 392

DELACROIX »* 393

The famous painter was always a friend to Dumas

LA MENKEN AND THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS. 436

Ada leaning lovingly on his shoulder and Dumas beaming like
a satisfied old satyr

DUMAS m THE SIXTIES 437

He grew excessively stout in his latter years

PART ONE
D'ARTAGNAN

CHAPTER ONE

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL

FOR three days troops passed through the quiet little village of Villers-
Cotterets, surrounded by its miles of green forest, on their way to
Soissons, Laon, and Mezieres. They were gaitered giants, legendary
creatures with fierce mustaches and faces browned by the burning
suns of a dozen campaigns. They tramped steadily to the thunder
of tambours and the shrill challenge of trumpets, bearing high above
their cockades the riddled standards of Austerlitz, Wagram, and
Moskova in their cylindrical-shaped cases. The regimental bands
played "Veillons au sdut de I' empire!' Brigade after brigade passed.
Rumbling ammunition wagons. Creaking caissons. The elephant-
colored snouts of dusty cannon. Horses with proud tossing heads,
braided tails, and sweating flanks. Clattering supply carts. Swaying
shakos and fluttering sword sashes. Long jingling troops of cavalry,
the men sitting easily in their heavy saddles, their sabers clashing
against their spurs. Unending serpents of infantry crawling along
the ocher road, the flash of their bayonets like a long stripe of silver.
Dark-visaged Mamelukes in red baggy breeches and carrying swords
shaped like crescents. Cuirassiers. Cannoneers. Hussars. Dragoons.
The yellow dust of the road rose like a sulphurous smoke about the
shaggy hoofs of the artillery horses, the slim legs of the cavalry
chargers, and the stocky calves of the infantry. In less than seventy-
two hours more than thirty thousand men, guiding horses, wagons,
and guns, passed through Villers-Cotterets.

These men were sober-faced, almost gloomy in their attitudes. They
did not smile or chant to the music of the regimental bands. It is
possible that they suspected the future, that they understood that they
were the last desperate cast of the pale-faced gambler who followed

2 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

them so slowly in his rumbling coach. They were tired. Their legs
were weary with climbing the Alps, with crossing the plains of
Austria and Lombardy, with plowing through the Saharan sands of
Egypt and the glittering snowdrifts along the road to Smolensk.
Every man was an Atlas. Upon his back he carried the Empire. It
was time to lay down this monstrous burden. Twilight flowed over
these marching columns and they pushed forward doggedly. Blue
night descended, and they dropped their packs, hobbled their horses,
and sank by the roadside. Through the trees gleamed the yellow
lights of the quiet farms of France. Cows mooed softly in their byres,
and watch-dogs barked at the moon. It was pleasant to rest in the soft
grass by the side of the road and listen to the chirp of sleepy birds and
arrogant cicadas. A pale light crept through the trees and touched
to silver the bayonets of the stacked muskets. It flowed over the
bronze mouths of the silent cannon. The army slept. . . . Bugles.
Hoarse bugles shouting in the dawn, lifting their metal throats to the
early sun. A multitude of men rising like miraculous grain from the
earth. Straps were adjusted and buckles tightened. Kicking horses
and mules were backed into shafts. The ground began to tremble
again as the long columns resumed their march. Behind them a
solitary coach rumbled nearer and nearer.

>' In the gesticulating crowd which lined the narrow rue de Largny
of Villcrs-Cotterets and watched the grizzled veterans of the Grande
Arm& pass was a boy of thirteen, blue-eyed, with long fair curly hair
just beginning to reveal signs of a crispness suspiciously negroid, and
with thick red lips that suggested strawberries against his dazzlingly
white complexion. He was dressed poorly in old-fashioned garments
that had been cut down unmistakably from the clothes of an elder,
His tall frame, thin as a lath, quivered to the grumble of the tam-
bours and the spectacle of the slanting forest of bayonets. He clenched
his hands and danced to the martial clangor. About him skipped his
friends, small-town boys and girls in quaintly cut garments. He had
| not slept for three nights, not since Villcrs-Cottcrets had been sur-
| rounded by the slowly moving columns of soldiers. The martial spirit
I of his dead father, that herculean giant called Genml Alexandra
[Dumas, stirred in him at the sight of the standards and gum and

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 3

beating drums. As he watched the Old Guard pass through the
village street he seemed to hear a voice in the air above him, the voice
of a tired man who had fought greatly and suffered and died at last
in a bed, with the sword hung on the wall and the uniform laid away
in a chest. Young Alexandre Dumas barely comprehended the tragedy
which had befallen his father, but he understood that the Emperor
was the moving cause of it. The Emperor had not liked his father.
The Emperor had forgotten the man who had fought for General
Bonaparte in Italy. He had erased from his rolls the name of the
diablc noir who had quelled the insurrection in the twisting streets
of Cairo. He had many marshals, but not one of them had been
named Dumas. The boy watched the regiments pass, and there were
tears in his eyes as the riddled standards, close-folded in their cases,
swept along the street. Vive I'Empereur! Vive I'Empereur! Young
Dumas turned back toward the meager bureau de tdbac where his
mother, the wife of a Napoleonic general, eked out her precarious
existence.

Couriers on winded horses dashed through the streets of Villers-
Cotterets. They were exhausted men, in dusty uniforms, bearing im-
portant orders. They paused at the posting stables, delivered their
messages, and hurried on. The rumor that the Emperor was to pass
through Villers-Cotterets, following — as was his custom — the road
which his Old Guard had taken, swept through the village. It was
the twelfth of June, 1815. Between six and seven o'clock in the morn-
ing a pushing, excited crowd gathered at the end of the rue de Largny
near the posting house; among them young Dumas. He desired in-
tensely to sec this man who had destroyed the career of his father.
He wriggled his way to the foremost rank of the ijiob and waited.
He did not want to see the coach pass in a cloud of yellow smoke
but rather when it stopped and the horses were changed. So when he
saw an approaching column of dust in the dry road he turned and
sprinted before it toward the posting house. Behind him he could
hear the clatter of hoofs, the rumbling of iron-tired wheels, the sharp
crack of the coachman's whip. At the posting house he turned breath-
lessly and there swept by him three heavy carriages, the horses drip-
ping with sweat, the postilions powdered and beribboned. A wave of

4 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

shouting villagers spun him forward and flung him toward one of
these carriages, which had slowed its speed and stopped. Young
Dumas gazed into the carriage. The Emperor was seated at the back,
at the right, clothed in a green uniform faced with white. Upon his
bosom glittered the star of the Legion of Honor. His brother, Jerome,
sat at his left, and facing this brother was the Emperor's aide, Letort.
Napoleon looked pale and ill. His head, which seemed cut from a
block of ivory, inclined slightly on his breast. He appeared to be
thinking, to be oblivious of his surroundings. When he heard the
excited clamor of the populace he raised his pale massive head and
gazed about him. He looked through and beyond young Dumas.

"Where are we?" he asked. The voice was weary.

"At Villers-Cotterets, sire," answered his aide.

"Six leagues from Soissons, then?" he said.

His aide bowed his head.

"Quickly, then," he commanded. The marble head drooped, and
he relapsed into the semi-stupor out of which he had so briefly aroused
himseE The sweating, exhausted horses were removed from the car-
riage, and fresh animals were put in their places. New postilions
leaped to their saddles. There was the sharp crack of a whip as the
stable boys who had taken out the jaded horses waved their torn caps
and shouted, "Vive I'Emfereurl"

Napoleon made a slight inclination of his head. The carriage disap-
peared in a cloud of dust around the corner of the rue de Soissons.

Rumors.

They flew like ominous black crows over the villages of northern
France.

In Villers-Cotterets ten days passed before news came through of
the crossing of the Sambre, the taking of Charleroi, the battle of
Ligny and the engagement of Quatre-Bras. These first echoes were
those of victory.

The nineteenth of June passed and there was no news. It was
rumored that Napoleon had visited the battlefield of Ligny and
ordered assistance for the wounded. Letort had been killed.

The twentieth of June. Dark clouds and the threat of rain. No
news.

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 5

The twenty-first of June. Rain.

The twenty-second of June. Heavy rains. Black skies.

The twenty-third of June. Rain. Rain slackening. Smoking earth.

Gossips met in the cafes and discussed matters. There could be no
fighting in such weather. The heavy guns would stick in the mud.
Napoleon . . .

Suddenly the rumor spread through Villers-Cotterets that some
men bringing bad news had been arrested and taken before the mayor.
These men were foreigners and they were mad. They declared that
a decisive battle had been fought and that the French army had been
annihilated. The English, Prussians, and Dutch were marching on
Paris. The fools!

Young Dumas joined the rush toward the town hall.

Before the old building were ten or a dozen men, some of them
still on their mud-splashed horses, others standing in the road. They
were covered with blood, and their uniforms were in rags. They
spoke a strange language. They said they were Poles. The villagers
surrounded them, crying out that they were spies or escaped German
prisoners. These exhausted men persisted in their tale that Napoleon
had engaged the English on the eighteenth of June, that the battle
began at noon, that he had defeated them by five o'clock, that Bliicher
had arrived with forty thousand men at six o'clock, that the retire-
ment of the French army before this fresh onslaught had developed
into a rout, that all was lost, and that they were but the vanguard
of the fugitives. The villagers of Villers-Cotterets refused to believe
this tale. They shook their heads and muttered, "You will see." They
threatened the Poles with imprisonment, with death. The Poles stood
fast by their story.

Knots of people met in the street and conversed in low voices.
Perhaps . . . after all. ... There were white faces and startled eyes.

Young Dumas and his mother installed themselves at the posting
house, for there, if anywhere, fresh and reliable news would come.

At seven o'clock a courier arrived, covered with mud from head to
foot and on a horse ready to drop with fatigue. He ordered four
horses to be ready for a carriage that followed him. He answered no
questions but mounting his winded horse, set forth again toward the
south. The four horses were harnessed and placed near the road.

6 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Young Dumas heard the rumble of the carriage and glanced up.
A look of amazement spread across his face.

"Is it really he?" he whispered to the posting master. That gentle-
man, who stood stupefied, nodded his head.

The Emperor sat in the corner of the carriage. The same pale,
sickly, impassive face bowed over the star of the Legion of Honor.
The head was a little lower than it had been when he had driven
through Villers-Cotterets in the other direction.

"Where are we?" he asked in an expressionless voice.

"At Villers-Cotterets, sire."

"Eighteen leagues from Paris ?"

"Yes, sire."

The head bowed lower. "Go on," he said.

It was true, then.

The widow and the son of General Alexandrc Dumas walked
lowly home.

Shattered brigades, weaponless, without drums, poured through
/illers-Cotterets in a motley crowd. There was no order, no silver
treak of bayonets, no regimental bands playing "Veillons au sdut dc
'empire" These men, powder-blackened, in bloody bandages, with
heir eyes rolling in the fear of death, no longer were a part of the
ormidable Grande Armee that had marched northward beneath the
lags of Austerlitz, Wagram and Moskova. They were the smashed
its of a machine. They were the debris of an Empire which had
cased to exist. The heavy burden had been torn from the back of
itlas.

After the fugitives who had extricated themselves from the carnage
ime the wounded, first those who could walk or hobble on crutches,
icn those who could neither walk nor sit on horseback but must lie
n their backs pressing their hands against gaping wounds swathed in
ained cloths. For two days this pathetic procession, the funeral of
i Empire, passed through Villers-Cotterets, and for two days young
Jumas watched it and compared it with the even ranks of legendary
iants who had tramped toward Waterloo so short a time before,
[istory was like that An army was marched up a hill and an army
as marched down a hill An Emperor placed a crown upon his

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 7

head and a fat man in a wide straw hat wandered helplessly about
St. Helena. A stout artillery officer in riding breeches left the Tuilerics
and a stouter Bourbon puffed his way in. The sun fell upon the
Vendome column and the rain fell on Longwood. Somewhere the
Ironic Power turned a page glittering with bees and picked up the pen
of Time and wrote upon a new page the name Louis-Stanislas-Xavier,
Comte de Provence, and then, as an afterthought, Louis XVIIL
History was the interplay of specters in a world that did not exist. It
was a handful of dates clothed with phantom flesh.

During the days when Marechal Brune was butchered at Avignon
and Murat was shot at Pizzo and Marshal Ney executed in the walk
leading to the Observatoire in Paris, young Alexandre Dumas was
hunting in the woods about Villers-Cotterets. Brought up in a village
near great stretches of woodland full of small game, the friend of
gamekeepers, and with the rare sense of the chasseur bred in him, the
boy naturally sought his relaxation in running down small wild
creatures. He was never so happy as when stalking birds through the
tall trees or lying beneath green bushes in wait for the scurry of tiny
feet. He had not, as yet, achieved the age of reflection. He was, how-
ever, the son of his father, and to understand him it is necessary to
comprehend the type of man General Alexandre Dumas represented.

II

General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was born about the year 1762
at Jer&nie, on the coast of Santo Domingo and no great distance from
that New Continent where Chateaubriand's bronzed children of na-
ture traveled through virgin wildernesses. He was the son of Alex-
andre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie and a negress ^called Marie-
Cessette Dumas. He was, therefore, a mulatto. Whether or riot he
heard in his infancy the sharp thunder of voodoo drums in the
surrounding hills is a mystery. He did not have the gift of graphic
description which was to be his son's solitary heritage. He was a man
of action, not a creature of retrospection.

There is no proof nor is there any reason to believe that Alexandre-
Antoinc Davy de la Pailleterie and Marie-Cessette Dumas were mar-

8 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

tied. Indeed, circumstantial evidence would appear to run counter to
any "such supposition. The young French officers and stray court
adventurers who arrived in Santo Domingo were not inclined to take
wives, although enough of them settled temporarily with black mis-
tresses. The government frowned severely upon such mesalliances;
they prognosticated broken careers immediately. The negresses did
not expect marriage; it was enough for them to have the guardianship
of white men either in government service or under French protection.
Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie laid claim to the title of
marquis and so far as any evidence reveals he was permitted to bear
it. Just where he acquired this title is lost in the mists of time. He
claimed that the marquisate had been created by Louis XIV in 1707,
but mention of it is not to be found in the bulky registers of the
period. It is evident, however, that Alexandre-Antoine (who appears
to have been rather eccentric) came from an important Normandy
family. He held various positions at court, served with the Due de
Richelieu at Phillipsbourg where an ancestor of Alfred de Musset,
Francois de Pray, was killed, and was at one time first gentleman of
the chamber to the Prince de Conti. By 1760 he became weary of the
pastimes of the Regency and the reign that succeeded it, and selling
his goods and estates, departed for Santo Domingo, where he pur-
chased a plantation. Properly enough, he preferred alligators to the
Regent. Arriving in the primitive island, he lost no time in attaching
to himself the black but presumably comely Marie-Cessette Dumas.

The year 1780 was a year of rumors. Even Santo Domingo was
permeated with them. To the west of that island a new nation was
struggling for freedom- Far to the east France waited while subter-
ranean rivers of passion mounted higher steadily toward a glittering
crust. Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie developed a nostalgia
for the frivolities of court life at Versailles and a mild disgust for the
swarming blacks on his plantation. He returned to France, therefore,
bringing with him a sturdy black son of eighteen* Marie-Cessctte
Dumas had died in 1772.

Thomas-Alexandre made a curious appearance among the Fayettes
and Lazuns of Paris and Versailles. He was unquestionably a Negro;
but he was handsome, graceful as a tiger, a formidable swordsman, a

The father of Dumas was called le diable noir by his

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 9

magnificent rider, and unbelievably strong. He was also simple and
importunate. Women (if we are to believe the romantic sentimentali-
zation of him by his son) adored him. Thomas-Alexandre, however,
was a man of action with a greater inclination for the battlefield than
for the boudoir. Women were just another kind of alligator to him.
For some years, notwithstanding his martial predilections, the young
man occupied himself with the frivolous life of the caste into which,
because of his birth, he had been introduced. Then his father married.
Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie had been in France but
four years when he took unto his aged bosom another mate. Eccentric
as ever, he bestowed his name upon his housekeeper, a seemingly
worthy woman named Marie-Fran^oise Retou. Either Thomas-
Alexandre did not like the housekeeper or the housekeeper did not
like her swarthy stepson, for a rift appeared in the hitherto happy
home of the seventy-four-year-old nobleman. It resolved itself into a
dispersal of antagonists. Thomas-Alexandre determined to join the
army, not as an officer (the usual prerogative of noblemen's sons) but
as a private. This low rank would seem to point again to the illegiti-
macy of the young man and to suggest an inability on the father's
part to do much for his black offspring. An estrangement between
father and son followed, and when Thomas-Alexandre took the oath
of office to the King in 1786 he enlisted as Alexandre Dumas, discard-
ing the rolling name of Davy de la Pailleterie. It is doubtful that it
legally belonged to him. His regiment was the Queen's Dragoons.
Thirteen days after Thomas-Alexandre enlisted Alexandre-Antoine
Davy de la Pailleterie died, at the age of seventy-six. His death certifi-
cate does not denominate him a marquis but refers to him as "Sei-
gneur Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, knight, seigneur, and
patron of Bielleville." Like a good old aristocrat he refused to live
long enough to witness the fall of the Bastille.

Private Alexandre Dumas joined his regiment at Laon, where he
did barrack duty, interrupted by various duels, and marked impatient
time while the French Revolution seethed to the boiling point. The
subterranean rivers of passion reached the glittering crust and crashed
through. The National Assembly was constituted; the Bastille fell;

10

THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

the gutters of Paris ran blood; Mirabeau sprang into prominence,
thundered, and died; the vague forms of Marat, Danton, Robespierre,
Camille Desmoulins, loomed like fanatical genii in the smoking air
above Notre Dame; a swarthy artillery officer with long hair listened
attentively to the voice of Destiny; Alexandre Dumas, now a corporal,
changed guard, went through military evolutions, and waited impa-
tiently for the call of Time.

In 1790 he was transferred with a detachment of troops to Villers-
Cotterets. How charming the little town was in the sunlight! How
still it seemed among the green trees! There he met Marie-Louise-
Elizabeth Labouret, whose father, Claude, was proprietor of the little
Hotel de Tficu. The black, gigantic-shouldered noncommissioned
officer observed the village girl with an attentive and kindling eye.
And Marie-Louise observed the astonishing young man. No one like
him had ever come to Villers-Cotterets. There were walks in the
woodland, quiet dinners, the charming progress of a French courtship.
In November, 1792, Alexandre Dumas married Marie-Louise-Elizabeth
Labouret. He was no longer a noncommissioned officer; Time had
begun to move swiftly with him.

The Revolution had spread like fire through France, and coalitions
were being formed among the frightened foreign powers who saw
in this conflagration a grave menace against the idea of hereditary
monarchy. Leopold I, of Germany, and Frederick-William II, of
Prussia, met at Pilnitz on August 27, 1791, and drafted that famous
declaration regarding the reestablishment of the bewildered Louis
XVI. On January 14, 1792, the National Assembly of France invited
the badgered Louis to demand explanations from the foreign powers
concerning this declaration. No satisfactory reply was returned, and
French troops were ordered to the menaced frontiers. The Queen's
Dragoons was among the commands so moved, and with it went
Alexandre Dumas, now a brigadier. Various skirmishes ensued along
the frontier. At Maulde the young man distinguished himself in
action for the first time by capturing thirteen Tyrolean chasseurs
single-handed.

During this chaotic period all France rushed to arms- While the
guillotine was doing its deadly work in Paris and other cities, rcgi*
mcnt after regiment of young, freedom-intoxicated men was

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL n

working the frontiers against threatened invasions. Eight hundred
thousand men enlisted and within a year the infant Republic of
France had a dozen armies at its disposal. The swarthy young artillery
officer from Corsica was still listening to the voice of Destiny. It was
a time of quick promotions, when quality of service and natural ability
outweighed the perquisites of birth.

In September, 1792 (two months before his marriage), brigadier
Dumas became a second lieutenant. The next day he was created a
first lieutenant. Three months later he became a lieutenant-colonel.
In July, 1793, he was appointed brigadier-general of the Army of the
North. He was thirty-one years old. In September of this year he was
made a general of division of the same army. Five days later he
was commissioned general commander-in-chief of the Army of the
Western Pyrenees. Thus in twenty months he had risen from a private
in the ranks to an army commander. It was in this way that adven-
turous men rose during the French Revolution.

At Bayonne while commanding the Army of the Western Pyrenees
(a post disputed him by some of the Representatives of the People)
he first received a nickname. His chambers opened on the public
square where the bright red guillotine — the mother of the Revolution
— was set up, and when the ghastly hours of execution arrived and
all the other windows were filled with screaming observers General
Dumas closed his shutters tightly. The sight of the decapitated heads
rolling into bloody baskets was not to his liking. The fruit of the
pikes did not appeal to him. The sans-culottcs, observing this noble
weakness, gathered under his windows in a dirty, gesticulating, garlic-
reeking crowd and yelled, "Hah! Monsieur dc I' Humanist Come to
the window! Show yourself!" In spite of threats the General stood
behind his closed shutters, a brace of cocked pistols in his hands, his
startled aides beside him, waiting for what might happen. Nothing
did happen except the nickname "Monsieur dc I'Humanitt" That,
in the time of the Terror, was not such a disgrace, after all.

The General's strength and humanity were his predominant char-
acteristics. This strength was such that he could lift a heavy gate by
its hinges, raise four army muskets by inserting his fingers into the
barrels, fling a recalcitrant soldier over a wall, crush a helmet in his

12 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

hands, and stifle a horse between his legs. In battle there was a reck-
lessness about him that was almost legendary. He was entirely devoid
of fear. He possessed the divine simplicity of the Negro. While he
was with the Army of the Alps he scaled the heights of Mont-Cenis
with three thousand men and captured that crucial point. The detach-
ment climbed the steep bluff by means of iron frost nails thrust into
the rock, and Dumas warned his men that any who slipped were lost
and that, therefore, it would be futile to cry out. The cry would not
save the man but it would imperil the enterprise by warning the
unsuspecting enemy. Three men did fall and there was no sound but
the hollow rebound of their smashed bodies from rock to rock.

Perhaps Dumas's greatest feat was his defense of the bridge of
Clausen, an example of bravery that won for him the somewhat
melodramatic title of the "Horatius Codes of the Tyrol" This gran-
diose nomenclature, which starts a smile now, was natural enough in
the days of the French Revolution. There were many a Brutus and
Aristides then.

Dumas had suffered several reverses by the time this opportunity
occurred. He had reached his peak as a commander and was already
toppling. He lacked the astuteness of the young artillery officer from
Corsica. He was too simple.' He had been recalled to Paris from the
Army of the Alps to answer charges made against him, these charges
dwindling to the accusation that he had ordered a guillotine taken
down and chopped into firewood for his troops. Monsieur dc I'Hu*
manitt again. He had been acquitted of these charges and sent to the
Army of the Sambre-et-Meuse. There he had marked time discos
tentedly enough until, losing hope, he had handed in his resignation
and gone back to the quiet village of Villers-Cotterets, where his wife
and a two-year-old daughter, Aimee-Alexandrine, awaited him. But
France—or rather the Directory— needed him. He had been recalled
to action and after several disappointing shifts from command to com-
mand he was ordered to Italy, there to place himself at the disposal
of General Bonaparte.

He reached Milan on October 19, 1796, and was cordially received
by Bonaparte and that warm-blooded Creole, Josephine. How warmly
Josephine received him is but a suspicion and a conjecture* Bonaparte
himself— that lean-faced adventurer—was suffering from scurvy, and

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 13

his general appearance suggested that of a walking skeleton. Perhaps
an inward agitation over the fortune of the next few months added to
this leanness. Dumas was ordered immediately to the command of
the first division before Mantua. The campaign that ensued is now
a part of familiar history. It is unnecessary to outline it. Arcola and
Rivoli were tremendous stepping-stones for the Corsican. He who was
as yet hardly aware of that sleepless demon which inhabited his brain
was already on his resistless march toward the Crown of France. As
for Dumas, that other adventurer, he was tasting the thanklessness of
endeavor. His bravery in battle was of no avail, for the jealousy of
other generals was something against which this simple-minded,
straightforward officer could not cope, It is possible that he was too
blunt, too difficult to agree with his fellow officers; at any rate, the
Campaign ended with his divisional ranl^ being incorporated with that
of Massena. Eventually, after some complaint on General Dumas's
part, he was sent to Joubert, who commanded the French troops in
the Tyrol. It was while he was with Joubert that he achieved the feat
which gave him the high-sounding name of the Horatius Codes of
the Tyrol.

During the rapid advance upon the retreating Austrians the French
troops under General Dumas reached the bridge of Clausen, which
had been barricaded by the enemy. Carts had been piled up, and
behind them with leveled guns waited the powder-blackened Aus-
San infantry and cavalry. The position seemed impregnable to the
assault of a detachment as small as General Dumas's. The General
did not think so. He called for twenty-five volunteers and rushed
for the bridge through a rain of bullets, his men following him. What
could they do but follow such a leader? It is the quality of great
generals that their personalities mesmerize the fear out of their fol-
lowers. It is the peculiar sort of madness that explains Dumas and
Cambronne and Murat. Reaching the barricade of carts, Dumas and
his men managed to overturn them into the rushing torrent beneath.
All this time a hail of Austrian bullets was mowing down the reckless
French troops. Scarcely was the bridge clear when Dumas leaped on
his horse and started down the village street leading from the once-
JDarricaded span. His aide shouted after him in vain. Dumas was deaf
to warnings; the fierce Negro who neither reasons nor retreats was in

I4 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

the ascendant. Suddenly the General was confronted by a platoon of '
Austrian cavalry and with one back-handed sweep of his heavy saber
he killed a quartermaster, gashed horribly the soldier next to him, and
with the point of the weapon wounded a third. The Austrians, think-
ing that the devil had suddenly come out of hell and set upon them,
wheeled their horses in a riot of fear. The chargers lurched against
one another, stumbled, and fell pell-mell with their screaming riders,
At that moment Dumas's dragoons came up and the entire Austrian
platoon was captured.

No sooner was this accomplished than Dumas, followed by fifty
dragoons and a bewildered aide, set off in pursuit of a considerable
body of cavalry which he perceived climbing a mountain on the other
side of the village. Outstripping the dragoons, the General and his aide
came within hailing distance of the enemy. "So it is you, schwartzct
Tcufcir cried the Austrian commander. Dumas was about to set
upon the Austrians by himself when his aide, who appears to have
possessed the rudiments of tactical reasoning, grasped the General's
horse by the bridle and held him back. Prudence was a quality lack-
ing in Dumas, and it may have been this absence of a necessary char-
acteristic that did its share in placing the marechal's baton beyond
his reach. His impetuosity was excellent in actual combat, but the
responsibilities of his command were not aided by it. As a matter of
fact, the Austrians had lured Dumas and his small detachment across
the bridge in order to destroy them. It was the resourceful aide— his
name was Dermancourt — who discovered this and explained it to the
General. Dumas, thereupon, fell back upon the bridge. The Austrians
were about it and the fight became a shamble of falling horses, men
with heads cloven, blood, dust, and death. Impetuosity may be re-
trieved only by impetuosity. Duinas saw that the bridge would be
cut off from his command unless it were defended. He reached the
head of the span and held it alone against an entire squadron of
Austrians hurled upon it. The enemy could advance over the narrow
planking by couples only, and as fast as they came on Dumas mowed
them down with his huge saber, Horatius Codes! Fresh troops ar-
rived and the General was relieved. He had killed seven or eight men,
had received three wounds, his horse had been killed under him, and
seven bullets had passed through his cloak. It was brawn and a$

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 15

brain that had done this* Napoleon could not have achieved such a
feat. Neither would Napoleon have fallen into this predicament.

Egypt. A burning sun. The defense of Alexandria. Dumas, hunt-
ing rifle in hand, headed the carabineers of the Fourth light demi-
brigade. Bonaparte listened to Destiny while Desaix marched through
a parched land toward the minarets of Cairo. The names of the
French dead were carved on Pompey's Pillar. Aboukir. Rosetta.
Dejection and discontent among the troops. The Battle of the Pyra-
mids. "Soldiers, forty centuries are looking down upon you." The
entry into Cairo. What was all this about? Was the Republic to
plant a colony here ? What about Cambyses and St. Louis ? This land
devoured men. There was a queer light in the eyes of Bonaparte. He
understood now what Destiny said. The generals began to grumble
among themselves. What were they but pawns in a game they did
not comprehend? Were they fighting for the Republic or Bonaparte?
Dumas was among the grumblers. He was ill-humored. He had not
been given a division to command. He was a determined Republican.
Bonaparte observed him with a malicious sidelong glance. x

There was an insurrection in the streets of Cairo. The muezzins
cried for revolt in place of prayers and the narrow lanes swarmed
with murderous Moslems. General Dupuis was assassinated. Cannons
belched through the twisting thoroughfares and Dumas, regardless
of the sharp knives, rode into the Grand Mosque of El-Heazao on
horseback. The revolt was quelled. Bonaparte took Dumas by the
hand and called him a Hercules. But there was a strange look in the
commander's eyes. Dumas became despondent. He applied for leave
to return to France. This desire became a mania. Friends strove to
dissuade him but he persisted. At length Bonaparte shrugged his
shoulders and bade him go. Dumas purchased four thousand pounds
of Mocha coffee, eleven Arabian horses, chartered a small vessel, and
turned his dark face toward France.

He would never have another command in the French army. His
career was ended.

What was all this about? Was it not as much the fact that Dumas
had seen command after command taken away from him, had
achieved miraculous feat after miraculous feat only to receive no

16 " THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

reward, and had been bowed down by a gathering load of grievances
as it was the integrities of the Republican ardor?

The woes of Dumas did not end with his departure from Alex-
andria. The quiet village of Villers-Cotterets was farther away than
he imagined.

A fierce storm arose on the Mediterranean Sea and his tiny vessel
was buffeted fiercely by the gale. It sprang a leak and to lighten the
boat the cargo was flung overboard. Ten piece of cannon, the only
defense, went. Then the eleven Arabian horses. After that, the four
thousand pounds of Mocha coffee. And last of all, the personal lug-
gage of Dumas and his companions. Running before the wind and
settling more and more in the malevolent gray-green waters, the
cockleshell sighted the coast of Calabria and made for the port of
Taranto. Dumas was under the impression that Naples was friendly
to France. He was to be disillusioned.

From March 17, 1799, to April 5, 1801, he was imprisoned by the
Neapolitan authorities, and during this incarceration he suffered all
sorts of hardships, among them several attempted poisonings. When
he was exchanged for the ineffectual General Mack he arrived in
France a broken man, deaf, and with the first symptoms of cancer
gnawing his stomach.

The rest of his life — but five years remained — Dumas was to pass
writing pleading letters to his old commanders, to the government,
to Napoleon, begging for his portion of the Neapolitan indemnity for
French prisoners and the arrears of salary due him.

He received exactly nothing. Bonaparte might forget his friends
but he never forgot his enemies.

On the twenty-fifth of July, 1802 (or, as it was called then, sixth
Thermidor, Year X), General Dumas wrote the following letter to his
friend, General Brune:

"My dear Brune, I announce to you with joy that my wife gave
birth yesterday morning to a big boy who weighs nine pounds and
is eighteen inches long. You will see that if he continues to grow
in the outside world as he has in the interior he promises to reach
a pretty fine stature,

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 17

"Another thing you should know: I count on you to be his god-
father. My eldest daughter, who sends you a thousand kisses from
the tips of her little black fingers, will be your fellow godparent.
Come quickly, though the new arrival into this world does not seem
to wish to leave it in any hurry; come quickly, for it has been a long
time since I saw you, and I have a great desire to see you.

"Your friend, Alex. Dumas.

"P. S. I open the letter to inform you that the young dog has just
eased himself all over his head. That is a good sign, surely!"

It was in this way that Dumas announced the birth of his son,
Alexandre, who came into the world about five o'clock of the morn-
ing of July 24, 1802.

Madame Dumas had been to a puppet show shortly before the birth
of her second and last child and there she had seen a horrible little
black devil called Berlick. She turned pale and gasped, "I am lost. I
shall give birth to a Berlick." She was wrong, for the infant was fair,
with blue eyes and with light hair. The attributes of Negro blood
were as yet concealed by time and were not to reveal themselves until
years later when the boy was approaching manhood.

Ill

The earliest years of Alexandre Dumas's life — and now I am writ-
ing of the son and no longer of the father— were flashes seen through
the gray mists of oblivion. Certain pictures, vivid enough in quality,
stood out in his mind's eye in later times. They were isolated scenes
out of an infant life whose activities were circumscribed by poverty.
However, the development of a mind may be foreshadowed from these
pictures, these flashes of the past, these brief ghosts from a vanished
world of mingled aristocratic and republican manners. There can be
no doubt that the mind of the child was a receptacle for conflicting
urges, that the picturesqueness of the old world aroused his excitable
temperament, and that the honest austerities of republicanism influ-
enced his reason. He was both Royalist and Revolutionist. In the first
place, he was one of that troubled generation born under the suns

i8 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

of Austerlitz. Between 1800 and 1815 a host of young men, conceived
as it were, between two battles, sprang into an agitated environment
About them was the debris of a Kingdom and reared on this debris
was an Empire. An old world of corruption and color and leisure
and aristocracy cried through the ensanguined crust of the Revolution
the Republic and the Empire. The young men heard these ancestral
voices but dimly, for their ears were deafened by the immediate thun-
der of the Empire. Though their fathers might tell them of vacillating
Louis, of "the Austrian" woman, of Du Barry, of the colored magnifi-
cence of a vanished court, they could not pause to listen. Their cradles
were soothed by trumpets; their fathers were now following the
eagles; there was an ardent music in the skies. It was the sonorous
catalogue of victory after victory, the announcement of the tricolor
flying from half the capitals of Europe. These children, then, were
bathed in the bright glow of conquest.

But before they reached maturity all this changed. Setting a final
period to all this glory, finishing one of the shortest chapters of his-
tory, God, inscrutable and contemptuous, cast his lot with the hook-
nosed Wellington at Waterloo. God held Grouchy back and pushed
Bliicher forward. God troubled the reason of Napoleon and sent him
his belle Ferronniere so that he might not sit on his horse during the
eighteenth of June, 1815. God smashed down that edifice which had
been reared in less than fifteen years. By the time this happened the
children could think for themselves; at least, the rudimentary powers
of reasoning were vouchsafed them. Their fathers and grandfathers
represented two regimes for them; they, themselves, were the inher-
itors of a third. To children so born, to children whose early formative
years were passed during fifteen years of military glory and bloody
phantasmagoria, there must have come a new reccptiveness toward
the romantic implications of existence. The suppleness and uncertainty
of history became manifest; the fact that life was not a measured
thing but a surprising imbroglio of unsuspected occurrences translated
their imaginations. It was during the Napoleonic era that the Ro-
mantic Movement in French thought and letters and drama was
baptized in blood. The stately buskin was laid aside and the cape
and sword were donned instead. The unborn voices of many heroes
cried from the d&acle of the Empire, d'Artagnan, Fracasse, Quasi-

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 19

modo. Dumas was one of these children of romanticism: gusty,
undisciplined, ignorant and careless of form, sentimental, exotic,
instinctive. Pedantry and formality did not exist for him. From the
very first he saw men and women as troubled shapes of flesh and
blood and the earliest pictures of his infancy were observed through
the strange mists of romance. It was because of this that he was so
often an unconscious liar. All romanticists are liars. It is the fault of
the spectacles through which they look at life.

Long before the child Dumas had observed the marblelike counte-
nance of Napoleon returning from Waterloo he had touched hands
with both the Empire and the old aristocratic ideal that the Revolution
had smashed. Though he might be buried in his little town of Villers-
Cotterets the specters of the great world glided before him. He had
the stories of his father to listen to, stories spun out in the quiet
evenings by the fire when the swarthy, cancer-eaten General would
take down his great saber and talk of Bonaparte, of Desaix, of Mas-
sena, of Joubert, of Murat, of Brune, of Jourdan, of Sebastiani, of
Moreau, of Kleber. And there were tales that went farther back and
were concerned with Richelieu, with the Prince de Conti, with Marie-
Antoinette, with the Regent. There were even a few of these legen-
dary characters upon whom the boy laid his own eyes, specters to
whom he was brought by his dark-visaged father, cancer-ridden,
forgotten by the Emperor, shouldering the griefs of an old cashiered
officer, begging feebly at doors where justice was a stranger. Three
of these pictures stood out most vividly in the boy's mind to the end
of his life.

About the year 1805 General Dumas decided to travel to Paris to
make a final appeal to some of his old friends to plead his cause
before the Emperor. He also desired to consult a doctor. In spite of
four years' unsuccess he still had hopes of obtaining the indemnity
due him as one of the prisoners of Taranto, as well as the arrears of
salary from the years of the Republic, VII and VIIL He took with
him his three-year-old son. It was young Alexandra's first visit to
Paris but he remembered every detail of it. There was his visit to his
sister's boarding school in the rue de Harlay au Marais (for Aitnee-
Alexandrine, through the efforts of a relative, the Abb6 Conseil, had

20 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

been put to school in Paris) where the clamorous attentions of the
schoolgirls, who, charmed by the little boy's wavy hair, sought to
caress him, outraged the dignified child* There was the immense
apricot given him by his father as a bribe to permit his ears to be
pierced for tiny gold earrings. There was a performance at the Opera-
Comique of Paul ct Virginie in which Mehu and Madame de Saint-
Aubin played the titular roles, Virginie being decidedly enceinte
Most memorable of all was a visit to a great house where menservants
in red livery ushered in the dark General and his little son. It was in
this house that Alexandre Dumas first touched hands with the past,
Together with his father he was led through various chambers to a
bedroom where a gracious old lady was lying on a couch. The Gen-
eral remained in conversation with her for some time, and the boy
knelt at the foot of the couch, his blue eyes fastened upon the waxlikc
aristocratic countenance of the woman who occasionally bowed over
him and once or twice printed a kiss on his forehead* She was
Madame la Marquise de Montesson, widow of Louis-Philippe d'Or-
leans, that Louis-Philippe who was grandson of the Regent. This
grandc dame from the Eighteenth Century, emanating the fastidious
manners of a vanished era, was the first of the boy's specters from the
past. His father had known M. de Richelieu, that reckless gentleman
who had been placed in the Bastille as a penalty for being discovered
under the bed of Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, Thus the two,
father and son, spanned a century between them. At the time, the boy,
looking upon the face of Madame la Marquise de Montesson, con-
sidered her no more than a kindly old lady. Years later he realized
that she was a part of history, of history that had ceased to exist even
when the boy stared curiously at her waxlike face.

The day after this momentous visit to Charlotte-Jeanne B6raud de
la Haie de Riou, Marquise de Montesson, General Dumas invited tvro
of his old friends to lunch with him. They were Murat and Brunc,
both mar&haux of the Empire, one of whom was to become a King-
There must have been uncertainty in General Dumas's mind when
he sent invitations to these two soldiers, now august personages in the
court which Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, had set up in the
Tuileries. But both came, perhaps from a troublesome sense of duty

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 21

toward an old companion in arms. Murat was cold and distant. The
shadow of a crown hung over him and he could not compromise
himself in any way. Brune was as cordial as he had been in the old
days. Dumas sensed the coldness of Murat and understood that the
cordiality of Brune was ineffectual enough, for he ceased to plead for
himself but turned the conversation on his wife and his children,
especially his son. They, at least, should be aided in some way after
the father was gone. There was death in General Dumas's face and
the two marechaux, Murat half-heartedly and Brune with a real deter-
mination, promised to do what they could in time to come. Dumas,
pathetically eager to interest these men in his son, called the child to
him, placed Brune's great saber between his legs and Murat's cocked
hat upon his head, and bade him prance about the room. "Do not
forget," said the father, "that to-day you have ridden about that table
on Brune's sword and with Murat's hat upon your head and that
yesterday you were kissed by Madame de Montesson, widow of the
Due d'Orleans." Then he smiled at his guests. Murat gazed coldly
out the window, but Brune smiled sympathetically. In this way two
more specters were added to the boy's recollections. Ten years after
this episode both Murat and Brune were to die sudden deaths, the
first shot by court-martial at Pizzo, and the second murdered by the
inflamed populace of Avignon, At that time Alexandre Dumas, aged
thirteen, was hunting larks in the forest about Villers-Cotterets.

There was to be still a third picture for the boy. It happened in
this same year, later than the unsuccessful trip to Paris, which, after
all, had produced nothing but three specters. The month was Octo-
ber and the dead leaves, shriveled and brown, drifted in whispering
flight before the rattling carriage of General Dumas and his son. The
skies were that sad autumnal gray which presages the icy advance
of winter. The carriage halted before a chateau half-hidden in a
bower of trees, and servants, unlike those of Madame de Montesson,
for they wore liveries of green, ushered the General and his son
through several chambers, all richly tapestried, to a small boudoir,
hung with cashmere, where a beautiful young woman reclined upon
a sofa. The plump outline of her body shone through the thin stuff
of her dress. The boy was enchanted with her tiny embroidered slip-

22 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

pers. She smiled often and ate bonbons lazily from a decorated box.
She did not rise but bade the General to sit beside her on the floor,
and she played with the buttons of his coat with her tiny slippers.
She was white, small and plump, sensuous, a bit of Tanagra beside
the swarthy General with the tired eyes. The boy, mesmerized by
the soft odors of the boudoir, wondered whether he were asleep or
awake. The lazy conversation of the young woman was broken by
the guttural speech of the general. Suddenly outside there sounded
the clear peal of hunting horns, the barking of dogs, and the shouts
of riders. Then the General, rising to his feet, lifted this young
woman and bore her to the window where she could see the stag
bounding by, the hounds, their red tongues lolling, in swift pursuit,
and after them the hunters darting through the autumn foliage.
This was not an enchanted princess in some lost bower out of time.
The place was the Chateau of Montgobert, near Villers-Cotterets, and
the young woman in the embroidered slippers was Pauline Bonaparte,
Princesse Borghese.

General Dumas grew weaker. His swarthy features took on the
ashen pallor that betrays the ravages of an inward disease. He rode
very rarely and isolated himself for long hours in his room, sitting
and gazing vacantly out of the window while the sad thoughts he
could not suppress slid like snakes through his mind. He thought
of the Emperor striding through the corridors of the Tuileries, of
the warm-blooded Creole, Josephine, in her coronation mantle, of
the booted and spurred marechaux, of the cockades, the tambours,
the neighing horses. Young Alexandre grew aware of a still house
where his mother, already worn with household duties, moved about
silently and where there was little laughter. Outside the winter shut
down on Villers-Cotterets. The streets were deserted. At night it was
extremely dark and a bitter wind came out of the forest and roared
through the lanes, lifting high the sparks of wood-fire from the
chimneys.

There was not much for the small boy to do. He could ruminate
by the fireplace, perhaps, and wonder what had become of Truflfe,
the large dark dog that had been a part of the family the year before
when they had lived in Les Fosses, the small country house to which

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 23

the General had removed from the rue de Lormet. They were now
in the little hotel that Madame Dumas's father had once owned. But
it was no longer the Hotel de I'ficu; the shield with the three fleurs
de Us had gone out of fashion since 1792; it had become the Hotel
de 1'fipee. At least the sword was still in fashion. And it was no
longer owned by Claude Laboured Monsieur Picot owned it. The
Hotel de Ffipee was not at all like Les Fosses. Truffe was gone;
there was no gardener to provide the little boy with frogs and grass
snakes; even the old guardsman, Mocquet, a relic of General Dumas's
warlike days, had vanished. There was nothing but a few small
rooms, a sword on the wall, and the winter wind howling outside
and nosing at the crevices.

One cold day (it was February 24, 1806) the General received a
letter. He opened it and read:

"Just as I am starting for the forest I have received an order
from M. Collard to permit General Dumas to hunt and shoot. I
hasten to send it to him with all good wishes, and my sincere hopes
that his state of health will permit him to make use of it. Our
sincere regards to Madame Dumas. Deviolaine."

The General put down the letter with tears of anger in his eyes.
He had applied months before for this permission, a seasonal per-
mission which automatically ran from the twenty-third of September
to the sixth of March. And now he received it on the twenty-fourth
of February when it had but a dozen days to run. He knew who was
behind this slight. Alexandre Berthier, Marechal of the Empire and
Master of Hounds to the Crown, was empowered to grant hunting
permits. Berthier was his enemy. Berthier had reported him as
standing and looking on at the siege of Mantua. Sly, malevolent
Berthier! The General rose to his feet, his face distorted by pain and
humiliation, and hobbled out of the house. A few minutes later he;
was astride his horse and urging it down the village street. In less;
than half an hour he returned and was helped from the saddle, It?
was the last time he was to be on the back of a horse. He was led
into the house and put to bed. It was the last time he was to wall|
on the face of a thankless earth.

During the night he woke in a delirium and asked for a cane with

24 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

a golden knob. He had beaten the Neapolitan ruffians of the prisons
of Brindisi with this cane when they attempted to assassinate him.
He desired that it be buried with him. Later he ordered that the
golden knob be removed and melted into a nugget. It was to be
his legacy to his wife and children. He fell into a troubled sleep
from which he awoke, clear-headed and calm, in the morning. A
cold, wintry sunshine lighted the small room, and the dying General
gazed about him at the meagerness of his possessions. On the wall
was the sword and near it was his braided coat and the hat with the
tricolored cockade. There was a box full of documents, letters, army
orders. There was no mar&haFs baton; neither was there the simple
order of the Legion of Honor. At the bottom of the Mediterranean
Sea were four thousand pounds of Mocha coffee and the washed bones
of eleven Arabian horses. In the coffers of Napoleon was the Nea-
politan indemnity. There, too, were arrears in salary amounting to
28,500 francs. The General could leave his family nothing but thirty
roods of land, now the possession of Claude Labouret, and the rever-
sion of a house and garden, the rent of which went for life to a certain
M. Harlay. That was all. Except the sword, the braided jacket, the
hat with the tricolored cockade and a handful of dusty memories.
Of course there were the promises of marechaux Murat and Brune.
The cold and aloof countenance of Murat hovered for an instant in
the room and disappeared. The General turned on his side and let
the tears fall on his pillow.

About five o'clock young Alexandra was bundled into his coat and
carried away to the house of his cousin, Marianne, in the rue de
Soissons. He enjoyed going to his cousin's house; there was a forge
there and a boy named Picard who worked the forge and told thrill-
ing stories and showed Alexandre how to make fireworks from iron
filings. Marianne's father, M. Fortier, was a locksmith, and his
shadow became a grotesque giant as it flickered between the fire of
the forge and the wall. The little boy sat and watched the fantastic
reflections and the play of light and shadow until eight o'clock in
the evening, when his cousin led him to a small room and put him
to bed. He fell into the deep sleep of children. He was weary, and
many perplexing things had happened during the day, unknown
footsteps on the stairs and subdued voices outside a room.

TRUMPETS AND THE BLACK DEVIL 25

About midnight he was awakened by a loud knocking at the door.
He sat up immediately and turned to his cousin's bed, and saw her
upright, silent and terrified. Nobody could knock at that inner door
for there were two other closed doors between it and the street The
boy felt no fear but stepped out of the bed and approached the door.

"Alexandre! Alexandre!" cried Marianne, the bedclothes huddled
about her. "Where are you going?"

Alexandre replied simply.

"I am opening the door for papa/' he said. "He has come to say
good-bye to us."

Marianne leaped out of bed and forced the boy back into his cot.
He struggled against her, crying out, "Good-bye, papa! Good-bye,
papa!"

A dying breath seemed to sigh across his face and, sobbing and
exhausted, he fell asleep.

As the clock was striking midnight General Alexandre Dumas,
once commander-in-chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees, died
with his head cradled in the arms of his sobbing wife,

Madame Dumas, coming down the narrow stairs from the room of
death, met her son Alexandre, three and a half years old, climbing
up and dragging a heavy single-barreled gun after him.

"Where are you going?" she cried. "I thought you were at your
uncle's house."

"I am going to heaven," answered the boy,

"To heaven!"

"Yes."

The child strove to push by her.

"What are you going to heaven for?"

Alexandre drew a sobbing breath. He said:

"I am going to kill God for killing my father."

His mother burst into tears.

CHAPTER TWO

THE IDYL OF V I L L E R S - C O T TE R ETS
I

MADAME DUMAS was desperate. She wrote the most urgent pleas
to all of General Dumas's old comrades, Brune, Murat, Augereau,
Lannes, Jourdan, imploring them to intercede with the Emperor for
a pension. Most of them ignored or tore up the letters. Time had
moved on since the diablc noir had led his inflamed Republicans into
battle, and the very name of Dumas could be recalled only by an
effort He had fallen by the way as had so many other brilliant
young officers who had incurred the displeasure of Napoleon. Brune,
however, went to the Emperor and ventured to broach the subject.
After all, the man had taken Mont-Cenis. He had held the bridge
at Clausen. He had quelled the insurrection in Cairo. He ...
Napoleon turned on his heel angrily. "I forbid you ever to mention
that fellow's name to me again," he exclaimed. Madame Dumas
received a letter from Jourdan explaining that pensions could be
granted only to the widows of soldiers who had died on the field
of battle or from wounds within six months after receiving them.
The mother made one more effort. She traveled to Paris and applied
for an audience with the Emperor. She would face him in the
Tuileries and plead her cause. The audience was curtly refused. She
was only the poorer by the money laid out for the journey. There
was no help, then.

Alexandre, playing in the room where his father had died, was
unaware of these heartbreaking negotiations. The spring had come;
the weather was fair; the chasseurs were plunging into the deep
forests, guns upon their shoulders. He was beginning to look about
him and recognize the various aspects of his environment It was

26

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 27

altogether charming. There were to be eight years of peace and
childish pastimes and that blessed unconsciousness of the obligations of
existence which is the particular privilege of the small boy. Nothing
was to trouble him except the excitements of curiosity and the fears
of childhood. Eight years passed swiftly in the village streets of
Villers-Cotterets, the small room in the Hotel de 1'fipee, the ruined
castle near the town, the dwelling and town garden of M. Deviolaine,
the cloister at St. Remy, the chateau of Villers-Hellon were M. Collard
lived, and the great park of Francois I, of Henri II, of Henri IV,
and the tiny cemetery of Pleux where the sagging gravestones were
overgrown with moss and vines. Three of these houses Dumas was
to love and dream about in later years.

Next door to the Hotel de 1'fipee was the house of Madame Dar-
court, and to it the little boy often made his way. Madam Darcourt,
the widow of a military surgeon, and her two children, Antoine, who
was about twenty-eight at this time, and fileanore, who was twenty-
four or twenty-five, were extraordinarily kind to the fatherless child.
The impressionable boy responded quickly to this kindness. As
appealing to him as the kindness, however, was the large edition of
Buffon, plentifully besprinkled with colored plates, which Madame
Darcourt put in his hands. He learned to read from this book,
through his eagerness to understand the habits of the batrachians
and ophidians that ornamented the pages. Thus at the age when
most children are still spelling he had read this large tome and many
of the other volumes that formed the child's library of that day. It
was no small accomplishment in the opening decade of the Nine-
teenth Century.

Another household that received him warmly was that of M. Devio-
laine, the Inspector of Forests for the district of Villers-Cotterets.
M. Deviolaine, a cousin to Dumas by marriage, possessed an imposing
house containing suites of rooms. There were also stables and coach
houses. Best of all, this habitation opened upon a fine park and in
this park the boy loved to wander. It was a park of historical memo-
ries, for it had been planted by Francois I. Under its huge trees
Francois had lain beside Madame d'fitampes, and Henri II had
wandered with Diane de Poitiers and Henri IV had kissed his
Gabrielle. The tall beeches and oaks, later to be hewn down by

28 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

order of Louis-Philippe, were filled with whispering voices. Here
the boy strolled aimlessly through the flickering sunshine or reclined
in the long wind-blown grass, his nostrils dilated with the sweet
smell of summer, and listened to the myriads of birds that tilted
upon the branches and sang to the day. And in the strange twilight
he saw lovely phantoms gliding between the venerable trunks of the
trees. It was upon the bark of one of these trees that the Villers-
Cotterets poet, Demoustier, wrote:

Cc bois jut I'asile cheri

DC lf amour autrefois fidelc;
Tout Vy raff die encore, ct le cceur attcndri
Soupire en se disant: Cest id que Henri

Soupirait frls de Gabrielle.

M. Deviolaine, through whose house the boy made his way into
this lovely park, was to play some part in Dumas's future life. He
was a medium-sized man with small black eyes shaded by enormous
eyebrows. His lips protruded; his frame was the frame of Hercules;
he was covered with hair like a boar; and his temper resembled the
temper of that fierce creature. The wild storms of rage that con-
stantly overcame him were the terror of his family, and women,
children, and servants fled from it with heads lowered as though
they were fleeing a storm. Only once in his life did Dumas hear him
speak without swearing. In spite of this fury he never struck any-
body. He was careful to kick at his dog when it was well out of
reach of his foot. The boy was in abject fear of this ceaseless volcano
of a man; yet he loved him, and perhaps understood that beneath
his crusty demeanor M. Deviolaine, also, had his share of love for
young Alexandra.

Besides the house facing the park M. Deviolaine owned another
called St. Remy. It stood in a little plateau entirely surrounded by
forest and had once been a nunnery, the cloistered life there being
abolished about 1791. Attached to this house was an immense cloister
with great staircases outside it, and here on Sundays Alexandre played
with other children, racing through large rooms where pallid-faced
nuns had once wept for the sins of the world. It was in the gardens

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 29

of this cloister that the boy was once startled by seeing two snakes
engaging in a mortal combat, weaving about one another and darting
forth their malicious forked tongues.

About three leagues from Villers-Cotterets lived M. Collard in his
delightful chateau, Villers-Hellon, and here, too, Alexandre was a
welcome visitor. M. Collard was of aristocratic descent. His name
had once been M. Collard de Montjouy, but he had lopped off the
noble estate name in order not to offend democratic ears. M. Collard
had known M. de Talleyrand, and his wife was the illegitimate
daughter of Philippe-Egalite and Madame de Genlis. There was an
aura of nobility, therefore, about his chateau. As he was the legal
guardian of Alexandre the boy went there often, preferring Villers-
Hellon to either Madame Darcourt's house, where there was a Buffon
but no garden, or M. Deviolaine's larger dwelling, where there was
a lovely park but also a scowling face. M. Collard had a great garden,
a smiling face and gentle manners, and a splendidly illustrated Bible.

It was at Villers-Hellon one evening that Alexandre received a
shock. He was seated turning over the pages in the illustrated Bible
when he heard a carriage draw up at the gate and, shortly after, loud
shrieks in the dining room. Rushing in with the others he saw what
appeared to be an old witch, a sort of Meg Merrilies dressed in black
and with a mass of false hair flying in all directions. Beneath this
disarranged wig straggled limp gray locks. The old woman's face
was pallid and her eyes glazed with horror. Alexandre flung the
Bible on the floor and fled for the top regions of the chateau as fast
as his small legs could carry him, dove into bed, clothes, shoes and
all, and hauled the blankets over his head. The next day he learned
that the witch was the illustrious Madame de Genlis who had lost
her road in the forest and given way to a paroxysm of hysterical fear.

By the time Alexandre was six years old and no larger than a jack-
boot he could read and write with celerity. Buffon had given place
to the Bible; the Bible had abdicated to Robinson Crusoe; Defoe's
masterpiece had faded away before the Arabian Nights; the thou-
sand and one tales from the East had folded up their tents and
vanished at the appearance of Demoustier's Lettres h fimilie sur la
Mythologie and an illustrated Mythologie de la Jeunesse. The child

3o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

devoured these last two volumes, and there was not a god or goddess
or demigod or hero he could not immediately identify. Hercules
and his twelve labors, Jupiter and his twenty transformations, Vulcan
and his thirty-six misfortunes, Paris and his golden apple, all of these
miraculous situations were visible and familiar to the imaginative
child. It is important to know that he entered the land of romance
through the exotic Arabian Nights and the Greek myths where gods
put on the jealousies of mortals. Their influence lasted with him
through life. He was drawing analogies continually from the myths,
and what was the cave of Monte Cristo but another Ali Baba's cavern?
Who is the Jean Robert of Lcs Mohicans de Paris but another Haroun
Al Raschid wandering through a new Baghdad called Paris ?

The boy developed a sense of humor at an early age. There is,
for example, the story of Madame Pivert, that elderly damsel and
devotee of the bright little boy, who listened spellbound to his recitals.
Alexandre gave her an imperfect copy of the Arabian Nights, con-
taining only the story of Aladdin. The old lady was enchanted, and
returning the volume, asked for the second. Alexandre gave her the
same book again, which she reread with renewed interest. This lasted
about a year, and during that period Madame Pivert read the tale of
Aladdin some fifty-two times. The boy asked her if the Thousand
and One Nights still entertained her. "Immensely, my small friend,"
she replied. "But one thing puzzles me.'* "And that is ... ?"
"Why are they all called Aladdin?"

Madame Dumas grew uneasy. Though Alexandre was still in
his little cotton jacket she felt that it was time for him to set about
a serious education. Romantic books were well enough in their way
but they did not prepare a penniless child for the business of life.
Alexandre could write now; his mother and Aimee-Alexandrine,
during her summer vacation of six weeks from the Parisian school,
had taught him; but more was to be desired. Aim^e-Alexandrine, for
example, was a good musician and could sing quite prettily. Why
should not Alexandre cultivate the music that was in him? No
sooner was the thought awakened than action was taken. Villers-
Cotterets boasted but one teacher of music, so there was no difficulty
about that. His name was Hiraux* Tall and skinny, with an emaci-

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 31

ated and parchment-like face beneath a wig that came off every time
he doffed his hat, wearing a maroon-colored coat, he resembled a
figure out of the tales of Hoffmann. He came with his violin and
for three years Alexandre sawed away at it, to the everlasting horror
of Madame Darcourt next door. At the end of that time the boy
could not even tune the instrument. Hiraux explained to Madame
Dumas that it was like stealing money to take any fee for attempting
to make a musician out of the boy. Alexandras musical career ended
forthwith.

He turned with relief from the violin to the sword. The old castle
of the Due d'Orleans, near Villers-Cotterets, had been turned into a
workhouse during the Empire and here the boy found an old fencing
master, one Mounier. Mounier had been run through the mouth
by the foil of a pupil, and the sharp point had destroyed his uvula.
This accident, which had reduced him to an almost unintelligible
gibberer, had ruined his career as a fencing master. Mounier also
possessed a gargantuan affection for the bottle. These detrimental
qualities in a master of fence did not retard the enthusiasm of Alex-
andre, who, having reached the age of ten, was properly warlike,
and he managed to glean a smattering of fencing knowledge and
some skill from old Mounier.

During this period the boy was growing rapidly and his physical
development was proceeding happily enough. In after years he
stated that at the age of ten he could throw stones like David, draw
a bow like a Balearic archer and ride like a Numidian. He could
never climb trees or steeples. The horror of high places made him
ill, and this fear, a form of vertigo, lasted all his life. Once, years
later, when he climbed to the top of the towers of Notre Dame with
Victor Hugo, he was washed in the cold perspiration of nervous fear.

Madame Dumas, remarking the growth of her son and realizing
that he was ten years old, renewed her anxiety as to his mental edu-
cation. The violin was a rank failure and fencing would hardly get
him very far. There were other things to think of, mathematics,
languages, and ptysics. She cast about for a means of educating the
boy. She thought of the colleges endowed for the education of the
sons of superior officers. These were applied to but without any
favorable result. No one was going to push forward the child of a

32 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

general who had incurred the enmity of the Emperor. About this
time the Abbe Conseil, who had placed Aimee-Alexandrine in school
at Paris, died. He was a cousin to the Dumas family, although he
had shown them scant hospitality during his lifetime. Dying, he
made slight amends by leaving Madame Dumas fifteen hundred
francs, and to one of his relatives, that one to be nominated, he left
a bursary at the Seminary of Soissons. Madame Dumas drew a long
breath of relief. Alexandre's future was settled. He was to be a
priest The boy broke into wild protests at the thought and resisted
for two or three months, his mother pleading all the time. At length,
wearied with the struggle, he acquiesced. He would be a priest and
God help the Church!

The day before that on which he was to travel to the Seminary at
Soissons he collected his few belongings, discovering as he wrapped
the meager bundle that he possessed no inkwell He conceived a
luxurious idea. He would treat himself to a horn inkstand with a
place for pens. Pocketing the twelve sous which his mother gave
him for the precious purchase, he set forth for Devaux, the grocer,
who also dealt in inkstands. Devaux was out of inkstands but he
promised to have one that evening. It is on threads as slender as
this, an inkstand out of stock, for example, that the future of men
may hang. When Alexandre returned in the evening he found his
cousin, Cecile, a daughter of the ferocious M. Deviolaine, in the shop.
She burst into titters at the sight of the boy and promised that as
soon as he was ordained she would ask him to be her spiritual
director. Alexandre lost his temper, flung the inkstand at the grocer's
head, and rushed from the shop. He did not dare to go home, not
so much from fear of punishment as from a dislike of witnessing his
mother's anguish. He expended the twelve sous for a huge loaf of
bread and the greasiest sausage he could find and fled to the forest,
Where for three days he lived in the hut of one Boudoux, a bird
catcher. He occupied his time snaring birds and watching tobacco
drool from the unshaven chin of Boudoux.

When Alexandre returned, he returned as do all prodigal sons who
are in the wrong—to the arms of a weeping and forgiving mother.
No mention was made of the hated Seminary at Soissons and when,
some months later, a powder magazine blew up at Soissons and

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 33

destroyed the Seminary, killing nine or ten students, Alexandre con-
gratulated himself on his defalcation from the Church as though it
had been a bit of prophetical foresight. In the meantime the question
of his education was broached again. This time it was decided that
he should attend the "college" of the Abbe Gregoire in Villers-
Cotterets. It was a far drop from an Imperial lycee or a seminary
to a mere day school in a village, but it was the best that Madame
Dumas could do, and of course it pleased the boy, for it meant that
he should still have his beloved forest about him and that he should
hardly change the tenor of his life. The Abbe Gregoire was that
gentle, kind-hearted type of churchman that once existed in small
French towns. With black soutanes flapping about their legs they
pass along the yellow roads nodding and smiling to the tanned work-
ers, who doflf their hats to the greeting. Alexandre worshiped the
Abbe Gregoire from the moment he saw him, and passed a fairly
happy period of formal education in the small school of twenty to
twenty-five students which was so proudly denominated a "college."
The days when he was free from the rise of the sun to the rise of
the moon were no more, but he still had his Sundays and holidays
wherein to hunt and visit friends and relatives, and his evenings in
which to wander through the quiet lanes of the countryside. He was
growing rapidly and though the conceit of youth awoke antagonists
among his comrades he was, on the whole, a charming boy. His
impudence was the result of his vitality; his vanity and overbearing
qualities were induced by the memory of his father; his admiration
for himself was the flaw of an only son.

1814. Before her shop in the Place de la Fontaine the wife of the
gunsmith, Montagnon, sat and sang:

"Le Corse de Madame Ango
West fas le Corse de la Corse,
Car le Corse de Marengo
Est d'une bien plus dure tcorce"

There was a constant agitation in the streets of Villers-Cotterets.
Conflicting rumors permeated the town and uncertainty hovered in

34 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

the air. Napoleon was fighting with his back against the wall. The
Allied Coalition had invaded French soil, and confidence in the
Emperor had dissipated. Destiny had ceased to speak to the Corsican.
The month of January had been momentous in its consequences.
Columns of troops under foreign flags swept through the pleasant
Valleys of France, besieging towns and driving a scattered defense
before them. Colmar. Besan^on. Dole, Landau. Forbach. Chalon-
sur-Saone. Murat, King of Naples, flung honor to the wind, and,
short-sighted opportunist, sought to preserve his crown by making
a disgraceful peace with Austria and England. On the twenty-fifth
of the month the Emperor left Paris and rejoined the army. He
immediately took up the offensive and Paris breathed easier. The
undefeatable would continue undefeatable. On the first of Febru-
ary the Battle of La Rothiere was fought and Napoleon was stopped
in his tracks. Toward the end of March the Allies were closing about
Paris and on the thirty-first of that month they entered the city. On
April 4 at Fontainebleau the Emperor abdicated in favor of his son,
the King of Rome. The next day Chateaubriand's pamphlet, Bona-
parte ct Ics Bourbons, appeared. On the twenty-ninth of the month
Louis XVIII was at Compiegne. The third of May witnessed the
entry of the King into his loyal and royal city of Paris.

During this period of the demolition of an Empire, Villers-Cot-
tcrets, on the fringe of the field of action, experienced its vicissitudes.
As the fighting crept closer, at Chateau-Thierry, at Nogent, then at
Laon, the villagers hastened to bury their valuables in secret places,
for they had heard of the thievery of the Allies. Most of all they
feared the terrible Cossacks, those men in round high hats of fur
and with curved swords. They rode their horses like madmen, it
was rumored, and fire and slaughter and rapine were the demons
that rode with them. At Bucy-lc-Long they had roasted the legs of
a servant; at Nogent they tore a cloth merchant to pieces; at Provins
they threw a baby in the fire; and at Soissons they burned fifty
houses, smashed all the pumps, and cut down the fleeing natives with
saber and bayonet. Madame Dumas placed all her linen, furniture,
and mattresses in a cellar beneath the house, a cellar reached by a
trapdoor, and then she had the floor relaid. Thirty louis, her sole
possession of money, she deposited in a leather bag and buried it in

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 35

the garden. Fleeing soldiers from Soissons dashed by the house, the
hoofs of their horses drumming madly on the dirt road. Madame
Dumas heard the sound of hoofs and cooked an enormous haricot
of mutton, for she had heard that if Cossacks were properly fed they
were apt to prove harmless. She also reserved her bin of Soissons
wine for them. After three days of hanging over the fire and three
days lying in the bin the haricot was eaten and the wine of Sois-
sons was drunk by French troopers of Marechal Mortier's corps.
Alexandre in after years remembered the bent weary form of that
exhausted marechal as he rode through the village.

Days passed. Whenever two or three mounted men were descried
entering the village the awful cry, "The Cossacks! The Cossacks !"
went up, and men, women, and children fled to the subterranean
quarries in the fields beyond Villers-Cotterets. Madame Dumas set
to work and cooked another huge haricot. Her hands shook as she
labored. The only calm person in the village was the Abb£ Gregoire,
who proceeded from house to house in his trailing black robe and
pointed out that evil comes only from evil and that if no ill were
offered the Cossacks they would return no ill. Rumors of fighting
continued. Battles everywhere. Mormant. Montmirail. Montereau.
Soissons. Troyes. Bar-sur-Aube. Meaux. La Fere. And then one
foggy February morning the Cossacks did come, fifteen long-bearded
men with slant eyes and with tall lances, riding furiously through the
rue de Soissons. They disappeared in the mist and the startled
villagers crept dubiously forth from their hiding places. In the open
doorway of one of the houses on the rue de Soissons a woman stood
wringing her hands and screaming. Alexandre among others ran
toward her. She was the wife of a hosier named Ducoudray, and
M. Ducoudray at that moment was lying just inside the door of his
house with torrents of blood flowing from his throat. He had been
standing behind the barred door when the Cossacks had passed and
had suddenly fallen with a choked cry. One of the riders had dis-
charged his pistol at the door and the ball had torn through the
planking and hit M. Ducoudray in the throat, severing an artery and
breaking his spine.

Madame Dumas decided that neither haricot mutton nor wine of
Soissons were safe shields against Cossacks and she fled for the

36 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

quarries dragging her son behind her. From the quarries they went
to the farm of a Madame Picot, and there during a five or six days'
stay they learned of the battles of Lizy, of St. Julien, and of Bar-
sur-Seine. One morning they distinctly heard the roar of cannon.
Fighting was in progress at Neuilly-Saint-Front. It was too near, and
the harried woman, still haunted by the fear of ferocious Cossacks,
determined to remove her son still farther from the disputed territory.

Mademoiselle Adelaide, an ancient, hunchbacked spinster possessing
some thousands of francs income, decided that life in Villers-Cotterets
was a little too much for her nerves. The noise disturbed her and
she could not sleep because she was terrified of the Cossacks, who
had great ugly beards and were reputed to be rather careless of the
sanctity of womanhood. She shook her hunch and made up her mind
to hire a cart and drive to Paris in it* Madame Dumas, learning of
this, went to her, and an arrangement was made by which Mademoi-
selle Adelaide, a clerk named Cretet, Madame Dumas and Alexandre
should all travel to Paris in the same cart. The thirty louis were dug
up from the garden, Alexandre was dressed in a new cotton frock,
and off they started. The first night found them as far as Nanteuil.
The second night they reached Mesnil. Here the quartet seemed
settled for the time being. Alexandre was disgusted. He had set his
heart on seeing Paris, that legendary city where he had been kissed by
the Marquise de Montesson and had ridden on Brune's sword while
wearing Murat's plumed hat. Mademoiselle Adelaide came to his aid,
for she had heard that there was to be a great review of the National
Guard in Paris on the twenty-seventh of the month. The idea of
witnessing this spectacle appealed to her. So on the twenty-seventh,
without his mother who refused to come, but with Mademoiselle
Adelaide and Cretet, Alexandre heard the flourish of trumpets, saw
the waving of trooped colors, and witnessed a small rosy child of
three being lifted high above the heads of fifty thousand National
Guardsmen while a hundred thousand voices roared, "Vive Ic roi
dc Rome!" In this way the son of General Dumas saw the son of
General Bonaparte.

Back at Mesnil fear again beset the fugitives. The enemy was at
Meaux and the advance guard had been seen as far as Bondy, Mesnil,
then, was in the line of attack. Back toward Villers-Cotterets started

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 37

Madame Dumas and her son, this time without Mademoiselle Ade-
laide and Cretet, who appear to have vanished into thin air. When
they reached Nanteuil they learned that the enemy was at Villers-
Cotterets, so taking a side road they went on to Crespy. There they
stopped with a Madame Millet. All around them, at Compiegne, at
Villers-Cotterets, at Levignan, lay the enemy, but by some curious
chance Crespy was inviolate.

The village did not remain safe for long, however. One day the
short blue coats of the Prussian cavalry were seen advancing through
the trees. Alexandre from the attic window of Madame Millet's
house saw these foreigners in small visored helmets with leather
chin-straps riding behind their trumpeters, heard the shock as they
met the advance of the French cavalry, and saw the hurricane of dust,
smoke, and clashing steel as the two commands engaged in combat
in the street. Clutching the window sash while bullets spattered
against the house and the terrified women fled to cellars, Alexandra's
eyes dilated at the sight of men being hewn down from their saddles
by tremendous saber blows. He saw the commands surge back and
forth, now the Prussians in the ascendant and then the French, and
witnessed the disappearance of these ferocious blood-stained men,
still fighting, into the distance beyond the village. A dead silence
followed this spectacle. Then the women crept forth and admin-
istered to the gasping forms that cried from the dust of the road. The
episode seemed like some black dream to the boy. He shook con-
vulsively as he held the basin of water beside some ensanguined
trooper while his mother washed the blood from the wound.

Days of waiting followed. A fortnight after this struggle in the
streets of Crespy Madame Dumas and her son returned to Villers-
Cotterets. In that fortnight the face of Europe had changed. Napo-
leon had lost France, abdicated, tried to poison himself, been exiled
to Elba, and Louis XVIII had been placed upon the throne.

II

Between the abdication at Fontainebleau and the landing of Bona-
parte at Golfe Juan stretched a period of eleven months. During
this time Villers-Cotterets underwent several changes, some of which

38 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

affected Alexandrc and his mother. The town, which had been half-
heartedly Imperial during the reign of Napoleon, became whole-
heartedly Royalist under Louis XVIII. A part of the demesne of the
old Dues d'Orleans, it was permeated with loyalists to the Bourbons;
it had, like so many small towns away from the Jacobin excitements
of the large cities, an essentially conservative core, and drained as
it had been by the drafts of the Empire, it welcomed an era that
signified peace and the renewal of old traditions. There was no
Vendome Column to thrill the villagers, but there was a great park
filled with memories of vanished kings and queens. Dumas and his
mother, as Bonapartists, suffered some uneasiness during this period.
They were not, in the actual sense of the word, Bonapartists, but
General Dumas had fought under Napoleon, and the townsfolk,
recalling the sturdy General and his Republican opinions, confused
him with the era that had superimposed itself upon the Revolution-
ary decade. They remembered, first of all, that Dumas had been
anti-Royalist, and that was enough for them. There were, therefore,
some vague gibes and reproaches flung at Madame Dumas and her
thirteen-year-old son. They were not serious, but they were sufficient
to discompose the timorous widow. At the same time, Madame
Dumas had her friends, M. Collard of Villers-Hellon among them.
He it was who traveled to Paris after the Restoration and procured
for Madame Dumas a license to open and conduct a bureau dc tabac
in Villers-Cotterets. It was a far drop for the widow of the Horatius
Codes of the Tyrol, but necessity proved stronger than pride. Madame
Dumas swallowed her pride and opened her little shop.

The Restoration had also changed the mode of Alexandra's edu-
cation. The good Abb£ Gregoire had lost his certificate as master of
the little "college" and he was not permitted to teach in his own home.
He was, however, allowed to visit the homes of students and oversee
their educations there. So, for the sum of six francs a month, he came
to the Dumas home— mother and son were again living in the rue dc
Lormet near the house where Alexandre had been born — and taught
the boy Latin. With the aid of a "crib" Alexandre translated quite
satisfactorily from Virgil and Tacitus. From Oblet, the town school-
master, the boy received instruction in arithmetic and handwriting*
Arithmetic proved to be Alexandra's Waterloo; he was unable to pro-

THE IDYL OF VILLERS^COTTERETS 39

ceed beyond the simplest sums in multiplication. But handwriting
was another matter. Here was something that appealed to him, and
within three months he could write an elegant script. The hand of
Destiny was at work here, but Alexandre was quite unconscious of
the fact that this predilection for the quill pen was to stand him in
good stead, to be his only hope, in fact, when he ventured upon
Paris as helpless as Dick Whittington when he ventured on London.
Together with the Latin, the arithmetic, and the handwriting went
his lessons in fencing with old Mounier. There was horseback riding
and gunning in the woods. This education, then, was not an edu-
cation that could produce a youth in any sense of the word cultured;
it was no more than a rough-and-ready smattering. It was life itself
that would have to educate Dumas; the city of Paris was to be his
schoolbook and the ambitions and suggestions of his friends were
to be his mentors.

Time passed. Alexandre made his first communion dressed in a
cambric shirt, a white necktie, nankeen trousers, a white quilted
waistcoat, a blue coat with metal buttons, and carrying a wax candle
that weighed two pounds. He was more interested in a pretty child
named Laure with reddish hair than he was in the ceremony. Yet
the excitement of religious emotion overcame him for a day or two.
The Abbe Gregoire, full of wisdom and common sense, remarked,
"I would rather your feelings were less intense, and that they would
last longer.*' Dumas's religious emotions were always a matter of
spontaneous sentimental combustion, so to speak, and his first com-
munion was his last. Yet he loved to make occasional oratorical
flourishes about the good God and he generally managed to move
himself to tears, if no one else. His religion was the religion of
the sensitive literary man who intoxicates himself with imaginative

About this time Alexandre met a young man named Auguste
Lafarge, the son of the coppersmith in whose house Madame Dumas
and her son were living. Auguste lived in Paris and occasionally
deigned to visit Villers-Cotterets. When he came it was like the
arrival of Ic Roi Soleil, for Auguste was quite up to snuff, to put it
mildly, so far as costume went. Clad in a box coat with thirty-six
on it? a w^ch chw* with massive trinkets, trousers so tight

4o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

that they threatened to split incontinently at every step he took, and
polished boots h la hussarde, he strutted through the village, the very
epitome of a young fop. Alexandre looked and his jaw fell. Every
drop of his Negro blood yearned for that box coat with the thirty-six
bands on it. Those polished boots a la hussarde held him spellbound.
And what would he not give for a jingling watch chain that seemed
to have everything hung on it but the seven Visigoth crowns! Alex-
andre lost no time in scraping an acquaintance with the lordly
Auguste. To hear him speak was but to find enhanced the splendor of
this local le Roi Soldi, for Auguste knew real literary people; he had
talked with Desaugiers, Beranger and Gouffe; and he could write
dainty songs. When he drew a gold piece from his pocket and flung
it carelessly on the counter for some small purchase of Madame
Dumas's tobacco Alexandre must have seen Monte Cristo. It was all
wonderful. Alexandre went bird-catching with Auguste and it is
strange that the birds did not fly into the country boy's mouth, for
the Parisian kept it wide open with tales of the extravagances of
Paris. Three days later Auguste, box coat, boots a la hussarde and
all, returned to Paris, leaving behind him an eight-line epigram on
Mademoiselle Picot that was an eight-day sensation in the village.
Alexandre went immediately to the Abbe Gregoire and applied for
lessons in the construction of French verses. For the first time in his
life a nebulous ambition to create was awakened in him. It was but
a momentary enthusiasm, however, for by the end of the week
Alexandre put aside the bouts-rimts that the worthy abb£ had given
him to complete, picked up his gun, and went out to shoot larks.

On the seventh of March, 1815, the startled mayor of Villers-
Cotterets learned from the Moniteur that Bonaparte has escaped from
the Island of Elba, landed on the coast of France in the Department
of Var, and was marching northward by way of Digne and Gap
toward Grenoble. During the feverish Cent-Jours that followed
mother and son kept much to themselves. The angry looks of their
Royalist neighbors were like tiny sharp knives flung at them. Battles
were fought; the army and the Emperor passed twice through Villers-
Cotterets; but the sullen natives watched them go and waited im-
patiently for the return of the Bourbons. Alexandra's emotions on

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 41

beholding the Emperor have already been set forth* The mother
was quieter, for she remembered too distinctly the dark-faced Gen-
eral who had been broken by Bonaparte. There was a dusty sword
on the wall to recall the past to her. Yet she must be classified as a
Bonapartist and, perhaps in her heart of hearts she knew that this
was so, that of two evils, Bonaparte and Bourbon, Bonaparte seemed
to her the least. It was not so with Villers-Cotterets. The triumphant
Royalists witnessed the debacle of Napoleon's last attempt with a calm
pleasure after the momentary shock to their national pride caused by
Waterloo, and the town settled back into its usual sleepy existence.
As for Alexandre, he picked up his gun again and went looking for
larks. This was a much pleasanter pastime than striving to patch up
a crumbled Empire. Humpty Dumpty could never be put back on
the wall again.

Early in 1818 Alexandre became a man of business. Madame
Dumas, uneasy for her son's future, observing that he did nothing
but hunt in the woods with forest rangers and gamekeepers, crossed
the square from her house one morning and called on Maitre Men-
nesson, her solicitor. Maitre Mennesson, a sturdy, red-haired, sharp-
eyed, teasing-mouthed man of thirty-five received her with a smile.
He suspected her purpose. Having failed miserably to traasfef trr her
son into a priest^ she had (ieciSed to make a lawyer pfjim. Very
well. Maitre Mennesson was accommodating. He would take the
boy into his office as third clerk, which was tantamount to saying
he could sharpen quill pens, fill the inkwells, and put away thei
ledgers. "Unless I am greatly mistaken," he remarked, "Alexandre I
cares too much for la marette, la fipee, and hunting ever to become
an assiduous pupil of Cujas and Pothier." La marette was a method
of lime-twigging birds along forest pools or marery la fipSe was
catching them in the same way by inserting the twigs coated with
birdlime in the top branches of trees. Maitre Mennesson, who had
read Voltaire and become a Republican before Republicans existed,
was an astute man* It was not for nothing that he had committed
the most impious and licentious passages of La Pucelle to memory
and would recite them after dinner, accompanying the recitation with

42 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

a sly smile. Every small town has its atheist; it is generally th
lawyer.

Alexandra did care too much for la marettc and la pip£c, but h
went to work in Maitre Mennesson's office, nevertheless. It gave hin
some pain to be shut up a greater part of the day, but he recalled tha
Auguste Lafarge had started in the same way and that August
possessed a box coat with thirty-six bands on it. Without too mud
protest, then, the young man settled himself to sharpen quill pen
and fill inkwells. Maitre Mennesson did not prove a hard master
and the two clerks, Niguet and Cousin, were pleasant enough
Alexandre discovered that he was not to be shut up too tightly afte]
all, for part of his duties was to carry deeds to various houses in th<
neighborhood for signature. If it were not in season he would g<
at night and set bird snares along the pools on his route. Time passec
in this way and the office was occasionally enlivened when som<
unsuspecting visitor would inadvertently say a good word for the
priests or praise the Bourbons. Then Maitre Mennesson's maliciou;
little eyes would sharpen and he would take down an Old Testamem
or a history of France, open it, and offer the most ribald comments

The month of May came. Now May is a fatal month to impression-
able youths of sixteen, and Alexandre would be sixteen in two months
He fell in love, and like all young men in love for the first time, he
made the veriest booby of himself. The Whitsuntide festival was at
its height in Villers-Cotterets and the great park was filled with
laughing people from Ferte-Milon, Crespy, Soissons, Chateau-Thierry,
Compiegne, even from Paris, people who were in holiday attire and
who drank deeply, danced madly, and laughed uproariously. Among
the visitors were two young girls, one a niece of the Abbe Gr£goire
named Laurence and the other her friend, a young woman of Spanish
extraction called Vittoria. Alexandre, who had boasted of his dancing
abilities, had been appointed cavalier to the two young women by
the worthy abb£. He determined to fill his office in proper style, read
the Aventures du Chevalier Faublas to learn the sophisticated attitude
toward young women, put on his first communion costume of white
nankeen breeches and blue coat, and strutted off to the festival looking
like the caricature of an old man of the previous era. Mademoiselle
Laurence ww tell and willowy and M£d<?m<?isell<? Vittpria was pale

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 43

and stout. Alexandra, proudly ignoring the remarks of his comrades
about his skinny calves, fell in love twice. While he was walking
beside the tall, thin Mademoiselle Laurence a certain M. Miaud, a
young Parisian employed at the castle, lifted his eyeglass and gazed
in wonder at Alexandra "Ah! Ah!" he said. "There is Dumas going
to his first communion again, only he has changed his taper.'* The
young ladies tittered and Alexandra flushed. He began to realize that
a first communion costume of 1816 was really not the height of
fashion for a young buck of 1818. He decided to redeem himself
by a feat of strength, and when the trio came to a wolf leap popularly
known as the Haha he announced that he could jump it. The young
ladies murmured something to the effect of "What of it?" but the
enamored youth, ignoring this lukewarm urge, drew himself up and
by a tremendous effort shot across the chasm. The minute he landed
there was a loud ominous rip and the seat of his white nankeen
breeches split apart as though they had been struck by a bolt of
lightning. This stroke was decisive. Alexandra dashed for home,
leaving the stunned maidens behind him. Madame Dumas sewed
up the rent and Alexandra, refreshing himself with a huge glass of
cider, returned to the festival. The first person he saw was the
obnoxious Miaud. "Ah!" murmured that young gentleman to him-
self. "See what it is to wear breeches." He passed, shaking his head
sadly, and Alexandra glared after him like a wild boar. Nothing
went right after this. The youth discovered that he had forgotten
his gloves and was forced to borrow a pair from an obliging friend,
not, it may be said, M. Miaud. He made the fatal mistake of telling
Mademoiselle Vittoria that he had learned to dance with a chair for
a partner. His stumbling self-consciousness, his countrified manners,
his entire ignorance of the small artificialities of social intercourse,
all these things militated against his success with the young women
who had been accustomed to the easy frivolities of Paris. A day or
two later Alexandra received a note from Mademoiselle Laurence in
which she relieved him of further responsibility as an escort, explain-
ing that M. Miaud would perform that happy office, and advising
the youth to return to his young playmates who were waiting for
him to resume his position at prisoner's base. The result of this
episode on Alexandra's life was tremendous; for the first time he

44 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

became aware of his social deficiencies; he saw himself as a ridiculous
young bumpkin; and he determined to change. The day that he
leaped across the Haha he ceased to be a boy. That chasm was his
Rubicon. Once on the other side he saw a world of women and
social elegancies and understood, at first vaguely, perhaps, how far
and how difficult the road was which he would have to travel. The
days of carefree bird snaring and childish pursuits were over and an
ambition to understand and enter the great world of polite affairs
was planted in his lathlike frame.

He became quieter and a brooding look crept into his eyes. When

a boy changes to a man and the passions of a man flood him like

a fiery bath he enters a new world that is alternately horrible and

filled with unearthly beauty. The girls with whom he has played

cease to be children and take on the aspect of women. A strangeness

like a veil rises between him and the unconscious spontaneities of

boyhood. Rounded bosoms and slender waists and lithe brown calves

become perceptible where they had never seemed to exist before.

It was so with Alexandre. He began to observe the young girls of

Villers-Cotterets. There were the Troisvallet sisters, Clementine, dark

and with flowing black hair, and Henriette, tall and rosy and pliant

as a willow tree. There were Sophie and Pelagic Perrot, Louise

Moreau, fileanore Picot, Augustine Deviolaine, Louise Collard, Jos6-

phine and Manette Thierry, Louise Brezette, Albine Hardi, and

Adele Dalvin. A garden of girls suddenly bloomed before him,

slender, charming, wide-eyed and laughing, running through the

meadows on summer days with their pink and blue sashes fluttering

behind them, their tiny bonnets at coquettish angles, their pale arms

interlaced. He had not seen these girls before Mademoiselle Laurence

and Mademoiselle Vittoria came to Villers-Cotterets and awoke him

abruptly to the fact of his clumsy boyhood. They had merely been

figures moving through his ordinary world; now they took on the

aspects of a summer garden, a springtide crown of stars and flowers.

He drew himself to his full height, played no longer with children,

told anyone who asked that he was seventeen years old, and brushed

his hair and boots every morning. One girl among this bevy stood

out in bright relief. She was fair and pink-complexioned and had

golden hair and sweet eyes and a charming smile. She was short

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 45

rather than tall, plump rather than thin. She was something between
a Watteau shepherdess and one of Greuze's peasant girls. Her name
was Adele Dalvin and she was employed in a milliner's shop. Before
the summer was over Alexandre possessed a sweetheart and there
began in his bosom that delicious struggle of love which asks unceas-
ingly and is never discouraged, that seeks for favor after favor and
finds the least of them a heaven in itself, that is restless with the
restlessness of youth and that is almost as brief as the summer itself.

If the fact of a regular position with Maitre Mennesson awakened
Alexandre to the responsibilities of livelihood and if the coming of
Mademoiselle Laurence and Mademoiselle Vittoria revealed to him
the abrupt chasm between unthinking boyhood and the desires of
a man, there was yet a third episode during this year to teach him
the sweet insanity of ambition. It was his meeting with Adolphe de
Leuven. Adolphe, son of that Count Adolphe-Louis Ribbing de
Leuven, who was one of the three Swedish noblemen inculpated in
the murder of Gustavus III, had come with his father for a visit to
the Collards at Villers-Hellon, and there, in the company of Caroline
Collard, Alexandre first met him. De Leuven, at this time, was
between sixteen and seventeen, a tall, dark, and gaunt young man
with good eyes, a prominent nose, black hair cut like bristles, and
an aristocratic bearing. He was to set afire eternally and for all time \
that slumbering desire in Alexandre from which Auguste Lafarge
had struck so brief a spark. In other words, he was to awaken in
young Dumas the desire to create literature, to write plays, to compose
poetry.

The two young men met and responded to one another immediately
and without reservation. Adolphe was gracious, intelligent, familiar
with the Parisian scene; Alexandre was naive, painfully anxious to
please, entirely ignorant of anything outside of Villers-Cotterets, en-
chanted by Adolphe. It was Adolphe who explained poetry to him;
it was he who explained the habits of the water hen to Adolphe.
Thus they exchanged the knowledge of the city for the knowledge
of the country, the knowledge of Arnault and Ancelot for the knowl-
edge of the wild boar and the soaring larks of the forest. It was an
excellent exchange, for both men profited by it and when Adolphe,

46 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

his short visit at Villers-Hellon terminated, departed for Paris he left
behind him a young man whose breast fostered the most ambitious
designs. Alexandre was fully aware of his ignorance at last; he knew
that he must study, that he must learn languages, that the cultivation
of the mind is more important than expert placing of lime twigs in
the branches of high trees. When he had entered the office of Maitre
Mennesson his education under the Abbe Gregoire had ceased, and
indeed what had that given him after all, but the veriest scraps of
formal learning, a few tags of Latin, the ability to scan alexandrines ?
The young man who now divided his time between the errands of
Maitre Mennesson and rapturous trysts with the blonde Adele Dalvin,
cast about him for a new instructor. It was not long before Alexandre
happened upon a certain Amedee de la Ponce, an officer of Hussars
who had settled in Villers-Cotterets. Amedee taught him the virtues
of hard work, taught him that love and hunting and dancing were
well enough in their way but that there was a higher objective for
the ambitious young man. He started to teach Alexandre Italian and
German, two languages which the young officer spoke with fluency.
One of the books from which Alexandre learned Italian was Ugo
Foscolo's romance, which he was later to translate into French as
the Dern&res Lettrcs de Jacopo Ortis. Italian proved easy, for it was
a Latin language and akin to Alexandra's nature, but German he
found difficult. It was only through the continued prodding and
urging of Amedee that the young man kept at it, and even so the
tongue of Goethe never became more to Dumas than a readable
language/ while Italian became a second mother tongue. So hard
and well-occupied weeks passed. Adele loved him but would not
succumb to his passionate declarations; Maitre Mennesson's office
was not too arduous; Niguet had departed and a young man named
Paillet, some six or seven years older than Alexandre, had succeeded
him; Amedee kept Alexandre's nose to the grindstone of study; de
Leuven came back and settled for a brief while in M. Deviolaine's town
house; M. Arnault, the famous author of Germanicus and Marius a
Minturnes came to visit de Leuven; Adolphe read his fables and elegies
and the young Dumas listened open-mouthed; the sun shone and
the rain fell and the days passed. Ambition grew under this regimen.
Alexandre's days were divided into three portions: one devoted to

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 47

his friendships, another to his love-making, and a third to his legal
work. De Leuven finally went back to Paris with M. Arnault and
Alexandre was desolate. But he still had his languages and they
occupied much of his time. He still had Adele and that sweet
struggle caused the days to pass as swiftly as a current flowing beneath
a bridge. The period of boyhood was definitely left behind, and
though he was awkward still, though the patent marks of a country
upbringing were on him, he revealed a seriousness that promised a
greater, if less happy, future than that of a lawyer's clerk in a small
town.

It was during this period, while he was studying Dante and Ariosto
with Amedee, that Alexandre experienced his first vivid dramatic
sensation. An old client of Maitre Mennesson left a hundred and
fifty francs to be divided among the young men in the office, Alex-
andre's share being thirty-seven francs and fifty centimes, more money
than he had ever possessed in his life. Paillet, the new head clerk,
proposed that the money should be clubbed and that all of them
should travel to Soissons and sink this unbelievable sum in the delights
of the seat of the sous-prefecture* The idea appealed; it smacked of
a wild adventure; so one morning at the early hour of three-thirty
Dumas, Ronsin (the second clerk), and Paillet took seats on the
diligence to Paris, the coach rumbled through La Vertefeuille and
at six o'clock the three young men found themselves in Soissons.
They discovered that a company of pupils from the Conservatoire
were giving a special performance of Ducis's version of Shakespeare's
Hamlet that evening. Now Alexandre had never heard of Hamlet,
he had never heard of Shakespeare; he had never heard of Ducis. It
was with some misgivings that he read the word "tragedy" on the
placards. His mother had striven to make him read the tragedies of
Racine and Corneille but they had bored him. It was, therefore,
with expectations of the worst that the young man seated himself in
the pit that evening and prepared to sleep through the speeches of
the tall, pale, sallow Cudot who was cast as Hamlet But something
happened. Ducis's version could not entirely destroy the effect of
Shakespeare's play, and Alexandre, who had expected interminable
formal speeches and the grave squeak of buskins, witnessed a tragedy

48 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

compact with inexplicable sensations, aimless longings, mysterious
rays of light, and sinister prognostications. The ghost scene, Hamlet's
struggle with his mother, the monologues, the gloomy questionings
of death, all these things moved Alexandre tremendously. A door
opened before him into a land which he had heretofore but vaguely
suspected. Yet the version of Hamlet made by Ducis was, at best,
but a foggy outline. Benjamin Robert Haydon, the unfortunate
English artist, had seen this arrangement of Shakespeare's master-
piece some years before at Versailles, and of it he had written: "At
Versailles we saw Ducis's adaptation of Hamlet to the French stage.
The innocence and weakness of Ophelia were lost, and Hamlet was
a blubbering boy. But when Hamlet was talking to his mother, and
fancied for a moment he saw his father's ghost, Talma was terrific;
it really shook my orthodoxy. The ghost was not seen — there was
really a cause for this stupor — and his talking as if he only saw what
we did not, frightened us all. In the next scene Hamlet brings in
an urn with his father's ashes — this was thoroughly French; yet when
he made his mother swear on the urn that she knew nothing of the
murder and touch the ashes, there was an awful silence throughout
the house. Ducis has entirely lost that feeling of 'grief which passeth
show' — his Hamlet's grief was all show." Alexandre, never having
experienced the sublime thrill of the original Hamlet, was moved to
an unlimited display of delight by the French version. Back in Villers-
Cotterets he was like a youth demented. He went about in a semi-
trance asking everybody, "Do you know Hamlet? Do you know
Ducis ?" He even ordered the play from Paris and in three days had
the part of Hamlet committed to memory. From this moment he
suspected his vocation. Through the veils of his ignorance he sensed
the possibilities of a romantic literature that was no longer formal.

Within a few months Adolphe de Leuven returned from Paris. He
\vas full of stories of the glamour of literary life in the capital. Like
a good-natured but sly serpent he held forth the rosy apples of promise
to that simple Adam of the country, Alexandre, and Alexandre, lulled
into an ambitious daydream,, listened. Adolphe had been a guest in
the house of Arnault. Adolphe had seen Talma, that Napoleon
of tragedians, had been in his chambers, had conversed with him,

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 49

had met the playwright Scribe there. He had heard Mademoiselle
Duchesnois recite Marie Stuart. He was acquainted with M. de Jouy,
who had finished his Sylla; with Lucien Arnault, who had begun
his Regulus; with Pichat, who was composing his Brennus and think-
ing out his Leonid as i with Soulie, who wrote poems for Le Mercurei
ivith Rousseau, the author of a hundred and one vaudevilles^ with
Ferdinand Langle, whose mistress was the little Fleuriet; with The-
mlon, who had inscribed these words on the door of his study:

Loin du sot, du fat et du traitre,
lei ma constance attendra:
Et I' amour qui viendra peut-etre,
Et la mort qui du moins viendra!

^his, then, was the world that serpent Adolphe showed Alexandre,

world of music and light and poetry and fame, a world where

eautiful actresses kissed their lovers in the coulisses, a world where

oets met over the cafe tables and drank deeply and wrote furiously,

world that was crowned with two flowers, the laurel and the im-

lortelle.

A week before Adolphe's return his restricted life in Villers-
lotterets with the eventual possibility of a yearly salary of fifteen or
ghteen hundred francs had not seemed too bleak; a week after
dolphe's return everything was changed. Villers-Cotterets was a
ige. Maitre Mennesson's office was a den. His own home was a
Die. Under the kindly tuition of Amedee he began to translate
urger's beautiful ballad, Lenorey into French verse. He failed with
miserably, but Adolphe was by his side to suggest other things,
ome, they would collaborate on a play. So the son of the baron
id the son of the general sat down before a table, sharpened some
lill pens, and set to work. Adolphe had read many books, had been
ell educated, had witnessed the performances of dozens of plays,
id discussed technique with successful authors. Alexandre had
:ver opened a volume of Scott or Cooper; he was ignorant of the
Lines of Goethe and Schiller and Uhland and Andre Chenier; the
ily decent performance of a play he had ever witnessed had been
Paris when he was three years old; he had read the worst oJP

5o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Voltaire, the naughty books of Pigault-Lebrun, and the poetry of
Demoustier; he had a secondhand acquaintance with Shakespeare
through Ducis's variation of Hamlet. So this ill-matched couple sat
down and turned out a one-act vaudeville called Le Major de Stras-
bourg. They followed this up with a second vaudeville stolen from
M. Bouilly's Contes h ma flic, which they called Le diner d'amis.
The vats of inspiration still filled to overflowing, they turned to
Florian's Gonsalve de Cordoue and calmly borrowed enough of it
to make a stilted drama entitled Les Abenctrages. The fury with
which young men can write is miraculous. The results of this fury
are often beyond description. They are too terrible for words. These
labors filled the greater part of a year, from 1820 to 1821, and Adolphe
departed for Paris, where his father had taken up residence, with his
portmanteau bulging with script, and Alexandre waited impatiently
summons to the premiere of his first play. A career strewn with roses
and bank notes loomed in the immediate future.

During this time a tragedy, great at the time but, as recalled through
the mists of the years, no more than the bitter-sweet taste of the first
bite into the ruddy apple of disillusionment, befell Alexandre. The
blonde Adele, with whom his liaison had lasted three years, grew
meditative. There had been many secret trysts in her little room,
trysts to which Alexandre had crept across back fields, leaping fences
in the best romantic manner. To excuse this liaison, to apologize for
the irregularity of this affair, is unnecessary. It existed and that is
all that can be said about it. These passionate imbroglios exist in all
small towns, and the victims are generally the more sensitive inhab-
itants. Alexandre loved Adele with all the first fervency of youth,
and she returned his passion, but with a trembling doubt sometimes
casting a cloud upon it. It is possible that she possessed a faculty
which Alexandre never possessed, that of rationalizing her love affairs.
After all, she was twenty years old and Alexandre was but nineteen.
She had her future to think of and Alexandre compromised that
future. He, at nineteen, had but barely emerged from the thoughtless
insouciance of boyhood; she, at twenty, had been a woman for five
years. The future! That blind mysterious figure stood between her
and the tall, fair-haired boy. It was with a vague relief, therefore,

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 51

that she saw Alexandra depart on a two months* visit to his brother-
in-law, Victor Letellier — for Aimee-Alexandrine had taken a hus-
band— at Dreux. She wept, for she understood that a decision must
be made during these eight weeks. Alexandre shed a few tears, for
he saw the first passionate revelation of his youth fading into Time.
Both these young people mingled their tears; they realized they were
about to have memories.

Alexandre hunted in the department of Eure-et-Loire for eight
weeks, and Adele's letters dwindled and ceased. A blank wall of
silence rose between them. When the disconsolate Nimrod who had
killed the legendary three-legged hare of Dreux returned to Villers-
Cotterets in September he was greeted by a startling question. "Do
you know that Adele Dalvin is going to be married?" "It is quite
likely," he replied. By piecing together stray bits of information he
found that she was going to marry a man twice her age who had
returned from Spain with a small fortune. Adele was prudent He
tried to see her, running again across deserted fields at midnight and
climbing high fences, but her room was empty and dark. She had
hidden herself away from him. During the fifteen days that elapsed
before the wedding ceremony Alexandre kept to his house, strange,
silent, moody, devoured by a first acute anguish. The day of the
wedding he fled to the woods, walking blindly through the green
trees and placing his lime twigs with a despairing automatic gesture.
The caught bird does not fly again. The forsaken lover had lost his
first wings. He was as young as this, as naive, as sure of the lasting
misery of his grief as all young men are. In the twilight, the day's
end when the blackbird whistles and the first shadows rise about die
boles of the trees, he sat in the dim hunter's hut and sliced his loaf
of dark bread and poured his ruby-red wine. He raised his head and
listened. The high cry of a violin pierced his gloom, and following
that shrill sound came mingled voices of young men and women in
laughter. He thrust his head out of the hut, peered through the trees,
and saw some distance from him young girls in white dresses, youths
in bright blue coats, large bouquets and streaming ribbons. And
leading them all ... He withdrew his head with a despairing cry.
She had even followed him into the forest. He did not stop to realize
that the wedding party was cutting home by a short way through the

52 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

wood from Adele's aunt's house at Haramount. What he had fled from
had come to find him out. He peered out again, mercifully screened
by the trees, and saw her pass in her white veil and bearing her
bouquet of orange blossoms. The violin died in the distance and the
soft dark came down over the tall brooding trees, the sleeping birds,
the still pools. Alexandre sat in the hunter's hut, his chin on his hand,
his elbow on his knee, and winked back the tears. His first dream
had exploded like a bubble; his first illusion had been shattered.

Letters began to come from Adolphe. Mother Colombe tottered to
the door of the house and handed Alexandre the first epistle with the
magic postmark of Paris. He tore it open with trembling hands. The
directors of the theaters— and Adolphe could not fathom why— were
not making any particular fuss over the three collaborations. How-
ever, it was not yet time to despair. The trio of masterpieces would
have their hearings yet. The second letter was a month in coming.
Le diner d'amis, borrowed from Bouilly, did not have sufficient plot;
Le Major de Strasbourg was too much like Le soldat laboureur,
which had just been played at the Varietes; Les Abencerages was
quite hopeless because every boulevard theater for the past twenty
years had received a play on that hackneyed subject. The Gymnase,
the Varietes, the Porte-Saint-Martin, the Ambigu-Comique, the
Gaiete, all the large theaters had been approached and all of them
had curtly refused the three scripts. Where were all those roses and
bank notes now? Where were the laurels and the immortelles?
Alexandre shed as bitter a tear as Boabdil did over Granada and
returned gloomily to work,

The woes of youth do not last long, and Alexandre was well on the
road to recovery both from Adele Dalvin and the fate of his first
three plays when he left Maitre Mennesson's office and went into
residence as second or third clerk with M. Lefevre, a lawyer of Crespy.
Crespy was three and a half leagues from Villers-Cotterets, and now
for die first time Alexandre found himself pretty much on his own,
although on Saturdays he could if he wished return home for the
week-end. M. Lefevre was a good-looking man of thirty-five whose
physique had been weakened by the pleasures, both permissible and

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 53

forbidden, of Paris, to which city he went eight or ten times a year,
driving there in a private conveyance and with a postilion who wore
a powdered wig, a blue jacket with red lapels and silver buttons, and
glittering boots. The society of Crespy was agreeable. Victor Letel-
lier's mother lived there and proved an open sesame to Alexandre.
Also there was a young lady with bright eyes named Athenais. Alex-
andre discovered that he was not going to have such a bad time after
all. By the time he had been there three months he had forgotten
all his griefs, written a bad imitation of the Lettres a £mitie by
Demoustier, sent it to Adolphe who promptly lost it, and basked as
often as he could in the bright glances of Athenais*

His old friend, Paillet, called on him one day and as they were
wandering about the ramparts of the ancient twelfth century tower
of Vez, Alexandre was seized with a daring thought. He struck his
forehead with a determined fist and exclaimed, "Let us go and spend
three days in Paris!" Paillet looked at the sun and then at Alexandra's
forehead apprehensively; Alexandre seemed sane enough; it could not
be a stroke, then. "What about the office?" inquired the older man.
Alexandre said that M. Lefevre was leaving on one of his trips on the
morrow, that he always stayed away two or three days, and that they
could go and return in that time. "Money?" said the practical Paillet.
He had twenty-eight francs. Alexandre had seven. But Alexandre
had an idea as well. They would take Paillet's horse and their guns,
one would walk and hunt while the other rode, they would live on
the game, the poacher apprehended by a keeper would leap on the
horse and dash away, and they would pay their reckoning in Paris
with the partridges and quail they brought with them. Paillet suc-
cumbed. He desired to observe the pleasures of Paris. As for Alex-
andre, he wanted to see Adolphe and inquire about the three plays.
That night they started.

Two days later, Alexandre on foot and Paillet on horseback, they
arrived in the courtyard of the Hotel des Vieux-Augustins in the rue
des Vieux-Augustins, Paris, laden with four hares, a dozen partridges,
and two quail. Alexandre had not been in Paris since the momentous
year 1814, when he had seen the King of Rome lifted above the heads
of the National Guard. It was, therefore, like an entrance into dream-
land. The serried ranks of houses, the animation of the streets., the

54 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

swinging oil lamps, the late cabriolets (for it was night when he
arrived), the boys running with flaring torches, the gigantic suspira-
tion of a great city breathing all about him, the noise, and the fever
of expectation kept him from sleeping. He tossed about all that night
in the bed for which he had paid his partridges.

Early in the morning the friends parted, Paillet on business of his
own, and Alexandre to Adolphe de Leuven's house in the rue Pigale.
Passing by the Theatre-Frangais he noticed that M. de Jouy's Sylla
was to be played that evening with Talma in the title role and he
determined to go. Rousing Adolphe from his bed (for like most of the
young gentlemen in Paris Adolphe loved to sleep late in the morning),
Alexandre acquainted his friend with his quivering desire to see
Talma. Nothing was easier. Adolphe had an entree to the famous
actor's house and off they proceeded to the rue de la Tour-des-Dames
where, next to the houses of Mademoiselle Mars and Mademoiselle
Duchesnois, Talma lived. He was washing his chest when the young
men entered, and, after briefly acknowledging the son of General
Dumas, he hastily wrote out an order for two seats and then gra-
ciously rid himself of his early visitors.

Alexandre, after lunching with de Leuven and arranging to meet
him at seven o'clock that evening at the Cafe du Roi, corner of the
rue de Richelieu and the rue Saint Honore, became the country tourist.
He went through the Tuileries by the gate of the rue de la Paix;
he passed under the Arch; he wandered up and down the quais; he
tramped through the Jardin des Plantes; he exhausted the Musce;
he examined Notre Dame inside and out; he forced his way through
the gate of the Luxembourg; he peeped in windows and stared after
pedestrians; he listened open-mouthed to street hawkers and paused
before the platforms of the saltimbanques; he watched the boats glide
down the yellow Seine; he circled the Palais-Royal. The color, the
medley, the movement, the unending landmarks and historical monu-
ments enchanted him. At six o'clock he was back in the Hotel des
Vieux-Augustins dining with Paillet on a filet with olives and roast
beef. At seven o'clock he was seated in the Cafe du Roi waiting for
Adolphe. Paillet had disappeared, possibly after some of the plump
young women who spotted the moving horde of people.

Dumas was gazing about him when he was approached by a seedy

MADEMOISELLE MARS

Her "temperamental upsets" continually
disturbed Dumas

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 55

individual in a shiny coat and still more shiny trousers. The young
man stared at him and gasped. Auguste Lafarge! But where were the
box coat with the thirty-six bands, the boots a la hussarde and that
gargantuan watch chain that had rattled so musically? Auguste had
fallen upon evil times. The cynical bitterness of the literary failure
filled his soul and Alexandre sat and listened to malicious attacks on
Talma, on Jouy, on Theaulon, on all the successful figures of the day,
Over a small brandy Lafarge waxed more and more scornful and
bitter. It is the way with some men who fall from fortune's favor.
They cannot forgive those who dine better than they do. Alexandre
was being shown another side to literary life in the capital, but as yet
he could not comprehend it. Jealousies, meannesses, the machinations
of cliques, the intrigues of small minds against greater, these things
were mysteries to him. Adolphe rescued him and bore him away to
the Theatre-Frangais.

When Alexandre saw Talma appear upon the stage, clad in the
robes of Sylla, a cry of amazement burst from him. This was not the
short man who had been washing his chest that morning, but the
noblest Roman of them all. He was the Napoleon of the stage. This
mime with his lightning glance, his calm and marblelike countenance,
his magnificent simplicity, his heartbreaking melancholy, was not even
of the same world as that pathetic sallow Cudot who had played
Hamlet in Soissons. Dumas was stunned, dazzled, fascinated. When
Adolphe suggested that they go to Talma's dressing room after the
fall of the curtain the young man accepted with alacrity. They passed
through the murky back corridors of the Theatre-Franks and pushed
their way into the crowded dressing room. Talma, still in his white
robes, was removing the crown from his head. About him clustered
a group of the playwrights of the day: Casimir Delavigne, who had
just put the finishing touches to L'ficole des mcillards, Lucien
Arnault, whose Regulus had made a fair sensation, Soumet, whose
Saul had been one of the great successes of the Theatre-Frangais,
Nepomucene Lemercier, that paralyzed brute of uneven talents that
rose to Agamemnon and dipped to Cahin-Caha, Delrieu, who had
been at work on his Artaxcrcc since 1809, Viennet, whose tragedies
were better on paper than on the stage, and M. de Jouy, the hero of
the hour, the author of Sylla. The amazed young man from Villers-

56 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Cotterets stopped short just within the door. He listened to the names

Adolphe pronounced and he trembled. He blushed vividly whenever

one of these men, who seemed like Titans to him, turned an inquiring

glance in his direction.
Presently Talma turned and observed the two young men hovering

in the doorway. He beckoned and Alexandre took two steps toward

him. They conversed.

"Well, Monsieur le Poete" Talma said, "you are satisfied?"
The group of playwrights stared at the country boy in the absurdly

long coat. Alexandre stammered:

"More than that . . . monsieur ... I am wonderstruck. ..."
"You must see me again. You must ask for more seats."
Alexandre shook his head. He explained that he was returning

home on the morrow.

"That is a pity," said Talma. "You might have seen me as Regulus."
He smiled at Lucien Arnault.
"Impossible," replied the young man, "I must return to the prov-

inces."

At that moment he would have enjoyed seeing the provinces in
their last conflagration.

"What do you do in the . . . provinces ?"

The young man hung his head. He stuttered:

"A lawyer's clerk. ..."

"Come, come," said Talma briskly. "You must not despair because
of that. Corneille was clerk to a procurator!" He turned to the group
of playwrights. "Gentlemen," he announced with a gesture, "allow
me to introduce a future Corneille." The playwrights smiled. Talma
was superb when he was teasing young men. Alexandre blushed to
his eyes. He held out his arm and said:

"Lay your hand on my forehead, Monsieur; it will bring me luck."
1 The quizzical smile died from Talma's face as he placed a white
liand on Alexandre's forehead. The actor assumed the place of the
man. He declaimed:

j "There— so be it. Alexandre Dumas, I baptize thee poet in the
4ame of Shakespeare, Corneille, and of Schiller. . . . Return to the
provinces, return to your office; if you really have a vocation, the
angel of poetry will know where to find you wherever you are and

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 57

will carry you off by the hair of your head like the prophet Habakkuk
and will take you where Fate determines."

A soft murmur of laughter rose from the assembled playwrights
as Alexandre walked blindly from the dressing room. Following
Adolphe, he proceeded down the narrow twisting staircase, through
the black corridor, along the galcrie de Nemours, and so out on the
Place du Palais Royal. The dark bulk of the offices of Monsieur le
Due d'Orleans loomed against the deep blue of the midnight sky. A
few belated pedestrians clattered over the cobbles, and a ragged boy
bearing a torch hurried toward the rue de Richelieu. Adolphe bade
farewell to Alexandre. "There," he said, "you know your way — the
rue Croix-des-Petits Champs, the rue Coquilliere, the rue des Vieux-
Augustins. Good-night." He disappeared in the darkness on his way
to the rue Pigale. Alexandre did not know his way. Therefore, fearful
stories of ferocious footpads flooding his mind, he hastily climbed into
the first cab that came along and ordered the cocker to drive to the
Hotel des Vieux-Augustins. That individual stared through his whisk-
ers at him, lashed at his bony horse, and twenty seconds later drew
up before the little hotel. A crestfallen young man emerged, paid the
exorbitant amount of fifty sous for a ride as brief as a wink of the
eye, and climbed to his room. Paillet, who had been to the opera,
was seated before the bed regarding a few francs with a woeful eye.
They possessed a dozen francs between them. It was agreed to start
for Crespy at seven o'clock in the morning. The sun was shining
when the two young men departed from the Hotel des Vieux-Augus-
tins. The next day they reached Crespy. M. Lefevre had returned
before them. That evening after dinner he drew Alexandre aside and
explained that a machine may work properly only when all its wheels
are going. Dumas took the hint, resigned from his clerkship, accepted
M. Lefevre as a friend, and announced that his future was in Paris.

One morning Madame Dumas came into her son's small bed cham-
ber with her eyes full of tears. She sat down beside him, and putting
her arms about the tall youth who was sitting up in bed in some
perplexity, said: "I have just sold everything to pay off our debts."
These debts, which had mounted from month to month and from
year to year, swallowed up the thirty roods of land left by General

58 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Dumas, the house that M. Harlay had at last left, and the few valuable
objects which had decorated the humble dwelling in the rue de
Lormet. All that was left were a portfolio of drawings by Giam-
battista Piranesi, a trunk crammed with letters and documents, and
two hundred and fifty-three francs in cash. Alexandre had been out
of employment for nearly four months. He was over twenty now and
he realized how disgraceful this was. It was time for him to become
a man.

He kissed his mother and said: "Give me the fifty-three francs. I
will go to Paris with them, and, I promise you, I will come back with
good news."

The vista of Paris had never been absent from his mind since he
had made the momentous trip with Paillet. It had hung on the
horizon, a luminous and magical city, a land of promise where true
desert was meted its rich reward, a sort of Bagdad where surprising
jewels lay concealed in the mud of the narrow streets. Adolphe was
there. He was slaving away at plays although he had had nothing
produced as yet. Still he had reached the stage where he could procure
readings before theater directors. Talma was there and Talma had
baptized him a poet. All the playwrights in the world were there.
The ruins of the Empire were there. The Empire! With this thought
in his mind Alexandre hurried to the trunk of documents left by his
father, and, drawing old yellowed letters and army orders from their
envelopes, pored over them. There was aid here, unmistakable aid.
Here was a letter from the Due de Bellune, thanking General Dumas
for help in conciliating Napoleon. The Due de Bellune was Minister
for War now under Louis XVIII. Here was a letter from General
Sebastiani and here was another from Marechal Jourdan. Here was
a note from Kellermann and another from Bernadotte. Bernadotte
was King of Sweden. There was no doubt in Alexandre's mind that
these men would leap at the opportunity to help the son of General
Dumas. All he need do would be to present these letters recalling old
days on the battlefields of Italy, of the Alps, and of Egypt, and these
men, now high in power and mighty in influence, would immediately
bestir themselves. That much was settled, then. All that remained
was to raise enough money to carry him to Paris and provide for him
while these mar&haux and dues and generals were placing him. Alex-

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 59

andre did not know what he wanted to do. He did not care. What-
ever he did, a position in the Department of War, perhaps, would be
simply a stepping-stone to that time when his plays— for he meant to
write many of them — would be produced at the Theatre-Franf ais and
at the Odeon. He selected a group of letters and put them away in
his wallet.

Madame Dumas, reconciling herself to the departure of her son,
gave him the fifty-three francs. Things could not be worse than they
were and any straw in the wind was something to grasp at. As she
weighed out small papers of tobacco in her humble bureau de tabac
she restrained the tears and resolutely ignored the remarks about her
son, remarks freely vouchsafed by the bustling gossips of the town.
They told her the boy was a good-for-nothing, that at twenty years
of age he could do nothing but shoot a gun and trap birds, that he
had deliberately tricked himself out of a good position with M. Le-
fevre, that his head was turned at the silly sights of Paris, that his
ambition to write was a ridiculous presumption in an uneducated
country boy. Did he think he was another Demoustier ? The gossips
laughed shrilly and went on their way bobbing their heads. Widow
Dumas's son had a mighty tall feather in his ragged cap. He wanted
to write tragedies, did he? It would be better for him if he settled
down to raising cabbages. It was the Bonapartist blood, no doubt. All
of that tribe was like the Corsican who thought he was an Emperor.
They had ideas above their station.

Alexandre proceeded with his preparations. He sold the portfolio
of Piranesi drawings for fifty francs. So much more was added to the
small hoard he was putting away in the worn wallet with the yel-
lowed letters. He went about bidding farewell to his friends, and most
of them laughed in his face. One stroke of unexpected luck befell
him. Alexandre was an excellent billiard player, another sign of a
misspent life according to the gossips. So was Carrier. Playing one
evening for small glasses of absinthe, Alexandre, who drank nothing
at all, won no less than six hundred glasses. Poor old Carrier was
distrait. How could a youth who did not drink make away with six;
hundred glasses of the most burning liquor in France? Alexandre'
solved this problem by converting his winnings into sous, eighteen,
hundred of them, and then, to the agreement and relief of Carrier

60 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

who ran the posting station, changed this amount into places on the
diligence to Paris. Thus he had his passage free, both going to and
coming from Paris.

The day was now drawing near when he was to make his departure
and test the fickleness of fortune. He continued to go about bidding
farewell to his old friends. He went to the good Abbe Gregoire and
instead of being lectured on religious precepts, lectured himself. He
went to Maitre Mennesson who offered him M. Laffitte, the Parisian
banker, as an example. Alexandre did not think so much of M.
Laffitte in spite of all his stocks and bars of bullion, but he said noth-
ing. Maitre Mennesson was more of a misanthrope than ever. He
had been married recently. Then Alexandre went to M. Danre at
Vouty. M. Danre had been an old friend and hunting companion
of General Dumas. He had dabbled in local politics, and when Gen-
eral Foy's name had been put forward on the lists for election, M.
Danre had supported him and through his influence had seen him
elected. M. Danre's encouragement was all that the disconsolate young
man needed. The barbs of his younger friends and the ominous
prophecies of the gossips had somewhat discomposed Alexandre. M.
Danre, with the gusto of an old man who loves to see youth stepping
forth into adventure, went to Madame Dumas and reassured her about
her son. Adopting the flowery eloquence of an ancient French gentle-
man he informed her that Alexandre would take his place in that
class of men who were styled rulers. Madame Dumas wanted to laugh
and then she decided to cry. M. Danre went even further. He gave
Alexandre a letter of introduction to General Foy and the young man
carefully placed it in his wallet. He doubted that he should ever have
to use it but it might be just as well to keep it.

The day of departure came. Alexandra's few garments were placed
in his cheap portmanteau. He shook hands again with his neighbors.
A last visit was paid to the cemetery where the body of General
Dumas lay crumbling in the earth. Madame Darcourt, gazing from
her window, saw the tall form of the young man in his ill-fitting long
coat. His hair needed a barber's attention. Beside him was the short
woman in black to whom fortune had been so malign. Mother and
son, walking slowly, loitering, gazing sadly about them, made their
way to the Hotel de la Boule d'Or where the diligence was to pick

THE IDYL OF VILLERS-COTTERETS 61

up Alexandre. At half past nine they heard the sound of wheels and
knew that they had but half an hour longer. They retired to a small
room in the hotel and simultaneously burst into tears. There had been
no parting like this for Madame Dumas since the body of the General
had been borne down the steps of the Hotel de 1'fipee and carried
away to the still hillside. She wept for misery and doubt. Her son
wept for hope. He had the world before him; he was sanguine; he
was filled with the dreams of youth. Madame Dumas's world was
behind her, and as she now lived in her son, her life was being taken
from her. The house in the rue de Lormet would be very empty.
The horn sounded from the diligence, and Alexandre, followed more
slowly by his mother, hurried down to the heavy vehicle. He turned
and kissed his mother, and she clung to him for a moment. Then he
mounted and stowed away his portmanteau. There was the heavy
crack of a whip like a pistol shot, the clatter of hoofs, and the diligence
rumbled off into the darkness. Alexandre gazed back as long as he
could at the solitary person who was waving farewell to him.

CHAPTER THREE

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS

IT was five o'clock in the morning when Dumas descended from the
Messageries dc l^clair diligence before number nine, rue de Bouloy,
Paris. Although the day was clear it was a typical Bourbon Sunday,
with all the shops fast-shuttered and the narrow streets deserted. The
peculiar smugness of the eighteenth Louis permeated the capital.
Dumas inquired his way and trudged the short distance to the Hotel
des Vieux-Augustins, that small hostelry where with Paillet he had
put up for a day four months before, and paid for his keep with hares
and partridges. The proprietor was still abed but an early-rising
waiter recognized Dumas and conducted him to the same room he
had occupied on his previous visit. It would have been difficult not to
remember the young man, for he was a quaint enough figure. There
had been no revolution of fashion in Villers-Cotterets, but there most
assuredly had been one in the Paris of 1823. Therefore the spectacle
of a gaping young man with long, frizzy hair and an outmoded coat
that reached to his skinny ankles must have titillated the few Parisians
who ventured abroad on this quiet Sunday morning. Dumas was the
country bumpkin to perfection, enthusiastic but unbelievably naive.
On this first day he was the prototype of that Ange Pitou whom he
was to create years later. There was no Bastille for him to destroy, but
there was a city to conquer. He did not carry a pike. In place of this
he possessed a handful of letters to the ancient military friends of his
dead father and a bubbling optimism that betrayed his ignorance of
the difficulty of careers.

No sooner had Dumas installed himself in his little room than
drowsiness overtook him, and warning the boy to arouse him at nine

62

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 63

o'clock he tried to compose himself for sleep. But just as excitement
had kept him awake in the smelly interior of the diligence, so now did
it stimulate him to wide-eyed dreams of the future. How could he
sleep with his promised land of Paris all about him? Though the
streets were quiet and the yellow and brown fronts of the houses
stolid with their closed shutters he could nevertheless experience that
august agitation which is always the atmosphere of Paris. The Seine
flowed silently enough; the Tuileries dozed in the early sun and a
stout king snored within; the Institute caught the morning light;
Henri Quatre dreamt on his motionless horse; the bridges arched
like frozen visions over the ocher rivef ; Notre Dame de Paris sat like
the mother of Time on her island and waited. But threading the air
was the restlessness that is always in the heart of Paris, that restless-
ness which is like a million hands grasping for flags, for drums, for
pikes, for the square cobble-stones of demolished barricades, above all
for the laurel and the immortelle. So when the landlord of the Hotel
des Vieux-Augustins poked his head inside Dumas's door he found
the young man striding up and down, eager to set forth and find
Adolphe de Leuven and announce to him that at last he had come to
Paris to stay.

The sportsman's instinct was strong in Dumas — had he not hunted
through the trackless woods about Villers-Cotterets ? — so it was a
fairly easy matter to wind his way across the river, through the rue
du Mont-Blanc, and finally to fourteen, rue Pigale, where the de
Leuvens lived. The old nobleman was walking in his garden, capri-
ciously feeding sugar to his roses. He welcomed Dumas with his
usual serenity, learned that the young man had come to conquer Paris,
smiled inwardly, and then graciously offered a garret in the top of
his house as a brooding place for the Muse. "Go and arrange it with
Adolphe," he said, and turned back to his roses. He had seen too
much of life to be surprised at anything. Adolphe was still in bed but
the impetuous Dumas awoke him and forgave him his sluggishness
when the young Parisian explained that he had been working late the
night before on a little drama called Pauvre Fille. The two friends
had much to say to one another, Dumas described the letters o£ intro-
duction he carried, particularly one to the Due de Bellune who was
Minister of War. He even called for pen and ink and dashed off an

64 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

epistle requesting an interview with the due. Then, having settled his
future to his own satisfaction, he turned to eager converse on litera-
ture. Who was the playwright of the day? What poetry was being
produced? What . . . But Adolphe was dubious. He pointed out
that it might be as well to have other strings to one's bow than the
problematical favor of the Due de Bellune who, after all ... "Ah!"
exclaimed Dumas, "if he fails me I still have Marechal Jourdan and
General Sebastiani." Adolphe shook his head but said nothing more.
As for Dumas, his sanguinity was but slightly troubled. Had not these
men fought side by side with his father in the campaigns of the First
Republic? Would they slight the son of the Horatius Codes of the
Tyrol ? There could be no doubt about it. Still ... It would be as
well, perhaps, to call on the other marechaux while awaiting an answer
from the Due de Bellune. So the next morning Dumas, frizzy hair
straggling under his hat and long coat impeding his stride, announced
himself at the door of Marechal Jourdan.

The name Alexandre Dumas proved to be an Open Sesame. But
when the grizzled Marechal strode into the room and saw the country
youth before him his face changed abruptly. He looked bewildered,
then amazed, then slightly irritated. He was a busy man and . . .
Undoubtedly he had expected to see that dark giant who had been
dubbed "Monsieur de I'Humanite" by an enraged revolutionary mob.
He had forgotten that General Dumas had died in poverty years
before. He had never heard that General Dumas had a son. In fact,
he doubted it. He ... Dumas attempted to establish his identity in
vain. The Marechal urged him toward the door. It might be so, but
. . . Ten minutes after he had entered like a young lion Alexandre
found himself in the street, a pained and bewildered lamb.

It was a sad experience for Dumas. As he walked from the Fau-
bourg St. Germain, where Marechal Jourdan lived, to the Faubourg
Saint-Honbre, where General Sebastiani lived, depressing thoughts
crept into his mind. No wonder Adolphe had shaken his head skepti-
cally. Welt, he would see. There was nothing to do but go doggedly
through his list of introductions. At General Sebastiani's house the
name Alexandre Dumas again proved to be a magic key. At least that
had not been forgotten. Sebastiani was in his study dictating to four
secretaries. They sat ia the four corners of the room and as the

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 65

General passed each one of them in turn the secretary would offer a
gold snuffbox from which Sebastiani would extract a voluptuous sniff
of the Spanish powder. Four secretaries, four snuffboxes, and one
General. It was an excellent arrangement. Dumas stood in the door-
way and smiled expectantly. A few moments later he was once more
in the street. He was on his way back to his rabbit-hole in the Hotel
des Vieux-Augustins with absolutely nothing accomplished except the
eradication of two names from his list of potential patrons. Truly,
Adolphe ... At the hotel there was no message from the Due de
Bellune. Truly, truly, Adolphe . . , Dumas sat before the Almanack
des 25,000 adresses and idly thumbed it. Twenty-five thousand ad-
dresses and no place to go. Twenty-five . . . But, wait! Under his
finger he saw a name that stirred memories. What . . . Verdier . . .
ah! That general who had served in Egypt under his father. A close
comrade! An old brother-in-arms! Ten minutes later Dumas was
standing before number six. Faubourg Montmartre.

The sullen concierge had said, "Fourth floor, small door to the
left." That was a peculiar habitation for a Republican General.
Marechal Jourdan and General Sebastiani had great houses. General
Sebastiani had four secretaries and four gold snuffboxes. But neither
one of them had any memory at all. Dumas climbed the four flights,
not falling over his long coat more than three times on the way. There
was a modest green string before the small door to the left and he
pulled it. A moment later the door swung open and a man of about
sixty wearing a cap edged with astrakhan, a green-braided jacket and
trousers of white calfskin, stood framed in the doorway. In his hand
was a palette of paints and a brush. This man appeared to be an artist
and yet the faint aura of long vanished gunpowder hung about him.
Dumas was dubious.

"Have I made some mistake?" he asked, "I ..."

"What do you desire, Monsieur?" countered the man in the astra-
khan cap.

"To pay my respects to General Verdier."

Dumas was ushered through a small hall into a study. There he
asked if he might see the general. The man in the astrakhan cap
turned around in surprise.
. "What general?"

66 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

"General Verdier."

"I am he."

Dumas stared in amazement and Verdier began to laugh. How
many gold snuffboxes was it Sebastiani had? Or were they gold
secretaries? Dumas was becoming mixed in his mind. Truly, this
Paris was full of unaccountable things. He announced himself to
General Verdier as "the son of your old comrade-in-arms in Egypt,
General Dumas." Verdier looked at him closely and then tears welled
into his eyes. He held out his hand and said, "By the powers, so you
are!" Ah, this was different. Dumas wanted to kiss the first kindly
hand that had been stretched out to him.

But the remainder of the interview was sad enough. Verdier had
been pensioned off for some imaginary conspiracy and he was abso-
lutely without power in any place. He passed his days painting in his
little studio and waiting for the end of time. This man had com-
manded regiments under the Egyptian suns. He had been one of
those upon whom forty centuries had gazed down. He had, without
knowing it, solved the riddle of the Sphinx.

"I can give you lessons in painting," he said. Dumas did not desire
to be an artist. Verdier questioned the youth about his prospects and
Dumas told him about his visits to Marechal Jourdan and General
Sebastiani. Then there was the as yet unanswered letter to the Due
de Bellune. But one hope remained. Dumas had a letter to General
Foy. Perhaps that . . . Hope dies hard in a young man. Verdier
shrugged his shoulders. He advised the youth to present himself early
on the morrow morning at General Foy's house. The General, he
was sure, would receive him kindly. If not for his own sake at least
for the sake of his father. Not all of those veterans who had made
possible the victories of General Bonaparte had forgotten the name of
Dumas. "And," added Verdier, "will you dine with me? We will
talk about Egypt. It was hot there." Dumas promised to return at
six, and he leaped down the four flights of stairs with a lighter heart
than he had ascended. As for Verdier he returned to the head of a
Cossack he was painting.

Well, this was different. If it did not remove obstacles at least it
showed that men varied* Dumas began to see that the world was a
multifarious place, that memories were both short and long, that grati*

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 67

tudes and obligations were at best empty words and that the kindly
world of boyish illusions wherein he had lived at Villers-Cotterets was
not at all the same world that dominated the Paris of His Majesty
King Louis XVIIL The unknown youth may knock at the thresholds
of great doors behind which there is plenty, but he is more apt to be
given a crust when he knocks at the threshold of a garret. Adolphe,
when he heard of the day's adventures, shook his head. "If your story
finishes as it has begun," he said, "you Wl^ do more than write a
comic opera. You will write a comedy." He then gave the young man
two seats for that evening's performance of Regulus at the Theatre-
Fran$ais and went his own way to work on his never-to-be-produced
Pauvre Fille. Poor de Leuven. He who had started so much better
equipped than Dumas was to end so far below him, never hitting the
universal appeal which was to be a part of the titanic strength of the
author of Monte Cristo and Les Trois Mousquetaires. De Leuven's
apex was to be Le Postilion de Longjumeau and Vert-Vert, and who
is there who remembers those gentle comedies ? Only the pertinacious
historians of the French stage.

Dumas dined with Verdier (it was a dinner with extras at the
Palais-Royal and it cost six francs) and then they repaired to the
Theatre-Frangais to see Talma in Regulus. The mind of the young
man naturally turned back to that performance of Sylla and the
blessing he had received in Talma's dressing room. Talma was superb
in certain scenes of this rather dull play by Lucien Arnault, and
Dumas, not too much the critic, was properly thrilled. When he
parted company with General Verdier at the corner of the rue Coquil-
Here he was filled again with projects for his own future. Verdier
watching the long frizzy hair and absurd coat disappearing around
the corner must have smiled. Youth is an excellent anesthetic for
disappointments, but when one has been baked under Egyptian suns
and frozen in the passes of the Alps there is no youth left. There is
nothing to do then but to pass the time by painting pictures of Cos-
sacks in fourth-floor garrets.

At ten o'clock in the morning Dumas presented himself at the door
of General Foy's house in the rue du Mont-Blanc. Foy was discovered
amidst a clutter of maps, speeches, proofs, documents and open books.

68 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

He was at work on his Histoirc dc la Pcninsule. When Dumas entered
he was writing at a table that could be lifted or lowered as the General
required. He was a short, thin man of fifty, with scanty grey hair, a
projecting forehead, a straight nose, and a decidedly bilious com-
plexion.

"Are you the son of that General Dumas who commanded the
Army of the Alps?" he inquired.

Dumas admitted it. He then presented his letter of introduction
from Monsieur Danre. Foy read it and announced that the worthy
Danre had recommended the youth strongly. Dumas, trembling with
uncertainty, answered the abrupt questions of the General as concisely
as he could. This was his last hope, and if it failed it meant that he
must creep back to Villers-Cotterets where his poverty-stricken mother
waited eagerly for news of a future which might, perhaps, be a little
brighter than the past years. He could not go back. He could not go
back. That was all there was to it. The General asked him if he
knew mathematics.

"No, General."

Algebra? Geometry? Physics?

Perspiration ran down Dumas's face. It was "No, General," to each
query. He had not realized what an ignorant fellow he was.

The General frowned.

Law? Latin? Bookkeeping?

Dumas was in agony, the agony of his own ignorance, as he shook
his head at the mention of each subject. General Foy was visibly sorry
for him. This bedraggled looking boy who did not even know
enough to cut his hair or get a coat that fitted possessed nothing but
his ambition and a wildly reiterated declaration that he would speedily
learn all of those things of which he was not so ignorant. General Foy
shook his head. "I do not want to abandon you , . . " he murmured.
Dumas was tearful in his plea not to be abandoned. "Well," said
the General in a dubious voice, "write your name and address and I
will inquire ... I will see ... " Dumas, with that touch of the
sentimental-dramatic that was to be a part of his ardent nature all his
life, refused the General's own pen as a profanation and took another.
He inscribed his name on a sheet of paper with failing spirits. This
meant nothing. This was merely a polite way of getting rid of him.

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 69

He would not hear from General Foy again. The deep voice of the
General broke in on his despair. He said:

"We are saved!"

Dumas lifted a bewildered face.

"Your handwriting!" exclaimed General Foy. "You write a beau-
tiful hand."

An insupportable shame swept over Dumas. He who desired to
conquer Paris possessed only a good handwriting. He could aspire,
perhaps, to the future of a copying clerk. This was too much. But the
General went on, relief in his voice. He was dining that day at the
Palais-Royal. He would speak to the Due d'Orleans. He would tell
him that he ought to take the son of a Republican General into his
offices. It would be a good gesture. He bade Dumas sit down and
draw up a petition to the due. Then he dismissed him, inviting him
to lunch the next day that he might inform him what had transpired
at the Due d'Orleans' dinner. Dumas returned disconsolately to the
Hotel des Vieux-Augustins. A copying clerk! It was ridiculous. But,
then . . . Mathematics. Algebra. Geometry. Physics. Law. Latin.
Bookkeeping. Peste! Arriving at the hotel Dumas found his long
awaited letter from the Due de Bellune. The young man hesitated
before breaking the seal. On either side of him stood good and evil
fortune. Which would it be this time? The Due de Bellune informed
M. Dumas that he had no time for personal interviews and begged the
gentleman to lay before him in writing anything he had to say. Dumas
wrote back that he had desired only to lay before the due a letter of
thanks which he, the due, had once written his general-in-chief,
Dumas, but inasmuch as he could not have the honor of seeing the
due personally he would send a copy of the letter. The young man
passed the rest of the day brooding about the morrow.

General Foy, surrounded by the debris of his historical undertaking,
was at work as he had been on the previous day. He received Dumas
with a smile.

"It is all settled," he said.

Dumas turned an astonished face toward him. "How? . . .
What? ..."

70 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

"Yes, you are to become a supernumerary on the secretarial staff of
the Due d'Orleans. The salary will be twelve hundred francs a year.
It is not much but it is your opportunity."

Dumas seemed to spin in flashes of light.

"It is a fortune!" he cried. "And I begin?"

"Next Monday."

"Next Monday?"

"Yes. The chief clerk in the office has already been notified."

"What is his name?"

"M. Oudard. Use my name when you introduce yourself."

Dumas was nearly speechless with joy.

"Oh, General ... I ..."

He flung his arms about General Foy's neck and kissed him. The
General released himself, laughing.

"There is true metal in you," he said. "But do not forget to study."

"I will live by my handwriting now," declared the young man, "but
I promise you that there will come a time when I will live by my
pen." Dumas gabbled on excitedly. He would hurry home to tell his
mother the news and return to Paris by Sunday night. He would
labor indefatigably. A luncheon table was spread and he lunched
tete-a-tete with the General. The food and wine warmed him and he
began to discuss his literary ambitions, describing the plays he in-
tended to write, the poems, the romances. Foy listened tolerantly,
smiling a little at this enthusiasm that was to do so much on twelve
hundred francs a year. If he was a trifle dubious he made no sign.
After all ... Dreams . . . foolish hopes . . . fugitive clouds of
illusion.

Dumas dashed from the rue du Mont-Blanc to the rue Pigale.
Adolphe rejoiced with his friend. The old de Leuven continued to
tend his roses, a smile of quiet ridicule on his worldly-wise face.
Madame de Leuven thought of the joy that Madame Dumas would
experience on the morrow and tears came into her eyes. As for
Dumas, he was in the seventh heaven. Napoleon had been no happier
when, after the espousal of Marie-Louise, he had repeated three times,
"My poor uncle Louis XVI!"

By four-thirty Dumas was in the diligence and the heavy wheels
were rumbling along the road to Villers-Cotterets.

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 71

II

The Paris of 1823 was a far different city from the glittering metrop-
olis of vast boulevards which stretches along the Seine today. It was
ruled by a sick gourmet, Louis XVIII,, that Bourbon who had been
Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Comte de Provence, and who had been raised
to the throne in 1814 as the least of several evils. Who placed him on
the throne? Nobody knew. It had been circumstance. The Allied
Powers had not wanted him, not even Alexander of Russia. The
French populace had not cried wildly for him. Perhaps circumstance
was another name for Talleyrand. France was tired. It was weary of
long campaigns and the constant raising of regiments. It was ex-
hausted with Pyrrhic victories. It was tired of a ruler who represented
in himself action. Louis XVIII did not represent action. His fine head
and intelligent eyes crowned an absurdly corpulent body which sug-
gested the reverse of action. This impotent and lethargic frame
' brought to mind no prancing white horse that lifted its pink nose and
sniffed the battle from afar. It suggested peace, a time of quiet
breathing after fifteen years of ceaseless and gigantic effort. And so
there was peace in France. There was peace in Paris also. Louis
XVIII ruled. J His Ministry consisted of Comte de Peyrormet, Keeper
of Seals; Vicomte de Montmorency, Foreign Minister; Comte de
Cubieres, Minister for the Interior; le Marechal Due de Bellunc,
Minister for War; Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre, Minister for the
Navy; Comte de Villele, Minister for Finance; and Monsieur de
Lauriston, King's Chamberlain. It was not a brilliant cabinet. France
was as tired of brilliance as she was of war.

To understand this Paris through whose arteries Alexandre Dumas
walked, one must, first of all, comprehend the fact that Baron Hauss-
mann was yet to exist. It was a Paris of narrow cobbled streets and ;
dirty-yellow buildings, "a city full of shadows cast by occasional oil
lamps, hanging on strings, or by torches carried by fearful pedes-
trians." It had its open expanses, its Champs £lysees, its Champs-de-
Mars, its Luxembourg Gardens, but an almost impenetrable darkness
concealed these breathing spaces at night. It was not until 1829 that
the first gas light was solemnly ignited in the rue de la Paix. The
only mode of conveyance was by omnibus and private carriage (by

72 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

1836 there were three hundred and seventy-eight buses rumbling
through the streets) for the chcmin dc fer was not introduced until
1837. It was difficult to move about, then, and while it was safe
enough in the central districts that were more or less lighted by the
shop windows and oil-lamps it was a ticklish matter to strike off into
the byways, the tortuous side-alleys where footpads and drunken
assassins lurked.

During tte day a bustling activity animated the thoroughfares.
Itinerant merchants, dirty and unshaven, swarmed along the cobbles
shouting and singing their wares. German tinder. Lumettes. Ink.
Toothpicks. Perfumes of the seraglio. Cocoa. Liquorice water.
Theatre checks. Cakes of Nanterre, sold by red-armed and bold-eyed
girls. In the rue du Havre sat one of the characters of the city, the
bedraggled merchant of tripes h la mode de Caen. About the Pont
Neuf, on it, and along the Quai des Augustins (and these were
probably the first glimpses of Paris that Dumas saw) was a motley
horde of tradesmen pushing hither and thither and vociferating their
goods, pictures by bad artists, second-hand bargains, fritters, fried
potatoes, and dogs. The dtcrotteurs (shoe-blacks) wandered through
the mob in search of young bucks (ambitious Rastignacs) who de-
sired to have their boots polished before they fared toward the Fau-
bourg St. Germain. In all the carrefours were the colored booths of
the saltimbanques (mountebanks and clowns), before the larger of
which hung gaudily painted advertisements of such wonders to be
seen within as skeletons of Chinese mandarins, the sword with which
Fernando Cortez conquered Mexico, the glass through which Colum-
bus discovered America, a button from the breeches of King Dago-
bert, the cane of M. Voltaire, colossal women and white negroes. The
shrill whine of music came from these booths and mingled with the
strident yells of the barkers. Then there were the chanteurs (singers
of topical songs) who stood on the corners or before the open fronts
of the cafes and bellowed doggerel full of concealed political allusions,
much to the joy of the shifting mob. In odd corners were raised the
tables of the arracheurs de dents malades ou saines who pulled teeth
with rusty forceps to the loud roars of their swollen-jawed victims.
Threading their way through the crowd were distributors of marvel-
lous powders warranted to cure any ailment at all in woman, man or

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 73

beast and also to act as love-philtres and aphrodisiacs, as the case might
warrant. The crowd itself was a kaleidoscopic study of ex-officers of
the Imperial Army, young bucks ogling giggling wenches, solemn
burghers in long coats, noisy students, clerks, pickpockets, and ladies
of the town. It was a vivid medley of shouting, jostling, laughter,
singing and fighting.

The Palais-Royal remained as it had been under the Empire, the
center of pleasure and business. Shops lined the arcades and third-
class tailors did a thriving business in redingotes, habits and gilets.
Young clerks gaped at wasp-waisted blue coats ornamented with gold
buttons and the old beaux forced their fat paunches into white gilets
embroidered with green flowers. Restaurants abounded and the
hungry pedestrian might dine for two francs at Chez Urbain or Chez
Richard; if he were a gourmet and desired to plunge he might go to
the more expensive places, such as Very, Vefour, or Les Freres
Provenfeaux. The smoking dishes were hurried to the stained tables
and the tall bottles of wine were emptied again and again. Limona-
diers refreshed the thirsty with sorbets or agreeable liqueurs. At the
two extremities of the Palais-Royal were the merchants of provisions
who sold everything from enormous turbots to the smallest larks.
Charlatans, pedicures, dentists, curers of headaches, were scattered
along the wooden galleries, and between four and five o'clock in the
afternoon, painted beauties strolled through the throng seeking for
trade. Around the corner was the Comedie-Franjaise where for a few
francs, the dramatically minded might see Talma or Mademoiselle
Mars in one of the solemn turgid dramas left over from the Empire.

This, then, was a Paris of movement and life, held in check only by
the colorless qualities of the Bourbon government. It was a place
where young men, especially those young men born under the suns of
Austerlitz and sensing the romantic spirit already in the air, might
push themselves forward, winning by their sheer effrontery what their
fathers had won by the sword. Art had languished under Napoleon.
He could create a brigade but he could not create a poet. He could
proscribe Chateaubriand, Madame de Stael and Lemercier, and he
could present valuable posts to Lebrun, to Luce de Lancival, to Baour-
Lormian. Louis XVIII was no better, for the Royalist reaction struck
out fiercely at literary men. But literature succeeds in spite of dynas^

74 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

ties, and in 1823 Paris was full of writers. The more illustrious of
diem, those who had achieved a certain position, included Chateau-
briand, Jouy, Lemercier, Arnault, fitienne, de Beranger, Charles
Nodier, Viennet, Scribe, Theaulon, Soumet, Casimir Delavigne, Lucien
Arnault, Ancelot, Lamartine, Desaugiers. These men differed in qual-
ity; some were to remain permanent fixtures in the hierarchy of
French letters; others were to be outmoded and forgotten completely.
But for the time all of them held the cultured ear. Then there were
the writers whose interests were political, Cousin, Salvandy, Ville-
main, Thiers, Augustin Thierry, Michelet, Mignet, Vitet, Cave,
Merimee and Guizot. Many of these men wrote for the journals, but
they wrote circumspectly, for the sharp eyes of the Bourbon censors
were upon them.

The foremost journals of the time left much to be desired. There
was the Journal dcs Debats, a government organ reflecting the con-
ciliatory royalism of Louis XVIII and M. de Villele, a policy of
optimism and vacillation. The Constituttonnel was liberal but timid
and burst out only against the Jesuits. The Drapeau Blanc was non-
descript. The Foudrc was the organ of the ultra-Royalists. The
Miroir was at the opposite pole from the Foudrc; it was ultra-liberal
and always in trouble. Animated by the wit and malice of such
minds in opposition to the times as Jouy, Arnault, Jal, Coste, Castel
and Moreau, it became the object of a relentless persecution on the
part of the government. Suppressed as the Miroir it sprang to life
again as the Pandorc; extinguished as the Pandorc it blossomed as
Opinion; scotched as Opinion it made another desperate resurrection
as the Reunion. Slaughtered as Reunion it remained in its grave to
rise no more. There was also the Courricr jrangais, a periodical almost
republican in a time when the word republic was anathema. It was
for this journal that Adolphe de Leuven's father, that old gentleman
who fed sugar to roses, wrote his editorials.

When Dumas came to Paris, to this royalist city of dirt and noise
and politics and governmental oppression, the shadow of the romantic
movement was already distinguishable among the group of untried
younger men who were at work. These men had yet to prove them-
selves; not all of them were romantics; but as a whole they represented

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS ** 75

a decided break with the older tradition. Among them were Victor
Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Honore dc Balzac, Frederick Soulie, Alfred
de Musset, Sainte-Beuve, Auguste Barbier, Alphonse Karr and Theo-
phile Gautier. George Sand was as yet unknown, the three famous
women of the day being Mesdames Desbordes-Valmore, Amable
Tastu and Delphine Gay, all poets. To say that Paris was a hive of
romantic gestation would not be saying too much. Louis XVIII,
thanks to his policy of vacillation, was to die a king and Charles X,
thanks to his policy of tyranny, was to live out the last few years of
his life in banishment. The romantic movement may be said to have
flowered into full life in the revivifying flame of the Revolution of
1830. When Louis-Philippe came to the throne the romantics came
into the sunlight. But they had been preparing for some time. Led
by Victor Hugo and Alfred de Vigny they presented a formidable
front. By 1823 eager young men were scribbling away in their attic
rooms, writing dramas that would have horrified Racine and com-
posing poems and prose works that marked a clean break with the
outworn formalism of the past. It was a good time, therefore, for the
undisciplined and ardent nature of Dumas to feed upon the inspiration
of the young men around him. He lacked a background and they
created it for him over night.

Ill

The time had come to face facts. Dumas desired that his mother
sell out everything and come to Paris with him, but Madame Dumas
demurred. She might be naive; nevertheless she possessed common
sense and understood far better than her son the value of money. His
income was to be twelve hundred francs, and at best he was only a
probationer. In three months he might have nothing, not even a desk
in the establishment of the Due d'Orleans. Madame Dumas did not
dare to sell out her bureau de tabac, remove to Paris, and trust to
fortune so utterly. She had probably never intended to do so. Alex-
andre must have his first wrestle with fortune alone and unhampered.
It was therefore decided that he should return to Paris without her
and that his bed, bedding, table linen, four chairs, a table, a chest of
drawers, and two sets of plate would be forwarded to him. He was

76 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

to engage a cheap room, settle down, work hard, and when his posi-
tion was secure he was to write to his mother. Then she would
hesitate no longer; she would sell everything and join him. As a last
gesture his mother divided the small remnant of her money with him,
kissed him and bade him godspeed.

Sunday evening a mob of townfolk gathered outside M. Carrier's
house where the awkward-looking diligence stood, and assisted at the
departure of Dumas. He was like one of the navigators of the Middle
Ages setting forth to discover new continents. Everybody was there,
everybody but Adele Dalvin. She was not there, nor did Dumas
expect her. It is doubtful that he thought of her. His quick mind
could forget as easily as it could be hurt. But the gossips were all
there, Madame Darcourt, Madame Laf arge, Madame Dupre, Madame
Dupuis. Like those knitting women, those ferocious madames of the
Terror, who sat before the guillotine and counted the heads of the
aristocrats as they dropped like melons into the bloody basket, they
were present to hear the farewells between mother and son. There are
no meetings and partings, no births and deaths in French towns that
are not witnessed by the madames, who are, after all, the tragic Greek
chorus of the comedy of life. They are the commentators on existence
and their marginal notes are history. They will watch the passing of
an Emperor and the departure of a country lad with the same vague
consciousness that both are integral portions of the annals of Time.

Madame Dumas, long after her son's diligence had disappeared,
stood watching the vacant road with tears in her eyes.

Dumas, arriving before the familiar number nine, rue de Bouloy,
Paris, paused no longer at the Hotel des Vieux-Augustins than to fling
his bag in a small chamber. He then set forth in search of permanent
lodgings. There is no more exciting occupation than this: to be young,
to arrive in the great city where one's fortune is to be made, and to
run up and down strange flights of stairs seeking for the little corner
that will be home. Dumas went up a great many flights of stairs for
he soon learned that the higher one mounted the cheaper the rent
would be. He finally entered the immense mass of houses called the
Italian quarter, and, climbing as usual, discovered a small room on the
fourth floor of number one, Place des Italiens. It was small but it

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 77

boasted an alcove. It was papered with a jaundiced yellow paper that
had cost twelve sous the piece. It opened on the back yard. The con-
cierge announced that it might be had for one hundred and twenty
francs a year. Dumas with the gesture of a Monte Cristo, admitted
that it suited, that he would move in immediately and that his furni-
ture would arrive on the following day. The concierge hinted that a
denier a Dieu might not be amiss. Dumas did not know a denier
a Dieu from the King of Dahomey. He suspected that it might be a
commission on letting the room. With a majestic gesture, copied from
the unfortunate Lafarge's box-coat era, he thrust his hand in his
pocket, drew forth a napoleon and dropped it in the palm of the
concierge. As the coin dropped — twenty francs as a denier a Dieu on
a hundred and twenty franc room — the concierge nearly dropped with
it. That individual, blowing through his whiskers like a walrus, told
his wife that a prince traveling incognito had taken the little room
upstairs. Madame Concierge immediately bustled up the four flights
and requested the honor of looking after M, Dumas. M. Dumas
agreed with a haughty air; he also agreed to pay her five francs a
month for this favor.

Again in the streets Dumas savoured the city with a new air, an
air of possession and conquest. These people hurrying by, these bright
windows, these shouting hucksters and saltimbanques, all this medley
of noise and movement and confusion formed the trappings of the
stage upon which he, Alexandre Dumas of Villers-Cotterets, was to
play an important part. He was to conquer this innumerable-headed
monster and tame it. The time would come when he would enter
brilliantly-lighted porticoes on the arm of Monsieur de Chateaubriand.
He would gaze into the starry eyes of Mademoiselle Mars. It is in this
way that youth expatiates upon the future while walking through
muddy streets and avoiding lice-ridden peddlers. Dumas turned
toward the humble quarters of General Verdier, quarters which, like
his own, were four flights up. But General Verdier, taking advantage
of a fair Sunday evening, had gone out to stroll along the boulevards.
Dumas decided to do the same thing. He stepped along with his head
held high. Presently he reached the Caf£ de la Porte-Saint-Honore
and peering inquisitively through the small-paned windows into the
crowded and lighted interior he saw someone he knew, the son of

78 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

that ancient Hiraux who had striven so hopelessly to make a violinist
of him. Young Hiraux welcomed Dumas, explained that he was the
proprietor of the Cafe de la Porte-Saint-Honore and invited the youth
to remain for dinner. Dumas sat down (he had not realized his
hunger before) and ate everything that was put before him. It was
excellent. Then, expanding under the gentle sensuous magic of smok-
ing viands, he decided to plunge, to go to the Porte-Saint-Martin
theater and witness the production of Le Vampire.

Reaching the theatre Dumas discovered enormous queues of people
enclosed by barriers waiting their turns at the ticket offices. This
seemed strange and the young man prowled about helplessly. One
of the habitues of a queue observing Dumas's confusion called to him.
"Hey, you!" Dumas turned with dignity. After all, he was a super-
numerary clerk in the Due d'Orleans' office. "Yes, you with the frizzy
locks," continued the uncouth habitut, "would you like my place?"
Dumas loftily ignored the insult to his hair. "Have you a place?" he
inquired. "Can't you see for yourself?" Dumas couldn't see anything
at all but a mob of pushing people. Still, perhaps the offensive stran-
ger had taken a place in advance. With alacrity he paid the franc
demanded by the habitue and leaping over the barrier took his posi-
tion in the queue. He fondly imagined that this franc would carry
him into the theater. When he reached the ticket office he discovered
his mistake and reluctantly disgorged six francs from his pocket while
the queue whistled and roared at him to hasten. A dull flush mantled
his face and he was debating whether he should challenge the stout
shoving gentleman behind him to a duel when he was forced through
the doors. The pit was full and Dumas found himself in the midst of
the noisy claque, which at that time ruled the theaters. When he
removed his hat a murmur of laughter went up from the claque.
Dumas glared about him. He was as sensitive about his hair as
d'Artagnan was about his buttercup-yellow pony, "Pardon me, gen-
tlemen," he said, "but I should like to know the cause of your laugh-
ter, so that I may be able to laugh with you." There was a dead
silence and then from the depths of this silence a solemn voice ex-
claimed, "Oh! that head of his!" Dumas immediately turned and
slapped the wag's face and challenged him to a duel. Three minutes
later he found himself in the street.

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 79

He began to reflect that hastiness was not always a desirable quality.
It was well enough to be punctilious about one's honor but i£ one had
come to witness a performance of Lc Vampire one might as well
exercise a bit of discretion. He had already spent more money than
he should but the play lured him. Carefully avoiding the entrance
through which he had been unceremoniously hustled into the street
he entered the theater again, buying another ticket, this time for the
orchestra. His reception was courteous enough. The orchestra con-
tained a different stamp of people from the rowdies of the pit and
Dumas sank with a sigh of relief into a seat beside a gentleman
wearing grey trousers, a buff waistcoat and a black tie. He was read-
ing a small tome entitled Lc Pastissier Francois, printed by Louis and
Daniel Elzevir at Amsterdam in 1655.

Dumas with the ingenuousness of the country boy entered into
conversation with the gentleman by inquiring if he were extremely
fond of eggs. The gentleman raised his eyes and observed the frizzy-
haired lank boy in the long coat. There was something about the
frank blue eyes turned upon him that he liked. They talked. The
strange gentleman explained the rarity of Elzevirs, the means by
which they might be identified, the various title pages, and a dozen
and one bibliographical items which were so much Greek to Dumas.
He had never been aware of the rarity of books. The rise of the
curtain put a stop to this flow of information.

Lc Vampire was an old fashioned shocker, a weird sensational
drama with supernatural beings flitting about the stage and all the
impossible hocus-pocus of the vampire legend of Lord Ruthven.
Dumas was enthralled with it. He thought Philippe as Lord Ruthven
marvelous and Madame Dorval wonderful as Malvina. The strange
gentleman beside him did not take so agreeably to the play. He
groaned, made audible remarks of the most caustic nature, was angrily
hissed by his neighbors, and at length relapsed into Lc Pastissier
Franfois. After the first and second acts he conversed engagingly with
Dumas about all sorts of things, vampire legends, rotifers, Nero, and
claques. The young man listened to this easy flow of knowledge and
language with the most pleased attention. It is doubtful that he
enjoyed the play more than the intervals, and his disappointment was
obvious when after the second act the strange gentleman rose, ex-

8o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

plained that he could stand the horrible play no longer and departed
hugging his Elzevir to his buff waistcoat. Dumas settled down to the
third act. At one of the climaxes a loud mocking whistle shrilled
from one of the boxes and shouts of "Put him out!" rose from the
hired claque. Dumas suspected the source of this interruption and
in a moment he saw his unknown gentleman in the buff waistcoat
being escorted from a box. This man was Charles Nodier, bibliophile
and author, and one of the unknown playwrights who had concocted
this very drama he was ridiculing.

Monday morning at ten thirty a new Dumas made his appearance
at the Palais-Royal, and after inquiring his way of the porter, mounted
to the right angle of the second court where the Secretariat of the
Due d'Orleans had its quarters. He was a new Dumas because he had
had his hair cut. Meditation during the night on this subject had
convinced him that he resembled one of those itinerant pomade-
sellers. These fellows went about offering their own heads as their
best advertisements. Shorn of his locks Dumas resembled a seal. He
also turned his long coat over to a tailor requesting him to slice off
about a foot. It had taken the young man but a single day to discover
that he was somewhat behind the times in point of style. How much
his experience at the theatre had to do with this renovation of his
person should be obvious.

Dumas's heart beat violently as he entered the offices on the third
floor of the Palais-Royal. There was no one there but some office boys
who viewed him with that vulgar and importunate curiosity so pecu-
liar to office boys. Dumas sat and waited, hat in hand. The boys
filled ink-wells, made sly remarks about him, stumbled over his feet
and then drifted away before the clerks who began to filter in. One
of these clerks named Ernest showed Dumas the corner where he was
to work. It was in a small room with three desks. The young man
sat down before a desk on which had been placed paper, pens and ink.
He felt extremely foolish. Just what this small bare room with its
business-like atmosphere would do to him and his future was a
mystery. It was an extremely small beginning for an ambitious youth
who desired to have plays produced at the Th^atre-Franfais, and it
/night prove a cul-dc-sac as well as a door to fame. The woodwork

A View Under the Arcade oj the Palais-Royal

THE ASSAULT ON PARIS 81

was splintered and the windows were dusty. There were strange faces
all about him. Downstairs in the court sounded many feet hurrying to
the wooden galleries that lined the many offices. Dumas picked up
his pen and prepared to copy letters.

He was interrupted several times during this first day. There was
his chef de bureau to see, M. Oudard, a brusque, fair-minded man
who welcomed him to his office and referred to the excellent recom-
mendations given Dumas by General Foy and M. Deviolaine. Dumas
had been unaware that the irascible Deviolaine, now installed in the
Palais-Royal as Conservator of the due's forests, had put in a good
word for him, and he hurried to that growling gentleman's den to
thank him. M. Deviolaine's temper was as furious as ever. He grum-
bled a welcome to Dumas, warned him against wasting his time on
filthy plays and trashy verses, cursed him out and then offered him
a loan if he needed it, and told him that he could dine at the Devio-
laine home as often as he liked. He then added: "But now be off, you
cub! You are making me waste time." Then there was M. de Broval.
M. de Broval was the Due d'Orleans' Director-General and he was
punctilious about showing Dumas how to fold envelopes and write
letters. The young man discovered that his duties were purely me-
chanical. He was to copy out in the finest handwriting the largest
possible number of letters, and these, according to their importance,
were to be signed by M. Oudard, M. de Broval or even by the Due
d'Orleans. This work was arranged by the chief clerk, Lassagne, who
shared the little office with Dumas and Ernest. It was all simple
enough and it left Dumas time in which to dream about his literary
ventures.

Freed from his first day's labors Dumas wandered toward the Hotel
des Vieux-Augustins. The city was peculiarly sweet in the twilight
and the feeling that he was one of this myriad of people hastening
home from shops and offices was strengthening to his pride. He had
never felt this way while he had been in the employ of Mai'tre Men-
nesson or M. Lef£vre. There he had been a boy playing at being in
business. Here he was on the humble rung of a ladder that might
carry him anywhere. He passed the narrow lighted portico of the
Theatre-Fran? ais with a sigh of mingled aspiration and pleasure. For
the first time he realized fully that he was now a citizen of Paris, that

82 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

its cafes and streets and theaters belonged to him, were to be a part
of his daily life, Villers-Cotterets seemed very far away, the misty
dream of a little town near a great forest.

At the Hotel des Vieux-Augustins he gathered together his few
garments and set out toward number one, Place des Italiens. He
climbed the four flights, turned his key in the door and entered. His
furniture had arrived and the wife of the concierge had put it in
place. The lamplight cast a pleasant glow on the jaundiced wall-
paper. It was his home and he sat down and gazed about him with
an air of pleased pride. It was not much but it was a beginning, and
more often than not the beginning was everything. He sat for a
long time ruminating on the day's events, the pleasant manners of
Lassagne, the cheerful face of Ernest, the brusque graciousness of
M. Oudard, the fussy punctiliousness of M. de Broval, the bear-like
manner of M. Deviolaine, the sheaves of white paper, the steady
scratching of quill pens, the cries of clerks in the courts of the Palais-
Royal, the little restaurant at the corner where he had lunched
hastily with Lassagne and Ernest, the flower girls who strolled along
the wooden galleries, the hawkers crying from every corner. A faint
mist of loneliness, intangible, hardly sensed, crept about the small
room. Was it his mother he wanted? What was it? He put on his
hat and started forth for his dinner, and descending the first few
steps from the fourth floor he stepped aside to let a plump little
woman with a smiling face and bright hair pass. She entered the
door opposite his own and as she entered she looked back. Dumas
stood and observed the door for some minutes and then, whistling
softly to himself, he proceeded on his way downward, crossed the
Place des Italiens and steered a course toward the river. It would
be fine to see the Seine flowing beneath its many bridges in the
early evening and to pick out the squat towers of Notre Dame etched
against the dark blue sky.

CHAPTER FOUR

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST
I

LASSAGNE, chief clerk of the small office wherein Dumas scribbled
away with Ernest, was a young man of taste and literary inclinations.
Endowed with an extremely slight creative power, he more than made
up for the thinness of his talent by a sound comprehension of literary
values. He was a critic and not to be taken in by the hollow fame of
the more prominent men of the day. It was from him that Dumas
received excellent advice as the two men became better acquainted
and discovered the creative urge in one another. Next to de Leuven,
Lassagne was the most important influence on the mind of the young
greenhorn from Villers-Cotterets. He disabused Dumas of his easy
faith in much-bruited names. He scorned M. Arnault and detested
that old gentleman's pompous and turgid plays, Germanicus and
Marius h Minturncs. Lucien Arnault he thought still worse and
burst into a stifled guffaw at the mention of Rtgulus. M. de Jouy
was impossible; M. Lemercier was beneath mention; M. Baour-
Lormian was terrible. These men created their own reputations in
the newspapers. Dumas's jaw dropped at this decisive iconoclasm.
"If you want to write," said Lassagne, "do not take the literature of
the Empire as your model." He pointed out the stilted and absurdly
formalized technique of the older men, the ridiculous set speeches,
the dry bastardization of Racine, the absence of blood and actual
emotion, and the grumbling artificial oratory. Whom should the
young man take as models, then? Lassagne shrugged his shoulders.
The younger men, Soumet, Guiraud, Casimir Delavigne, Ancelot,
possessed talent; Lamartine and Hugo were inspired poets. "The
theater is humanity," said Lassagne. "I have said that our young

83

84 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

dramatic authors possess talent, that is, Soumet, Guiraud, Delavigne,
Ancelot; but take heed of this, they belong solely to a period of transi-
tion; they are links which connect the chain of the past to the chain
of the future, bridges which lead from what has been to what will be."
Dumas thought this over. Lassagne was prophesying a new era.
The literature of the immediate future, the works to be written by
those young men born beneath the suns of Austerlitz, would be a
complete split with the past, a refusal of the ideas of the Empire, and
a school in itself. What was it to be? Lassagne did not know.
He did know that Dumas should imitate nobody. "Take passions,
events, characters," he advised, "and smelt them all down in the
furnace of your imagination." He was prophesying the romantic
movement although he did not know it. He questioned Dumas as to
his reading. The demoralized young man had read nobody. Lassagne
advised him to read Shakespeare, Schiller, Moliere, Terence, Plautus,
Aristophanes, Goethe, Walter Scott and Cooper. Goethe would give
him poetry; Walter Scott would give him character studies; Cooper
would give him the mysterious grandeur of prairies, forests and
oceans. "Ah," said the young man, "then a man who could be a
poet like Goethe, an observer like Scott, and clever at description
like Cooper, with the addition of passion ..." "Would be almost
perfect," ended Lassagne. They conversed in this way for some time
while Dumas's quill pen hung suspended in mid-air. Suddenly
Lassagne said, 'Trance is waiting for the historical novel!" The
thought had never entered the young man's head, He exclaimed,
"But the history of France is so dull." At this moment the unborn
ghosts of d'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, Porthos, Chicot, Coconnas,
Henri Quatre, Bussy d'Ambois, Queen Margot, Ange Pitou, La Mole,
the Due de Beaufort, Fouquet, Balsamo, the Chevalier de Maison-
Rouge, Mauleon, Richelieu, and a hundred others stirred uneasily
in the misty cavern of the future. "Dull!" shouted Lassagne. He
stared with pity at the blushing clerk. "How do you know it
is dull?" he asked. "People have told me so," replied Dumas. "Peo-
ple!" exclaimed Lassagne. "Read for yourself and find out." "What
must I read?" "A whole world of books," answered Lassagne. "Join-
ville, Froissart, Monstrelet, CMtelain, Juvenal des Ursins, Montluc,

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 85

Saulx-Tavannes, 1'Estoile, Cardinal de Retz, Saint-Simon, Villars,
Madame de la Fayette, Richelieu. . . . " He strung off names until
Dumas was dizzy with the sounding syllables. He know nothing
about them. He was twenty-one years old and the entire history of
France was a closed book to him.

Lassagne proceeded with his advice. He told Dumas what poetry
he must read, Homer, Virgil, Dante among the ancients, and Ronsard,
Mathurin Regnier, Milton, Goethe, Uhland, Byron, Lamartine, Victor
Hugo and Andre Chenier among the moderns. Dumas, who had
read nothing except a little Voltaire and a great deal of Parny, Bertin,
Demoustier, Legouve and Colardeau, heard these strange names and
carefully wrote them down on the slip of paper which was already
crowded with notations. He observed this list a little woefully, for
it seemed to him that he would have to spend the rest of his life
reading, that the time would never come when he would be equipped
to write. The overwhelming sense of his ignorance shamed him. He
resolved, however, to apply himself most intensively to this universe
(for it was not less) that Lassagne had outlined for him. He dis-
covered within a short time that he could copy without thinking of
what he was copying, and this enabled him to ruminate on other
matters while his pen scratched swiftly and neatly across page after
page of paper. He began to dip into works of the authors suggested
by Lassagne, and as he labored in his office he would recall to memory
scenes from these works. He searched always for passions, for the
lively movement and interplay of the emotions, and the vague con-
ception of art which had so briefly stirred in his mind in Villers-
Cotterets fluttered again. As yet he could not formulate it, but under
the guidance of Lassagne he could recognize the falsities of the con-
temporary art of Paris, could see that it lacked the spark of life. Just
what was needed he knew no more than Lassagne; but his mercurial
intelligence was leading him toward the solution of the problem, a
solution which he reached as soon as Victor Hugo did with the sup-
pressed Marion Delorme and the sensational Hernani. Beside him was
Lassagne, gentle-voiced and persuasive, pushing him forward through
a labyrinth of literature and life, and within a few months the country
boy was a country boy no longer. He was a Parisian.

86 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Dumas's closest friend was still dc Leuven, who was struggling
without particular success to achieve an acceptance at some theatre.
How could it be that dc Leuven had never spoken of these great
writers Lassagne knew by heart ? Could it be that the failures of the
son of the Swedish nobleman were in some way due to the young
man's ignorance of them? Dumas remembered the old Baron's
malicious little smile as he fed sugar to his roses. He decided to
ask the young Swedish writer about this, but Adolphe was full of
his own woes. He had recently written a drama in collaboration with
Frederic Soulie, and it had been refused at the Gymnase Theatre.
Before this they had concocted from Walter Scott a drama called
Lc Chdtcau dc Kcnilworth that had a sudden demise. Adolphe,
therefore, was fretting and fuming when Dumas reached his house.
There was nothing to do but sit and listen to Adolphe's woes, and
when the dinner hour arrived, to sit and listen to the entire Arnault
family.

M. Arnault was not difficult to listen to. Subtle, mordant, and
satirical he was an excellent example of the elder author and play-
wright born out of the discordancies of the Revolution into the
thunder of the Empire. Marius h Minturncs had been produced in
1790 to the plaudits of the sans-culottes and among his other plays
were Lucrecc, an abysmal failure, Oscar, an Ossianic tragedy dedi-
cated to Bonaparte, Lcs Vtniticns, and Gcrmanicus. He had resided
in Paris through the Terror, known Danton, Desmoulins and the
other leaders of that chaotic period, and followed Bonaparte to Egypt,
been chief clerk at the Universite during the Empire — one of his
clerks being Beranger who wrote Lc Roi d'Yvetot there — had been
exiled in 1815, was fond of dogs and was extremely short-sighted and
forgetful. He could talk excellently and the entree to his home which
Dumas obtained through the de Leuvens afforded the young man the
greater part of his social converse during his first year in Paris. Out-
side of these homes he possessed very few places that would receive
him. He was young and raw and without influence. He made the
most, therefore, of the few friends he had.

Among them Frederic Soulie, the collaborator with Adolphe of
Lc Chdtcau dc Kcnilworth. Soulie, born in 1800, was the first of the
important men of his generation whom Dumas knew. He never

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 87

agreed with Soulie and Soulie never agreed with him but their lit-
erary antagonisms did not disturb their friendship. Souli£ was in his
early twenties when Dumas first met him, a lusty young man of
medium height, with dark hair, eyebrows and beard, and with thick
lips and white teeth. It was pleasant to drop into his chambers in
the rue de Provence, to listen to his malicious bantering — for he
thought little of Dumas at first— to eat cakes and drink tea, to
sing ribald choruses, to discuss the future with the hodgepodge of
visitors who circled about Soulie. There were also times when Soulie
grew serious and declaimed from his poems and plays. He was versa-
tile and turned out with some ease poetry, dramas and novels. None
of this work was distinguished, but it was adequate for its time, and
when Soulie died he left a little fame behind him, a fame based on
such efforts as Amours Frangaises, Clothilde, Eulalie Pontois, Lc Ma*
gnetiseur, Les Deux Cadavres and Lcs Mcmoircs du Diablc. He was
one of the forerunners of the new literature but he lacked coordina-
tion; his technique was haphazard; his beginnings and endings
pitiful; his exposition confused and obscure. But he was a dynamic
character, sure of himself and with decided convictions. It was good
for young Dumas to brush against him in verbal arguments, and
although the youth hardly knew what he was talking about, the con-
versation often clarified his own thoughts and brought him closer
to that cognizance of himself and what he desired to do. In Lassagne
and de Leuven and Soulie he possessed three mentors who brought
him varying things. Lassagne opened the doors of living literature
to him. De Leuven spurred him to constant literary endeavors. Soulie
impressed upon him the humility of his own ignorance. There was
still a fourth friend who played no small part during this period.

This was a young doctor named Thibaut who possessed no practice
and therefore had plenty of time to discuss literature and talk about
the world. The way in which Dumas became acquainted with
Thibaut throwns a light on the literary mannerisms of the day.
During 1823 and 1824 it was the fashion to suffer from chest com-
plaints. Poets, particularly, were consumptive; it was excellent form
to expectorate blood after each emotion and to die to soft music before
teaching the age of thirty. Dumas was tall and thin and so was
Adolphe de Leuven, They were both poetically-minded so they

88 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

decided to be consumptive. Picture Dumas, then, walking gloomily
along the rue de Richelieu, coughing delicately now and then into
a handkerchief. The hacking quality of this cough rose in ratio to
the pulchritude of the young ladies who passed. It was natural enough
to call on a doctor. Thibaut was the victim in this case, victim because
Dumas had no money wherewith to pay his bill. But Thibaut liked
the young man, saw the awakening of something real in him, rather
pooh-poohed the bloodless cough— for try as hard as he could Dumas
might split the handkerchief but he could produce no blood— and
took the potential playwright with him to the Hofital de la CharitL
There Dumas picked up some knowledge of anatomy and lung
diseases, enough in fact to aid him materially with his novel, Amaury,
some years later. Thibaut, who appears to have known a little about
everything, undertook Dumas's education in various ways and for a
brief period they passed many evenings together in a small room in
the rue du Pelican which overlooked the passage Vero-Dodat. There
they studied physics and chemistry, and Dumas first learned about
the poisons which Madame de Villefort used in Monte Cristo. A
coquettish young milliner named Mademoiselle Walker sometimes
took part in these physiological studies. Dumas by this time was
reading assiduously. After some boggling at Scott he developed a
genuine love for him; he devoured the translated work of Cooper;
he formed a real passion for Lord Byron. With Thibaut to give him
science, Soulie criticism, de Leuven ambition and Lassagne passion,
Dumas in a single year traveled a tremendous distance from the bird-
snares of Villers-Cotterets.

His progress at the Palais-Royal was satisfactorily enough so far
as the estimate of his superiors went. He worked easily with Ernest.
Lassagne had become a personal friend. M. Oudard maintaintd his
impartial but courteous supervision, and M. de Broval appeared
rarely. He had even seen, talked with and done special work for
the Due d'Orleans. The due at that time was about fifty years old,
exceedingly stout, with a bright and intelligent eye, affable though
slightly withdrawn in the true aristocratic manner, and when he
was in the mood given to singing in a voice atrociously off-key.
Dumas's handwriting pleased him and the young man was called in
occasionally to the private offices to copy special matter from the die-

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 89

tation of the future Louis-Philippe* Dumas had an extra duty which
he shared with Ernest. The due lived in Neuilly and every evening
one of the young men was despatched there with the evening papers
and any personal letters that may have arrived late. This material was
presented to the due who, after glancing through it, dictated his orders
for the next day. The trip was irksome because it took two hours
out of the evening, from eight to ten, and therefore it was impossible
for the messenger to go to any play except the one at the Theatre-
Fran^ais which was next door to the Palais-Royal. Fortunately there
were free tickets for the Theatre-Fran$ais, M. Oudard having three
a day at his disposal, and Dumas was soon acquainted with the
repertoire and present at all new productions shortly after the opening
night. The craze for the theatre was upon him. He talked, ate and
slept 3rama and as his four friends were in the same bemused condi-
tion it was natural that his creative impulses should wholly tend that
way.

Dumas had changed in appearance during the months at the Palais-
Royal. His hair was not as long as a pomade peddler's nor as short
as a seal's. His coat fitted properly; a foppish note of color crept into
his gilets; his trousers hung gracefully over well polished and pointed
boots. In the evening he wore a cape a la Byron. He carried a cane,
walked bareheaded, assumed a melancholy expression and no longer
encouraged quarrels with the claques. His incursions upon the social
evenings of the de Leuvens and the Arnaults gave him a certain
degree of savoir faire. As he was naturally bright, spontaneously
witty and quick to comprehend, he pleased. During his free hours
he continued to collaborate with Adolphe, and several vaudevilles
and dramas began to assume a somewhat inchoate stature on paper.
He was also writing poetry and it is obvious that he considered him-
self primarily a poet, a dramatic poet, at this time. As yet his creative
endeavors were too meager to conflict with his clerical work. How-
ever, he was underpaid and understood that he must supplement his
wages by outside work of some sort. Most of the clerks found it
impossible to live on the pittance reluctantly turned over to them by
the thrifty due. Some of them had married sempstresses who added
their earnings to the common fund. Others acted as waiters in thirty-

90 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

two sous restaurants on the Left Bank. Dumas wanted to double his
income by writing successful plays.

On January i, 1824, he was promoted from supernumerary clerk
at twelve hundred francs a year to the post of regular clerk, an
appointment bringing in fifteen hundred francs. For a short while
the three hundred extra francs a year dazzled him. He considered
his state to be flourishing and wrote to Madame Dumas, reminding
her of her promise to sell out the bureau de tabac in Villers-Cotterets
and join him as soon as he was definitely settled in Paris and his
fortunes appeared to be waxing. Madame Dumas, to whom three
hundred francs seemed a very great amount indeed, consented and
started negotiations for the disposal of her little shop. She sold it
and the greater part of her shabby furniture, and wrote to her son
that she would arrive with her bedstead, a chest of drawers, a table,
new armchairs, four chairs and a hundred louis in cash. A hundred
louis! Dumas was amazed and delighted. It was double his own
year's income and meant that they should have twenty-four hundred
francs a year for the next two years. He needed this extra money as
we shall see, for an event important both to Dumas and to the future
of French drama was about to transpire.

The love which Dumas bore his mother was unquestionable.
Though in the heedlessness of youth he might neglect her the quality
and profundity of his affection was never in doubt. It is possible that
he dramatized himself somewhat even in this passion as he dramatized
his life throughout his career. He was always his own best audience
and his greatest play was himself. A vanity that was child-like and
negroid possessed him, the sort of vanity that caused his son to say
years later: "My father is so vain that he is not above mounting
behind his own carriage so that people will think he possesses a
negro footman." This vanity was curbed in his youth. It needed
success and public adulation to bring it out. When he did blossom
he blossomed as does some exotic flower from the tropics which
spreads its enormous scarlet petals to the warm sun. His love for
his mother was a brightly hued petal. He loved to expatiate on it
in later years, to burst into tears at the thought of it. And while it
seemed slightly maudlin to colder-blooded folk it was nevertheless
reasonable enough in a man whose blood was Latin and negroid.

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 91

Dumas hardly ever rationalized; to think of an emotion was imme-
diately to be a part of it, to enter into it, to quiver, sigh and exhaust
oneself with the delicate furore of it. Madame Dumas, for her part,
worshipped her son and possibly, with the tenacious combativeness
of the mother, she worshipped him all the more because he was so
constantly decried by worthy neighbors and gossips. They saw no
more than a pushing youngster; she saw a pulsing ambition that
was resistless. When the gossips warned her against leaving Villers-
Cotterets for the uncertainty of Paris she said nothing. Her son would
look out for her.

On the twenty-ninth of July, 1824, the event important both to
Dumas and the future of the French drama took place. As he him-
self proudly put it: "Whilst the Due de Montpensier came into the
world at the Palais-Royal, a Due de Chartres was born to me at
number one Place des Italiens." In other words, he had a son, that
Alexandre Dumas fils who was to write La Dame aux Camelias and
Lc Demi-Monde. It happened naturally enough. Opposite his fourth-
floor room and across the landing was a door. Behind this door lived
Marie-Catherine Lebay, a short and blond young sempstress, who had
separated from her husband and come from Rouen to make her way
in the capital. She was not pretty but she was charming. It was this
young woman Dumas passed on the stairs the first evening at number
one Place des Italiens, They had passed each other often on the stairs
in the days following. Bright looks had given place to smiles; smiles
had developed into greetings; greetings had enlarged to conversations.
It was not long before the young man was invited from his single
room papered with jaundiced-yellow to the larger quarters of Marie-
Catherine. She possessed two rooms. The solitariness of the two
young people did its work. Dumas, when he was not with de Leuven
or Thibaut or at some performance at the Theatre-Fran^ais, was with
Marie-Catherine. They dined in the cheap little restaurants of the
Palais-Royal or she cooked some simple meal in her rooms. She was
bright, cheerful, anxious to joke at life, and she listened in awe to
the roseate future the young man prophesied. He thrilled her with
names. He had talked to the Due d'Orleans that day. He had seen
the King come from the Tuileries. He was fat and white and

92 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

lethargic and he had leaned back in his heavy coach. There was
death in his face. M. de Broval had a large red nose and sometimes
he almost folded it into his envelope. Marie-Catherine would laugh
at this.

Then they would walk along the quais where M. Villenave, the
old bibliophile, poked through the dusty bibelots and quartos and
folios, and that sweet twilight of Paris which is unlike any other
twilight in the world would descend along the river, and Notre
Dame, the Institute, the Louvre would assume a clear quiet color
that transformed them into buildings out of a dream. The ardent
nature of young Dumas would respond quickly to the smiles and
bird-like mannerisms of Marie-Catherine. They walked hand in
hand. And one evening when they had climbed the four steep flights
of stairs and reached the little landing Dumas did not turn into his
own room.

After that the jaundiced-yellow papered room and the two cham-
bers opposite ceased to be different dwellings. There was only one
apartment, a three-room apartment, four flights up at number one
Place des Italiens. It was the habit of the day. Young men, clerks,
poets, dramatists, possessed their small menages unblessed by the
soutaned priest. These young people passed their brief springtimes
together, shook hands and parted, achieved fame and made advan-
tageous marriages. If they remembered each other at all it was with
a half smile and a tear. It was the first Bohemia, the legendary land
of Henri Murger. With light hearts these enfants du stidc gazed
back from more spacious chambers to the little rooms where they
had weathered life so long with their young mistresses and made
a mock of life and all its cares. B£ranger understood.

For Dumas this addition to his menage meant renewed worries
over the future. His mother was on her way from Villers-Cotterets
with her furniture and a hundred louis. It would be necessary to find
quarters for her also, and he spent many long days tramping through
the streets in the neighborhood of the Palais-Royal searching for
rooms that would be both satisfactory and cheap. He found them at
last at fifty-three Faubourg St. Denis in a house adjoining the Lion
d* Argent. There, for three hundred and fifty francs a year he secured
two rooms. His mother arrived with her furniture, moved in and was

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 93

delighted. Dumas ostensibly dwelt with her, although the greater
part of his free time was passed at the Place des Italiens where Marie-
Catherine was nursing his child. He now had two menages to support
on his fifteen hundred francs a year. It seemed an impossible task but
he determined to succeed with the aid of plays. He had two or three
of these efforts in hand with de Leuven, but de Leuven had failed in
collaboration with Soulie, and it began to be obvious that a third
collaborator was needed, one with practical knowledge of the con-
temporary Parisian theatre and some sort of entrance there. It was
not that de Leuven lacked application. He had written a Bon Vieil-
lard which had been refused at the Gymnase; his Pauvre Fille had
been rejected at the Vaudeville; Le Chdteau de Kenilworth had not
even been considered at the Porte-Saint-Martin where a play on the
same subject had just been presented, De Leuven's failure was pos-
sibly due to an inability on his part to spot and work up situations
which actually were "theater." He was too timid, too safe.

So while the two young men searched for a third "practical" col-
laborator they continued to block out their ideas. Dumas settled his
mother at fifty-three Faubourg St. Denis and then hurried off to
Marie-Catherine and the child who had been named Alexandre. It
was just as well to give him a famous name at the start. Madame
Dumas scoured her little apartment, formed an acquaintance with
M, Despres who lived next door and was dying of consumption, and
waited with some degree of tremulous calmness for her son's triumphs.
She had experienced so many disappointments and sorrows that she
was a trifle uneasy about these prophesied triumphs, but her son's
ebullience overcame her misgivings. He procured theater tickets from
M. Oudard, Adolphe and M. Arnault, and plunged her into a week
of play-going. The poor widow who had witnessed no more than
half a dozen dramas during her lifetime was entranced. Perhaps,
after all, things would turn out well. In the meantime the hundred
louis she had brought with her dwindled away, on new curtains,
clothes for the baby, a gilet for her son, a dozen and one unexpected
trifles. The roar of Paris was about her and she was somewhat be-
wildered. Her heart, which had always beat a little too fast, weakened
as the time crept along.

At this time while Alexandre Dumas fils was wailing in his cradle

94 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

and M. de Chateaubriand was being ejected from the ministry for
his opposition to the re-established censorship, Destiny who treats all
impartially wrote out a brusque order concerning Louis XVIIL One
morning, the twelfth of September, 1824, two bulletins were issued
from the Tuileries, making it known that the King's illness was
incurable and that he had not long to live. Louis-Stanislas-Xavier,
Comte de Provence, and by the grace of Talleyrand, King of France,
was suffering from mortification of the legs. The Bourse and the
theaters were closed and the populace of Paris passively awaited the
end. The bulletins issued from the Tuileries were the first that France
had read since the death of Louis XV. They were also the last. On
the sixteenth of the month at four o'clock in the morning the King
died, and as the death-sheet was being drawn over his face the herald-
at-arms turned to the Comte d'Artois, brother of the dead man, and
exclaimed: "The King is dead! Long live the King!" Charles X
walked from the room, assisting the weeping Duchesse d'Angouleme.
In this way a King who had retained his throne through a vacillating
policy made way for a King who was to lose his throne because of
a tyrannous royalism.

Dumas was not so absorbed in politics at this time as he was to be
six years later when his patron, Monsieur le Due d'Orleans, was to
mount the dangerous throne as Louis-Philippe. He observed the
funeral cortege with calm eyes as it wound its way to Saint-Denis;
he read Chateaubriand's Le Roi cst Mort! Vive le Roi! and thought
it poor stuff; he absorbed Les Funer allies de Louis XVIII, an ode
by a stocky young man named Hugo, and considered it wonderful;
he heard that the Marquis de la Fayette was making a triumphal
tour of the United States of America and wondered vaguely about
that far-away land; he saw from the journals that Lamartine had been
rejected by the Academy and that a gentleman named Droz had been
elected. So the year 1824 came to an end.

On January 3, 1825, Tallancourt, a retired Napoleonic soldier, gave
a dinner at the Palais-Royal to Dumas and another soldier of the
Empire named Betz. Tallencourt had recently been appointed to
the Due d'Orleans' library and the dinner was to celebrate this
appointment. The three men dined well and then adjourned to the

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 95

Cafe Hollandais to smoke a cigar. Dumas, who detested tobacco
(unless it were served up in some exotic shape as in a narghileh)
and tobacco cafes, went with them reluctantly. He was clad in a large
cloak, one of those romantic items of the day rejoicing in the name
of a Quiroga, and when he swept into the cafe, properly Byronic in
all his gestures, he annoyed one of the habitues who was at that
moment playing billiards. The annoyed gentleman looked at Dumas's
voluminous cloak, leaned over the billiard table and said something
to his antagonist, whereupon both players, glancing in the young
man's direction, burst into raucous laughter. Dumas flew into a fury
and seizing a cue mixed up the balls on the table while he said to
his astonished Napoleonic soldiers, "Who would like to play billiards
with me?" The usual results followed, cards were exchanged, a time
and place fixed, and Dumas was scheduled for his first duel.

There were elements of comedy in this combat.

Tallancourt and Betz, uncertain of the raw youth's qualities, took
him to a shooting gallery where the young man proceeded to pepper
a poupee in proper style. He had not hunted in the forests about
Villers-Cotterets for nothing. Tallancourt looked at Betz and smiled,
and Betz gazed back at Tallancourt with an air of satisfaction. Then
the two, acting as seconds for Dumas, called on the annoyed gentle-
man's aides and discovered that the antagonist had chosen swords.
"Ma foil" muttered Tallancourt, "This is different." He pictured
Dumas run through the stomach. But Dumas reassured him and
explained that old Mounier had taught him the art of fence. He
even made some fiery gestures in the air, illustrating what tremendous
lunges he knew and how well he could guard himself. Tallancourt
scratched his car and said nothing.

On the way home Dumas suffered a reversal of feeling. His bravery
oozed from him. He thought of his mother, of Alexandre fils, of
Marie-Catherine, of his future, and began to wish that he were well
out of the mess into which his vanity had plunged him. He remained
with his mother all evening and was extremely quiet. If only his
heart would stop beating so furiously. He was sure that his mother
could hear it. He went to bed and slept restlessly. At eight o'clock
in the morning — it was a cold, bitter day with snow on the ground —
he rose, wrapped his father's sword in his Quiroga, and set forth for

96 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

the Hotel de Nantes, near which his encounter was to take place.
The four seconds were there but the antagonist was decidedly missing.
Nine o'clock passed. Ten o'clock. Eleven o'clock. Still no antagonist.
Dumas, who had eaten no breakfast, experienced a plaintive gnawing
at his stomach. Tallancourt who did not want to lose his new position
through tardiness, was cross and impatient. The cold began to numb
their fingers and feet. It seemed there were drawbacks about the
romantic life. At length Dumas was sent along to the Palais-Royal
to resume his copying, and the four seconds scurried off in search of
the missing man. When Tallancourt came in, some half hour later,
he explained that the antagonist had forgotten to get up. He had
been skating on the canal most of the day before and had a pain in
his back. His disgusted seconds withdrew immediately. But Tallan-
court and Betz insisted on a duel and it had been arranged for the
next day in one of the Montmartre quarries near the Rochechouart
barrier. Dumas groaned. He decided that his seconds were too

officious.

In the morning he was at the Rochechouart barrier and there,
worse luck, was his antagonist. The sight of six men walking sol-
emnly into the Montmartre quarry drew a group of loafers who stood
about offering obnoxious advice. Dumas discovered that his sword
was two inches shorter than the one carried by his adversary. This
did not make him feel any better. He flung off his coat and putting
himself on guard strove to out-glare his opponent. But that individual
had ideas of his own and demanded that Dumas remove both his
gilet and his shirt. This seemed exorbitant to Dumas for it was a
fearfully cold day but, as the opponent insisted, he thrust the point
of his sword into the snow and flung off his upper garments. Then
he took his pose again and his trousers, lacking the necessary support
of braces, started to slip down. This threatened defalcation of a neces-
sary garment was adjusted much to the delight of the congregated
loafers. Dumas was excessively angry by this time and without more
ado began the attack. His opponent guarded himself so carelessly
that, after a few passes, Dumas lowered his weapon and said: "Defend
yourself, monsieur!" "What if I do not choose to put myself into
a position of defence?" replied his adversary with a furious scowl.
The magnificence of this retort left Dumas speechless and he thrust

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 97

out at him. The adversary leaped backward, stumbled over a frozen
root, and fell head over heels into the snow. "Oh! Oh!'* shouted
Tallancourt, "Have you killed him with the first pass?" "I barely
touched him!" replied Dumas bitterly. The adversary's seconds, rush-
ing forward, solved the peculiar acrobatic leap in which he had
indulged. When Dumas had thrust his sword into the snow while
removing his gilet and shirt the tip had frozen and this frozen tip,
touching the antagonist's shoulder, had startled him so that he had
performed a back somersault. This ended the duel Dumas donned
his shirt and gilet, tightened up his trousers, flung his Quiroga about
him, and descended the ramparts of Montmartre with a lighter heart
than he had ascended them.

He was to have other duels during his life and not all of them were
to be as comical as this first venture upon the life militant. He was
to face danger and face it with actual courage, or at least the aspect
of courage. At the same time, he was never to plunge too close to
the cannon's mouth. He himself has stated in his Memoires that he
believed every man, especially if endowed with sensitive organizations,
naturally fears danger, and if left to his own instincts, would do his
best to escape it; he is kept back simply and solely by moral strength
and manly pride. There is another quality that over-rides cowardice,
which Dumas did not mention, and that is vanity. After a young
man had fought his first duel in the Paris of the 18205 he may be
said to have cut his eye-teeth and ceased to be a student of life. He
had entered into life. Dumas had now entered into life, and though
he dramatized his existence by such ridiculous accessories as a faked
consumptive cough, a Quiroga, and a fire-eating attitude, he was, at
bottom, real enough. He possessed a born romantic temperament and
what others had to learn by difficult study and laborious rationaliza-
tion came naturally to him. It is a temperament with flaws and there
were indubitably grave flaws in Dumas, his vanity, his polygamous
proclivities, his intoxication with himself, his occasional bland ignor-
ing of the integrities of authorship, his posing, his oratorical nature;
but all of these were excrescences on a veritable nature that was unique
and quick with an enormous vitality. Michelet was to write years later
to Dumas, "I love you and admire you because you are one of the
forces of nature." In the young man of 1825 may be discovered that

98 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

force of nature, quiescent as yet but decipherable at odd moments.

While Paris was becoming crowded with foreign celebrities for
the coronation ceremonies of Charles X, de Leuven and Dumas settled
upon a third collaborator to assist them with their plays. His name
was Rousseau and he was always drunk. He was not related to the
famous Jean-Jacques. Prince Esterhazy came from Austria. Spain
sent the Due de Ville-Hermosa. Great Britain despatched the Duke
of Northumberland. From Prussia came General de Zastrow. The
Prince Volkonski arrived from Russia. Charles X announced: "Noth-
ing is changed in France, there is simply one more Frenchman in it."
At the Palais-Royal there was a constant state of f£te. His Majesty
Charles X had graciously granted the title of Royal Highness (Son
Altesse Royale) to the Due d'Orleans. Rousseau slept through all
this. People died. On June twenty-sixth Pauline Bonaparte, Princess
Borghese, breathed her last in Florence. The memory of embroidered
slippers on tiny feet flashed through Dumas's romantic mind. Alex-
andre fits was almost a year old. Rousseau lamented the death of
Louis XVIH by getting drunk. He celebrated the succession of
Charles X by getting drunker. He was the true Bohemian. When
he possessed nine bottles of brandy he was surrounded by the Nine
Muses.

De Leuven and Dumas set out through the crowded streets in
search of Rousseau. They carried as bait several bottles of good old
Bordeaux, three flasks of rum and some loose sugar. They found
Rousseau in the rue du Pctit-Carreau. He sat gazing out of a window
and he lifted his blood-shot eyes in faint amazement when his two
visitors entered. He saw the bottles and welcomed his guests. It is
time to enlarge upon Rousseau.

Rousseau, as has been intimated, belonged to that famous company
V which included Villon and later, Favart, Dcsaugiers and Armand
men who never worked except to the pop of corks. All sorts
: quaint stories about Rousseau circulated through the literary circles

Paris. He had, for example, engraved upon his memory the name

a certain police officer, and neither brandy nor wine nor rum nor
Branch could wipe it out Rousseau staggering, Rousseau stuttering,
"lousseau tight, Rousseau drunk, Roussq^i dead drunk, Rousseau

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 99

unable to remember his mother's name or his own name or his own
address or the country in which he lived clung tenaciously to the
name of that police officer. Whenever he was helpless he called for
assistance and ordered that he be taken to that unfortunate guardian
of the law. The worried policeman would then lead Rousseau home.
Sometimes he carried him. Once Rousseau passed a restaurant called
Les Deux Singes (The Two Apes). It was after midnight but he
rang until an irritated waiter came down. "I must see the proprietor,"
hiccupped Rousseau. The proprietor got out of bed, dressed and
came to the door. "What is it?" he asked, thinking that some one
in his family had died. "I wish to speak to your partner,** stuttered
Rousseau. "Partner? I have no partner," exclaimed the proprietor.
"Then why do you put on your sign — the Two Apes?" inquired
Rousseau. "I think that is cheating the public." Another time an
heroic friend strove to lead the inebriated Rousseau home. Rousseau's
legs proved traitors. The friend gave up the unequal struggle, laid
the unconscious dramatist down in front of a fruiterer's shop, placed
a lantern beside him, and departed saying, "Sleep in peace, son of
Epicurus. No one will trample upon you." In the morning when
Rousseau awoke he found five or six sous in his hand, placed there
by kind souls who had thought him a poor wandering outcast

But in spite of his drunkenness Rousseau had talent. He could
invent witty and clever lines. He could write engaging farces and
vaudevilles. In other words, he knew the secret of sprightly dialogue.
It was for this reason that Dumas and de Leuven, aware that some-
thing was lacking in their own efforts, sougjht him out Rousseau
welcomed them and permitted them to bear him off to Adolphe's new
chambers in the rue de la Bruyere. There the young men set him
down and proceeded to read in turn to him their collected wods.
When they looked up Rousseau was sound asleep and snoring on
the couch. They roused him and he asked permission to take their
scripts with him, two melodramas and three comic operas. He would
read them carefully and deliver an opinion within a few days. The
young men watched him lurch out with some misgivings. "Will he
return or not?" asked Dumas. "We will invite him to dinner and
at die foot of the invitation write 'there will be two bottles of
replied Adolphe.

ioo THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Rousseau did make his appearance at dinner and explained that
neither the melodramas nor the comic operas pleased him. The
melodramas were borrowed from well known novels and the comic
operas were founded on ideas that were dull from beginning to end.
Dumas was discouraged but Adolphe's faith in himself was fortified
by a doubt of Rousseau. "He has not read them/' he whispered to
Dumas, while Rousseau was emptying the second bottle of cham-
pagne. This might be true and it helped to restore Dumas's confi-
dence. He began to tell tales about his youth in Villers-Cotterets,
about old Hiraux and his violin, about Mounier and his pierced uvula,
about the Parisians who came to the forest on hunting expeditions.
There was the case of M. Arnault, author of Marius h Minturnes,
who had come to hunt in the Tillet Wood. He had been given a
good position and, as he was extremely short-sighted, he had seated
himself on the ground. He drew a note-book from his pocket and
started a fable. Soon he heard a rustling in the wood. He laid down
his note-book, picked up his gun and vaguely aimed it in the direc-
tion of the sound. "Oh, monsieur," a woman's voice cried out, "don't
shoot! You will kill my cow." M. Arnault cleared his throat and
courteously replied, "Are you quite sure it is your cow and not a
roebuck?" "Oh, Monsieur, you will see. . . ." And the woman,
running up to the cow, pulled vigorously at the poor beast's tail until
it emitted a loud doleful moo. "You are right," said M. Arnault.
"I think I am mistaken." He sat down on the ground and returned
to his fable.

Rousseau slapped his thigh.

"What do you mean by telling such capital stories as that and yet
amusing yourself by cribbing melodramas from Florian and tales
from M. Bouilly?" he inquired. "Why, in the story you have just
related there is the fruitful seed of a comedietta. I christen it La
Chassc et T Amour"

Adolphe ordered a third bottle of champagne.

"You have character there," went on Rousseau, "a short-sighted
sportsman. We will have him pepper the gaiters of his prospective
father-in-law: He will mistake them for a deerV legs."

Pencil^ pens and ink were secured and within an hour Rousseau,
Adolphe aiid Ehimas Itad drawn up a complet 6 scenario of JU

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST tor

et I' Amour. The scenario was divided into three parts, Dumas being
assigned the first, Rousseau the second and Adolphe the third. The
play was finished in a week. Its leading character was a ridiculous,
green-spectacled Parisian sportsman and the usual love interest was
pushed to its completion through a series of comic mishaps. Dumas
outdid himself in a song which he put in the mouth of the sportsman:

La terreur dc la perdrix

Et I'effroi dc la becasse,

Pour mon adresse a la chassc,

On me cite dans Paris.

Dangereux comme une bombe,

Sous mes coups rien qui ne tombe,

Le cerf comme la colombe . . .

A ma seule vue, enfin,

Tout le gibier a la fitvre;

Car, pour mettre a bos un Itivre,

Je suis un fameux lapin!

Having finished the play the next thing to do was to place it. The
first theater approached was the Gymnase where both Adolphe and
Rousseau were in favor with M. Poirson. Dumas, his pride to the
fore and his desire still to make his debut by some great and astound-
ing production, permitted his name to be erased from the script. It
was offered, therefore, under the names of De Leuven and Rousseau.
No sooner was it offered than it was rejected. A consultation of the
young men followed immediately and a conclusion was reached that
their masterpiece might have a better fortune at one of the humbler
boulevard theaters. La Chasse et I' Amour was then submitted to
M. Waretz at the Ambigu-Comique. It was accepted with acclama-
tions and within a week rehearsals were called.

Dumas was in the seventh heaven. He discovered that his one-
third rights would be four francs and two free seats a performance.
This was no fortune, but it was a beginning and it, was as much as
he was earning at the Palais-Royal. At the same time, money would
be welcome for Alexandre fils needed new clothes and Madame
Dumas's hundred louis had melted away. Rousseau sobered up

I02 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

sufficiently to introduce Dumas to a ticket broker named Porcher who
purchased authors' free seats in advance and Dumas turned over to
him his two seats per performance for the run of La Chasse et
V Amour for the sum of fifty francs. Porcher was an institution in
Paris. He did more in his time to help out penniless young play-
wrights than the Minister of the Interior and the Director of Beaux-
Arts together. During the twenty-five years that he loaned money
to authors on their prospects at least five hundred thousand francs
passed from his pockets into their hands. Dumas, his first fifty francs'
earnings as a playwright jingling in his pocket, ran home to tell the
good news to his mother.

On September 22, 1825, La Chassc ct V Amour was produced at the
Ambigu-Comique theater to the manifest delight of an audience that
immediately took to its heart the green-spectacled hunter, played by
a comic mime named Dubourjal. The play was published within a
month or so by Duvernois as by MM. Rousseau, Adolphe and Davy.
Dumas, apparently, did not want the authorities at the Palais-Royal
to know that he was dabbling in this sort of playwriting. Just why
de Leuven permitted the use of his first name only on the title-page
is a mystery. Perhaps it was to balance his last name which had been
on the play-bills. Dumas, sitting at the back of the theatre and hear-
ing the applause, tasted and savoured the sweetness of his first success.
These comic figures moving upon the stage had been created by him.
That song of the hunter which aroused so much laughter had been
spun from his own brain. It was true that this had been only a
humble effort, that it could not be compared with Lucien Arnault's
Regulus, for example, that there were no lines in it like Lucien's
stirring "Quand le hfros finit, Ic dcmi-dicu commence" but there was
laughter and movement in it, and it was a beginning.

At the very opening of his career Dumas indulged in a type of
collaboration he was to employ throughout his life. Years later this
was to arouse the excoriating attacks of the malevolent Jacquot.
Dumas furnished the idea and collaborators aided him in whipping
it into shape. La Chasse et V Amour was a very small start, then, but
it was enough to whet Dumas's appetite for further ventures of the
same sort. He felt the spirit of creation rise within him, and he
finished three talcs upon which he had been working desultorily.

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 103

General Foy, his old patron, died, and the young man burst into a
long turgid ode which was printed at once by Seder with a tide-page
reading, &Ugie sur la mart du general Foy, far Alex. Dumas. This
sixteen page pamphlet was the first of those hundreds of volumes
to bear the name of Dumas, and it pleased him so much he decided
to follow it with a volume containing the three tales* Porcher, recog-
nizing in the young man a future profitable customer, advanced
Dumas a hundred crowns. He took this money and the tales to
Setier, and two days later he was correcting the proofs of Notwelles
Contemporaincs, a two hundred and seventeen page book containing
three stories, Laurcttc, Blanche de Beaulieu, and Marie, bearing the
epigraph, "Fils d'un soldat, j'airne & choisir mes hiros dans let rangs
de I'armtc" and with this dedication: "A ma Mtrc, hommage
d' amour, de respect et de reconnaissance" When the book appeared
it sold exactly four copies and obtained one review, a piece in Figaro
signed by fitienne Arago. Dumas, a little dumbfounded by this, did
not lose hope. Lassagne had offered to collaborate with him on a play.

M. Oudard walked up and down his office in an angry manner.

The tall young man in front of him continued to talk in a forcible
and emphatic tone. "I am not M. Casimir Delavigne's age," he said.
"I have not received the education which M. Casimir Delavigne had
at one of the best colleges in Paris. No, I am only twenty-two years
old; I am educating myself every day at the cost of my health; I
learn when other people are fast asleep or amusing themselves. So
I cannot produce work like M. Casimir Delavigne's. But, M. Oudard,
I ask you to listen carefully to this: if I did not believe I could do
different work in years to come than M. Casimir Delavigne's I should
meet you and M. de Broval half-way and take a solemn oath never
to touch literature again."

The young man held his head very high when he walked from the
room but he could not keep the tears from his eyes. He flung himself
down at his desk and started to work with that angry industry which
is so often the result of an outraged energy. One page. Two pages.
The quill pen scratched over the surface of the paper. Because he had
had a play produced! His name had not even been on the play. And
because he was writing another play with Lassagne! The office

104 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

snoopers were at work, jealous clerks who were incapable of anything
but scribbling or waiting on table in cheap restaurants. Three pages.
Four pages. M. Oudard, indeed! "Your scribbling proclivities,
Monsieur, will interfere with your clerical duties!" Really 1 The
flower girls on the wooden galleries of the Palais-Royal were chatter-
ing like magpies. "I forbid you to work with Lassagne." This was
the way with all pompous gentlemen in authority. The Palais-Royal
did not want a clerk whose name crept into the papers. He looked
up at the head clerk.

"They have forbidden me to write plays with you, Lassagne."

The frank glance met his.

"They have forbidden me to help you with your playwriting,
Dumas."

The young men smiled.

Their collaboration, already finished, rested in the office of the
Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, La Noce et I'Enterrement. Dumas had
found the theme in The Arabian Nights. It was a comic farce inter-
spersed with songs and concerned a French valet, masquerading as
a nobleman, who came to an island where it was the law to bury
husbands with their wives and vice versa. Clever, amusing trash.

"They want me to write like Casimir Delavigne," said Dumas to
Lassagne.

"Why not N£pomuc£ne Lemercier?" inquired the head clerk.

It was five o'clock and they put on their hats and left the office.
From his window M. Oudard watched the tall form of Dumas
striding along through the court of the Palais-Royal. He muttered
to himself:

"I think that young man has revolutionary tendencies."

La Noce et I'Enterrement, by MM. Lassagne, Dumas and Vulpian
(Vulpian being a play doctor called in by Lassagne to aid in finish-
ing the piece), was produced November 21, 1826, at the Porte-Saint-
Martin theatre, a comic actor named Serres making his debut in the
role of the parvenue lackey, Casimir Floriment. Did Dumas think
of Delavigne when he gave this ridiculous character his first name?
Dumas's name, as in the case of La Chasse et V Amour, was not on
the bills, although the printed play when issued in this same year

SPRINGTIME OF A ROMANTICIST 105

carried the name Davy. Dumas and his mother witnessed the pre-
miere from seats in the orchestra and the warm response of the
audience flooded him again with that delicious sense of triumph
which overwhelms young men when their first roses are flung at
their feet by admiring throngs. However, Providence placed a stout
bourgeois at his left who rose with a grunt when the curtain fell,
fumbled for his hat, and mumbled to Dumas: "Come, come, it isn't
such stuff as this that will uphold the theater." The young dramatist
discreetly preserved his incognito and agreed with him dolefully.
"La Noce et I'Enterrement" served its purpose. It ran for some forty
performances and the money which Dumas received aided him
materially in getting through the difficult winter of 1826.

The young man was also a poet

It was not alone the £Ugie sur la mort du general Foy that revealed
him in this light. During 1826 he contributed to the pages of an
obscure periodical called Psyche. There was La Nereide. filegie
antique, for example.

Entends ma voix, 6 blanche Ner&de!
Le souffle de la nuit a rafraichi les airs.
Le del est pur, et ma barque rapide
Rase, comme Alcyon, la surface des mers.

and so on, for twelve stanzas. There was L* Adolescent Mdade,
beginning:

Un rtveil douloureux a rouvert ma paup&re;

Ma mtre . . . oh done es-tu? Viens vite auprts de moi;

Ne quitte plus ton fits: il a sur cette terre

Si peu df instants encore h rester avec toil

Following hard upon this was L'Aigle BlcssS, opening:

Un ctiglc, Schappt de son aire,
Fixait sur le soleil son oeil audacieux; . . .
Mais tandis qu'il planait au stjour du tonneref

io6 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

La flbche d'un chasseur Vattcignit dans Ics deux,
L'aigle blcssi retomba sur la tcrrcl

Then there were Romance, Souvenirs, and Le Potte.

This work is more curious than important, but it reveals a sensitive
nature striving somewhat oratorically toward self-expression. Dumas
was never a real poet. He could neither command the technique nor
discipline himself sufficiently. His occasional verses were merely the
outlet for his own rich nature and except during a brief period of
these early years he never set great store by them. Once, years later
when he was editing "Le Mousquetaire" a young versifier brought
him some execrable lines. He read them and said, "My poor friend,
your rhymes are not very rich (trts richc)? and then, noticing the
crestfallen look on the youthful bard's face, he added hastily, "but
they are quite well off (b leur rise!)" This criticism might apply to
Dumas's own poetry. He was always one of the easiest and most free
of authors.

The year 1826 passed, then, to the encouraging spectacle of a second
slight production, a handful of poems h leur aise, and an increasing
distrust of the young man at the Palais-Royal. Dumas understood
that matters were approaching a climax, that the first production
which appeared under his own name would embroil him with
M. Oudard and M. de BrovaL This, however, did not trouble him.
He was filled with bright ideas and gigantic plans that would carry
him far from his clerical duties for the Due d'Orleans. His mind
was made up. Like Fernando Cortez he had burned his boats behind
him. If he could not succeed as a literary figure (and at this time
he meant as dramatist solely) then he would fail ingloriously as a
clerk. He cast about for a new collaborator and his eye lighted on
Frederic Soulie.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN
I

AMONG the important productions in Paris during the year 1823 were
Casimir Bonjour's UlLducation ou Ics Deux Cousines and Guiraud's
Comtc Julicn. Neither play is worth remembering for itself alone.
Bonjour's drama was merely representative of the time. Guiraud's
brought back to the Parisian theater after an absence of four or five
years the illustrious Mademoiselle Georges. Georges was thirty-eight
years old at this time, supremely beautiful, and in possession of those
glittering diamonds that made her appear like a star upon the stage.
The shadow of Bonaparte still hovered about her and made her an
object of awed curiosity to the populace. "How is it that Napoleon
came to desert you?" the unthinking Dumas once asked her. "He
left me to become an Emperor/* she replied simply. This woman
who had held the restless Corsican in her arms shared with Talma
and Mademoiselle Mars the sovereignty of the French stage. There
were other favorites, many of them, Mademoiselle Duchesnois,
Lafond, Joanny, but at the apex was this trio left over from the days
of the Empire. They were actors of the old school, noble and rounded
in gestures and deliberate of voice, and their great personal charm
and the success with which they maintained their followings may
have played its slight part in damming the foaming flood of the
Romantic reaction. They were not adapted to the new type of play
and therefore they made a success of stilted dramas that would never
have existed without their inspired presences. The personal triumphs
were mistaken by the traditionalist playwrights as vindications of
their hollow efforts. To realize what Dumas was about to bring to
this dramatic scene one must understand the perplexing situation tHat
existed at the time.

107

io8 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

First there was the old tradition, dying hard but nevertheless dying,
although its practitioners strove fiercely to maintain it. It was the
tradition of Racine and Corneille emptied of the austere genius of
those illustrious Frenchmen, a tradition of "tragedies" in the "grand
style/' wherein Gallic actors clad in plumed helmets and striped
togas strutted heavily across the creaking boards and delivered inter-
minable exhortations. The unities were rigidly observed, one scene,
one time, one action. No gesture of violence or physical energy was
permitted. Now and then corpulent mimes weighed down with
rattling tin armor would solemnly slap huge swords together alter-
nately or a barbarous king, bellowing through a tin pot with eye-slits,
would slide painfully to the floor and die to a hundred or more
alexandrines. The women stalked about like ostriches, their billowing
robes flowing behind like unbelievable tail feathers. In the comedy
roles of Moliere they persevered in a stately coquetry. Racine and
Corneille were inspired dramatists animated by a cold passion and
a philosophical profundity, but between their masterpieces and the
stiff productions of the Theatre-Francis as Dumas first knew it,
there was nothing in common but the form. The tyrannous censor-
ships of the Empire and the Restoration, suspicious always of innova-
tion, embalmed this form and maintained it against a possible genre
whose swifter actions might conceal political allusions. The play-
goers of the day, therefore, were compelled to content themselves
with Pierre Lebrun's Le Cid d'Anddousie, M. de Jouy's Belisaire,
M. Camberousse's Judith and the productions of the Arnault family.
It was always safer to place the deliberate action in a foreign (and
preferably classic) land. Guarding this school of turgid playwriting
were the grumbling watch-dogs of the Academy, pedants like M.
Lemercier who cried out in horror at the sacrileges of the romantic
movement, signed voluminous petitions against the dramas of Hugo
and Dumas, and barred the entrance of Lamartine to the Academy
by nominating the Archbishop of Paris in his place.

It is curious that this war-like generation, embroiled in the cam-
paigns of Napoleon, should have suffered such a lifeless school of
drama. One reason would seem to be that the cup of actual living
"was so brimming for them, that their days passed through such a
fervent splendor of existence, that the many passions coiled about

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 109

them so fiercely and so fierily that they were content to observe a
vague, stilted, artificial adumbration of the human comedy. The
literary sterility of the Empire may be explained through the rich-
ness of its daily living. The masterpieces of France then were actions.
But when, after this brilliant regime, came the quietude and dullness
of the Bourbons the young men felt the necessity of relief through
vicarious promulgations of sensations. France rested from great wars
and as her weariness left her and the youths of the Empire became
the men of the Restoration, a desire for artificial emotions, to take the
place of the vanished real passions, sprang into being. In this way
the romantic movement became the reactionary influence of the
Empire on the dull reigns that succeeded it. It was simple enough
for the exhausted heroes of Marengo to sit through one of Luce de
LancivaPs dreary plays; it was, indeed, a rest, the reverse of their
lives; but it was not so easy for the young men of the eighteen-
twenties to sit through Lucien Arnault's Regulus. The abysmal
vacuity of the Bourbon dynasty could be lightened only by a moving
and sensational theater.

The young men, then, became restless. Trained though they had
been to relish the turgidities of Arnault and Lemercier and Jouy
they found this boresome style as intolerable as their tedious lives.
They drank from the fountain of Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Chateau-
briand brought them the romance of England and Madame de Stael
introduced diem to German letters. They became fiery with new
aspirations, animated by ardours undreamt by their fathers, and they
desired violently to see depicted on the stage those nostalgias for
freedom that stirred within them. They wanted movement, physical
contact, combats, adventure, passions, slices from their own history,
characters with whom they could identify themselves, the exotic color
of the newly discovered Orient. They yearned for the downfall of
the endless exhortation, and in its place the easy natural flow of living
language. The raw conflicts in the cheap boulevard melodramas
appealed to them more than did the dry austerities of the Theatre-
Franfais. What could age do against young men like these? It must
give way sooner or later and the traditionalists found themselves
retreating until they were safe only in the declamatory Bastille of
the national theater. When this fell it meant that the old regime

no THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

fell with it. The purpose of the young men, then, was to capture the
Theatxe-Franfais, and the happy arrival of Baron Taylor gave them
the necessary breach in the wall. Dumas appeared upon this scene,
a veritable Ange Pitou, unaware that he was to assist at the taking
of the Bastille.

Baron Taylor had been appointed royal commissioner of the
Theatre-Frangais in 1825 and Baron Taylor possessed modern ideas.
It was through him that the doors of the national theater were
thrown open to Dumas, to Hugo and to de Vigny. He was cautious
and tentative, but he was a distinct weakening in that stony bulwark
the traditionalists had so well reared against romanticism. Then,
too, there had been the Salon of 1824, another ominous inroad upon
the classical austerities. This exhibition had aroused a sensation by
the inclusion of many canvases by young and romantic painters.
These pictures opened still wider the eyes of the intelligent minority
already quivering with the new impulse and preparing its assault on
the Theatre-Frangais through the breach made by Baron Taylor. Ary
Scheffer with his Mor t dc Gaston dc Foix, Delacroix with his Massacre
de Scio, Sigalon with his Locustc faisant sur un esclavc Vessai de set
foisons, Coigniet with his Le Massacre des Innocents, the canvases
of Schnetz and Boulanger, all this riot of color and action hinted at
a pulsing life beyond the dreary formalisms of the Empire. In his
studio the dying Gericault heard the cry of the new era and answered
it with his La MSduse.

In 1827 Victor Hugo rallied the somewhat uncertain romantics with
his preface to Cromwell. This document was, in effect, a manifesto
of revolution. It removed the restrictions which the critical school of
Boileau had put upon art. It demanded a fusion of the sublime and
grotesque, — in other words, the union of tragedy and comedy. It
calmly destroyed the unities. It announced that all that we see in
nature belongs to dramatic art. In no uncertain tone this twenty-five-
year-old prophet declared:

Let us then speak boldly. The time for it has come, and it would
be strange if, in this age, liberty, like the light, should penetrate
everywhere except to the one place where freedom is most natural—
the domain of the thought. Let us take the hammer to theories and

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN in

poetic systems. Let us throw down the old plastering that conceals
the fagade of art. There arc neither rules nor models; or, rather,
there are no other rules than the general laws of nature, which soar
above the whole field of art, and die special rules which result from
conditions appropriate to the subject of each composition. The
former are of the essence, eternal, and do not change; the latter
are variable, external, and are used but once. The former are the
framework that supports the house; the latter the scaffolding which
is used in building it, and which is made anew for each building.
In a word, the former are the flesh and bones, the latter the clothing
of the drama. But these rules are not written in the treatises on
poetry. Richelet has no idea of their existence. Genius, which di-
vines rather than learns, devises for each work the general rules
from the general plan of things, the special rules from the separate
ensemble of the subject treated; not after the manner of the chemist,
who lights the fire under his furnace, heats his crucible, analyses
and destroys; but after the manner of the bee, which flies on its
golden wings, lights on each flower and extracts its honey, leaving
it as brilliant and fragrant as before.

And again:

The drama has but to take a step to break all the spider's webs
with which the militia of Lilliput have attempted to fetter its sleep.

This preface came like a "coup de tonncrre formidable dans le del
classique" and Hugo immediately and tacidy was regarded as the
generalissimo of the romantic forces* The insurgents possessed a con-
stitution at last.

Another unexpected and unsuspected phenomenon which quick-
ened the romantic movement was the influence of English literature
trickling across the twenty-two troubled miles of the English Channel.
The easy movement and lyric poetry of Shakespeare (although it is
doubtful that the French mind has ever really appreciated him), the
melodramatic technique of Nicholas Rowe, the writings of Walter
Scott, the poetry and astonishing life of Lord Byron, all this foreign
influx encouraged and quickened the impulses of novelists, poets and
playwrights* In 1827 a company of English players came to Paris, a

ii2 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

troupe including Abbott, Charles Kemble, Harriet Smithson and
Liston. They acted Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and several
of the more popular English plays, The Rivals, She Stoops to Conquer,
Love, Law and Physic. It was a revelation to the younger Frenchmen
who crowded the theater and expatiated on these representations so
filled with freedom and animation and spirit. Dumas who saw these
actors again and again and whose opinion is representative of the
young men of his era, exclaimed: "It is the first time that I have seen
on the stage real passions warming men and women made of flesh
and blood." Here was a spectacle of actors forgetting that they were
on the stage. They did not turn to the footlights and solemnly tramp
down to the lighted brink and declaim an oration for twenty minutes.
They held each other in their arms; they kissed one another; they
fought with swords; they fell with lamentable cries; they died as
quickly as death will come. This season of 1827 was the turning point
of Dumas's career; the vaudevilles a la Scribe were put behind him;
it was time to place life upon the stage. It was the turning point in
the careers of many other young men as well. The romantic move-
ment had become explicit and they knew what they were about. It
was time for the ultimate assault upon the frowning Bastille of the
Th£atre-Frangais.

II

Dumas went to Soulie. Souli£ had removed from his chambers in
the rue de Provence and now lived near La Gare where he conducted
a saw-mill in which more than a hundred workmen were employed.
In other words, he mixed saw-dust with his inspiration. He was as
obstinate as ever, although fortune had not provided him with a
premiere as yet. Soulie listened to Dumas, smiled at the flow of enthu-
siastic prospects and agreed to write a play with him. Why not?
Dumas was young and could do the hard work. Neither of the
budding playwrights felt equal to an original plot so they decided to
extract one from Walter Scott. It was the fashion. Le Chfoeau dc
Kcnilworth (not the unfortunate play fostered by Soulie and de
Leuven) was running at the Porte-Saint-Martin and a Quentin Dur-
ward was about to be produced at the Theatre-Fran^ais. Scott, then,

FREDERIC SOUL IE

This writer ivas the first real literary friend that Dumas knew

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 113

was a treasure chest of material and whoso desired might thrust in
his hand and draw forth a drama. Dumas and Soulie plunged eager
hands into this Scott chest; they emerged with Old Mortality. Soulie
was fascinated with the characters of John Balfour, of Burley and
Bothwell. They would write a drama entitled Puritains df£cos$e,
employing the same title as that of Bellini's opera produced at the
Theatre Jtalien in 1835. But Soulie was Soulie still, hard-headed,
stubborn and dominating; and Dumas was Dumas, unyielding and
certain of what he desired to do. There was a surplus of individuality
in the two men. They struggled at the collaboration, knocked their
heads together, quarreled, argued, tore up each other's manuscript
and at the end of three months had proceeded no further than they
had at their first meeting. Dumas could collaborate — indeed, about
forty of his plays were to be put together in this way — but it was
necessary that he be the dominating factor. Soulie would not permit
this; he, himself, was too dominating a figure. The result of Pun fains
d'ficosse was a deadlock. The two men scowled at each other, smiled,
shook hands and the collaboration was at an end. His attempt to
work with a strong individuality was of inestimable profit to Dumas,
however, for during it he had widened his range of vision. New forces
began to spring up in him because of his struggle with this rough
champion.

About this time Dumas happened upon Schiller's Die Verschworung
dcs Fiesfy zu Gcnua and the breath of revolt animating this tragedy
of a state as well as an individual transported the young .man. Here
were violent passions and situations calculated to seduce a budding
romantic spirit. The enigmatical and noble figure of FiescodiLavagna
stood out above all, and Dumas, charmed by the tragedy of Fiesco's
conspiracy against the great house of Doria in Genoa, set to work at
a translation of the play in French dramatic verse, submerging himself
for long hours in the character of Fiesco, the noble republican, Verrina,
and the Moor. He shifted and changed as he proceeded with his
labors, revised scenes, cut out extraneous passages, heightened the
climaxes. It was a laboratory exercise for the young man, filling long
evenings with heart-breaking work. It was also a labor of love, for
there was no hope of its production anywhere, and Dumas's prime
purpose in translating this German Sturm und Drang tragedy was

ii4 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

to receive practice in dialogue in verse. The time spent in working
at this play was in the long run not lost at all; it added immeasurably
to his comprehension of dramatic structure; and it even suggested
episodes in several of his earlier plays.

Dumas pushed through the crowd at the Salon of 1827, a shifting
mass of people sprinkled with long-haired young men extolling the
beauties of the English players, and paused before two small bas-
reliefs by Mademoiselle de Fauveau. One of them represented a scene
from The Abbot. He had read The Abbot and identified at once the
situation which the delicate fingers of the young sculptress had
moulded. The second bas-relief depicted the assassination of Monal-
deschi. This was a mystery to the young man. He had never heard
of Monaldeschi. No one had ever told him about Christine of Sweden.
Something in the agonized figure of Monaldeschi appealed to him,
and that evening at La Gare, while Soulie was discussing his Romto
ct Juliette, the simulation in plaster of a wracked body leaped into his
mind. Soulie was gloomy. The advent of the English players had
made it evident to him that he would have to rewrite his paraphrase
of Shakespeare's play. Monaldeschi was the name. Christine. Dumas
did not dare ask Soulie about these historical characters, for the man-
ager of the saw-mill would burst into laughter as raucous and cutting
as his saws at such a revelation of ignorance. Instead, he asked for
the Biographic universelle. Soulie indicated the bulky volumes. Dumas
read the articles on Monaldeschi and Christine. For a long time he
sat gazing at nothing in particular while a jumble of frantic incidents
turned over and over in his mind. "There is a terrible drama in all
that," he said presently. "In what?" inquired Soulie, lifting his eyes
from his own copy. "In the assassination of Monaldeschi by Christine."
A queer, amazed look came into Soulie's face and he rose abruptly
to his feet. "I should think so," he answered shortly. "Shall we do it
together?" asked Dumas. Soulie refused with such rude emphasis
that the young man stared at him helplessly. "The fact is," said Souli6
grudgingly, "I intend to use that subject for a tragedy myself." Dumas
laid down the volume silently. Very well, then. Suddenly Souli£
laughed. He gazed closely at the tall form sitting before him and
laughed again. "Go ahead," he said. "Write your own drama on the

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 115

subject. I don't care." The idea of caring! Competition with a young
ignoramus from Villers-Cotterets! "There are more theaters than one
in Paris," he added, "and there are a dozen ways of treating a subject/*
He would be generous. Not that he feared any rivalry. La Chasse et
I 'Amour! La Noce et I'Enterrcmentl The young man was saying
something. "But which of us will read it at the Theatre-Fran$ais?"
Soulie controlled a smile as he answered: "Whichever shall finish first."
"Would it not annoy you?" The earnest blue eyes were studying
him. Soulie lost his temper. "What the devil do you think it would
do to me?" he growled. The impertinence of the puppy! How many
times had he lost his temper during the ill-starred collaboration?
"You are not very amiable tonight," returned the puppy. Soulie
scowled for a second and then smiled. After all Dumas was a gentle
puppy. "I am not in a good temper," he replied. "The English players
have upset me. I shall have to rewrite my Juliette." "I wish you
would take my advice," remarked Dumas, rising to his feet. Soulie
grunted. The young man proceeded: "Leave your Juliette at one side
as I have done my Fiesque and work at something of your own."
Soulie said "Bah!"

Dumas wandered along the deserted boulevard. It was dark and a
chill rain was falling. Monaldeschi. Christine. Dim scenes floated
through the air. He reached the Porte-Saint-Denis and was about to
leave the boulevard to re-enter the street when he heard loud cries
ahead of him. Hurrying forward he saw in the midst of the rainy
darkness four people struggling violently. Two men, evidently foot-
pads, were attacking a man and woman and the assaulted man was
defending himself as best he could with a slender cane. Dumas, with
the gusto of a d'Artagnan, rushed to the rescue. He leaped on the
back of the thug attempting to snatch a chain from the woman's neck.
The other footpad, observing this unexpected arrival, vanished in the
darkness. Dumas continued to sit on his captured thief and squeeze
his throat until that unfortunate individual, considering capture better
than strangulation, lifted a red face from the wet ground and bawled
for help. Several soldiers came running from the nearby military sta-
tion of Bonne-Nouvelle and pulled Dumas from his victim. The
young man turned and looked into the frightened face of Adele
Dalvin.

n6 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Soldiers like policemen are not over-blessed with brains, and as it
was too dark for them to distinguish the robber from the robbed or
the saviour from the saved, they marched the quartet to the guard-
room. Dumas found himself walking beside Adele Dalvin. He had
not seen her since that day in the woods when she had returned from
Haramont bearing orange blossoms and with her bridal veil streaming
behind her in the soft breeze. The trees then had been filled with a
fainting scent. Twilight had crept up about the gnarled trunks. It
was so long ago. She hardly dared look at him. Dumas said:

"What were you doing out so late ?"

There had been a special performance at the Porte-Saint-Martin
theater and she and her husband had been to that. She had enjoyed
the play. It was La Nocc et I'Enterrement. She looked up at him
smiling. Really, she had not changed much. A trifle plumper, per-
haps. Her hair was the same. And her eyes.

"After that?"

"Oh, we had supper in the theatre-cafe. . . . You know how greedy
I am. Then we went to Charlard's chemist's shop. Then . . . "

They turned into the guardhouse and were led to that part called
the violon. Locks clicked behind them.

"In the morning . . . Monsieur le chef du foste . . ."

Footsteps died away. Darkness. Then a pale light that filtered
through the barred window. The thief began to snore loudly. Dumas
sat on the edge of the camp-bed and observed Adele. She was falling
fast asleep with her head on the shoulder of her husband. The young
playwright changed his position softly so that he might view her more
easily. She was the first memory in his life. How they had wept
together, mingling their tears in that little room to, which he used
to make his way by running across meadows and leaping high walls!
The scent of the countryside had been all about them and the great
wheel of heaven, glittering with a million lights, had revolved above
their young heads. Her hair had flowed across his face. She was
asleep now. She was happy. Someone — was it a letter to his mother
from Madame Darcourt?— had said that she possessed two children.
Consolation for lost love. Lost? No love was ever lost. There were
partings only. Had he not recently quarreled with Marie-Catherine?
The best part of love was memory perhaps. Dumas closed his eyes.

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 117

He had written a poem in the dark wood that night after the bridal
procession had passed. How did it go?

Qu'un autrc chantc tes appas
Ou que tu restes inconnue * . .
Pcu rnimporte . . . en vain la charrue
Dtchire les terrains ingrats.

Mais un jour autour dc Us charmes
La mart roulera son linceuil
Et dc la tombe insensible a tes larmes
Tes pieds glaces dtpasseront le scuiL

DSdaignant ta cendre endormie,
Alors le voyageur par sa course emporte
Passera pres de toi sans dire h son amie:
"lei repose une jcune beautt"

It was a poor poem. He had deliberately mispronounced "shroud" to
make a rhyme. "Unccuil" should have been "linceul? Well, he had
been young. Adele. ... He settled himself against the cold stone wall
and composed himself for sleep. It was as easy as that. Not a scar
left. He had wept about something a long time ago ... a long time
. . * ago. Monaldeschi. Christine. Love and political ambition. The
harshness of Christine and the cowardice of Monaldeschi. "There is a
terrible drama in all that." The opening scenes of a play in verse stole
into the consciousness of the sleepy young man. Odd couplets wound
and unwound themselves like thin snakes of light in the dimness of
the violon. His head bowed lower on his breast; his breathing became
even and light and slower; in a moment there were four slumbering
people in the small chamber.

M. Oudard was one of those fair-minded humorless men who make
perfect directors in offices of business. Nothing existed outside of his
position and anything that interfered with the smooth routine of his
department was a threatening obstacle to be disposed of as rapidly as
possible. He did not approve of extraneous interests. They compli-

u8 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

cated matters and injected a spirit of diffusion in an atmosphere that,
to his mind, should be devoid of anything but the steady scribbling
of quill pens and the rusde of many sheets of paper. Dumas had
developed into a disquieting influence. Lassagne was writing plays
with him. Ernest was listening with mouth agape to sensational tales
of life in the pasteboard world of the theater. Dumas was arriving late
at his desk. He was leaving early. He was still determined to do
"different" things from Uficole des Vieillards. He continued to sneer
at the name of Casimir Delavigne. He was constantly interrupting
his copying activities to mutter aesthetic jargon to Lassagne about
Christine of Sweden, whoever she was. M. Oudard was disturbed. The
mellow atmosphere of his office began to smack too much of the
green room. It was time to eradicate young Dumas. At the same time
he did not want to remove him from the payrolls of the Due d'Or-
leans. After all, there was Madame Dumas to consider. And some
one had told M. Oudard that the reckless young man had contracted
an illegal union with a plump little milliner and that she had borne
him a son. M. Oudard went into conference with M. de BrovaL
"Hmm. Transfer him to the Record Office." Such a transference
from the secretarial department, which was large and offered various
opportunities for promotion, to the Record Office, which was a small
cul-de-sac, was tantamount to disgrace. Dumas, apprized of the change
by a much-concerned Lassagne, whistled to keep up his courage, re-
moved his cloak from the hook, shook hands with Lassagne and
Ernest, bowed gravely to M. Oudard who as gravely returned the
bow, and departed in search of the Record Office. M. Oudard sighed
with relief. There was no sound in the small office but the steady
jcratching of pens.

In the Record Office a tiny old man of eighty years looked up from
i dusty bundle of papers with a baby-like scowl on his countenance.
Dumas, who had clattered in noisily, stared at his future director with
imazement. M. Bichet was dressed in satin breeches, variegated stock-
ings, a black cloth coat and a gilet of flowered silk. This costume was
touched off by various ruffles and frills. As he lifted his little face,
ivhich was surrounded by a halo of fluffy white hair, he revealed a tiny
peue thrusting cockily out over his collar. M. Bichet had dressed
liis way since 1788. The Revolution, the Empire and the Restoration

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 119

had not existed for him. He belonged to the period when Marie-
Antoinette played milk-maid. Forgotten in his Record Office by time*
he in turn had forgotten that Time existed. They were mutual stran-
gers. He resented the acquisition of the tall young man who stood
before him waiting for instructions. He might as well have a . - .
have a dromedary in the office. His acquisition was offensively young.
He probably whistled, knocked over books, wrote an atrocious hand
and was generally worthless. To show his annoyance M. Bichet loaded
Dumas's table with the accumulated arrears of work which had piled
up since the last clerk, a noble fellow of seventy-eight, had gone to
join Marie-Antoinette in Heaven. Then M. Bichet, smoothing his
frills with a tiny white hand, ambled back to his eternal day-dream
in his private nook. He hoped that that offensive fellow would not
poke his nose in there for a month.

Within three days Dumas completed a month's work and carried
it in and laid it on M, Bichet's desk. M. Bichet came out of his trance
with a sigh. If Louis XVI . . . no, no . . . Louis XVI was dead
... if the Due d'Orleans thought that he was going to stand this
constant running in and out of the office . . . He drew the pile of
copy toward him testily. How the offensive fellow must have scamped
it! Times have changed. Everything was rush now. In the good old
days . . . "Eh! Eh!" ejaculated M. Bichet, his tiny eyes opening
wide in his tiny face and his tiny mouth opening wider as he observed
the copy. It was beautifully written; the margins were excellent;
nothing was omitted. That handwriting. Why, surely! M. Bichet
looked up with a beaming smile. "Your handwriting is the same
style as Piron's, Monsieur," he announced and leaning back waited
complacently for the young man to fall to the floor stunned by this
compliment. "The deuce!" replied the young man. Now who in the
devil was Piron? Slowly he realized. Piron was a minor poet of the
old school who had once been employed in the Palais-Royal* "You
have another point in common with him, I hear," went on M. Bichet
slyly. "What is that, Monsieur?" "You write poetry." Dumas lowered
his eyes and said, "Alas!" Was he in for another warning about
wasting his time? M. Bichet was gazing at the finished reports.
"Hum . . * good ... in fact, excellent. . . . Piron. ... He was
a gay young dog. ... A hand with the ladies ..." M. Bichet

120 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

choked and chuckled. His little queue wagged roguishly. "Your
poetry is not in the same style as Piron's ?" Dumas admitted modestly
that it was not. Good God, he should hope not! And now for more
work. M. Bichet, still chuckling, explained that there was no more
work. Until it arrived the young man could work at his tragedy. Of
course, he had started a tragedy ? Dumas was about to say drama but
saved himself just in time. M. Bichet waved him away. "Just like
Piron's," he repeated in a tiny ecstasy. "I must tell my friends, Pieyre,
the writer of comedies, and Parseval de Grandmaison, the epic poet.
They will be delighted." Dumas heard the miniature chuckle as he
closed the door behind him and walked slowly to his desk. He drew
a bulky bundle of notes from his cloak and spread them before him.
Truly, Christine was growing. Here was the speech he had recited
to that fellow, Mery, whom he had met a day or so before in the
Luxembourg Gardens. Mery was a writer and Mery had approved.
Dumas picked up his gen and the office, like M. Oudard's secretarial
department, was silent save for the scratching of quill on paper.

He did not know how long he wrote. The peace and quiet of this
forgotten little corner wherein M. de Broval never stepped, across
which no officious office boys from the Due d'Orleans' private bureau
ran with messages, where the ponderous step of that righteous watch
dog, M. Oudard, never sounded, were like a miniature heaven. He
was not lonely because he had his manuscript with him. Page after
page of it covered with his fine even handwriting, carefully blotted
with sand, lay strewn over the desk. Give him a month of this
unbroken silence and Christine would be finished. He reached for a
new sheet of paper and as he did so he experienced the uneasy sensa-
tion of being watched. He lifted his head and looked up into six
curious eyes, observing him in much the same manner that a small
boy gapes at his first giraffe. There was a very small pair of eyes in a
very small face. That was M. Bichet. There was a very round pair of
eyes in a very round face. That was M. Pieyre. There was a very long
pair of eyes in a very long face. That was M. Parseval de Grand-
maison. Dumas knew them instinctively. They stood like Minos,
Aeacus and Rhadamanthus. M. Bichet broke the silence first.

"There he is!" burst forth his high thin voice. "Upon my word, his
is just like

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 121

"Piron's," said M. Pieyre.

"What's-his-name's," added M. Parseval de Grandmaison.

Dumas rose to his feet and bowed awkwardly. The tiny man, the
round man and the long man returned his bow with old-fashioned
aristocratic flourishes of the court of Louis XVI.

"What did you tell me Monsieur did?" inquired M. Pieyre, turning
to M. Bichet.

"He writes poetry," returned M. Bichet proudly.

"Poetry!" exclaimed M. Pieyre.

"What-d'ye-call-it," agreed M. Parseval de Grandmaison.

The long old man turned to the other two.

"Do you know," he said, "a curious thing happened to me the other
day. I forgot my own name!"

"Not your own name!" cried M. Bichet.

"Yes, monsieur. It was at the marriage contract of ... what's-his-
name . . . who married the daughter of ... so-and-so ... he
wrote a work on something-or-other . * . that was burned . . ,
Vesuvius . . . where somebody-or-other died ..."

"Marois," ventured Dumas, "who wrote a book on Pompeii, where
Pliny died."

"That's it!" agreed M. Parseval de Grandmaison, smiling at the
young man.

Dumas observed the three old gentlemen with amazement. It was
unbelievable. They might have stepped out of a comedy. He might
have invented them himself. Perhaps he had, and he gazed wildly at
the sheet of paper upon which he had been writing. They were so
old-fashioned, so gentle, so forgetful, so easily stirred to mild tremors
at the thought of poetry. He listened to M. Parseval de Grandmaison's
ambling tale of how he forgot his name. He explained rather guard-
edly the subject-matter of Christine. It would never do to flutter these
old gentlemen with new aesthetic theories. He even recited for them
a poem of his own called La tcyrousc. Minos, Aeacus and Rhada-
manthus were pleased. They twiddled their thumbs, smiled, nodded
to one another and murmured, "Just like Piron! Just like Piron!"
Dumas felt like Ovid exiled among the Thracians when he heard the
applause given his Tritfia.

Fox two months he remained in the Record Office and for the

122 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

greater part of those two months he occupied his time laboring over
Christine, rewriting, polishing, readjusting. So much leisure during
the day gave him an unaccustomed freedom during the evening, for
now he did not have to confine his composition to his chamber. He
went out into the streets, wandered about with friends to the cafes
or called upon old acquaintances of his father or sat enthralled watch-
ing the English players or continued his readings in Shakespeare,
Moliere, Corneille, Calderon, Goethe and Schiller. It was a brief
period of uninterrupted fruitfulness for him and he relished it; but
even as he relished it he suspected that it would not last. The blow
fell one morning when he received notice that his position was re-
garded by the thrifty Due as a sinecure and that he should report the
next day to the Forestry Department. The Forestry Department!
M. Deviolaine's department! What was that about trashy plays? He
was lost

The Forestry Department was the reverse of the Record Office. It
was filled with noise and bustle and more work than the perspiring
clerks could handle. To Dumas it seemed that he had entered a
foundry at its busiest moment from the contemplative calm of a
chapel. He was sulky and depressed, for this change had brought
his unfinished Christine to an abrupt halt. Regardless of consequences
he determined to fashion a quiet nook for himself in the midst of
this hubbub. If he could not write verses, at least he could meditate
in peace. He had been five years in the Palais-Royal and he had
accomplished nothing but two beggarly vaudevilles in collaboration
with four other writers. It was a poor showing. Christine was his
opportunity and he must make the most of it. Dumas calmly installed
himself in the office-boy's cubicle where that young Caligula kept his
ink bottles. The office-boy bellowed with rage. The clerks made
pointed remarks about young Dumas's overweening sense of superi-
ority. Dumas stuck doggedly to his tiny den. The office-boy com-
plained to the clerks; the clerks went to the chief clerk; that individual
went to the head of the department; the head of the department made
some comment on presumptuousness and handed the chief clerk an
order removing the sulking Achilles from his stolen tent. Luckily for
Dumas M. Deviolaine was away at the time. The office-boy communi-
cated the removal notice with a jeer, and Dumas, regarding himself

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 123

as badgered and humiliated beyond belief, retaliated by delivering
such a cujS against the office-boy's head that he knocked that young
gentleman's hat out the window and half-way across the great court
of the Palais-Royal. This was probably the first blow for freedom
that had ever been struck in the Due d'Orleans establishment. Then,
cramming his hat on his somewhat frizzy curls, the irate poet rushed
home.

Madame Dumas burst into tears at the sight of her son arriving
flushed and excited at such an unexpected hour of the day. She re-
called only too clearly his return from M. Lefevre's law office in 1823.
Putting on her black jacket she hurried away to the Deviolaine home
with the flurried intention of making whatever amends she could for
her son. When the door closed behind her Dumas sat down in the
empty room and endeavored to arrange his riotous thoughts. It was
quiet there and perhaps he might write a little. There was that fifth
act to finish. He walked over to the table and was about to open the
drawer that contained his manuscript when Marie-Catherine entered
with her small boy. She listened to Dumas's aggrieved tale, and
instead of commiserating with him as he expected began to chastise
him verbally. Marie-Catherine, when she pleased, had a lively tongue.
It pleased her often enough now and the young couple had quarreled
so much that they had just separated, Marie-Catherine remaining in
the Place des Italiens and Dumas residing regularly with his mother
in the rue de 1'Ouest Their last quarrel had been fearful. Who had
been to blame? It is easy to settle that problem by pointing out that
Dumas was never a family man, that he possessed no proper idea of
fidelity or obligations, that he was naturally polygamous in tendency
and that the girls of the boulevards were coquettishly complaisant to
the tall young man. Dumas listened in silence to Marie-Catherine's
excoriations, but when Alexandre fils, clutching his mother's skirt, set
up a loud wail the infuriated young poet placed his head in his hands
and rocked from side to side. At that moment he would have enjoyed
strangling the future author of La Dame aux CamMias* It was all too
impossible. Gabbling clerks and stupid officials at the Palais-Royal.
A wailing child and a quick-tongued mother. Where was he to go
and what was he to do? How in the name of the Forty Immortals
was he ever to finish Christine? When he was again alone— Marie-

124 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Catnenne having exhausted herself and departed dragging the child
behind her— Dumas scribbled a note of explanation and apology to
M. Deviolaine and despatched it to the Palais-Royal, where, it was to
be presumed, it would be handed over to the growling official upon
his return. Then he called on Porcher. Porcher had been his friend
in the past and there was no reason why he should not be so in the
future. But Porcher shied at the suggestion of advancing any money
on an unplaced tragedy. He controlled a smile at the picture of Dumas
invading the frowning precincts of the Theatre-Fran^ais. "Confound
it," he said, "if it had been a vaudeville now . . . something worked
up with Rousseau . . . but a tragedy!" He shook his head. "Get it
received," he added, "and we shall see." Get it received! What Dumas
desired was to get it finished. That evening he walked with a heavy
heart down the rue de FOuest. It did not occur to him that he was at
fault, that, after all, he was no more than an ordinary clerk in a large
establishment where only head clerks were rewarded with private
offices, that his brief sojourn in the calm oasis of M. Bichet's bureau
had spoiled him, that like all creators he fondly imagined the wheels
of business should pause and accommodate his uncertain desires. All
that he perceived was a thwarted young writer who possessed an excel-
lent idea and could not get on with it and live at the same time. It was
the eternal injustice that a practical world metes out to the artist who
would both live by it and scorn it.

Dumas walked about for a long time, avoiding de Leuven, Soulie
and his new friend Mery. He wanted to put his jumbled thoughts in
order. Then he returned to his home and went to bed and stayed
there for three days and nights. On the morning of the fourth day he
put the finishing touches to the first draft of Christine, added the
famous last line:

Eh bicn> j'cn ai pitie, mon ptre . . . Qu'on I'achfae!

which, by the way, was not to be the last line in the final acting
version, and opened with a trembling hand a letter which his mother
handed him and which bore the frank of the Palais-Royal

M. Deviolaine thrust a ferocious face toward Dumas and scowled.
He was more like a boar than ever.

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 125

"You cursed blockhead!" he shouted, "So we are too grand a lord
to work with ordinary mortals!"

"That is not so," replied Dumas. "I am not a sufficiently grand lord
to work with the others, that is why I wish to work alone.**

M. Deviolaine laughed hoarsely and snapped his thick fingers.

"You desire a private office in which to do nothing but write your
dirty plays?"

Dumas flushed but his voice was steady. He replied:

"I ask for an office for myself so that I can have the right to think
while I am working."

"To think!" screamed Deviolaine. "You are not paid to think!"

He strode up and down snorting and grumbling to himself, his
bulky chest thrust out, his brawny arms waving.

"If it were not for your mother," he mumbled, "Fd send you pack-
ing, you rascal ! A private office . . . for my lord Dumas . . . very
well . . . very well . . . you may have your private office."

Dumas opened his eyes in glad amazement. He started to stutter
something but M. Deviolaine broke in.

"You shall have your full share of work. I shall oversee it person-
ally. If you scamp anything, you puppy, off you go! Now return to
your . . . your private office, try to make up for the three days you
have lost and don't talk too much to the ink-bottles."

Dumas re-entered the Forestry Department with a bland smile at
the disconcerted clerks. He sat down in the cubicle which the office-
boy, instinctively rubbing his ear, hastily vacated, and sharpened his
pen and set to work.

Ill

M. Villenave was a fine looking old gentleman with white hair
curling daintily about his temples. His black eyes flashed with a
Southern fire and when he conversed his gestures were graceful and
distinguished. He had been in Nantes during the Terror when Jean-
Baptiste Carrier, of bloody memory, had flung his manages revolution-
naires into the Loire, and he had written a pamphlet on these atrocities
called Relation des noyades de cent trente-deux Nantais. Madame
Villenave was a gracious little old lady who concealed the fact that

126 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

she suffered from cancer. She entertained superbly and to observe her
move about a room was a distinct pleasure. Theodore Villenave was
a tall, energetic young man who wrote poetry. But it was not M.
Villenave, who was a bibliophile and whose gigantic library threat-
ened to weigh down the house at eighty-two, rue de Vaugirard, nor
Madame Villenave, who passed the tea and cakes so prettily, nor
Theodore Villenave, who had introduced him to this house of books,
that Dumas's eyes followed. Seated near a bronze urn which had
once contained the heart of Bayard and beneath a portrait of Anne
Boleyn by Holbein was a rather thin, repressed-appearing young
woman with black hair and an extremely dark complexion who held
a charming small child against her slender knee. This young woman
spoke very seldom and when she did she spoke in a low husky voice.
An indefinable atmosphere of melancholia hovered about her. She
was Madame Melanie Waldor, daughter of M. Villenave and wife of
an infantry captain who was posted in garrison outside of Paris. The
eyes of Dumas seemed chained to this woman. She was dark and
Marie-Catherine was blonde. She was silent and Marie-Catherine was
talkative. She was aristocratic and Marie-Catherine was distinctly of
the people. She wrote poetry and Marie-Catherine could not even
read with pleasure. Dumas observed this young woman who had
come so unexpectedly into his life and his voice became husky, hesi-
tant and uncontrollable. He was fascinated, stunned, paralyzed by an
instantaneous infatuation. The women he had known before, Adele,
Marie-Catherine, Mademoiselle Walker, the light loves of the evening
boulevards, were completely erased from his mind before this aloof
woman who sat so still beneath the Holbein canvas. She appeared
unattainable and Dumas instantly desired her.
, M. Villenave continued his conversation. He told the bloody story
of Jean-Baptiste Carrier and Dumas mumbled absent-minded re-
sponses. He showed the young man his stacks of boxes containing
autographs, and the creator of Christine without knowing what he
was saying, promised the old collector an autograph of Buonaparte
containing the rare "u." Theodore Villenave recited some of his
verses and Dumas applauded without having heard them. Madame
Villenave passed him a cup of tea and he placed it beside him and did
not pick it up again. Melanie Waldor sat beside the urn that had

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 127

contained the noble heart of Bayard and said nothing but her dark
eyes lifted once and gazed steadily at the young man who was watch-
ing. She coughed slightly and turned away. Miles away Captain
Waldor sat at the mess-table with his brother officers and discussed
the Spanish Campaign. Marie-Catherine, at number one, Place des
Italiens, was undressing Alexandre ftls and settling him in his little
bed. It was June, 1827, By September the dark-eyed Melanie had
given herself to Dumas.

The four months that intervened between these dates were months
of fury and passion for the young dramatist. This woman, six years
older than he (she was born in 1796), aroused a Macchiavelli, a
Mephistopheles and a Don Juan in Dumas. Melanie was cold at first
and indignantly repudiated the frank advances of Dumas. He became
more wily. He wrote to her every day, sometimes twice a day. He
sought excuses to call at the Villenave house. Melanie, frightened at
the outset by this romantic passion and yet lured by it, observed
Dumas with a troubled eye. She was a poet and a blue stocking who
possessed no particular affection for her garrison-minded husband, and
the spectacle of this tall young man in his Quiroga cape, with his
colored gilets and his decorated cane and his Byronic mannerisms
disturbed that sang-froid which had been her armour in the Villenave
household. She, too, dramatized herself. She preserved a resistance
at first, but it was a short resistance. The appeal of the passionate
young man was too much. She was lonely and he was the exhilarated
child of his romantic era. She was literarily inclined and he was a
poet and dramatist. He read long scenes from Christine to her and
his burning marginal comments which accompanied the readings
steadily weakened her attitude. He excited and thrilled her by Satanic
posings, questionings of the existence of God, half-formulated threats
of the Mephistophelian life he intended to follow; for that, too, like
an aped consumption, was a part of the romantic mummery of the
times. She suggested a Platonic relationship. Dumas laughed at the
thought, and stalked up and down the Villenave drawing-room. The
situation developed into a siege during which Dumas neglected his
work, his mother, everything. As for Marie-Catherine, the mother of
his illegitimate son, she had been swept completely out of his mind.
She knew this and was prepared already for those long years of

I28 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

estrangement Dumas made irregular attempts to provide a little for
Marie-Catherine, but the passion which had been born and which had
died in the three little rooms at number one. Place des Italiens, was
finished. The volatile young man, a confirmed disciple of Venus,
sought love in other and many places. At this moment it was Melanie,
and Melanie became a flaming desire for him.

It is impossible to analyze this passion with any degree of exactitude.
But it is possible to understand a part of it. Melanie Waldor was the
first "lady" who suggested the possibility of conquest to Dumas. The
passionate negro in him was aroused and importunate to taste the
joys of a liaison that possessed its intellectual ardours as well as the
spontaneous madnesses of the flesh. Was she was at work on a
romance, L'ficuyer Daubernon? Dumas was enchanted with distin-
guished names, with caste, with refinements all his life, and to the
young man of 1827 Madame Melanie Waldor, daughter of the well
known bibliophile, M. Villenave, was a prize slightly above his sta-
tion. He was inconsistent in this for he knew himself to be the son
of General Alexandre Dumas. At the same time he must have realized
also that he was the country boy from Villers-Cotterets who labored
as a simple clerk in the Due d'Orleans' establishment at the Palais-
Royal.

The weeks passed with the wooing of Melanie, a constant flood of
amorous letters, melodramatic posings, and still the dark-eyed young
woman remained adamant. Dumas decided upon a decisive step.
Though he was almost penniless he engaged a small room, and from
it wrote to Melanie. His letters were sly, calculated to combat her
scruples, but still she was chary. She probably knew in her heart that
she could not withstand these advances much longer, that a kindred
passion had been awakened in her slender body. She protested that if
she came to that tiny hidden room alone she would not be safe, that
Dumas would towzle her new flounced garments. It was a weak
protest and Dumas, scenting victory, assured her that she need only
remove her hat, that such a protest was cruelty, but that if she insisted
he would do no more than gaze upon her beauty. He awaited her,
knowing that her last qualms had been satisfied in her own mind.
And she went to him knowing that the inevitable was about to
occur. It was during the last part of September, 1827, that Melanie

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 129

gave herself to Dumas and embarked upon that three years' liaison
which was to be so full of unhappinesses, scruples and jealousies for
her and wearinesses and infidelities for him. It was impossible for
Dumas to remain faithful to any woman for any degree of time.
Alexandre fils, who had been born on July 27, 1824, was three years
and two months old at this time.

After his conquest Dumas became more dithyrambic on paper than
ever. His self-dramatization continued to endless screeds written at all
hours of the day and night, letters of reassurance, of love, of advice, of
Satanic prophecies. These epistles would be interrupted by his clerical
duties, by his revision of Christine, by hunger. Dumas always possessed
an excellent appetite and he could interrupt a love letter with the
utmost equanimity in order to go out and eat a fine rich meaL There
was a little of the soul of Gargantua in him. Melanie, for her part,
strove to slacken the ardor of this volcanic young man. Weak and
rather anaemic, her blood ran thin and physical passion did not rouse
her to the same degree as it did Dumas. Her lassitude provoked
Dumas, but for the time being his desire was unabated. Melanie began
to suffer from palpitation of the heart but Dumas remained the
undaunted lover. She developed dyspepsia and this rather cooled his
ardour. A dyspeptic mistress was not exactly the type one could poetize
about. He advised her to fatten herself and threatened that as soon
as she was plumper he would plague her to thinness again with love.
Melanie must have heard this with a wry smile.

As a matter of fact, she received nothing from this liaison but
unhappiness; Dumas, on the contrary, found the substaace of one of
his most sensational plays in it.

Christine was finished. But what was Dumas to do with this bastard
daughter born outside the gates of the Institute and the Academy.
De Leuven could not help him; De Leuven's entree to the Theatre-
Frangais was through that conservative of conservatives, M. Arnault.
Rousseau had never aimed as high as the national theater. Soulie was
at work himself on a Christine. It would therefore be futile to go to
him. Lassagne possessed no acquaintances within the sacred precincts.
Still Lassagne was an astute young man and it would do no harm to
a$k Him. "Do you know Baron Taylor?" Dumas asked. Lassagae

o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

ook his head. "Charles Nodier is his intimate friend," he replied.
Veil, what of that?" "Did you not tell me a story once about sitting
side Nodier at some performance or other?" Dumas's eyes bright-
ed. Of course! His first night as a citizen of Paris. Lc Vampire.
ic gentleman with Lc Pastissicr Francois. He had worn a buff
iistcoat and whistled at the performance and been ejected. Dumas
t down at Lassagne's desk and drew up a letter to Charles Nodier
calling to him the young man who had sat beside him at the per-
rmance of Lc Vampire, the conversation on Elzevirs, rotifers, vam-
res and Nero, and begging him to introduce that young man to
iron Taylor, royal commissioner of the Theatre-Franjais. That done
id the letter despatched there was nothing to do but wait. Within a
w days Dumas received a letter not from Charles Nodier but from
iron Taylor himself making an appointment for seven o'clock in
te morning five or six days hence. When the fateful morning arrived
trembling Dumas, bearing a huge roll of manuscript beneath his
:m, mounted the steps at 42, rue du Bondy, and pulled the bell-cord
ith a shaking hand.

Baron Taylor was sitting in his bath-tub, caught like an enraged
ger in his den, while a persistent gentleman sat on the edge of the
ib and read to him an interminable tragedy called Hccubc. At every
utrageous alexandrine Baron Taylor would knock his head against
ic side of the bath and groan. When the author of Hccubc perceived
tie timid Dumas entering with a great roll of paper under his arm he
lutched the tub more tightly and interrupted his reading long enough
o say: "There are only two more acts, Monsieur,— there are only two
aore acts!" Baron Taylor lifted a desperate eye and exclaimed: "Two
word-cuts, two stabs with a knife, two thrusts with a dagger! Select
>ne of those arms up there; choose the one that will slice the best and
:ill me straight off!" He indicated some martial trophies hanging on
he wall. The persistent playwright stood upon his rights. The Gov-
ernment had appointed Baron Taylor commissairc du roi and it was
lis duty to listen to plays. "That is where the misfortune comes in!"
:ried the wretched Baron Taylor. "You and such people as you will
make me hand in my resignation. I will go to Egypt! I will explore
tie sources of the Nile as far as Nubia! I will go to the Mountains

MADEMOISELLE GEORGES

The shadow of Bonaparte still hovered about her and made her -a*
object of awed curiosity to the populace

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 131

of the Moon!" "You can go to China if you like/* returned the unfeel-
ing dramatist, "but not until you have heard my play." Baron Taylor

. . . bowed his comely head
Down as upon a bed

and said nothing more. Dumas quietly withdrew to the next room
and sat there waiting while the drone of the persistent playwright
went on and on. The young man could picture the prostrate form of
Baron Taylor in the cold bath-tub and his heart bled for him. At the
same time he began to realize that this was not exactly the auspicious
moment in which to inflict five more acts in couplets upon the com-
missioner. Perhaps he had better go, creep out quietly, and come back
another day. Even while he was meditating this the drone of the
author of Hecube ceased, his feet sounded along the hall, the door
closed with a bang and double-locks were hastily snapped in place.
Baron Taylor, a bath-robe drawn tightly about his shivering form,
entered the room and stared curiously at the young man and suspi-
ciously at the bundle of manuscript he clutched in his hand. Dumas
rose to his feet.

"Perhaps," he said, "another time . , . you must be tired ..."

Baron Taylor shook his head like a martyr when some matter-of-
fact pagan offers to put out the flames,

"Now that you are here," he said, "go on."

He crawled into bed gloomily and hauled the blanket up about his
shivering shoulders.

"I will stop whenever it bores you," remarked Dumas unrolling his
bundle of paper.

A glint of amusement shone for an instant in Baron Taylor's eyes.

"You are merciful," he murmured.

Dumas began to read but his voice shook so with nervousness that
He could not proceed. Baron Taylor reassured him and the young
man, pale and perspiring, reached the end of the first act. Without
daring to lift his eyes Dumas stuttered: "Shall I go on?" A resonant,
"Certainly, certainly," answered him, and Dumas plunged with more
confidence into the second act. His courage began to return, his faith
in his play and the romantic innovations that adorned it. He swept
through the third act, the fourth, the fifth, and then stood up in front

132 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

of Baron Taylor and waited. He waited like a man facing a firing
squad, his head high and his lips tightly compressed. He did not wait
long. Baron Taylor leaped out of his bed and shouted loudly,
"Pierre!" An old man-servant stumbled in and Baron Taylor ordered
that his clothes be brought immediately. "You must come to the
Theatre-Franjais with me/' he said, turning to Dumas as he pulled
his shirt over his head. "What must I do there?" inquired the young
man. "Why, get your turn to read your play as soon as possible,"
answered Baron Taylor. "Do you really mean it!" exclaimed Dumas.
Baron Taylor hopped about as he invested himself with his trousers.

The green room of the Theatre-Frangais was crowded with a large
group of men and women. There were Mademoiselle Mars, Made-
moiselle Leverd, Mademoiselle Bourgoin, Madame Valmonzey, Ma-
dame Paradol and Mademoiselle Demerson, all decked out in gay hats
and carrying bouquets, their wide skirts swishing over the green
carpet as they swayed in like so many proud swans. The men, Baron
Taylor, Firmin, Michelot, Joanny, Delaf osse, Marius, Dumilatre, were
in fashionable dress, their pointed boots, gloves and sticks glittering in
the soft light that filtered through the windows. Dumas, seated beside
a small table upon which a silent employee had gravely placed a glass
of water, looked about him with glazed eyes. His throat was dry and
he was sure that he would croak when he started to read. Here they
all were, the stars of the Theatre-Fran$ais, the most noted names in
the dramatic world of Paris (which was to say France) observing him
with bright and curious eyes, whispering to one another, moving
about, settling down, waiting to vote their opinion on Christine. The
young man did not dare to imagine what the verdict would be. He
was not as valiant before these assembled stars as he was before
Melanie. Baron Taylor called the Committee to order, Dumas opened
his manuscript and began to read.

This first version of Christine, though romantic in temperament,
still clung to the unities. The five acts took place at Fontainebleau
and the rules articulated by Aristotle were rigidly observed. Still, there
was a perplexing new spirit in this play, something that puzzled the
assembled players as they listened to its exposition. It was expressed
by Firmin after the reading when Dumas had been sent from the

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 133

room so that the Committee might deliberate freely without the
embarrassment of the author's presence. Firmin came into the hall
and exclaimed: "Our difficulty is this: we do not know whether the
play is classic or romantic." "Never mind," replied Dumas. "Is it a
good play or a bad one?" This did not solve the problem for the
Committee. Dumas, from his refuge in the hall, heard the mingled
gabble of voices and waited impatiently. Would they never end?
What did it matter whether or not the play could be catalogued as
classic or romantic? As a matter of fact, it was a romantic theme in
a classical setting. Finally Dumas was called into the green room. He
entered hesitantly and walked toward Baron Taylor who was smiling.
The Baron explained that Christine was accepted subject to certain
conditions. It must be read again. It must be submitted to the judg-
ment of some acknowledged expert. All that Dumas heard was the
word "accepted." He did not wait for the further deliberations that
were to take place relative to this drama of his but seizing his manu-
script and thanking Baron Taylor with French explosiveness he darted
from the room. He ran through the streets ogling everybody he met,
men and women alike, and barely restrained himself from rushing
up to total strangers and exclaiming, "You haven't written Christine.
You haven't just come away from the Theatre-Frangais. You haven't
been received with acclamation." He stumbled across gutters, darted
in and out among the horses that were speeding along, and rushing
up the stairs of his home, burst into his mother's room like a bomb-
shell. "Received with acclamation, mother! received with acclama-
tion!" he shouted. The amazed Madame Dumas imagined her son
had taken leave of his senses. She began to worry about his absence
from the Palais-Royal for he had not told her he was taking the day
off. "Also," she added, "where is your play?" Dumas thrust his hand
into his coat pocket and withdrew it with a wild look. He had lost
Christine. It must have slipped from his pocket when he was darting
across gutters and dodging the horses. "No matter," he said. "I know
the play by heart. I will sit up all night and copy it out." His mother
sighed, "You had better hurry to the Palais-Royal," she urged. Fifteen
hundred francs in the pocket were better than fifteen thousand in the
imagination to her. Dumas set off for the rue Saint-Honor^ at a run
and settled himself to his reports. He labored until six o'clock, then

i34 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

sped home and passed the night copying out a new draft of Christine.
Thus ended that momentous day, April 30, 1828.

The next day Dumas entered an office that had changed in appear-
ance* Heretofore the clerks had adopted a mocking attitude toward
the young man. His ambition had been a joke among them and his
pre-emption of the office-boy's cubicle had not endeared him to a
group that was, as a whole, gregarious and fond of conversing during
the hours of work. This group had observed in the morning paper
a notice conveying the information that the Theatre-Fran^ais had
accepted with acclamation a five-act tragedy by a young man employed
in the administrative offices of Monsieur le Due cTOrleans, and it clus-
tered about the young man to felicitate him. Dumas also observed
in the notice the unsuspected information that the aforesaid young
man had had his way made easy for him by the Due who had strongly
recommended him to the Reading Committee. The author of Chris-
tine smiled a bit sourly at this falsification of facts. M. Deviolaine hid
himself the greater part of the day but appeared long enough to heap
some satirical scorn on Christine and prophesy that the tragedy would
never be produced. Dumas listened with a smile. He could not be
troubled now by the snorting of the boar-like director of his depart-
ment. And when Firmin, the actor, appeared, M. Deviolaine disap-
peared in a cloud of stuttering oaths. He could not conceive the
possibility of a produced play written by the ragged urchin who had
run about the ruined cloister of St. Remy at Villers-Cotterets. It was
inconceivable, one of those madnesses of fortune for which there was
no logic.

Firmin had come to inform Dumas that M. Picard had been selected
by the Committee as the proper judge and authority to read Christine.
Picard enjoyed the absolute confidence of the Theatre-Francis.
Dumas's face fell He detested M. Picard as one of those old-fashioned
pundits who had retarded the development of real drama in France
as much as M. Scribe had advanced vaudeville. Nevertheless he must
go. It was a reluctant young man who went to M. Picard's house with
his newly copied script under his arm and rang the bell. He was
received by a little deformed man with long hands, bright, snake-like
eyes and a nose pointed like a weasel's. M. Picard received the play in
a grudging manner, peered sharply at Dumas and invited him to

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 135

return in a week's time* Dumas passed a weary, endless, troubled
week cheered only by his assignations with Melanie. He had no confi-
dence in M. Picard and he began to fear that his first burst of enthu-
siasm had been somewhat premature. Plays were not accepted and
produced as easily as all that.

The week passed and Dumas, accompanied by Firmin, again
mounted the steps of M. Picard's house. Weasel-snout met them at
the door, ushered them in, bade them be seated, and inquired after
their health. He smiled and his uneven teeth proved to be yellow.
He bent toward Dumas and said:

"My dear monsieur, have you any means of livelihood ?"

"I am a clerk at fifteen hundred francs a year in the establishment
of Monsieur le Due d'Orleans," replied Dumas. What was all this
about, anyway?

M. Picard suddenly thrust a bundle of paper into Dumas's hands.

"Well, then," he said, still smiling, "my advice to you, dear boy, is
to return to your desk ... to return to your desk."

Dumas rose like an automaton, and, clutching the manuscript of
Christine to his breast, marched out of the house without a word,
leaving Firmin to find out what it was all about. M. Picard, the
modern Moliere, seemed to the young man the most repulsive creature
he had ever met in his life. It had been the ancient situation of the
traditionalist and the innovator. Old men who had placed themselves
were always rude to young men who were striking out on new paths*
There had been an emotional quiver in Christine which even its
classical form could not quiet or disguise and this quiver had seemed
to M. Picard the mere tawdriness of undisciplined presumptuousness.
It was too ridiculous to discuss. All that M. Picard could do was to
smile at this ambitious clerk and despatch him to his office. Dumas
was shocked and dismayed. It had only been a week ago that he had
read his play to the stellar lights of the French stage, that he had
walked across the emerald carpet of the green room of the Theatre-
Franjais and received the encouraging smile of Baron Taylor. And
now, this! Well . . , he would return to Baron Taylor . . . that
breach in the Bastille of the Theatre-Fran$ais . . . and see what
could be done.

136 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Baron Taylor's face was serious. He took the manuscript and re-
quested Dumas to return on the morrow. Upon Dumas's reappearance
the royal commissioner's face was not so serious. There was even the
suspicion of a smile on it. He showed Dumas the first page of Chris-
tine. Across it was written, "Upon my soul and conscience, I believe
Christine to be one of the most remarkable works that I have read in
twenty years. Charles Nodier." "I needed that to back me up," re-
marked Taylor, and, while Dumas was planning a thousand notes of
thanks to Nodier and determining to buy him all the Elzevirs in the
world, the royal commissioner went on to explain that there must be
another reading and that M. Samson would have the final word upon
it. Dumas's fate was still in the balance but he walked out of Baron
Taylor's office with a certain gaiety. M. Samson was a practical man
and he would know the dramatic possibilities of Christine. After all,
Dumas was writing directly for actors; his plays were "good theater"
and it was robust action that he desired to picture on the stage of the
Theatre-Franfais. Let M. Picard and M. Arnault and M. Lemercier
be as stiltedly literary as they pleased; what Dumas aimed at was the
fire of life, the movement he had sensed in the Shakespearean produc-
tions of the English players and the naturalness of human actions
under the stress of melodramatic passions.

The second reading of Christine took place on a Sunday. A larger
congregation of players than the first crowded into the green room of
the Theatre-Franfais and a more enthusiastic reception of Christine
than before greeted the reading. M. Samson was practical. He had
made many notes and when he approached the young playwright he
had some astonishing changes to suggest. M. Samson was a romantic
at heart also, even more daring than Dumas. He calmly destroyed the
unities, suggested changes of locale, pointed out the necessity of a new
romantic character, and otherwise entangled the simple scheme that
Dumas had created. At first the young playwright was indignant.
This mangling of his child seemed horrible, but Samson possessed
both reason and power on his side. The result was that Dumas en-
tirely recast his tragedy. The five unified acts were rewritten into a
prologue, two acts in Sweden, three acts in Fontainebleau and an
epilogue. In this way the time-honored structure of the French tragedy
was smashed to pieces. There was nothing to do after these labors,

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 137

which seemed to Dumas like an illegal vivisection of an innocent child,
but to turn the play in to the Theatre-Fran^ais and wait patiently for
the first call to rehearsals.

Meanwhile much was transpiring. Souli£'s Romeo ct Juliette had
been accepted by the Odeon and was about to be produced. The two
men had not met since that evening when Soulie had told Dumas to
proceed with his Christine, but Souli£ in spite of his pride and stub-
bornness remained cognizant of the younger man and he saw to it
that his ambitious rival received two seats for the opening night of
Romeo et Juliette. Soulie belonged to the new school and the opening
night proved to be a vague tremor and prophecy of those embattled
premieres that were to follow and culminate with the forty triumph-
ant representations of Victor Hugo's Hernani. Very slowly the two
armies, romanticists and traditionalists, were arranging their forces
and preparing for slaughter. Dumas thought Souli£'s Rom6o et
Juliette dull but that was because he had already witnessed several
performances of this tragedy by the English players. What he called
Soulie's "excessive good taste" in improving Shakespeare jarred his
romantic sensibilities. The general public, however, liked the play
well enough. Its romantic tendencies had been sufficiently classicised
to ease the shock the traditionalists rather expected. Though the
battle-lines were forming the real bomb was yet to be exploded, and
the young man who was to concoct that bomb had not even discovered
his subject. The road from the vivisection of Christine, however, was
to lead straight to Henri III et sa cour.

Christine, for her part, began to experience unsuspected obstacles
at the Theatre-Fran^ais. The casual and abrupt judgment of the
weasel-snouted M. Picard had injected a sly poison into the first and
unthinking enthusiasm of the players. Mademoiselle Mars cooled
decidedly in her study of the tide role. She was a head-strong, con-
ceited favorite who had triumphed in the leading parts of Racine and
she announced that Christine was beneath her powers. What was
Dumas to do with a temperamental creature who flung her dressing-
room window open after he left and exclaimed, "Faugh! He stinks
like a negro!" Firmin, an excellent actor, who had been cast for
Monaldeschi, experienced a growing uneasiness over the part. Ligicr,
who was to play Sentinelli, withdrew from the Th^itre-Franjais and

138 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

went to the Odeon. The truth was that these players trained to a
tradition were afraid to venture too far from that tradition. The
crown which had seemed just within the grasp of Dumas steadily
removed itself from his eager reach. He ran about arguing, pacifying,
compromising. His activities were of no avail. There was too much
adverse influence directed against Christine. This innovation, compro-
mising with the old tradition as it did, frightened the mimes, who
were at best the animated puppets of fashion, and disturbed the direc-
tors, who had yet to emancipate themselves from the traditionalist
influence. The Bastille still held firm and although Ange Pitou had
penetrated to the outer courts he had still to destroy the oubliettes.
The instant was not quite ripe for the thunderclap of romanticism.

A thunderclap did sound, however, for Dumas. He heard that a
second Christine, the work of a former prefect named Brault, had
been offered to the Theatre-Fran^ais. M. Brault desired that the tide
role be played by Madame Valmonzey; Madame Valmonzey was the
mistress of M. Evariste Dumoulin; M. Evariste Dumoulin was the
editor-in-chief of Le Constitutionnel; Le Constitutionnel was one of
the most powerful journals in Paris. The inferences are plain enough.
M. fivariste Dumoulin intimated that he would ruin the Theatre-Fran-
£ais by means of Le Constitutionnel unless M. Brault's Christine was
produced before M. Dumas's play. The directors were in a high state
of fear and excitement at this intimation. They cowered before the
imposing figure of M. Evariste Dumoulin, and Madame Valmonzey
walked about the theatre with an anticipatory smile upon her plump
features. A feeling of despair settled upon Dumas, who found him-
self helpless in the face of all this intrigue. When the directors ap-
proached him and explained that M. Brault was suffering from an
incurable disease and that his one hope in life was to see his Christine
produced before he died the young man flung up his arms in aban-
donment. M. Brault's son came to Dumas and expatiated upon the
fatal illness of his father. If M. Dumas needed a loan . . . The Due
de Decazes, a personal friend of M. Brault's, also came to the young
man. The wishes of a dying man. . . If M. Dumas needed any money.
. . . Dumas, with a sigh, signed a release of its obligation for the
Th^atre-Franjais. His mythical crown had disappeared in a dark and

THE BAPTISM OF A MAN 139

forbidding cloud. M. Brault's Christine was announced for imme-
diate production.

Melanic who continued to suffer from dyspepsia heard the story of
Dumas* first skirmish and defeat with the Theitre-Fran^ais with min-
gled emotions. She desired the success of the young man, but, from
various unguarded remarks of Dumas*, she had gathered that there
was an unpleasantly large group of handsome women at the national
institution. Several of these women had cast melting eyes upon the
tall, young playwright, and Dumas, strutting like a turkey-cock before
this admiration, had responded quickly and eagerly* A small demon
of jealousy crept into Melanie's mind and disturbed her days. Recrimi-
nations began to creep into her speech. Dumas, tired of her eternal
dyspepsia and neurotic tendencies, decided that his grande passion
had about run its course. Still, it was too soon to break off relations.
There was still a charm, diminished to be sure, in this liaison with the
sickly poetess. Then too, there were the moments of passion when
Melanie, with all the fierce ardour of a diseased woman, clung to him
and whispered words of delirious love into his ear. The delight of
conquest was strong in the young man and he responded with his
usual self-dramatization. Between love and clerical duties he passed
some few weeks seeking vaguely for a new subject that might make
a play.

Soulie met him one day on the street and stopped him. There was
a smile on the older man's face.

"Congratulate me," he said.

"What for?" asked Dumas. "For Romto ct Juliette? Frederic, I
thought it dull"

"No, no," answered Soulie. "I have finished my Christine."

"Yes?" said Dumas.

"It has been accepted by the Odeon," proceeded Souli£.

"Yes?" said Dumas.

"Mademoiselle Georges and Ligier arc to play the leading parts."

"Yes?" said Dumas.

CHAPTER SIX

TAKING THE BASTILLE

Near the Quai des Celestins and overlooking the river was an
ancient gloomy-looking edifice called the Arsenal. It was here that
Francois I had the cannon cast which did such deadly work at Pavia.
Partly demolished during the reign of Henri II, by a tremendous ex-
plosion of the gunpowder stored in it, this building was reared anew
by Charles IX and finished by the nasal-voiced Henri IV. Henri gave
it to his minister of finance, Sully. In the course of time it became a
library, and the beautiful rooms once decorated by the parsimonious
Sully with Henri IV's money were crowded with endless shelves of
rare and curious tomes. One entered the Arsenal by an ugly door,
mounted a flight of steps with massive balustrades, came to a badly
fitting portal on the left, walked down a bricked corridor and entered
the apartment of the librarian, Charles Nodier. It was a journey
Dumas often took now, for ever since Nodier had aided him with
the unfortunate Christine the Arsenal had been flung open to the
young man. It was a finishing school for him, a post-graduate course
in literary Paris. Here during a period of several years he met most
of the younger writers of the day and a number of the older figures.
There was laughter, song, conversation, dancing. Above all there was
Charles Nodier himself, learned, kindly, sprightly-minded and bub-
bling with paradoxes. Nodier, his wife and daughter were charmed
from the first by Dumas and within a short space of time the tall
young man was an accepted member of the lively household. He
found there an agreeable and animated domesticity he had never
known in his own life, a laughing suaveness, a mellowed sophistica-
tion, an atmosphere sparking with cultured argument and aesthetic

140

TAKING THE BASTILLE 141

formulations. What a relief it was from the injustice and intrigues of
the Theatre-Fran^ais, the jealous reproaches of Melanie, the stupid
routine of the Palais-Royal, and the empty laughter of the cafes. Here
Dumas could be himself, could expand, could catch the ball of con-
versation and juggle it back and forth with other writers.

Nodier was an ideal host His friends, once he had accepted them,
might dine with him as often as they liked. At six o'clock the table
was laid for the regulars with always two or three extra plates put out
for chance comers. The habitues were Gailleux, the director of the
Musee; Baron Taylor, already meditating his relinquishment of the
onerous post of Royal Commissioner of the Theatre-Frangais and a
journey into Egypt; Francis Wey and Dauzats. The casual diners
were Bixio, Saint- Valery and Dumas. Dinner was simple, for Nodier
had simple taste. When it was over he would loll back in his chair and
sip his Mocha (for he did not approve of rising from table to drink
:offee in a half-warmed salon) and inhale his liqueur. Madame
Nodier, Marie and Dumas, who took neither coffee nor liqueurs,
would vanish into the salon and light the lustres and candalabras.
Five minutes after the room was lighted and the gentle glow of the
:andles was reflected in the creamy walls Baron Taylor and Cailleux
would amble in and sink into the plush warmth of the sofa. Then
would come Nodier, his arm interlaced in that of Bixio or Wey or
Dauzats, for he was like a tall climbing plant that needed something
to lean upon. Ten minutes later the usual callers began to arrive, their
:eet clicking in the brick corridor as they hurried to the salon. There
tvere Alfred and Tony Johannot, both of whom were to die young
md who already had the melancholy look of the grave jupon their
mpassive faces. Tony always brought a fresh drawing or engraving
to enrich Marie Nodier's album. There was Fontancy who also
seemed to have a vague presentiment of death. There was Alfred de
V^igny, not yet transfigured in his own mind and still deigning to mix
tfith mortals. There was Barye the sculptor, who appeared to walk
n a dream listening to far-away voices. There was Louis Boulanger,
te artist, changeable as an April day, now sad, now roaring with
aughter. There was Francisque Michel, a seeker of old manuscripts,
;o forgetful that he would arrive occasionally in an old hat of the
period of Louis XIII and yellow slippers. There was Alfred de Mus-

142 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

set, just beyond the state of boyhood and dreaming his Contcs
d'Espagne et d'ltalie. There was Victor Hugo, a stocky youth with a
noble forehead and already a celebrity. There was Lamartine, re-
strained and grave in demeanor.

Sometimes Charles Nodier would draw up his tall, lean body be-
side the chimney-piece, stretch out his thin arms ending in white
tapering hands and start to tell a story. It did not matter what the
tale might be, an imaginary narrative of love, a skirmish on the plains
of La Vendee, some drama of the Place de la Revolution, a conspiracy
of Georges Cadoudal or Oudet, the result would always be the same.
From his lips would issue such engaging description that his attentive
audience would hold its breath that it might hear the better. Belated
guests who entered while Nodier was in the midst of a story would
slide quietly into chairs or lean against the wainscoting. These stories
would always end too soon. Nodier would seat himself in his arm-
chair, and indicating Victor Hugo or Lamartine, murmur: "Enough
of prose. Let us have poetry." And one or the other man indicated
would rise without a second bidding and recite some recent composi-
tion. Dumas was enchanted. As he listened to the delightful stories
of Nodier or the odes of Lamartine and Victor Hugo or the argu-
ments of the assembled artists and writers he seemed to be existing
in a sort of Paradise guarded from the brawling world of Paris by
the thick forbidding walls of the Arsenal.

When ten o'clock struck Marie Nodier would seat herself before her
piano and stir the instrument to a ripple of notes. Arm-chairs were
scraped back against the wall, and non-dancers with a penchant for
card playing would hasten into the alcoves. Nodier, who did not
dance but liked cards, would disappear into some corner. After he
had played bataillc or £cart& for a short time he vanished entirely. In
other words, he betook himself to bed and permitted the party to pro-
ceed without him. It was the duty of Madame Nodier to put this
great child to bed. She would leave first and if it were winter or the
kitchen fire had extinguished itself she might be seen presently thread-
ing the dancers with a huge warming-pan which she would fill at
the fireplace. Nodier followed the warming-pan as a cat follows a
saucer of milk and was seen no more. Meanwhile the dancing would
continue to the accompaniment of Marie Nodier who, unlike her

V N *

\ v

VICTOR HUGO

The Sun-God, in spite of his jealousy, remained a good
friend to JDum^s

ALFRED DE VIGNY

He was one of the Romantic trmmplmate with Dnmas and Hugo

TAKING THE BASTILLE 143

father, was not given to retiring at early hours. Dumas, whose dancing
had improved since those far-off days when he had burst his trousers
leaping the Haha, was one of the popular figures during this lighter
side of the evening. His spontaneous wit and freshness also made him
a favorite* He could say to Saint-Valery, who was extremely tall and
very sensitive about his height, when that individual complained of a
cold in the head, "Didn't you have cold feet a year ago?"

It is impossible to estimate how much these evenings brought to
Dumas but it is obvious that they contributed materially to his future.
He met men there who were to be of service to him in later years,
and any rough surfaces that five years of Paris had not smoothed away
were eradicated by the politcssc of the Nodier household. A great
amount of information was sifted into his quick mind. Books and
literary movements and theories were made plain for him. The con-
versation of writers about his own age, such as Victor Hugo, must
have been important to him. The Arsenal, then, as has been said, was
a finishing school for him, a place where he might orientate himself
squarely in the fluctuating and perplexing literary world of the day.
Ajid when, after one o'clock in the morning, he came forth from the
Arsenal and crossed the moonlit and deserted expanse of the Ile-Saint-
Louis, threading his way among houses and along streets that ante-
dated the Revolution, his head must have been full of a jumble of
things, Nodier's satiric mouth, the pretty little feet of Madame Nodier,
the white hands of Marie Nodier, the high, sweet sounds of an old
piano, the emphatic tones — so like bugle-cries — of the square-browed
Victor Hugo, the grave political opinions of Lamartine who was both
statesman and poet, the wistful voice of young de Musset who talked
of the joys of Italy and Spain and the smiling lips of Mimi Pinson,
the strange tones of the long, fair-haired de Vigny, who, perhaps, was
already moved to tears at the thought of Chatterton, the shrill laughter
of Boulangcr and the booming echo of Baryc, the suppressed coughs
of the Johannots, the pictures, the ancient folios with the arms of the
kings of France upon them, the soft firelight before which the danc-
ing figures moved, and the gentle glow of many candles in high silver
candalabras upon the creamy whiteness of the panelled walls and the
Louis XV mouldings.

144 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

AnquetiPs Esprit de la Liguc lay open on the accountant's desk
and Dumas, still exhilarated by the last evening's conversation at the
Arsenal, glanced at the page as he fumbled for some extra copying
paper. He read mechanically:

Although attached to the king, and by rank an enemy of the Due
de Guise, Saint-Megrin was none the less in love with the duchess,
Catherine de Cleves, and it was said that she returned his love. The
author of this anecdote gives us to understand that the husband
was indifferent on the subject of his wife's actual or supposed infi-
delity. He opposed the entreaties of his relations that he should
avenge himself, and only punished the indiscretion or the crime of
the duchess by a joke. One day he entered her room early in the
morning, holding a potion in one hand and a dagger in the other;
after rudely awaking his wife and reproaching her, he said in tones
of fury:

"Decide, madame, whether to die by dagger or poison!"
In vain did she ask his forgiveness; he compelled her to make her
choice. She drank the concoction and flung herself on her knees,
recommending her soul to God and expecting nothing short of
death. She spent an hour in fear; and then the due came back with
a serene countenance, and told her that what she had taken for
poison was an excellent soup. Doubtless this lesson made her more
circumspect afterwards.

"What's this?" murmured Dumas and read through the page again,
this time with more attention. He returned to his cubicle with a
brooding expression on his face, and that evening when he called at
M. Villenave's house to see M£lanic he ignored his somewhat impa-
tient mistress and engaged in a long historical conversation with the
old bibliophile. The Biographic univcrsclle was referred to. M. Vil-
lenave rummaged among his folios and drew forth the MJmoires dc
I'Estoile. In the first volume of 1'Estoile Dumas discovered this pas-
sage:

Saint-M^grin, a young gentleman of Bordeaux, handsome,
wealthy, and good-hearted, was one of the curled darlings kept by

TAKING THE BASTILLE 145

the king. One night when coming away, at eleven o'clock, from the
Louvre, where the King was, in the rue du Louvre, near the rue
Saint-Honore, he was set upon by some twenty to thirty unknown
men, with pistols, swords and cutlasses, who left him on the pave-
ment for dead; he died, indeed, the next day, and it was a wonder
how he could have lived so long, for he had received thirty-four
or thirty-five mortal wounds. The king ordered his dead body to
be carried to Boisy, near the Bastille, where Quelus, his companion,
had died, and buried at Saint-Paul with as much pomp and solem-
nity as his companions Maugiron and Quelus had been buried
before him. No inquiries were made concerning the assassination,
His Majesty having been warned that it had been done through
the instrumentality of the Due de Guise, because of the reports of
intimacy between the young mignon and the due's wife, and that
the blow had been dealt by one who bore the beard and features
of his brother the Due du Maine. When the King of Navarre
heard the news, he said:

"I am glad to hear that my cousin the Due de Guise has not
suffered himself to be cuckolded by a mignon de couchette such
as Saint-M£grin; I wish all tke other gilded youths about court
who hang round the princesses ogling them and making love to
them could receive the same treatment."

Further along in this same volume Dumas discovered another
passage which he read most attentively.

On Wednesday, 19 August, Bussy d'Amboise, first gendeman-
in-waiting of M. le Due, Governor of Anjou, Abb£ de Bourgueil,
who assumed very high and mighty airs, because of the partiality
of his master, and who had done all kinds of evil deeds and robbed
the countries of Anjou and Maine, was slain by the Seigneur de
Monsoreau, together with the wicked lieutenant of Saumur, in a
house belonging to the said Seigneur de Monsoreau, where, at
night, the said lieutenant, who was his love messenger, had brought
him to sleep that night with the wife of the said Monsoreau, to
whom Bussy had for a long time made love; with whom the said
lady had purposely made this false assignation in order to have

146 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

him surprised by her husband, Monsoreau; when he appeared
towards midnight, he was immediately surrounded and attacked
by ten or a dozen men who accompanied the Seigneur de Mon-
soreau, and who rushed upon him in a fury to massacre him: this
gentleman, seeing himself so contemptibly betrayed, and that he
was alone (as on such expeditions people usually prefer to be) did
not, however, cease to defend himself to the last, proving, as he
had often said, that fear had never found room in his heart, — for
so long as an inch of sword remained in his hand, he fought on
till only the handle was left him, and then made use of tables,
forms, chairs, stools, with which he disabled three or four of his
enemies, until, overpowered by numbers and bereft of all arms
and means of defending himself, he was beaten down, close to a
window, from which he had tried to fling himself in the hope of
escape. Such was the end of Captain Bussy. . . .

Dumas looked up.

"Here is my next drama," he said.

M. Villenave lumbered about searching for books that related to
the period and brought the young man the Confession dc Sancy and
the lie des Hermaphrodites. He referred Dumas to the recently pub-
lished Scenes Historiques of Vitet. The young man, laden down
with heavy tomes, proceeded home. He sat up most of the night
reading these volumes, searching for dramatic situations, recalling
his five years' immersion in Scott and Schiller and Lope de Vega,
and building up a romantic scaffolding of action. Before the dawn
crept over the huddled roofs of Paris he had conceived the first out-
line of Henri III et sa Cour, the drama that was to be the first actual
bombshell of the romantics.

Once he had conceived his subject Dumas wrote with surprising
rapidity. Two months after the plot of Henri 111 et sa Cour had
crystallized in his mind he was adding the finishing touches to the
manuscript. He had profited from the rewriting of Christine to
such an extent that he now knew exactly what he was about before
he put pen to paper. Henri III et sa Cour was thrilling and romantic;
it was written in prose instead of verse; it moved through a series of

TAKING THE BASTILLE 147

acts each culminating in a higher degree of climax that the preceding.
When the play was finished the young author was in a much better
position to place it than he had been with Christine. He possessed
influential friends. There were M. Villenave and his household.
There was above all the Arsenal and all its important figures, includ-
ing Baron Taylor. First of all Dumas read Henri III et sa Cour to
the Villenave family. Melanie was thrilled by it but M. Villenave,
old-fashioned and brought up on Baour-Lormian and his school,
was shocked by the romantic emphasis which he considered a mon-
strous aberration. Dumas smiled at this and revised not a single line
of his play. He was through with the pedantries of the older men,
fully enlisted in that embattled group of younger men that circled
about Victor Hugo, determined to follow a path that seemed pre-
destined. Already the formidable murmur of those younger men
echoed through the cafes and studios of Paris. The hour of attack
had arrived and the romanticists were merely marking time for the
proper excuse. New journals had sprung up, journals like Figaro
and Sylphe which were calculated to combat the grumbling con-
servatism of the Constitutional, the Journal de Paris, the Courrier
jrangais and the Journal des DSbats. These papers were edited by
Nestor Roqueplan, Alphonse Royer, Louis Desnoyers, Alphonsc
Karr and a dozen other fearless champions of the Romantic Move-
ment. Dumas knew which way the wind was blowing. He was no
longer ignorant. He understood the importance of a valiant and
importunate army of disciples behind one's efforts. He decided to
enlist these younger men.

Nestor Roqueplan possessed a studio. It was quite unlike that
suite of apartments at the Opera which he was to have years later,
a suite ornamented by Boule and with corner-stones from Coromandel.
The studio of 1828 was a small room on the fifth floor with a chimney-
piece ornamented with a wash-basin instead of a clock and with a
brace of duelling pistols instead of candlesticks. Here one evening
a score of people assembled to Dumas's call. They were not Carbonari
but Romanticists. They were not conspirators but the commanding
officers of a campaign that was to be fought, a campaign that rivalled
in importance any of the campaigns of Napoleon. The children born
beneath the suns of Austerlitz had taken the sword into their hands.

i48 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Among this group were Roqueplan, the Murat of the movement,
Royer, Desnoyers, Karr, Vaillant and DorvaL Firmin, from the
Theatre-Francis, was there, and so, too, was Dumas's old friend,
Lassagne, who now saw his prophecy coming true. These men
hauled the mattresses from the bed to form divans and transformed
the bed itself into a sofa. Before them stood Dumas by a small table
lighted by candles. A kettle bubbled on the fire so that tea might
be served between each act. Henri 111 et sa Cour was about to be
revealed for the first time. He began to read in a steady voice.

Henri 111 et sa Cour enjoyed its first triumph that evening. The
auditors were enthusiastic and with one accord they bade the young
playwright set aside any plans he might have for the production of
Christine and concentrate on this drama. Firmin, his eyes glistening
at the opportunity which the part of Saint-Megrin would afford him,
offered to hurry forward a reading at the Theatre-Fran^ais. Lassagne
cried: "You were only half right in Christine, you are altogether
right in Henri III" Some of the young men began to repeat the
sounding oaths from the play. "Tfoe-Dieu!" "Mille damnations!"
"Par la mort-Dieu!" "Vive-Dieul" Many feet trampled down the
long flights of stairs from Nestor Roqueplan's studio, capes were
flung about swaggering shoulders and the Romantics were off to
tell their less fortunate friends in the cafes the news of the stirring
play. The gloomy facade of the Theatre-Franjais stared across at
the Caf£ de la Regence blindly. How were those brown-yellow walls
ornamented with the stony faces of Racine and Corneille to under-
stand that they were to be breached, that a shouting mob of young
men were to rush through them, that Henri III et sa Cour was to
be the Valmy of the literary revolution fought between them, that
de Vigny's Othello was to follow up and consolidate this victory,
and that Victor Hugo's Hernani was to be the Jcmappes that carried
the revolution well on the way to victory? The walls of the Theatre-
Fran^ais were as deaf and blind and senseless as the walls of the
Bastille and could not hear those strange oaths at its portal. "Tfre-
Dieul" "Vive-Dicul" "Par la mort-Dieul"

Firmin, true to his word, secured an early reading of Henri 111 et
sa Cour and on September 15, 1828, Dumas found himself for a third
time on the cmcrald-hued carpet of the greenroom of the Th&itrc-

TAKING THE BASTILLE 149

Franfais and declaiming from his own manuscript. There was no
Picard of the weasel snout there. Instead, there was Beranger, the
great Beranger whose chansons had made him the idol of the Parisian
populace, the man of whom Benjamin Constant had said, "Good
old Beranger! He thinks he is writing chansons and really he is
composing odes!" Beranger was at the peak of his fame in 1828. He
was hailed as the greatest poet of the age. Vieux drapeau, Dieu des
bonnes gens and Grand'mfre were sung by thousands. Dumas did
not fear Beranger, for he had faith in the fiery socialism of the man,
a socialism that expressed itself in political chansons that were like
so many blows of a pickaxe undermining the foundations of a throne,
and though Beranger might not see eye to eye with the Romanticists
(he was too old for that) the young playwright was sure that the
classicists possessed no hold on the old lion. And there was Baron
Taylor, one of Dumas's companions during the evenings at the
Arsenal and ready to back the young man to the limit. There were
Samson, whose romantic tendencies had expressed themselves in the
revision of Christine, and Firmin, who was eager for the part of
Saint-Megrin. Mademoiselle Mars was present and Mademoiselle
Mars was as temperamental as ever; but the part of the Duchesse de
Guise made her open her histrionic eyes very wide, indeed. Made-
moiselle Leverd and M. Michelot were also present. And seated in a
corner in her simple black dress and appearing slightly ill at ease
was Madame Dumas. The reading proved to be a great success.
Beranger, a trifle lost in the unexpected technique at first, found
himself before the play was over and prophesied that it would be
a vast triumph. The five comedians of the The^tre-Franpus were
enchanted. Each one of them saw a magnificent part in the play,
Saint-Megrin for Firmin, the Duchesse de Guise for Mademoiselle
Mars, Henri III for Michelot, the Vicomte de Joyeuse for Samson
and Catherine de Medicis for Mademoiselle Leverd. A contagious
enthusiasm seized this group of listeners. Two days later, on the
seventeenth, the play was read before the formal committee and
received with acclamations. That evening everything was settled
at once, contracts were signed, roles distributed, and the misc-cn-
sctnc outlined and applied for to the Administration. During the
committee reading Dumas noticed a pretty young actress with bright

I5o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

eyes named Louise Despreaux and he went to his assignation with
Melanie in a rather thoughtful manner.

M. de Broval lifted his long red nose from the sheet of paper and
stared solemnly at Dumas. He cleared his throat. He explained that
literature and clerical work were incompatible, that Dumas was
oftener out of the Palais-Royal than in it, that when he was in it
he was being continually interrupted by actors and messengers from
the Theatre-Francis, that M. Deviolaine could not and would not
have his Forestry Department so upset, and that M. Dumas, therefore,
must immediately make his choice between the two incompatible
occupations. Dumas immediately made his choice and when he
returned to his department he was informed that he might occupy
his time in any way he saw fit as his salary was suspended from that
day. Dumas put on his hat and walked out of the Palais-Royal heed-
less of the muttered remarks of the clerks. It was as easy as this. For
six years he had kept his nose to the grindstone and received nothing
for his pains. Now all he had to do was to say three words to M. de
Broval, put on his hat and walk out. A curious feeling of freedom
coursed through his veins as he walked along the rue Saint-Honore,
At the same time an ominous nervousness settled upon him. There
would be no rouleaux of francs at the end of the month. What would
his mother say ? She was so thin and worried now and her heart beat
so rapidly at the least excitement. He would have to do something
to tide over the weeks of rehearsals. Well, there was Beranger.
Beranger had been surprisingly agreeable to him at the reading of
Henri III et sa Cour and Beranger was the personal friend of the
great banker, M. Laffitte. M. Laffitte sometimes , . . There would
be no harm in trying.

Dumas turned in at the Theatre-Fran^ais and told his trouble to
Firmin. Firmin recalled that M. Laffitte had once helped Theaulon
when that classic playwright was in a fix. The actor accompanied
Dumas to Beranger's house. Beranger took the two men to the man-
sion of M. Laffitte. M. Laffitte listened. His manner was cold. He
was not interested in the Romantic Movement. B£ranger intimated
that the play would make a financial success. M. Laf&tte listened to
this more closely. He was interested in finance. The outcome was

TAKING THE BASTILLE 151

that M. Laffitte advanced Dumas three thousand francs after the
young dramatist had signed a promissory note and deposited a copy
of Henri III ct sa Cour with the banker's cashier as security. "Nothing
for nothing and something for something*' was M. Laffitte's motto.
Dumas shook hands with M. Laffitte who withdrew his hand hastily
and with Beranger who held his hand longer. Then he ran home.

Bad news travels on the wings of the wind and it reached Madame
Dumas before her son. When he burst into the house she was in a
state of extreme despair. This time, she thought, her son had settled
himself for good. He had lost his position and he had no funds* It
was well enough to write plays but where was the certainty about
plays? La Chasse ct I' Amour and La Noce ft I'Entcrrcmcnt had
made a few hundred francs, but those windfalls had been dissipated
in a few months. What would Alexandre do when the few hundred
francs from Henri 111 ct sa Cour had gone the way of the wind?
Would he creep back to the Palais-Royal and attempt to ingratiate
himself with M. de Broval, M. Deviolaine and M. Oudard ? At that
moment her son burst in and placed three one-thousand franc notes,
two years' salary, in her lap. In the evening Dumas called at the
Villenave household and explained his break with the Palais-Royal*
M. Villenave, a conservative old gentleman, disapproved, but Theo-
dore agreed that Dumas was right. As for Melanie, she said very
little and continued to brood. When Dumas rose to leave she accom-
panied him to the door. "Are you interested in that little ingenue,
Louise Despreaux?" she inquired. Dumas hastily disclaimed any
interest in Mademoiselle Despreaux. He was right. He had already
noticed another young actress cast for the slight part of Marie in
Henri 111 ct sa Cour. Her name was Virginic Bourbier and she had
blue eyes.

The opening of 1829 was a period of excitement for Dumas and
one of repressed passion for Paris. Charles X was showing his teeth.
A fortnight after Beranger had aided Dumas so materially, the revo-
lutionary-minded composer of chansons was sentenced to nine months'
imprisonment for writing the Angc Gardien, the Gfrontocratie and
the Sacre dc Charles le Simple. M. Viennet, one of the conservatives
and a writer of turgid epic poems, visited Beranger in prison. "Well,

152 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

noble songster," he remarked, "how many chansons have you com-
posed under lock and key?" Beranger looked at him. "Not one,"
he replied, "Do you suppose chansons are written as easily as epic
poems?" The victim of this retort was the M. Viennet who once
burst into the Arsenal with the proud statement: "Listen, dear friends;
I have just finished an epic of thirty thousand lines! What do you
think of that?" "Think?" answered one of the young men present.
"Why, I think it will take fifteen thousand men to read it!" A little
more than a year later the autocratic government which had impris-
oned Beranger and a dozen others, suppressed free opinion with an
iron hand and done its utmost to return France to the status of an
absolute monarchy was driven from office and Charles X had fled
across the border. While Henri 111 ct sa Cour was in rehearsal Paris
was muttering savagely to herself and preparing la chute for the
King. At the same time the news of the impending production of
a romantic drama in prose at the Theatre Fran$ais, where heretofore
the most daring experiments had been the timid and tentative pres-
entations of such plays as Lemercier's Jane Shore, Mely-Janin's Louis
XI h Peronne, and Lebrun's Lc Cid d'Andalousie, created a great deal
of excitement. Frequent items appeared in the press; camps were
being formed of antagonists and protagonists; the Censor withheld
his decision. As for the rehearsals of Henri III et sa Cour, they
progressed to the usual temperamental upsets of Mademoiselle Mars.
She desired Armand to play Henri III instead of Michelot. She
insisted that Madame Menjaud be cast for the page Arthur in place
of Louise Despreaux. Dumas maintained his own decisions and forced
out both Armand and Madame Menjaud. He attended rehearsals
assiduously ("Because of Virginie Bourbier," remarked Mademoiselle
Mars contemptuously), aided in the direction, revised, and in short,
adapted himself immediately to the practicalities of the stage. Dumas's
sense of the theater was inborn and he was as much play-doctor and
director as he was creator. As for Virginie Bourbier her blue eyes
proved so pleasant that Dumas, with that superb tactlessness with
women that probably enchanted as much as it displeased them, told
M£lanie all about her. Poor Melanie, her head whirling with Louise
Despreaux, Virginie Bourbier, even Mademoiselle Mars, grew more
and more jealous and dyspeptic.

TAKING THE BASTILLE 153

The Censor, in spite of scandalizing items in the press relative to
the indecency of introducing mignons on the stage of the Theatre-
Fran^ais, finally gave his consent to the production and the premiere
was definitely set for Saturday evening, February n, 1829.

Three days before the opening night, while Dumas was super-
vising the ensemble and costumes, he was interrupted by one of
M. Deviolaine's servants who rushed into the theatre with the news
that Madame Dumas while calling on Madame Deviolaine had been
taken with a frightful seizure and was lying apparently lifeless in
the Deviolaine home. A wild-eyed young man ran the short distance
from the Theatre-Frangais to the corner of the rue Saint-Honore and
the rue de Richelieu where M. Deviolaine resided. Madame Dumas,
who had fallen in a senseless heap on the stairs as she was leaving,
was now placed in a great arm-chair and she was slowly regaining
consciousness, although she could hardly speak. One side of her
body was paralyzed. Dumas felt his mother's pulse, pinched her to
discover the extent of the paralysis, ordered mustard and hot water
for her, and sent for a doctor. While he waited for the doctor he
learned that the Deviolaine family had been impressing on Madame
Dumas what a wilful blockhead her son was, how sure it was that
his play would be a failure, and how impossible it would be for him
ever to repay his loan to M. Laffitte. The young man dashed the
hot tears from his eyes and said nothing. There was nothing he
could say. Contemptuous ridicule and evil prophecy had been his
portion since he was old enough to have ambitions. The doctor
arrived and so, too Aimee-Alexandrine, who had come from Paris to
witness the premiere of her brother's drama. A room was secured
for Madame Dumas on the third floor of the Deviolaine home and
the stricken woman was put to bed there. Dumas, torn between the
duties of rehearsing his play and ministering to his mother, passed
through three terrible days. When he was not at his mother's bed-
side he was urging on reluctant actors whose courage in the face
of newspaper attacks was already oozing out at their buskins. Decid-
edly things were going wrong on all sides, A mother who might
be dying, a play that was so remarkable an innovation as to arouse
grave doubts of its success, a salaried position that had suddenly

154 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

ceased to exist, and the mingled ridicule and ominous prophecies of
a group of people— this was the situation that Dumas had to face.

Thursday passed to strenuous work and trembling grief. Melanie
who had missed Dumas, came to his house in search of him. Her
reproaches, somewhat quieted by the young man's anxiety over his
mother, did not tend to lighten him. Friday dawned, the day before
the premiere, and news of antagonistic claques permeated the atmos-
phere. Dumas suddenly decided to take a desperate chance.

That evening he presented himself at the Palais-Royal and boldly
inquired for the Due d'Orleans. The request was so audacious that
the attendants imagined Dumas had an audience with His Royal
Highness and promptly communicated the name of the visitor to
the due. The due, somewhat surprised, ordered Dumas to be
ushered in. M. Dumas entered with that confidence which is some-
times the result of desperation. He lost no time in begging the due's
attendance at his premiere. The due lazily declined, explaining that
he was giving a dinner the following night to twenty or thirty visiting
princes and nobilities and that as his dinner began at six and the play
at seven there was no way to arrange for both. Dumas offered to
put back the premiere of Henri III ct sa Cour one hour if the due
would put forward his dinner the same period of time. The due
began to smile at this persistence but offered the argument that the
house must be sold out and that, therefore, there would be no room
for him and his guests. Dumas countered by declaring that he had
held the whole first circle of the Theatre-Francis in the faint prospect
of the due's attendance. The due had no more arguments and as
he rather desired to see what his disgraced clerk had done, agreed
to attend. Dumas then hurried back to his mother. She seemed to
be sleeping, and Dumas walked to his own room and crawled into
bed. He could not sleep. Tomorrow would solve the entire riddle.
In^the cafes that night the young romantics talked in loud confident
voices, but their standard bearer lay in his bed staring silently at the
ceiling.

Long before the hour set for the rise of the curtain snake-like queues
of humanity formed before the portals of the Theatre-Francis, From
the walls Racine and Corneille gazed down on this vociferous mob

TAKING THE BASTILLE 155

with stony eyes. It pushed forward, shouted for the doors to open,
bought cakes from itinerant vendors, listened to the chantcun and
burst into laughter at the not too obscure political references of the
popular songs. This mob did not carry pikes and billhooks. There
were no bonnets rouges or tricolored cockades. Neither did they face
stone walls that were to be demolished or the black mouths of cannon
that were to demolish them. Yet among them were the fomentors
of revolution, men who regarded the Theatre-Frangais as a Bastille
that must be destroyed and reared anew as a temple of the goddess
of romance. It was not a deliberate and prepared mob such as stormed
the Theatre-Frangais a year later at the premiere of Hcrnani, for the
issues were not so clearly defined. Yet it was conscious that innova-
tion was in the air and scattered through this mob were enough young
students, artists, writers and journalists who sensed the momentous-
ness of the evening. As eight o'clock approached the carriages of
the nobility rattled up and disgorged group after group of expectant
notables, princes whose bosoms were one flash of decorations and
women covered with jewels. The Due d'Orleans entered the theater
on the arm of a friend, the crowd, with whom he was popular,
cheering as he passed. Sober-faced conservatives and playwrights of
the old school pushed their way through the lines and nodded coldly
to Baron Taylor in the lobby. Dumas, who had passed the entire
day by his mother's side, reached the theater late and crept through
the doors and into a small box on the stage. From here he could
see the house, a riot of movement and color, the first circle gleaming
with stars of honor and diamond collars. In the balcony he perceived
the solemn face of Porcher. He owed Porcher nearly a thousand
francs. He looked elsewhere. In a box in the first tier sat Aimee-
Alexandre, and beside her were Louis Boulanger, Victor Hugo and
Alfred de Vigny. From the orchestra glowered M. Deviolaine. Near
him was the long red nose of M. de Broval. M. Oudard's round bull-
dog features rose from a seat. The two first rows of boxes were
crammed with the aristocracy of Charles X. Dumas viewed these
unknown celebrities with a vague curiosity and then diverted his
attention to an animated section of young men in cloaks and colored
gilets who lifted their canes and shook them and shouted, "T&e-
Dieul" "Par la mort-Dieul" "Vive-Dicul" Roqueplan, Lassagnc,

156 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Rousseau, de Leuven, Alphonse Karr, Alfred de Musset, Royer,
Desnoyers, Vaillant! It was the advance guard of the romantics, the
first battalion of that army of young men who had come to destroy
the tradition of stalking Frenchmen in laticlave, cothurnus and
helmet. They were but a limited faction as yet but within a year
they would command an army. Henri 111 et sa Cour was to be the
preliminary skirmish, the Valmy of the new revolution, and through
it the dispositions of the two antagonistic forces were to be made
plain. Dumas was unknown. He was not like Victor Hugo in the
box there whose Odes ct Ballades and preface to Cromwell had made
him the Napoleon of this campaign. Dumas's eyes turned from the
animated young men to the sober face of Hugo. Both of them had
possessed Revolutionary and Napoleonic officersnas fathers. Both of
them had been born during a tradition which they now strove to
demolish. But there was no comparison between them. Hugo was
dynamite and Dumas was fireworks. Dumas's eye continued to
revolve about the theater. There, in a discreet corner, was Melanie,
leaning forward, an expression of frightened delight upon her dark
face. Marie-Catherine was not present. Neither was Madame Dumas,
who lay upon her bed in the Deviolaine house quite unconscious of
what was occurring. The house was crowded now. Some of these
impatient spectators had paid as much as twenty louis for a box. All
faces turned toward the stage. There were three loud thumps behind
the scene, a quivering of the great curtain as it rose slowly on the
cabinet de travail of Ruggieri, astrologer and poisoner to Catherine
de Medicis.

The sensation of a breath of fresh air swept across the perspiring
brow of Dumas and he leaned forward in his seat, his gaze fixed
intently on Saint-Aulaire and Mademoiselle Leverd who were playing
Ruggieri and Catherine de Medicis. A brief buzz of excitement burst
from the audience, for Henri III et sa Cour had been mounted meticu-
lously, elaborate costumes of the period provided and special scenery
painted by renowned artists. The Administration had left no stone
unturned to perfect an extravagant and breath-taking dtcor. The
opening act was but a foretaste of what was to follow. Ruggieri's
cabinet de travail with its chemical retorts and its huge telescope
pointing out a window was no more than a beginning. The audience

TAKING THE BASTILLE 157

listened with patience to this long and somewhat tedious act in which
the pawns of passion were properly placed and introduced. Catherine
de Medicis plotted with Ruggieri to bring together Saint-M£grin
and the Duchesse de Guise. The meeting is effected and the Duchesse
confesses her love to Saint-Megrin. The mignons have their futures
foretold. The Due de Guise, wolfish and intense, comes too late to
surprise the Duchesse and Saint-Megrin. He finds her forgotten
handkerchief, however, and the curtain falls to his fierce: "Saint-Paul!
qu'on me cherche les memes hommcs qui ont assassin^ Dugastl*'
The curtain fell to a sudden ripple of applause that warmed the
somewhat frightened players. Dumas slipped from his box, dashed
out of the door of the theater and ran to tie corner of the rue Saint-
Honore and the ru# de Richelieu to see his sick mother. She was
sleeping quietly, and he returned to the theater, arriving just in time
to witness the curtain rising on a hall in the Louvre. Here the dfrors,
the chairs and tabourets and the brilliantly costumed mignons accom-
panied by pages bearing their colors, aroused a spontaneous round
of applause from the audience. The picture of a King of France play-
ing with cup and ball and pea-shooters with his mignons had been
feared by the actors but the spectators seemed vastly amused by it.
They were thrilled, also, at the sight of the Due de Guise in full armor,
the elevation of Saint-Megrin to a dukedom that he might meet Guise
on equal ground, and Saint-M^grin's resounding challenge to the
husband of the woman he loved: "Moi, Paid Estucrt, seigneur de
Caussade, comte de Saint-Mtgrin, b toi, Henri de Lorraine, due de
Guise: prenons h t&moin tous ceux id pr&ents, que nous te dtfions
au combat b outrancc, toi et tous les princes de ta mdson, sait &
l'£p£e seule, soit h la dague et au poignard, tant que le coeur ba&ra
au corps, tant que la lame tiendra h la poignte; renonfant cFa&ance
h ta merci, comme tu dots rcnoncer h la mienne; et, sur ce, que Die&
et Saint Paid me soient en aider How was the audience to know that
this formula came from Walter Scott? It resounded from the mouth
of Firmin and it was new. There was again a falling curtain to
general applause, and for a second time Dumas ran out of the theater
to minister to his mother. The third act was the crucial test of the
play. Here was the scene between the page— a role in which Louise
Despr&iux exhibited two slender shapely limbs— and the Duchesse

158 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

de Guise and the mailed fist episode which Dumas had paraphrased
from that scene in "The Abbott" in which Lord Lindesay clutches
Mary, Queen of Scots, by the arm. If this second scene in which
the Due de Guise forces his wife to appoint a meeting with Saint-
M£grin failed, then the play would fail. It was awaited with tremors
by Dumas and shudders by the principal players. The act swept to
its crest to the increasing excitement of the audience; Guise seized
his wife by the wrist with his mailed hand; Mademoiselle Mars cried
in a voice of appalling anguish: "Vous me faites bicn mal, Henri;
vous me jaites horriblement mal. . . . Grdce! Grdcel ah!" and as
she turned to write the letter that was to lure her love to death her
silken sleeve fell back revealing the terrible blue marks on her fore-
arm. The shuddering audience exploded into thunders of applause.
The romantics stood up in their seats and shouted. The crowded
theater was in a nervous pandemonium. Dumas knew that his play
had succeeded. From that moment Henri III et sa Cour proceeded
to a continuous uproar of approval. The fourth act where Saint-
Megrin departs for his fatal assignation was one of quivering suspense.
The fifth act continued to a delirium. Saint-Megrin was cornered;
the Due dc Guise and his wolves were at his heels; the unfortunate
man leaped from the window and was slaughtered outside; the Due
de Guise dropped the handkerchief he had found in the first act
with the cry: "Eh bien, scrre-lui la gorge avec ce mouchoir; la mart
lui sera plus douce; il est aux armes de la Duchesse de Guise;" the
Duchesse fell to the floor with a cry; and the merciless Due, turning
with a ferocious look, exclaimed: "Bien! et mcdntenant qui nous
avons fini avec le vdet, occufons-nous du maitrc" Somewhere an
imaginary Henri III may be supposed to have writhed uneasily upon
his throne. The audience burst into clamors of hysterical approval
and as Firmin advanced upon the stage leading Dumas by the hand
and announced the name of the author, "Alexandre Dumas,'* in a
loud voice, there was a ripple of movement in the first circle and
the Due d'Orleans stood up and was promptly followed by his guests.
Firmin, who had epileptic tendencies and who was completely ex-
hausted by his performance, trembled violently, and Dumas, gazing
across the footlights at the flashing array of decorations and diamonds,
began to tremble, too, but with a fever that was not fear. From a

TAKING THE BASTILLE 159

cluster of scats he heard young voices piercing the sustained thunder
of applause, shrill voices shouting: "A bos Lcmcrcicr! A bos Alex-
andre Duval! A bos Arnault!" and then again: "Tetc-Dieu! Par la
mort-Dieu! Vive-Dieu!" The romantics were hurling their first
open challenges at the classicists. Dumas could see them all: Hugo
and de Vigny standing at the front of the box like Napoleon and
Massena observing the progress of a battle; Roqueplan on the field
itself like a Murat; Alphonse Karr, Lassagne, Royer, Desnoyers,
Vaillant, Rousseau, a shouting vanguard of warriors. Deviolainc,
who had been made ill by the play, was struggling up the aisle, and
in her secluded corner Melanie was weeping. Madame Malibran,
clutching a pillar, was leaning out of her box. It was roses, roses
all the way for the young man as he struggled through the swirling
mob on his way to his mother's room.

The stars shone brighter as he hurried through the cobbled streets
leaving behind him the lighted portico of the Theatre-Franfais. He
was no longer Dumas, under-clerk in the Due d'Orleans* establish-
ment; he was Alexandre Dumas, playwright and author of the suc-
cessful Henri III ct sa Cour which was running at the national house
of drama. He was the John the Baptist of the Romantic Movement,
the first man in France to break down the hide-bound traditions of
the Theatre-Fran^ais. Others might follow him with more venture-
some and more striking productions but they could not take away
from him his crown. He suspected that he possessed no style, and
later comradeship with Hugo convinced him that he was unequal
and unequipped for the leadership of the Romantic Movement, but
he possessed the dash and gusto of the field-commander. He was
like his father, General Alexandre Dumas, who was brave in battle,
who could capture Mont-Ccnis and hold the splintered bridge at
Clausen, but who could never rate a marechaFs baton. Well, to Hugo
the baton; to him the intuitive ability to hold the bridge. His mother
was sleeping when he reached her room and he sat down by her
bed, his head whirling with the excitement of the evening, and
gazed at her for a long time. She had not witnessed this triumph.
She had rested on her poor paralyzed side and slept through it all.
Perhaps she was wiser than he, after all. She had heard of triumphs
befort, and all they meant to her now was a dusty sword hanging

X6o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

on the wall and a grave without a stone on a forgotten hill-side.
There was a letter lying on the floor near the door and Dumas picked
it up and opened it. "I cannot sleep without first telling you, my
dear young friend . . * splendid triumph . . . your laurels . . .
success ... in the future. ..." He turned to the signature.
Baron de Broval. M. de Broval of the Palais-Royal. It had been so
short a time ago that M. de Broval had looked down his long red
nose and suspended the young man from his humble duties. Tasting
his first triumph Dumas sat by his mother's bed and observed the
cold stars twinkling through the window.

Dumas awoke, like Lord Byron, to find himself famous. He had
been unknown, a vague name to which no associations either favor-
able or antagonistic could be attached, the day before; and now, as
this bright Sunday morning moved toward the mid-day, he found
himself the talk of Paris. During the day hatreds and friendships
sprang out of nothing. Shouting boys bearing huge bouquets mounted
the stairs until the room was filled with flowers. Dumas covered his
mother's bed with them and she reached out her unparalyzed hand
to touch these bright colors, unaware that they were flowers or that
they stood for triumph. Ricourt, the editor of L' Artiste, bustled in
and bore him off to the studio of Achille Deveria where that black-
eyed genius made an extraordinary etching of him. By two o'clock
his manuscript had been sold for six thousand francs and Dumas
ran downstairs to M. Deviolaine's apartment to show the old boar
the bright new bills. "What!" cried M. Deviolaine, "Are there idiots
who have bought your play from you!'* and he raised his hands help-
lessly. Then he said: "Ah, if your father could only have been there!"
Dumas hurried to M. Laffite's house and bought back his promissory
note for three thousand francs. He returned to Porcher the thousand
francs that gentle gambler had advanced him at odd times. Then
he decided on an economic course; he compounded with the pro-
prietor of the Cafe Desmares for one year's meals in consideration
of eighteen hundred francs paid down immediately. It was a bad
investment for the restaurant failed within a month. The day con-
tinued to be filled with excitement. Young romantics visited him
and the conflicting opinions of the critics were already food for

TAKING THE BASTILLE 161

vigorous argument A letter from the Th£atre-Fran£ais hurried the
excited young man there and he learned that the Censor was worried
about the scene where Henri III plays cup and ball with his mignons.
It seemed to that gentleman disrespectful to monarchy. Dumas
secured an audience with M. de Martignac and agreed to a few
alterations, most of them concerned with Michelot's rendering of
the tide role.

The days were a flurry of excitements and honors. David d'Angers
made a medallion of Dumas which showed the young man with a
curling pompadour and a small fluffy beard framing his face* Emile
de Girardin invited him to contribute to Lc Voleur. The Due d'Or-
leans received him in the royal box at the second performance of
Henri 111 et sa Cour. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans welcomed him
in private audience in her home and inquired about his mother.
Dumas, though loudly Republican in his sympathies, could never-
theless be flattered by attentions such as these, and he loved to boast
about them, to expatiate on his friendship with famous men of the
era. It did not matter to what party they belonged, B6ranger, the
Due d'Orleans, the Prince Napoleon, anybody in the public eye would
do. The truth was that Dumas did not think deeply about these
matters. He was impulsive and rather mixed in his standards. The
final flattery came when the Due d'Orleans appointed the playwright
to the post of assistant librarian at the Palais-Royal, making Dumas
assistant to Casimir Delavigne. He received only twelve hundred
francs a year, the due being as thrifty as ever, but the position was
almost a sinecure. Dumas squared his position with his Republican
principles by adroitly arguing that the Due d'Orleans represented
in Charles X's reign just that type of Republicanism for which the
time called. It was a specious argument and the future Lcmis-PhiHippe
must have smiled to himself.

The question of living was easier now, and Dumas began to adopt
that picturesqueness that was to continue throughout his days of
affluence. He became more dandified than ever, wearing coats with
rolled collars, rainbow-hued gilets and tight trousers. He carried a
cane and affected an eye-glass. He bought a saddle horse and can-
tered forth in the morning. He acquired a servant named Joseph.
Suddenly recalling Marie-Catherine and Alexandre fils he secured

THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

a small house for them in Passy. For himself he took an apartment
in the rue dc 1'Universite which he furnished elaborately and where
he gave extravagant dinners. He was on the top of the wave for the
rest of the season of 1829, for Henri 111 ct sa Cour with its forty-odd
performances brought in some fifty thousand francs. Innumerable
invitations were showered upon him, and M. Sosthene de la Roche-
foucauld, Minister of the King's Household, gave him free entry
to all the royal theaters. Mademoiselle Mars, his brilliant Duchesse
de Guise, recovered sufficiently from her former dislike of his negroid
qualities, to invite him to late suppers in her apartment, where he
met Vatout, author of Histoire dc la fille d'un Roi and Conspiration
dc Cellamarc, Romieu, General Denniee, Becquet of the Journal dcs
D6bats and author of Mouchoir bleu and Morny, that personifica-
tion of aristocracy and elegance. He became a young Rastignac tast-
ing the first fruits of conquest. It was very much like a romance to
the young man who continued to dramatize himself with a gaudy
eye for effect.

Meanwhile there was opposition enough to warn him that his
victory was only tentative. The traditionalists were not defeated as
easily as this. Stories began to creep about Paris that were warranted
to bclitdc the romantics and exhibit them, including Dumas, as young
barbarians. One talc insisted that after the premiere of Henri III ct
sa Cour a sabbatical dance took place around Racine's bust and that
the dancers shouted "Racine is fallen!" and screamed for the heads
of the Academicians. A fanatical romantic named Gentil, who suf-
fered from the itch, was purported to go about scratching himself
and shouting, "Racine is a scoundrel!" The hair of respectable con-
servative folk began to rise and murmurs of a new and imminent
St. Bartholomew's Day were raised. When M. Auger, an unfortunate
classicist, committed suicide it was whispered that he did so to escape
the general massacre. The one classical play produced during the
season, Elizabeth d'Anglcterrc, by M. Ancclot, was a flat failure. The
Academicians gathered and discussed this new and barbarous invasion
of the Th&tre-Fransais and a petition was sent to the King. This
petition was a vigorous bit of polemic. "Whether from depravity of
taste," it said in part, "or from consciousness of their inability to take
tis (Talma's) place, certain associates of the Th£atre-Franpus have

TAKING THE BASTILLE 163

pretended that the method of art in which Talma excelled could no
longer be beneficially carried on; they are seeking to exclude tragedy
from the stage and to substitute for it plays composed in imitation cf
the most eccentric dramas that foreign literature affords — dramas
which no one had ever dared before reproduce except in our lowest
theaters." And again: "Ought the funds placed, by your liberality,
at their disposal, in order to advance the cause of good taste, to be
squandered over their own particular fancies, which tend to make
the greatest names in Art subservient to the Melpomene of the boule-
vards, and to reduce their sublime art to the conditions of a vile
trade?" This imposing document was signed by M. Arnault, N£po-
mucene Lemercier, M. Viennet, M. de Jouy, M. Andrieux, Eticnne
Jay and Onesime Leroy. They were the Seven Worthies upholding
Racine and Corneille against the world. Shortly after this manifesto
M. Arnault intimated to Dumas that the young romantic's presence
in his home, a cool temple of classicism, was not welcome. As
abruptly as this one of the first doors that had opened for the un-
known boy from Villers-Cotterets was closed against the alarming
author of Henri III et sa Cour. Dumas did not worry about this
defalcation of an old patron. There were too many new friends.
Mademoiselle Duchesnois, won over by the classicists, and it is to
be suspected, disappointed because she received no part in Henri 111
et sa Cour, also petitioned the King against the romantic inroads oa
the repertoire of the Theatre-Fran^ais and cited Baron Taylor as the
traitor in the camp. Charles X perused these petitions and drafted
a brief answer. It read: "I cannot do anything in the matter you
desire; I only occupy one seat in the theater, like every other French-
man*" This was cold comfort but it did not signify that the King
was in any way favorable to the Romantic School. As a point of fact,
he was out for bigger game than a few wild-eyed young playwrights*
It was perceptible that the lines were clearly drawn now and that
the decisive battle was in immediate prospect. Dumas, slightly intoxi-
cated by the uproar he had occasioned and automatically one of the
triumvirate with Hugo and de Vigny, strutted about Paris with an
imperial air. The librarian at the Palais-Royal, Casimir Delavignc,
viewed his assistant with an aggrieved eye, for Delavignc's Marino
fditro was still champing at the bit and confined to its stall by the

164 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

success of Dumas's play. Eventually Delavigne withdrew it and gave
it to the Porte-Saint-Martin theater. The grave librarian had not
signed the manifesto, for he was neither classicist nor romanticist,
neither fish nor fowl, but something between the two. His dramas
were like a weak chin. If he did not see eye to eye with the
classicists neither did he sympathize with Dumas. And neither could
Charles X, when he bethought himself, sympathize with the Roman-
tics. As the new school talked louder and louder and developed into
young fire-eaters the King took alarm. The increasing liberality of
printed matter aroused him to action and he began to take those
steps in the suppression of free speech which were to result in his
downfall within a year. Beranger was already in prison. The Corsairc
and its editor, M. Vremiot, were prosecuted in the Police Court for
an article called Sottise dcs deux farts and convicted. Fontan, a
talented young journalist, was incarcerated for an article entitled
Mouton enrage, and Barthelemy, a clever writer of light verse, was
indicted for a poem called Fils de I'homme. Politics and the Romantic
movement became mixed, for the journalists fought for freedom of
political expression and the romantics for freedom of dramatic struc-
ture. Dumas talked much without thinking a great deal, permitted
Hugo and de Vigny to do his cogitation for him, and became the
d'Artagnan of the movement. Hugo was the Athos and de Vigny
the Aramis. Gautier was to be the Porthos. The night of the premiere
of Henri III et sa Cour Hugo had seized Dumas by the hand and
exclaimed, "It is my turn now." Dumas waited confidently for the
revelation.

Thoughts of his Christine crept back into Dumas's mind. A charm-
ing young actress, possibly Virginie Bourbier, had reproached him
because there was no part for her in the unproduced play, and Dumas,
the eternal gallant, had promised to rectify the omission. The idea
suddenly occurred to him that he could think better while traveling
and therefore he mounted a diligence in the Cours de Messageries
one morning and settled himself for the twenty hours' journey over
a rough road to Havre. The diligence rumbled along the highway
and Dumas, seated in the coupe, and huddled up in his great coat,
scowled, flashed brief glances at the landscape, jotted down odd notes

TAKING THE BASTILLE 165

on a bit of paper, and now and then knocked his forehead furiously
with his knuckles. By the time the heavy coach rumbled into the
sea-port he had completed his revision, a revision, it may be said,
owing much to the previous suggestions of the astute actor, Samson,
who had advised him at the second reading. At Havre Dumas ate
oysters, saw the sea for the first time, sailed about the harbor, bought
a couple of china vases which he could have purchased more cheaply
in Paris, and started back to the capital. Seventy-two hours after he
had left it he was again in the whirl of Paris. Christine was recon-
structed and all he had to do was to set it down on paper. At his
apartment he found a note from Victor Hugo inviting him to Achille
Deveria's house for the first reading of Marion Delorme, which, at
that time, was called Un dud sous Richelieu. Hugo had written this
play in twenty-six days.

Achille D£veria's studio contained the future of France. Dumas,
entering late and flinging his cloak over a chair, glanced about him
and saw the plump pouter pigeon Honore de Balzac, who detested
him; the aristocratic and friendly face of Alfred de Vigny, whose
Othello was progressing so well; the worried countenance of Baron
Taylor, who was still threatening to fly from authors and bury him-
self in the sands of the Sahara; the bustling restlessness of Sainte-
Beuve, arranging as always a comfortable chair for Victor; the stub-
born expression of Frederic Soulie, whom Dumas had not seen since
their altercation over Christine*, the languid attitude of Alfred de
Musset, who lolled like a wilted lily; Prosper Merimee who seemed
to walk through life with a mask; the icy aloofness of Eug&ie Dela-
croix; the laughing boisterousness of Louis Boulanger; Alexandra
Soumet; fimile and Antony Deschamps; Charles Magnin; Eu^ne
Deveria, brother to Achille; Armand and fidouard Bertin; Villemain;
Alcide de Beauchesne; and Madame Amable Tastu. This gathering
was more than the Pl&ade, more than the Cenacle; it was the firma-
ment of France. And by the table in the corner, spreading his manu-
script before him, was the youthful Sun-God—Victor Hugo. Dumas
sat down near the buffet of refreshments and composed himself for
the first reading of Un duel sous Richelieu.

What did these men who were diverting the stream of French

!66 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

letters from its narrow channel into a wide and rushing river that
forked about islands and ran both deep and shallow think about the
author of Henri 111 ct sa Cour? Did they accept him as an equal,
as a creator to be placed beside Hugo and de Vigny? They did
nothing of the sort. There was always gentle contempt or smiling
benevolence or a slight bending in their attitude toward Dumas. The
young man attracted and repelled them. His vivacity, his gusto, his
frank friendliness, his spendthrift generosity, his absolute lack of
jealousy and spleen, his dramatic astuteness and swashbuckling man-
erisms attracted them; but his overweening vanity, his lack o£
profundity, his dependence on other writers and other books, his
vulgarities in taste and costume, his negroid qualities repelled them.
He was nouveau richc in literature, a pauvrct of genius. Henri III
ct sa Cour had been a success of assimilation. Balzac frankly detested
Dumas. He saw as little of him as he could, and once when they met
at some gathering remarked as he passed the tall young playwright,
"When I can do nothing else I shall take to writing plays." "Begin
at once, then," retorted Dumas. Sainte-Beuve, though he tried to be
fair, possessed no particular love for Dumas, a coldness that may be
explained, perhaps, by the critic's ardent discipleship of Hugo. As
for Victor, he was both jealous and deceptive in his attitude. He
professed friendship and accepted the laudation of Dumas and yet
tacitly approved such unfair proceedings as the Cassagnac attack.
Sudden success and elevation had brought to the surface of Dumas
a naive and flamboyant vanity that was far from the silent pride
great artists take in their triumphs. He loved the plaudits of the
crowd, enjoyed occupying a prominent place in the public eye; if his
name was not in the papers he was disconsolate. He dramatized him-
self unceasingly and vulgarly and this irritated those other writers
who were also anxious for public acclaim but more sly and restrained
in their eagerness. Victor Hugo, who posed as a Jupiter armed with
thunderbolts, was the demi-god of the younger men and they resented
any infringement upon his divine status. He was the young Titan,
the Hercules of letters who balanced Notre Dame de Paris in the
palm of one hand and Cromwell in the other. His vast pomposity
was taken for godhead; his profound assurance was the mantle <^f
divine sovereignty.

TAKING THE BASTILLE 167

In the face of this jealous antagonism — mute enough at first but
manifesting itself in odd ways — Dumas preserved his child-like faith
in humanity and his affection for those who injured him* His atti-
tude toward Hugo was admirable. He adored Hugo and believed
in him as a great artist and prophet of the new era and he never
failed to express this belief, not even after he knew that Hugo was
indirectly attacking him. What did it matter after all? It was the
work that counted, not the man. And so, seated in Achille Deveria's
studio he attended the reading of Un duel sous Richelieu with an
enthusiasm unmistakable in its sincerity. He considered the first act
a masterpiece, although as he listened to it a feeling of sadness swept
over him. He recollected how lacking in style he was, how far behind
Hugo's best works his own poetical efforts lagged, and he sighed
softly. If he could turn phrases so neatly and beautifully! Yet when
the reading terminated he leaped up in excitement and with shouts
of joy. Alternately extolling the play and cramming his mouth with
refreshments from the buffet he gave a fervid representation of the
delirious disciple.

He followed with the closest attention and warmest assistance the
progress of Marion Delorme—tht title having been changed from
Un duel sous Richelieu. Harel of the Odeon made a bid for it. So
did Crosnier of the Porte-Saint-Martin. Hugo gave it to Taylor at
the Theatre-Franfais and it was placed in rehearsal almost imme-
diately. But the way of Marion Delorme was not to be as easy as thaL
The heavy fist of the Censor descended upon it, and it was interdicted!
because of the role that Louis XIII played in it. Hugo appealed to
M. de Martignac who had been so generous about Henri HI et sa Cowr,
but M. de Martignac was powerless. It was not the question of a
Valois character here; a Bourbon, an ancestor of Charles X was
involved; M. de Martignac could do nothing but cough nervously and
indicate that the last court of appeal was the King. Hugo promptly
turned to Charles X himself and on August 7, 1829 (perhaps due
to the kindly aid of Madame du Cayla), obtained an audience at
Saint-Cloud with the old man of the Bourbon nose and the drooping
underlip. This meeting resulted in nothing but a confirmation of
the interdiction, and, as a compensating sop to the aggrieved young
draixxatist, the raising of Hugo's government pension from two

168 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

sand to four thousand francs annually. But Hugo was not to be
bought. He proudly refused the augmentation. The Romantics were
discouraged for they had considered Marion Delorme the crucial stroke
to follow up Henri HI ct sa Cour. Dumas, taking his color from his
comrades and properly infuriated, was inspired to indite a poem to
Hugo which began:

Us ont dit: "Uoeuvre du genie
Est au monde un flambeau qui luit,
Que sa lumiere soit bannie
Et tout rentrera dans la nuit"
Puis de leurs hdeines fun^bres
Us ont epaissi les teritbres;
Mais tout effort est impuissant
Contre la ftammc vacillante
Que Dicu mit, UgZre et brillante,
Au front du poete en naissant.

A rare folio of Ronsard's verse was presented to Hugo by Sainte-
Beuve and on its wide margins were poetical testimonials from
Lamartine, Alfred de Vigny, Madame Amable Tastu, Ulric Guttin-
guer, Ernest Fouinet, Louis Boulanger, Jules Janin and Fonteney.
The young Sun-God withdrew himself into the shadows and set
to work upon HernanL

The breach left by the interdiction of Marion Delorme was filled
by the production of Alfred de Vigny's translation of Shakespeare's
Othello on October 24, 1829. This drama, called in French Lc More
de Venise, created another breach, however, — between de Vigny and
Hugo. Had Hugo not said after the premiere of Henri III et sa
Cour "It is my turn now?" The young pontiff of romanticism re-
sented the obtrusion of de Vigny into the foremost of the battle, the
diversion from him of the bright spotlight of public interest, and
he revealed his resentment in an unmistakable manner. By a furious
and sustained endeavor he had delivered Hernani to the Theatre-
Fran^ais on October i, the extreme speed obviously being due to
his desire to strike the decisive blow against the traditionalists. And
now de Vigny had slipped in ahead of him. Hugo's rancor, however,

TAKING THE BASTILLE 169

was uncalled for. De Vigny's Othello, although it aroused excitement
and Joanny's performance of the Moor thrilled a mixed audience, was
no more than a holding of the line already established by Henri III
et sa Cour. After all, Othello was a borrowed play. Dumas, seated far
front in the theater, was one of the loudest and most vociferous of the
enthusiasts. He had discovered the delight of being obnoxious and
noisy in the theater. To stand up and wave a cane, to bellow fero-
ciously at booing and hissing traditionalists, to roar like a lion his
approval of romantic manifestations, these things resulted in repri-
mands in the daily press and reprimands meant his name in print.

During this period of noisy propaganda against Boileau's dictums,
Dumas was negotiating over Christine. Frederic Soulie's play on the
same subject had failed dismally at the Odeon and the Th£atre-
Frangais was begging Dumas to submit his script for another reading.
But Dumas was tired of the compromising and dilatory tactics of the
national house of drama. He refused the invitation for another read-
ing and pointed out that such a proceeding would be a third reading
in reality and, therefore, undignified. He turned his back on the stony
faces of Racine and Corneille and addressed his attention to an amaz-
ing letter which Harel of the Odeon had despatched to him. It ran;

My dear Dumas,— What do you think of this idea of Mademoi-
selle Georges? To play your Christine immediately, on the same
stage and with the same actors as those who played Soulie's Chris-
tine? The conditions to be settled by yourself. You need not trouble
your head with the idea that you will strangle a friend's work,
because it yesterday died a natural death.— Yours ever, Hard,

What a scoundrel! Poor Souli£! Dumas was tempted to throw the
note away and then, reconsidering the temptation, scribbled a line
across it and forwarded it to Soulie. At least he would show Soulie
that he was innocent of any connivance detrimental to the saw-mill
owner and playwright. His scribbled line read:

My dear Frdd&ic,— Read this letter. What a rascal your friend
Harel is!— Yours, Alex. Dumas.

170 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Soulie replied promptly:

My dear Dumas, — Harel is not my friend, he is a manager. Harcl
is not a rascal, only a speculator. I would not do what he is doing
but I would advise him to do so. Gather up the fragments of my
Christine— -and I warn you there are plenty of them — throw them
into the basket of the first rag-and-bone man that passes your way
and get your own piece played. — Yours ever, F. Soulie,

Well ... if Soulie felt that way. Dumas walked past the Theatre-
Pranjais with a sardonic smile on his face.

Christine was read— and read once only— to the assembled Odeon
>layers, both Jules Janin and Sainte-Beuve being present — possibly as
inofficial observers of the romantic army. Mademoiselle Georges lifted
icr beautiful white arms and approved the title-part, Janin looked at
iainte-Beuve and Sainte-Beuve looked at Janin. Then both of them
hook their heads. It was only Victor Hugo, the Sun-God, who could

. . That evening Harel made a nervous appearance at Dumas's
partment, and, after admiring the young man's new purple gilet,
icsitatingly suggested that Christine— which was wholly written in
erse — be turned into prose. An easy enough matter. After all ...
)umas rose to his long legs, stalked to the door, opened it, and sug-
ested that the night air might prove beneficial to HareL Harel
assed out disconsolately. He still insisted that it was a beautiful
urple gilet.

In the rue Notre Dame des Champs the young Sun-God who had
ibored so furiously and against time on Hcrnani glanced at the line
iscribed on the sheet of paper before him, looked up, and smiled.

ran:
Vous 6tcs man lion superbc et gtntreuxt

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION

His Majesty Charles X paused long enough from his preparations for
the Algerian campaign to instigate a tightening of the Censorship.
The young Romantics, it seemed to him and M. de Polignac, were
altogether too free in their treatment of royalty. After all, kings were
not cruel puppets and neither were queens meretricious dolls. It was
for this reason that Marion Dclorme had been interdicted. The dar-
ing supposition that any youthful writer might sit in his attic (or
wherever writers sat when they labored— Charles X was not quite
sure) and hold up to ridicule rulers anointed by God and inject sly
Republican sentiments into his plays was too painful for the flower
of the Elder Branch to contemplate. He now had the Polignac minis-
try to aid and abet him in his schemes of suppression and the iron
hand of the Bourbon began to manifest itself more rigorously than
ever. Charles X was too old to peer through the mists of throbbing
Paris and see the blood-stained specter of the Three Days in the
immediate distance, Dumas, excoriating the Censorship in his extrava-
gant way, sudddenly experienced the full weight of the iron hand.
Christine was stopped. The excited young man bustled off to M,
Briflfaut, the author of a dreary Ninus ll> and learned that his drama
simply bristled with political innuendoes. In fact, there were so many
of them that the bewildered Censor— in this case M. Briffaut— did
not know where to start expurgating the unhappy allusions. What a
terrible line, for instance, was:

Ccst un hochet royal trouvt dans mon bcrccaul

Why, that line attacked legitimacy, the divine right, and the succes-

171

172 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

sion! M. Briffaut shuddered with horror at the thought Dumas,
almost convinced that he was going mad, listened to M. Briffaut and
could make no rejoinder. "And the situation in which the crown is
sent to Cromwell," continued the sub-Censor, "that is a very dangerous
suggestion for the Monarchy." Dumas protested that the situation was
an historical fact. M. Briflfaut shook his head. The decapitation of
Louis XVI was also an historical fact but it would hardly serve for
the Theatre-Franfais. No, there were historical facts and historical
facts. Dumas left M. Briffaut wonderingjust what difference there
was between kings and ostriches.

Harel, impatient to proceed with Christine, urged the young man
to approach the head of the Censorial staff, M. de Lourdoueix. He
slyly suggested that Dumas secure that august individual's patronage
through a noted lady whose favors gladdened the evenings of M. de
Lourdoueix. The young man scorned the silken barricade of petti-
coats, and, like Raoul in Les Huguenots, full of confidence in the
justice of his cause, marched off boldly to the south side of Paris to
beard the Chief Censor in his den. M. de Lourdoueix refused to be
bearded and remarked somewhat testily: "It is no use for you to say
anything at all. As long as the Elder Branch is on the throne and I
act as Censor your work will be suspended." Dumas lost his temper.
"I shall wait, then!" he retorted in a significant manner, his voice full
of exploding musketry and crashing barricades. M. de Lourdoueix
bowed ironically and remarked: "That decision had been already
arrived at." It was a good retort, so good that all Dumas could do
(and he never failed to have the last word if it were possible) was to
bawl through the closing door: "Then I repeat it!" He strode away
growling to himself, fiery Republican sentiments springing up like
armed men in his mind. It was time for the removal of all Kings.
The head of Charles X would look fine oh one of the iron pickets
before the Theatre-Frangais. Curse the Polignac ministry! Curse M.
de Lourdoueix! Curse . . . Suddenly he stopped in the middle of
the boulevard and said aloud: "A man who, when discovered by his
mistress's husband, kills her— swearing that she had offered resistance
to his addresses, and dying on the scaffold for the murder — saves the
wife's honor and expiates his crime." Elk me rtsistait, je I'ai assassin^!
The.^assersby, observing the tall young man in the fanciful gilet

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 173

festooned with gold chains mumbling to himself, gave him a wide
berth. He might be one of the madmen of Paris, he who was Gannot,
for instance, or Caillaux the prophet. Dumas paid no attention to the
startled glances of the pedestrians. He had found the theme of
Antony.

Where had it come from? Out of the air? Out of M. Briffaufs
wrinkled forehead? Out of M. de Lourdoueix's sour expression? It
had come out of his own life. These words spoken aloud in the
boulevard were merely the verbal recognition of the suddenly dis-
covered imaginary climax to the emotional storm through which he
had passed so recently. Things happened like that to the born writer.
An unexpected flash in the brain and everything was clear. It was his
love affair with Melanie Waldor that he would fashion into a drama.
The new play would be in prose. It would be swift and fiery — as his
ardor for Melanie had been; it would be Satanic and thrilling — as he
had seemed to Melanie; it would be sensational and modern — as the
feverish affair had progressed. That was it — modern. No more armor
and doublets and dead queens and "hochets royaux" and dangerous
political allusions. As he hastened toward his apartment he considered
the varying facets of his liaison with Melanie. There had been his
frantic wooing, the discreet little room in which she had given herself
to him, his melodramatic assumption of a Satanic role, his fear of
Captain Waldor (had he not hurried three times to acquaintances in
the War Office and maneuvered postponements of the Captain's leave
of absence from the dull country garrison?), and his actual jealousy—
an agony that had eventually dwindled to an insincere simulation*
He adored Melanie no longer. Three years had sufficed to lessen, still,
and eventually slaughter die affection which had sprung to so fiery
a life in M. Villenave's drawing room. The dark thin woman who
had reposed so quietly beneath the painting of Anne Boleyn and
beside the urn that once contained the heart of Bayard was no longer
a mysterious and desirable personality but a jealous and possessive
creature uneven in temper and suffering from dyspepsia. Their assig-
nations—once so illicitly sweet— had degenerated into a series of
reproaches on her side and an ineffectual mummery of the aspect of
love on his* Virginie Bourbier, Mademoiselle Mars, Louise Despreaux,
these were the names she continually flung at him. He knew he was

i74 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

unfaithful, that he was incapable of fidelity; still, the demon of self-
dramatization awakened an injured soul within him. Melanie did not
understand him. The infidelities of the artist were the weapons of
creation. Well, he would make a play of it all. Melanie should be
Adele (he might as well use the name of his first sweetheart) and he
would be ... would be Antony. Antony who had flung the world
away for the love of Cleopatra. And Antony would be something
like Didier in Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme. Romantic, Satanic,
mad. "Demandez k un cadavrc combicn dc fois il a v6cul" The
figures of the play slowly emerged into a phantom life in his mind.
When he reached his apartment in the rue de 1'Universite he had
conceived the shadowy scaffolding of a play.

Dumas wrote Antony in six weeks and into that drama he flung an
intensity and melodramatic substance that was astonishing for the
period. The play had the singleness of an obsessing situation. He read
it before the assembled company of the Theatre-Frangais where it
was received rather coldly but accepted nevertheless. The mimes could
not understand a modern play in which the characters dressed in con-
temporary garments. It recalled to them rather unpleasantly such
tawdry (but overwhelmingly popular) boulevard melodramas as
Trcnte Ans, ou la Vic d'un Joueur; and productions of this type— as
far from Racine as the North Pole is from the South Pole — seemed
to some of them profanations of the House of Moliere. Still Mademoi-
selle Mars and Firmin — not without misgivings — received the leading
roles and a call was issued for immediate rehearsals. Both the direc-
torate of the Theatre-Frangais and Dumas had failed to take into
account the Censor. M, de Lourdoucix received his copy of the script,
read it, and hastily issued a notice of indefinite suspension. Dumas
was beside himself. Two plays suppressed in succession! Did it mean
that he was to be permitted no more productions while Charles X
reigned in the Tuileries? The angry words of M. de Lourdoueix
echoed ominously in his ears: "As long as the Elder Branch is on the
throne and I act as Censor your work will be suspended." Then come
quickly, come quickly, Revolution! The young man became more
republican than ever and the cafes echoed to his wordy eloquence.
Happily for him, however, other influences were at work, among
them "that rascal" Hard who possessed powerful friends close to the

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 175

Censorship and Madame du Cayla, close to the throne, who consid-
ered Dumas a rather fascinating young man, and in March Christine
was returned to the Odeon theater with very few changes and released
for production. Even the "hochet royal" remained undisturbed. Re-
hearsals started immediately with Mademoiselle Georges as Queen
Christine, Lockroy as Monaldeschi, Ligier as Scntinelli, and Mademoi-
selle Noblet as Paula,
Antony continued to repose under the black cloud of the Censorship.

At one o'clock on the afternoon on February 25, 1830, a mob of
young men gathered at the rue de Valois door of the Th£atre-Fran£ais
and pushed through into the unlighted auditorium. The passersby
stopped in amazement to view this concourse of outlandish figures,
and small urchins hastened to the nearest piles of debris in the gutters
for ammunition. The opportunity for offensive battle was too much
for them. This gesticulating crowd of young men was garmented in a
bewildering array of unusual costumes. Immense Spanish capes. Fan-
tastic gilets of barbaric hues. Coats & la Robespierre. Henri III caps.
Southern costumes from Provence and the Basque country. Turkish,
Greek and Bedouin robes. The street arabs seized their cannon-balls
of debris and let fly at them. Loud curses. Threatening canes. Clenched
fists. The streets arabs redoubled their attack to roars of laughter from
the loitering pedestrians. The astonishing figures disappeared as
rapidly as possible into the gloomy maw of the Th^tre-Fran^ak.
Once inside they spread over the scats, securing points of vantage,
settling down to their long wait for the evening perf ormance, deposit-
ing beside them their bundles of cervelas, ham and bread and their tafi
bottles of red wine. They composed the first division of the Romantic
Army called into existence by Victor Hugo and assembled as his
claque for the opening night of Hernani. A literary Waterloo was to
be fought.

The interdiction of Marion Dclorme, the limited success of Alfred
de Vigny's Lc More dc Vcnisc, the querulous antagonism of the
traditionalists, and, perhaps, the nearing glow of the approaching July
Days, had created a strangely taut situation. Hcrnani was more than
a play; it was a cause. By it rose or fell the youthful standard of the
Romantic School. Hie young men of Paris knew this and so did the

I76 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

traditionalists. Hugo knew it, also. He knew that he could not trust
the professional claque— that regardless army of mercenaries, that he
did not command enough money to swing it wholeheartedly into his
camp. Therefore he devised a claque of his own. From the ateliers,
high rooms on the Left Bank, cafes, and gathering-places of the young
writers and painters he recruited volunteers, assembling them as a
general assembles his troops, indicating leaders, and forming well-
defined commands* These commands were led by trusted captains,
by Louis Boulanger, Emile Deschamps, Charles Nodier, Achille
Deveria, Gerard de Nerval, and a dozen others. Slips of red paper
with the Spanish word "hierro" (iron) printed upon them were dis-
tributed to the warriors as a means of identification. From one o'clock
on Jeune-France poured into the murkiness of the Theatre-Franf ais,
bent on securing the best seats before the traditionalists appeared,
joking among themselves, roaring out popular chansons, shouting for
the sheer pleasure of shouting, hurling defiances at the stony and
unperturbed faces of Racine and Corneille, gobbling ham and cheese,
drinking from tall bottles, bestrewing the auditorium with the debris
of their hasty dinners.

As the various leaders swaggered in followed by their noisy soldiers
bellows of welcome heralded them. Ernest de Saxe-Coburg, forget-
ting that he was royal, took his place in the front of the balcony as
the chandeliers were lighted and a soft glow illuminated the house.
Honore de Balzac, his broad face still stained by the cabbage-head
some gamin had flung at him with accurate aim, pushed his way
toward a seat in the pit. Dumas, among the earliest to arrive, bayed
with joy as the strange figures of the Romantics, garmented in cos-
tumes indicating their complete break with the old conservative
tradition, appeared in the doorway. There was Celestin Nanteuil, a
perfect type of Jeune-France with his long blond hair floating behind
him, the soutane-like redingote buttoned to his chin, with an air
"inscxut? seating himself beside Jehan du Seigneur, who had adapted
his name to the age of Villon. From a loge the pale beauty of Del-
phine Gay glimmered through the artificial light. Petrus Borel, his
great beard sweeping his chest, stood up and bayed like a wolf. Au-
guste de Chatillon, Edouard Thierry, and Amedee Pommier, capes
sweeping behind them, roared the popular chansons of the day as

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 177

they paraded down the aisle. Joseph Bouchardy, in a blue habit with
silver buttons and an "air oriental" and Philot^e O'Neddy, he of the
marvellous name, marshalled their forces of "brigands dc la penste"
like Napoleonic commanders. Augustus MacKeat, unknown to
Dumas as yet but within ten years to be his generalissimo of collabo-
rators under the name of Maquet, slipped on an empty wine bottle
as he pushed his way toward a seat. A tremendous roar shook the
chandeliers as young Theophile Gautier, clad in a rose-colored waist-
coat and silver-grey pantaloons striped with black velvet, appeared at
the door. He was the walking oriflamme of Jeune-France. Twilight
deepened into the wintry darkness of evening and the traditionalists
began to percolate through the house, haughty academicians and
austere disciples of Lemercier and Arnault. They secured their places,
murmuring heatedly to one another about the remnants of cervelas,
the bits of greasy paper, and the empty bottles that littered the floor
about them. Behind the curtain the temperamental Mademoiselle
Mars exclaimed angrily to Victor Hugo: "J'ai jou£ dcvant bicn des
publics, mais je vous dcvrai d* avoir jou^ devant cdui-lal" Outside the
bitter cold of a ferocious winter swept the streets and a howling wind
rushed across the frozen Seine; inside there was color — and what
extravagant color! — movement — and what reckless and quivering
movement! — warmth — and what a furnace of leashed emotions! The
Theatre-Frangais, that Bastille of classicism, had been transformed to
a rocking chaos of excitement.

The turmoil did not cease when the curtain rose and the frightened
actors appeared upon the stage. Protestations rose from the loges and
orchestra chairs only to be abruptly silenced from the embattled par-
terre. At the famous scene of the portraits a tempest broke loose,
insults were hurled back and forth, and the play was halted for ten
minutes until the bedlam of conflicting voices simmered down to
comparative silence. Hcrnani struggled along like a pitching vessel
riding an angry sea. Throughout the constantly interrupted progress
of the drama the battle continued, romanticists roaring their approval
and classicists shrilling their hatred and disapproval at one another.
This seething cauldron of a playhouse became a witches* monstrous
kettle from which arose (as the eight kings rose from the cauldron
before Macbeth) the ominous figure of Romanticism armed cap-a-pie,

178 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

visor lowered and mailed gauntlet extended. Before this undisciplined
audience Mademoiselle Mars, recovering the histrionic strength that
had lifted her so high in former years, portrayed — during the last acts
— so extraordinary a simulation of youth and beauty that even a por-
tion of the traditionalist army was silenced by her genius. When the
final curtain fell the young Romanticists noisily proclaimed their vic-
tory. MM. Lemercier, de Jouy, Viennet, Baour-Lormain and Arnault
were buried in the deep grave of a lost and outmoded cause. "Ccttc
date" wrote Theophile Gautier years later of February 25, 1830, "restc
ecrite dans le fond de notre passe en caracteres flamboyants. , . . Cettc
soiree decida de notre viel" But victory did not come as easily as this.
For forty-five nights the extraordinary struggle continued, Hugo fill-
ing a hundred seats with his disciples at each performance. There
were always interruptions and quarrels and sometimes there were
manifestations as furious as those that took place at the premiere.
Between one of the acts of the thirtieth representation Mademoiselle
Mars and Hugo searched the script for those lucky lines that had not
been hissed. They could not find one. Dumas, lost, but not silent in
the mob of Romanticists on the opening night, must have thought—
not without pride — of the first production of Henri III et sa Cour.
That had been his triumph, a triumph that had prepared the way for
Hernani, and, perhaps, hastened the disputed victory of the Romantics.
They had forgotten that. But Christine and Antony would remind
them again.

An unexpected voice came from the sawmill at La Gare. Frederic
Soulie, breaking his somewhat sullen silence, applied to Dumas for a
pass to the general rehearsal of Christine. The young man, delighted
at this evidence of a rapprochement with his stubborn old friend, lost
no time in despatching the desired ticket. He had missed Soulie, his
arguments, his bluff honesty, and his seasoned advice, although, in
some ways he had outgrown his semi-discipleship to the older man.
The circumstances that occasioned the rift between the two play-
wrights had been simple enough— both desired to write the same play.
Souli6, a trifle contemptuous of the younger man, had underestimated
Dumas's ability and told him to go ahead with it. Both had written
the same play. Souli6's drama failed lamentably after eight gloomy

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 179

performances to empty seats, and here— -matter enough to lacerate any
sensitive writer's pride — was Dumas's Christine about to be produced
on the same stage and with the same actors that had taken part in
Soulie's d&bfalc. Hurt though he was, Soulie, unlike Achilles, refused
to sulk too long in his tent. Troy was being besieged and die play-
wright-sawmill-manager sniffed the battle from afar. It was necessary
for him to be upon the field. Hcrnani still hung in the balance. The
ateliers and cafes of Paris were echoing to threats and Gargantuan
vaunts. Dumas was fighting on the field with Hugo and de VIgny
and a dozen others. Souli£ pocketed his pride, tacitly admitted his
mistaken judgment of the younger man, and emerged from the
shadows. He observed the general rehearsal of Christine, noted what
vaster opportunities Dumas had given Mademoiselle Georges and
Ligier, and admitted, with a steadily mounting enthusiasm, what
wonders Dumas had accomplished with the common theme. At the
conclusion of the fifth act Dumas went somewhat timidly to pay hss
respects to Souli£. The unsuccessful dramatist stood up and held his
arms out for the young man and Dumas embraced Jhirn with a deep
affection. The unfortunate months of estrangement wore at an end,

"Have you fifty places left in the pit?" Soulie asked.

Dumas nodded.

"Give them to me," answered Soulie. "I will send my workmen
from the sawmill and their horny palms will furnish you a clmqwc
that you will not forget for a long time/*

Christine was produced on March 30, 1830, to the mingled protests
of a well organized antagonistic claque and the approving uproar of
Souli6's workmen. For seven hours the fate of the drama was in
doubt Dumas, seated in a stage box, observed the inconsistent inci-
dents of this struggle, saw his play knocked down a dozen times, and
witnessed its final triumphant conclusion to the plaudits of an ex-
hausted and horrified audience. Premieres in 1830 wore pitched
battles. The young man realized as he watched and listened that
Christine, in spite of its virtues, was a ragged and imperfect play, that
immediate alterations were necessary, and that the unflawed victory of
Henri III et sa Cour was not to be repeated with this second produc-
tion* The fifth act, in which the wounded and bleeding MonaldescM

i8o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

drags himself across the stage to the feet of the Queen and begs for
mercy only to hear her cold: "Eh bien, j'en ai pitie, mon fere. — Qu'on
I'achevel" progressed perfectly and aroused a shuddering audience and
recalled to Dumas the triumph of the third act of Henri 111 et sa Cour,
but the epilogue defeated this climax. It would have to be shorn away.
That night Dumas gave a late supper (it was practically an early
breakfast) to a group of his friends, Hugo, de Vigny, Paul Lacroix,
Louis Boulanger, Achille Comte, Planche, Theodore Villenave and
Cordelier-Delanoue. Hugo and de Vigny were meeting in friendly
intercourse for the first time since de Vigny's Othello had slipped into
the Theatre-Frangais ahead of Hernani. The exhausted Dumas,
wearied to death by the struggle*that had occupied the Odeon stage
for seven hours, was incapable of doing anything except sit limply
in his chair. The young men laughed, drank, and sang. Romantic
toasts emptied bottle after bottle. Dumas sagged in his chair, his
enormous vitality quiescent for once. Victor Hugo and de Vigny,
observing him, slyly removed themselves from the chamber of festivi-
ties and locked a door between them and the laughter. When Dumas
woke in the morning, his friends gone and the cold debris of a festival
littering the rooms, he observed the manuscript of Christine perched
prominently upon the mantle. He crawled out of bed slothfully and
picked up the play with a sigh. There were so many changes to be
made, more than a hundred verses to be rewritten, and a rehearsal
had been called for noon. How would he ever adjust his exhausted
mind to it? He turned over two or three pages of the manuscript and
put it down in amazement. Then he picked it up again and ran
through it. All the changes had been made. While the others laughed
and drank Hugo and de Vigny had worked for four hours in the
locked room whipping Christine into shape. It was in this way that
the Romantics fought before the venomous little rifts of jealousy
parted them.

Dumas opened his door to the midday sunlight and to Barba, the
bookseller, who sat on the step" waiting to oiler the young dramatist
twelve thousand francs for the manuscript of Christine.

Women continued to complicate the life of Dumas. He was inca-
pable of ^resisting their charms for his polygamous instincts destroyed

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION i

his theoretical concept of fidelity. Marie-Catherine, safely installed
Passy, was forgotten, or, if brought to mind, recollected with ;
effort* Melanie continued to struggle lachrymosely for her lost ascc
dency, but Dumas, having completed Antony, needed her no long
Mademoiselle Mars, though more than fifty years of age, experieno
moments of tenderness for the ungovernable young man. Madem<
selle Georges sat complacently in her bathtub and lifted her whi
arms to the gold pins in her hair, revealing, by this slow gesture, tl
lovely contours of her body, while Dumas and other male frien
loitered about the room and envied Napoleon. Virginie Bourbier ai
Louise Despreaux had vanished for they were no mere than fan
interludes in an existence tuned to tfit eternal music of many womo
voices. Not all of Dumas's friendships with women were intimal
He possessed his Platonic relationships as welL Amaury DuvaTs sist*
Madame Chasseriau — who lived in one of the apartments in the Ins
tute — was one of these cool and charming creatures who kept tl
young man at arm's length, smiled at his volatile temperament, ai
restrained his ardent nature. Marie Nodier was another. Still aaadai
was Delphine Gay, the Muse Delphine, once the sweetheart of Alfot
de Vigny and soon to be Madame de Girardin. With these wwm
who laughingly guarded themselves against his ingenuous approach
Dumas could discuss life and letters. At the same time he was fotw
seeking the new face and the melting eyes that would respond to 1
excessive need of I' amour. One woman unsought and mmi$pec&
entered his life by way of a cab at one o'clock in the morning.

It was the evening of the second performance of Chris&nc* Aft
the fall of the curtain Dumas left the brilliantly lighted portal dE td
Od&m, pushed his way through the congregated carriages, warn
aside the acquaintances who hailed him, and started on foot aorc
the darkness of the Place de FOd6on. He had not travelled far wfe
a closed cab drew up beside him and a woman's head procnided fra
the door. A sweet voice inquired: "Are yon Monsieur Dumas?** 11
young man admitted the fact. "Very well," continued the voice as
white hand opened the door of the cab. "Come inside and kiss m*
Dumas dimbed into the cab with akcrity and found himself ^r-
ttoe with Madame Dorval of the Porte-Saint-Martin Th^tre, a talent*
young actress of popular r61es whose complaisance was only exceed

182 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

by her charm. "You possess marvellous talent, and you don't draw
women badly, either!" breathed Madame DorvaL Dumas did not
deny it, A few weeks after this rencontre Madame Duval was refer-
ring to Dumas as her "big bow-wow." The dramatist was often at her
home and the charming Dorval was to be discovered frequently
enough in Dumas's apartment stretched out on the divan like a lux-
urious kitten and listening lazily to the conversation of the assembled
Romantics. It was there that Alfred de Vigny first saw her and was
instandy fascinated. Dumas saw the glow in the eyes of the ex-officer
and smiling gayly gazed elsewhere.

At Firmin's house one evening he stared direcdy into two large
blue eyes. The charming stranger possessed jet black hair, a nose as
straight as that of the Venus de Milo and teeth like pearls. She had
been playing the "Mars parts" in the provinces and Firmin, who had
been on tour in Henri 111 ct sa Cour, immediately induced her to
return to Paris with him. Firmin's interest in Bell Krebsamer was
theoretical, so to speak, so Dumas, without further thoughts of
Melanie, Mademoiselle Georges, Madame Dorval, or anyone else,
plunged into an amorous siege that lasted exactly as long as the siege
of the Due d'Orleans before Anvers — three weeks. At the termination
of that gentle warfare Melanie S. (as Dumas always referred to Bell
Krebsamer) was installed in number seven, rue de FUniversite, a few
doors from her lover's apartment. Melanie S. undoubtedly expected a
means of progression theatrically in this liaison and determined to
profit by it, Melanie Waldor was now definitely succeeded although
the frayed and cruel ends of that affair were yet to be properly tied
together by Dumas. The young man was never quite honest about
these matters. He was always on with the new love before he was off
with the old.

History began to divert Dumas's insouciant existence into revolu-
tionary channels. On May 31, 1830, he was invited (as an afterthought
by the son of the Due d'Orleans— the Due de Chartres) to an impres-
sive ball at the Palais-Royal where Francois, King of Naples (son of
that Ferdinand whom Dumas accused of poisoning his father in the
prisons of Brindisi), and Charles X appeared in all their royal plumes
and feathers. Dumas entered the hall just before the French King

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 183

arrived and was both vexed and humiliated when the Due d*Or!£aas
walked up to him and whispered: "If, by chance, the King honors
you by speaking to you, you know that you must address him neither
as Sire nor Majestt but simply as le RoL" As though he didn't know
court etiquette! Dumas was still scowling to himself when the drums
beat and Charles X and his retinue entered the Palais-Royal. The
young man saw a tall and thin old gentleman with beautiful white
hair and an ugly underlip that drooped on his chin. M. de Salvandy,
who was present, concocted a mot that spread throughout Paris the
next day. He whispered to the Due d'Orleans: "Monseigneur, this is
a true Neapolitan fete, for we are dancing upon the edge of a volcano.**
The Due's enigmatical expression never changed. He was, perhaps,
wondering slyly to himself how far the divertissement of the Algerian
campaign would remove Charles X from the imminent crisis of his
reign. It was a spectacular red herring, to be sure, but would it shift
the rancor of the disaffected young Republicans from the Tuileries?

Dumas left the ball with a distinct grievance against the Due d'Or-
leans and an increased Republican fervor.

On the fourteenth of June the French army debarked on the coast
of Algeria. A swift campaign followed. The battle of Staoueli was
fought on the nineteenth and Fort-de-PEmpereur was taken on the
fourth of July. Official announcement of the investment of Algiers
was published in the Parisian journals of July ninth. The divertisse-
ment produced no amelioration of the unrest in the capital and the
short-sighted Polignac ministry, guided by the King, turned to the
fatal ordinances.

Dumas suddenly decided that he would travel to Algiers, bask for a
while on the warm shores of the Mediterranean, and study the re-
sources of the newly-acquired territories, the faint specter, perhaps, of
his future Impressions dc Voyage rising in his industrious and restless
mind. He would take Melanie S. with him, of course. Indeed, it is
possible that this proposed journey occurred to the young man as one
method of decisively destroying the few links that still held him to
Melanie Waldor. It was not that he desired to run away but that he
had sucked all the emotional stimulus he could from die old affair
and did not feel equal to the commonplaces of a last and definite
verbal understanding. It was much more romantic to sail to Algiers

184 .THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

where there were black men, Mohammedans with fezes, sheiks in
burnouses, and mysterious women with veiled faces. With this "Ara-
bian Nights" picture in mind he started to turn his francs into gold
and purchase clothing for the trip.

Charles X and his government were to intervene, however. The
ordinances were inscribed on paper, ordinances suppressing certain of
the Literal newspapers that continued to attack the ministry, dissolv-
ing the recently elected Chamber of Deputies before its first meeting,
and approving a diminution of the electorate* This was tyranny and
young men such as Cavaignac, Arago and others bestirred themselves.
For a brief while it was thought that Charles X would not dare sign
his own death warrant. Could not the blind old man, scrupulous as
he was from his own royal angle, see that the minute he appended his
signature to the ordinances he had flung his Kingdom away for a
principle that had ceased to exist? Paris seethed and waited. The
twenty-fifth of July fell on a Sunday and Charles X, who was installed
in his palace at Saint-Cloud, attended mass calmly, and, afterward,
opened the momentous meeting of the Counsel. The text of the
ordinances was read slowly and carefully to the King. He listened,
his ugly lower lip resting on his chin, and then, picking up the pen,
he turned to the assembled ministers and remarked: "I am more than
ever convinced, messieurs, that it is impossible to do anything else."
He dipped the pen in the ink and his white hair drooped over the
fatal pages that were laid before him.

II

July 26, 1830.

Dumas, who had awakened early, was packing a large valise pre-
paratory to setting out for the newly conquered territories of Algeria
when there came a sharp rap at the door. Achille Comte, who had
been running all the way and whose face was streaked with perspi-
ration, burst into the room and flung a newspaper upon the table.

ftHave you heard the news?" he exclaimed.

Dumas shook his head.

"The ordinances are announced in the Moniteurl"

The coat he was packing dropped from Dumas's hand. He turned
to his servant, Joseph, and cried: "Go to my gunmakef's and bring

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 185

me back my double-barrelled gun and two hundred bullets of twenty
caliber." Lc jour dc gloirc cst arrival Charles X had signed and pub-
lished his own death-warrant* The lean old monarch, King Stork,
front and flower of the Elder Branch, had flung his formidable bomb
into the powder-magazine of Paris. Dumas and Comte descended to
the streets, Dumas full of mingled forebodings and martial threats,
and Comte still incredulous that Paris would rise* The city wa$ quiet.
It lay peaceably beneath a warm sun. A yellow light dusted along the
quais, the Seine slid noiselessly beneath the bridges, and gossiping
pedestrians hurried by on their way to work. Now and again the
scarlet uniform of one of the Swiss Guards shone at a high window
of the Tuileries. The two young men breakfasted at number seven,
rue de FUniversite, where the blue-eyed young "Mars from the
provinces" pouted prettily when she learned that she was not to go to
Algeria after all. Then Comte went on his way to discover further
information and Dumas directed his steps toward the Palais-Royal,
that presumable source of all the inside facts. But they knew nothing
there. The Due d'Orlcans was carefully cloistered at Neuilly. The
Due de Chartres was at the head of his regiment at Joigny- M. de
Broval was at Villiers* M. Oudard had disappeared into thin air. M.
Deviolaine was locked in his room. In times of crisis it is often the
case that the scheming man who expects to profit by rebellion is
difficult to locate. He lurks in a safe harbor until he is certain wfaidh
way the wind is blowing. The monkey sits in the shadow while the
cat stretches his foolish Daw into the flames for the chestnut shaped
like a crown.

The eyes and ears of Paris were located in the caf& as much as in
the newspaper offices and royal establishments. Dumas, therefore,
leaving the dumb corridors of the Palais-Royal behind him, went
to the Cafe du Roi, a hostelry frequented by Royalist journalists*
There he found Theaulon, Theodore Anne, Brissot, Rochefort and
Merle, the complaisant husband of Madame Dorval, all writers conr
nected with such conservative sheets as the Foudrc, Lc Dmpcau H&ancf
and Quotidicnne. Lassagne, too, was there. Excepting Lassagne, this
group approved the ordinances, and Dumas, who held different views
from these journalists, did not care to discuss the matter. He abhorred
disputing with his friends. It was so much easier to fight duels with

i86 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

them. He sat by himself, then, sipping his coffee and waiting for an
acquaintance whose political views agreed more closely with his own.
In the meantime various idle pedestrians sauntered up and down the
street outside the smoky window of the Cafe du RoL They talked
calmly, seemingly unmoved by the historical consequences of the day.
It was the lull before the storm, that period of deceptive quiet when
the leaf hangs unmoved although the muttering wind already mani-
fests itself on the horizon through the bent tops of distant trees. Those
ferocious instigators of revolutions who creep out of cellars and dark
sewers at the last minute and raise barricades were moving uneasily
in their hidden corners, perhaps, but they had not appeared as yet.
Paris lolled pleasantly in its bright bath of sunshine and Dumas lolled
with it. He was aroused from his solitary reverie by fitienne Arago,
director of the Vaudeville Theatre, who saw Dumas bowed over his
coffee-cup and hurried him off to the Institute where Francois Arago,
fitienne's famous brother, was scheduled to deliver an address before
the Academy.

The Academicians, strutting about in their blue coats braided with
green, were like so many turkey-cocks. Dumas and fitienne Arago,
entering the Holy of Holies somewhat late, were surprised to note
that the meeting was not in progress and that the hall was dotted with
small gesticulating groups of Academicians. A rumor had threaded
the assembly that Francois Arago would refuse to speak and the more
startled of the Immortals were retarding the meeting, Francois
Arago, Dumas saw, was engaged in a somewhat acrimonious conver-
sation with Marechal Marmont, Due de Raguse. Dumas and iStienne
Arago pushed through the Academicians and reached the savant just
as Marmont left him. "What does he say ?" Etienne asked his brother
as he nodded his head toward the subscriber to the capitulation of
Paris. "He is furious," replied Franjois, his eyes following the dis-
gruntled Marechal. "He says they are the type of people who fling
themselves in the very teeth of ruin, and he only hopes he won't be
obliged to draw swords on their behalf." fitienne Arago snorted
contemptuously. They were waiting at Saint-Cloud for a miracle from
heaven, perhaps. In answer to another question Franfois Arago de-
clared that he would not speak. Cuvier, passing at that moment, heard
this decision and drew the savant aside. He was immediately sur-

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 187

rounded by a group of solemnly arguing turkey-cocks, and, after
fifteen minutes' discussion, Arago bowed his head and consented to
speak* His address was to be on Frcsnel, famed for his work on the
speed and nature of light, but, much to the disturbance of the Acade-
micians who had insisted on his speaking, he injected into this sup-
posedly scientific discourse so many burning allusions to the political
crisis that hung like a thunder-cloud over Paris that his address became
a clever call to arms. Dumas and Etienne Arago left the Institute
laughing at the shocked expression on Cuvier's face. Arago went his
way to mingle with the crowds in the streets for the revolutionary fury
was rising in him. Dumas, after a visit with Madame Chasseriau, pro-
ceeded toward Vefour's, the prospect of a well-spiced dinner luring him
away from political argument. Already queer tremors were shaking
Paris. The Bourse, that barometer of political crises, had been in an
uproar all day and three per cent. Consols had fallen six francs. People
were talking in louder voices and young men were hurrying down side
streets on mysterious errands. As Dumas crossed the gardens of the
Palais-Royal he saw a crowd eddying about some youths who stood
on chairs reading from the Moniteur in stentorian voices. These imita-
tions of Camille Desmoulins were not successful. The crowd listened
complacently, gaped with mild interest and then dispersed toward
prospective dinners. After his hurried meal Dumas ran to the dc
Leuven home where he found Madame de Leuven greatly upset over
the unexplained absence of her husband and son. Dumas obligingly
set forth in search of them. The elder de Leuven was at a closed
meeting in the offices of the Courner Franfais where the famous
protest in the name of the Charter was being signed by forty-four
journalists, each one of whom risked his head with his signature*
Adolphe had been despatched to M. Laffitte's house but he had found
the bankers' doors locked. M. Laffitte, like the Due d'OrMans, was
waiting. By eleven o'clock Dumas was back in his rooms meditating
on the strange calmness of the day.

Beside his bed Joseph had placed the double-barrelled gun and two
hundred bullets of twenty caliber.

July 27, 1830.

Another warm clear day with a bright sun mounting to the zenith.

i88 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Dumas, who had waked early, hurried to his mother's rooms for
breakfast. The poor old lady was quite tranquil in mind and body for
no rumors of the fierce gathering storm had penetrated to her quiet
Thebaid in the Quartier du Luxembourg. There the buxom house-
wives sluiced the stone steps of their houses with buckets of water,
scurried to the boulangeries for their long loaves of crisp bread, and
uncorked the tall bottles of pale red wine. It is true that certain sober
faces met the early pedestrian at the street corners, faces peering into
the crumpled sheets of hastily-printed journals and then lifted with
tightened lips, but these faces always disappeared in the direction of
the many streets leading to the quais. Dumas, his hasty visit accom-
plished, hurried in the direction of these streets, too, meeting Paul
Foucher, Victor Hugo's brother-in-law. As Dumas saw Foucher, who
laid claims to authorship, about to draw a five-act play from his pocket
to read then and there upon the street he hurriedly hailed a cab and
ordered the driver to carry him to Armand Carrel's house.

Carrel, one of the editors of the National, was an unofficial leader of
the Opposition. He had returned from political exile after the coro-
nation of Charles X. At this time he was a young man of twenty-
eight years with a retreating forehead, a long sharp nose, and a bilious
complexion, generally clothed in patent leather boots, a black cravat
tightly knotted about his neck, a black frock coat, a waistcoat of white
pique or chamois leather, and grey trousers. Dumas found him coolly
eating his breakfast and reading the morning paper wherein was
printed the protest of the forty-four journalists against the illegal
suppression of the press. It is time to set down the names of these
forty-four guardsmen of liberty who had put their necks in danger.
Carrel was one. The others were MM. Thiers, Gauja, Mignet, Cham-
bolle, Peysse, Stapfer, Dubochet and Rolle of the National; Leroux,
Guizard, Dejean and de Remusat of the Globe; Senty, Haussman,
Dussart, Busoni, Barbaroux, Chalas, Billard. Baude and Coste of Lc
Temps; Guyet, Moussette, Avenel, Alexis de Jussieu, Chatelain, Du-
pont, and de la Pelouze of the Courrier franfais; Ann6e, Cauchois-
Lemairc and fivariste Dumoulin of the Constitutionncl; Sarrans fits
of the Courrier des Electeurs; Auguste Fabre and Ader of the Tribune
des dtpartements; Lavasseur, Plagnol and Fazy of the Revolution;
Larreguy and Bert of the Journal du Commerce; Leoa Fillet of the

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 189

Journal dc Paris; Bohain and Roqueplan of Figaro; and Vaillant of
Sylphe. These were the men who dared to speak out on the evening
of the twenty-sixth and these were the names that Dumas read on the
morning of the twenty-seventh. How the government would respond
to this protest was the problem. Carrel, who had determined to stay
indoors all day, weakened at Dumas's urgent solicitations and went
out into the streets with him, first placing a pair of pocket pistols in
his coat. They tramped the boulevards from the rue dc la Chauss^e-
d'Antin to the rue Neuve-Vivienne and observed a rising excitement
everywhere. People were rushing in the direction of the rue de Riche-
lieu. An excited pedestrian, upon being hailed, paused long cnougi*
to stutter that the offices of Lc Temps were being sacked by mounted
police. It was patent that signs of insurrection were imminent. Paris,
which had lived through the twenty-sixth with some degree of calm-
ness, was rising like an ominous sea. The builders of barricades begaa
to appear from their dark corners.

Dumas and Carrel hurried to the offices of Lc Temps. Here for the
first time the young playwright saw actual signs of revolt. This time
it was not the spectacle of dramatically-minded youths reading news-
papers from chairs h la Camille Desmotdins. A score of police were
drawn up in front of the printing office and awaiting the arrival oi
the Commissionnaire de Police. Behind this row of uniforms was an
attentive mob. It is always the mob that makes revolutions and on
many of the faces in this gathering was that ominous fiusb that
prophesies ruin to governments and dynasties. The hour, howwtr,
was early as yet. Monsieur le Commissionnaire de Police arrived, whi&e
scarf of office, sword and all, and knocked solemnly si the printing
house door. As he knocked the door opened and framed in the portal
stood Baude, one of the editors of Le Temps. Baudc was a formidable
apparition, a giant with thick black hair and a rough tremendous
voice. Behind him were lined up his thirty or f orty editors and printers,
men with set faces and glittering eyes. A dead silence fell upon the
street and two thousand people breathed so softly that this tableau,
the first dramatic scene of the Revolution of 1830, seemed like an array
of waxen figures, a scene misplaced from the galleries of Madame
Tussaud, Baude spoke first, his rough voice grating the air. "What
do you want, Monsieur?" Monsieur le Commissionnaire de Police

ipo THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

stuttered his answer. "I come . - . in consequence ... the Ordi-
nances ..." "To break up our presses?" roared Baude. "Then in
the name of the Code which is both anterior and superior to the
Ordinances I call upon you to respect them." Those metal monsters of
liberty, the printing presses, stood in their stalls and waited. Baude
held forth a copy of the Code opened at the article on housebreaking.
Monsieur le Commissionnaire de Police turned uneasily. "A lock-
smith," he said. "Send somebody to find a locksmith." "We will wait
until he comes/' replied Baude. A murmur rippled across the atten-
tive crowd and it pushed closer to the police. The locksmith arrived.
Monsieur le Commissionnaire de Police gave his order and the trem-
bling fellow approached the printing house doors to force them.
Baude Barred his way. He halted him by reading the article on
housebreaking from the Code. The locksmith hesitated and then
bared his head. A cheer went up from the crowd. Monsieur le Com-
missionnaire de Police reiterated his order to the bewildered artisan.
Baude called for witnesses to this potential violence and five hundred
voices responded simultaneously. The locksmith, hearing this growl-
ing approval of Baude, exclaimed: "Get somebody else to do your
job," and disappeared in the mob. A second locksmith was secured
but as the police pushed him through the crowd he dexterously
slipped his picklocks into the hands of a spectator. These keys were
passed from person to person and disappeared forever. Finally a
blacksmith was summoned. The mob, surging closer and closer to
this comedy with tragic implications, awakened the fear of Monsieur
le Commissionnaire de Police and he ordered his men to clear the
street. The spectators were forced toward the Place Louvois and the
Arcade Colbert but as they slowly retreated they shouted, "Vive la
Charter Measured steps were heard and a large reinforcement of
police was observed approaching from the direction of the Palais-
Royal. Dumas and Carrel withdrew with the mob. They had wit-
nessed enough. The moral victory remained with the Opposition.
Baude had set the tune to which Paris would dance for three days.

The two young men entered the National offices at two o'clock.
The people in the streets were still quiet but a shiver of excitement
permeated Ac atmosphere and the pedestrians walked faster, expe-
riencing that instinctive terror which animals feel at the imminence

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 191

of a storm. At seven o'clock in the evening, Dumas, who had been
wandering about with Carrel after leaving the National offices, was
at the top of the rue Montmartre when he stopped suddenly and
lifted his head. From the direction of the Palais-Royal came a curious
muttering sound as though a gigantic rattle had been suddenly
whirred. "What is that ?" he exclaimed. Carrel's face grew pale. "It
was a volley being fired," he replied. The obsequies of the Elder
Branch were being played on muskets. A hot summer twilight en-
veloped the city and into it mounted a sulphurous puff of smoke.
Carrel prudently went home but Dumas dashed off at a run toward
the Place de la Bourse. He encountered his medical friend, Thibaut,
before he had gone fifty yards and Thibaut explained what had hap-
pened. A man had been killed in the rue du Lycee and three more
in the me Saint-Honore. The Lancers had charged in the rue de
Richelieu and upon the Place du Palais-Royal. A barricade had been
demolished in the rue de Richelieu. A barricade! The ominous
figures had come out of their dark corners at last.

Dumas started toward the rive gauche but as he entered the rue
Vivienne he saw the long slant of bayonets approaching from the
other end. The troops advanced with regular steps, taking up the
whole width of the street, and forcing men, women and children
before them. Marechal Marmont, Due de Raguse, was investing Paris
for His Majesty, Charles X, who was playing whist at Saint-Cloud.
Dumas sought protection in the cafe of the Theatre de$ Nouveatst£s
and there he peered through the windows and watched the soldiers
pass and heard the women cry from the windows, "Do not fire on the
people!" The troops reached the Place de la Bourse, deployed, and left
a dozen soldiers in a rickety old guardhouse near the Bourse. To
grumbling drums the regiment disappeared in the direction of the
Place de la Bastille. No sooner had they gone than urchins ran up
to the guardhouse shouting, "Vive la Charter The soldiers paid no
attention. Soon stones followed the shouting and a soldier, infuriated
at being struck in the head by a rock, fired his musket off and killed
a young woman who was loitering on the opposite side of the Place
dc la Bourse. Cries of "Murder!" resounded, lights were extinguished,
shops shut and shutters snapped into place, and in a twinkling the
square was cleared. At that moment a group of perhaps a dozen men

192 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

debouched from the rue des Fillcs-Saint-Thomas shouting, "Stop the
plays! Close the theaters! They are killing people in the streets of
Paris!" This miniature revolution was headed by fitienne Arago,
They stumbled against the body of the dead woman which lay across
the street. Arago ordered the corpse carried to the steps of the peri-
style of the Theatre des Nouveautes where everybody might see it.
The body was taken to this high brilliantly-lighted bier and then the
shouting group marched down the rue de Montmorency. That eve-
ning Arago was instrumental in closing most of the theaters of Paris.

Dumas and his few companions lurked behind the dusty panes
of the cafe of the Theatre des Nouveautes and discussed the agitation
that was causing Paris to quiver like a giant in a first attack of epilepsy.
One young theorist put forward the proposition that the uprising
would prove as abortive as that of 1827. Another logician demon-
strated to his own satisfaction that the riot had not the strength to
develop into a revolution. Dumas shook his head. This discussion was
abruptly terminated by the crash of muskets in the immediate vicinity,
shouts, and the terrible sounds of hand-to-hand combat. From the
windows Dumas and the contemptuous logicians saw that the rickety
guardhouse had been assaulted by a score of strange nocturnal figures,
ape-like men with fowling pieces, unshaven faces and fierce eyes. The
makers of revolutions had appeared at last. These men, horrible phan-
toms of 1789, overpowered the troops of the Due de Raguse, took away
their guns, cartridge-pouches and swords, and sent them away by the
rue Joquelet. Then they set fire to the guardhouse, picked up the
limp corpse of the woman from the peristyle of the theater, and set
off down the rue des Filles-Saint-Thomas bearing the body before
them and shouting, "Vengeance !" The rickety building burned most
of the night, throwing a lurid illumination over the square and light-
ing brown-red puddles that coagulated between the cobbles. The
logicians of the caf 6 of the Theatre des Nouveautes were silent.

Toward midnight Dumas left the cafe and went down the rue
Vivicmne. The Perron Passage was closed so he continued his home-
ward march by way of the rue des Petits-Champs and the rue de
Richelieu. It was dark in the city. It was quiet. In the distance the
flare of the burning guardhouse lighted the high roofs. As the young
man walked swifdy through the rue de 1'Echelle he saw silent shadows

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 193

moving in the obscurity, shadows which cried, "Qui vivcl*9 when he
approached them. "A friend/* replied the young man. He heard the
faint click of picks and saw these nocturnal creatures hurrying to and
fro with huge cobble-stones in their arms. They were raising a barri-
cade, raising it so silently that they seemed like figures moving in a
dream. They labored steadily without speaking, Dumas continued on
his way. In the court of the Tuileries campfires were burning and
their fitful glow illuminated stacks of muskets from which bloomed
the long silver blossoms of bayonets. By the gates a sentinel cried out
hoarsely, "Keep away!" and cocked his gun. Having reached the rue
de rUniversite without meeting another living soul the young man
looked back. The silence seemed alive as though invisible creatures
were sliding stealthily through empty streets.

July 28, 1830.

Dumas was awakened by Achilla Comte who brought word that
the Quartier des Ecoles was in a state of open insurrection* The
students, furious at the dilatory tactics of such men as Laffitte, the
banker, Casimir P6rier, the statesman, and La Fayette, the old hero,
were out en masse, their pockets crammed with gunpowder. They
demanded action and they refused to permit the revolution to simmer
down to a mere riot because of tentative Liberal leaders. It was the
destruction of Royalty they demanded and the establishment of a
Republic. Laffitte might hide behind the locked doors of his house
and wait to see which way the cat jumped; Casimir Perier might keep
one rolling eye on Saint-Cloud and temporize; La Fayette, the father
of revolutions who had known Washington, argued with Franklin
and denounced Marat, might wait vainly and impatiently for either
the deputies or the people to call him into action; the students were
prepared to take matters into their own hands and kill a few Royalists.
Dumas, tired of the role of a spectator, prepared for action. He was a
hot young Republican now and no longer a dependent on the Due
d'Or!6ans. After making his usual morning call on Madame Dumas
he attempted to see Godefroy Cavaignac, brother of that General
Eugene Cavaignac who was to be dictator of France for a few months
during the Revolution of 1848, but he could not find him. Cavaignac,
like all the young leaders, was here, there and everywhere. Dumas

194 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

gave up the search after wandering about the city for an hour or two
and returned to his rooms in the rue de FUniversite. There he put
on a brand-new costume de chassc, stuffed his pockets with shot, slung
his powder-horn on his shoulder, picked up his gun and started forth
to advance the cause of liberty. Dumas, the revolutionist, had his
comic side. Changing his clothes in order to kill somebody was proof
of it

In the street outside his door he encountered the indefatigable
fitienne Arago and Gauja, one of the forty-four journalists who had
signed the famous protest, going from house to house and hoarsely
calling the citizens to arms. These two men were excellent echoes of
1789. While they were hammering with the butts of their muskets at
closed portals two mounted policemen, their brass trappings glittering,
turned the corner. Arago and Gauja fired at them and one of the
policemen fell pierced by two balls while the other, wheeling his horse
until it reared violently, disappeared in a cloud of dust. Decidedly this
was revolution. Dumas, observing the sudden death of the officer of
the law, grew pale and contemplative. He clutched his gun tighter
as Arago and Gauja continued on their way shouting, "To arms,
citoycnsl" A group of neighbors gathered about Dumas, lured by
his brilliant hunting costume, and tacitly put themselves under his
leadership. The young man observed his weaponless detachment
and became inflamed with the mob passion. He ordered them to
raise barricades at each end of the rue de PUniversite and in a second
they were at work, uprooting huge cobble-stones with crowbars and
carrying them to the extremities of the street. As they labored they
could hear the drums beating in the gardens of the Tuileries. The
grumbling tattoo was like a gigantic voice calling. Shouting students
could be heard swarming in die nearby streets. Over the Cite rose
a pall of smoke and mingled in it were voices, the clatter of hoofs,
stray shots, and the eternal grumble of drums. There are no revolu-
tions without drums.

Dumas and his neighbors perspired and swore as they dragged the
huge cobbles to the barricades. Suddenly three soldiers of the Garde
Royalc appeared at the top of the rue du Bac and Dumas, seeing
them, shouted: "Here are three rifles. All you have to do is take
them/* The miniature army surrounded the bewildered soldiers who

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 195

gave up their guns readily enough. These guns were unloaded but
that made no difference. A second later a group of vociferating
students led by a young man dressed in an apple-green frock coat
appeared at the end of the rue de PUniversite. This young man was
Alexandre Bixio, the medical student who was sometimes to be seen
at Charles Nodier's salon on Sunday evenings. He carried a service
rifle. The two groups, Dumas's army and Bixio's students, fraternized
at once and all set to work on the barricades. When two fairly sturdy
walls were raised closing the street at either end, Dumas, calmly
deserting his army, set forth in search of new worlds to conquer. He
prowled round by way of the Place de la Revolution and traversed
the entire length of the rue Saint-Honor^. He saw that the barricades
in the rue de I'fichelle and the rue des Pyramides had been smashed
down. When he reached the rue de Richelieu he saw a regiment, its
facings glittering, at the top of the Place Louvois, a dense line of
troops at the further side of the Palais-Royal and a squadron of
Lancers in the Place itself. Clad in his hunting costume and carrying
a gun he could go no farther without getting into trouble. He, there-
fore, slipped into his old offices at the Palais-Royal, and while watch-
ing the passing troops from the window, upset poor M. Oudard, who
had returned to his desk, by fiery comments and threats to shoot
General Wall who was riding by. The regiments disappeared in the
direction of the Hotel dc Ville from whence the sound of heavy firing
could be heard. Dumas descended to the street, and, shouldering his
gun, quietly proceeded along behind the thudding feet of the soldiers.
The rue de Richelieu was in a turmoil. Behind the soldiers poured
the revolutionaries, blotting out the fleurs de lys, the royal monograms,
and daubing with mud the mottoes on the walls. The fierce cry of
"Vive la Charter was succeeded by "A bos les Bourbons!" Armed
men, mostly young and with the marks of the tcdcs upon than,
slid around corners, swirled in groups, and sought tactical positions
from which they could make a stand. Soldiers of the National Guard
lurked behind shop doors. Women screamed from windows and
waved their handkerchiefs. Nobody walked; everybody ran. No one
spoke calmly; words were jerked out in half-finished expressions. A
universal fever swept through this street. Chaos had sprung up in
an hour. Dumas, his heart in his mouth, hurried through the gestioi-

196 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

lating mob of men. He was pushed to right and left but he clutched
his gun and doggedly proceeded on his way. He met Armand Carrel
and conversed with him for a moment. He encountered Charras, of
the Ecole Polytechnique, who was one of the field commanders
of the day. He called at the Cafe de la Porte Saint-Honore, still con-
ducted by young Hiraux, and learned that the Due de Raguse had
offered his services to Charles X and was in personal command of
the troops in Paris. When he reached the Place de la Revolution he
stopped short in stupefaction. No, it was not a dream.

The tricolor was floating from one of the high squat towers of
Notre-Dame de Paris!

This wisp of color, red and white and blue, which Dumas had not
seen since 1815, caused him to stop and lean against the parapet. All
the noble memories of the Revolution and the Empire rushed back
into his mind. Flag of Arcola! Flag of Marengo! Flag of Auster-
litz! Colors that crowned the tricorned hats of Danton and Robes-
pierre and Saint- Just! He was aroused from his martial revery by
a clattering fusillade from the Greve side of the square and raising
his head he saw sulphurous smoke rising in dense clouds. He heard
the screams of wounded horses and the shouting of men, that fero-
cious baying that is always the annunciation of sudden death. As he
stood by the parapet clutching his gun, a trifle confused and uncertain
which way to turn, grimy figures began to collect about him, youths
carrying guns, ancient pistols, rusty swords, hatchets, and one or two
of the immemorial pikes. "Will you lead us?" one of them asked.
The infant revolution, bewildered, not knowing which way to go,
whom to kill, or what to destroy, was still searching for leaders.
Dumas shouldered his gun and marched off across the Pont de la
Revolution followed by his motley troops. He went through the rue
de Lille carefully avoiding the Orsay barracks which commanded the
quai. The drums of the National Guard were beating the rappel
before he reached the rue de 1'Universite. At his house he stopped
and halted his army which now consisted of some fifty men, two
drums, and a hastily manufactured banner. Thirty of these men
possessed rifles but there was not ten cartridges among them. Some-
thing had to be done. Still followed by his detachment he forced his
way into a nearby armourer's shop and was informed there that a

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 197

certain Monsieur at the small gate of the Institute in the rue Mazarine
was distributing powder. Off started the little army again and at the
place indicated they received a dozen charges of powder each. At
Joubert's, in the Dauphine passage, they were given fifty bullets. That
meant about two balls to each gun. There was also Providence to
trust.

Inefficiently armed but ready and eager Dumas's army now turned
toward the field of action. They progressed toward the Place de
Greve by way of the rue Guen£gaud, the Pont Neuf, and the Quai
de PHorloge. Ahead of them sounded the ominous music of musketry
and cannon. The nearer Dumas approached this terrible symphony
the higher his heart climbed into his throat. Suddenly debouching
upon the Quai aux Fleurs at the head of his troops Dumas found
himself face to face with an entire regiment. It was the Fifteenth
Light Infantry. Dumas looked at his fifty men with their thirty guns
and fifty rounds of ammunition and then at the fifteen hundred stolid
troopers who stood at rest, their muskets grounded, their pouches
bulging with ammunition. He decided to stop. A captain advanced
from die regiment to meet him. "What is your business, Monsieur?**
the officer inquired politely. "A passage, if you please," answered
Dumas. The officer smiled. "Where are you going ?" "To the
H6tel de Ville." The officer's smile grew broader. "What to do?"
"Why . . . why, to fight!" exclaimed Dumas. The captain burst
into a roar of laughter. "Really, Monsieur Dumas," he said, "I didn't
think you as mad as that." Dumas, slightly surprised and immensely
pleased that the Captain recognized him, returned to his grumbling
army. A council of war, well out of gunshot of the Fifteenth Light
Infantry, took place. "Upon my word," complained one of Dumas's
young men, "Do we or do we not wish to go where there is fighting?"
"We do," was the response. "All right. Let us go down the rue du
Harlay, the quai des Orfevres and return to the Pont Notre-Dame by
the rue de la Draperie and the rue de la Cit£." A moment later the
smiling Captain watched the ragged little army reascending the Quai
de THorloge, both drums beating loudly and the manufactured banner
waving proudly. At its head marched a tall young man with a bushy
mop of crisp hair.

198 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

A quarter of an hour later Dumas and his followers issued forth
by the little street of Glatigny and found the revolutionaries about
to charge the Hotel de Ville by way of the suspension bridge. Smoke
billowed over the yellow river and here and there on the grey cobbles
lay curious heaps of clothing that sometimes twitched. Dumas ordered
the charge beaten upon his two drums and hastened forward. Bridge
of Clausen! Horatius Cocles! Was he the son of his father or not?
He could see the insurgents marching toward the bridge boldly fol-
lowing a tricolor standard. Suddenly a cannon was fired. No sooner
had the terrific detonation sounded than the bridge was raked by
grapeshot and eight or ten insurgents pitched upon their faces. The
disordered revolutionaries fell back. With indescribable rapidity the
cannon was reloaded and fired again. This time the bridge became
a shambles of wounded and dead. Still these mad men pushed for-
ward. But when the cannon belched flame and grapeshot for the third
time and regular troops advanced with fixed bayonets that glittered
like a dragon's long teeth through the smoke the revolutionaries
broke rank, turned in a riot of fear and fled in all directions. Behind
them sounded the roar of the cannon and the clatter of musketry fire.
Dumas, already in the network of small streets and running as fast
as his long legs could carry him, forgot all about his command.
Bridge of Clausen, indeed! He decided that he had done enough for
one day, that — after all — he was a novice so far as war was concerned.
He proceeded to call on his friend, Lethiere, and drank some rum-
arrack, excellent for palpitations of the heart* There he stayed and
listened to the news as it was brought by various friends. Fighting
was going on in all the arrondissements. The boulevards were in
flame from the Madeleine to the Bastille. Half the trees had been
cut down for barricades. In the faubourg and in the rue de Saint-
Antoine the people had flung furniture from the windows upon the
heads of the troops arriving from Vincennes. Bedsteads, cupboards,
chests of drawers, fire-dogs, even a piano, were rained upon the heads
of the crushed soldiery. The attack in the Louvre district had
advanced as far as the Place Samt-Germain-PAuxerrois. Dumas, sip-
ping his rum-arrack peaceably, listened to all this with the equanimity
of a retired hero. It seemed that the members of the Chamber of
deputies were beginning to arouse themselves. It was about time.

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 199

Five deputies were to wait upon the Due de Raguse and lay certain
propositions before him. These representatives were MM. Laffittc,
Casimir Perier, Mauguin, Lobau and General G&rard. Temporising
deputies! Men who negotiated with the scoundrels who were firing
grapeshot through the streets of Paris! Dumas discarded his equa-
nimity and waxed loudly Republican. When nine o'clock sounded
and it was properly dark he proceeded home by narrow alleys and
side streets, changed his clothes, put away his gun, and once more
became the young playwright. He could not stay indoors, however*
He decided to call on General La Fayette whom he knew slightly.
Wrapping his cloak about him he descended to the streets again.
The gates of the Tuileries and the Carrousel were closed and before
them were posted sentries. The square of the Carrousel had been
transformed into a huge camp where thousands of phantoms appeared
to be sleeping upon their arms. The bells of Notre-Dame continued
to ring ceaselessly as though some mad Quasimodo were swinging on
them. Pedestrians were few and there was no traffic. The barricades
had stopped that. In the dark corners and shuttered tapis-francs the
gnomes of the revolution gathered and talked in low voices. Dumas
saw La Fayette. The old patriot was uneasy for he had determined
to leave the deputies. "Why not move without them?" asked Dumas.
"Let the people drive me to it and I am willing to act,** replied
La Fayette. The old man seemed to be reaching for a sword. Dumas
ran to the house of fitienne Arago where he found most of the revo-
lutionary leaders gathered. He told them what La Fayette had said
and Arago rose to his feet and exclaimed: **Come^ let us go to the
National." At the newspaper office a sublime forgery was in progress*
Taschereau, Charles Teste and B£ranger were concocting a Pronsiofiai
Government consisting of La Fayctte, General Gerard and the Due
de Choiseul. A proclamation was created and these three men's names
were solemnly signed at the bottom of it. La Fayette, General G&ard
and the Due de Choiseul slept calmly during the night of the twenty-
eighth, profoundly unaware that they were members of a Provisional
Government or that they had issued a proclamation. They would
find that out the next morning when they gazed upon the hoardings
of Paris, Midnight came; the bells of Notre-Dame continued to ring;
sentries plodded up and down before the Tuileries; the Swiss

2oo THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Guards slept on their arms; the few lights were extinguished. There
was nothing for Dumas to do but return home, go to bed, and wait
for the sun.

July 29, 1830.

Dumas turned uneasily in his bed. A giant voice was speaking in
his dreams and the sonorous accents were indistinguishable. What
was the giant saying? Dumas opened his eyes to the sunlight and
his ears to the roar of musketry at the same time. Joseph, his servant,
was running about the room and wringing his hands in fear. The
firing, not intermittent but fierce and sustained, seemed to be in the
immediate neighborhood, around the corner, in the street outside
the window. It was everywhere. The acrid odor of gunpowder per-
meated the air. Volumes of smoke rose over the rue du Bac, the rue
ISaint-Dominique, and the Place Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin. The rumble
of ferocious voices tore through the morning air. Dumas sat up in
bed. Of course! The Museum of Artillery in the Place Saint-Thomas-
d'Aquin! A military post had been stationed there and the revolu-
tionists were assaulting it. As the young man dressed hastily he
thought of the archaeological treasures in the Museum of Artillery,
the armor, the guns, the swords, the metal memorials of Henri III,
Henri IV, and Louis XIII. The wretches! They would pillage all of
those beautiful objects and fling them into the streets or smash them
to pieces. One of the first gestures of revolutions was to destroy the
evidences of past history, the dreaming edifices of ancient times, the
pathetic remnants of vanished glories. For an instant Dumas was an
anti-revolutionist. He darted toward the Place Saint-Thomas d'Aquin
and reached it just as the insurgents were being repulsed for the third
time. These men, devoid equally of fear and tactics, were attacking
the Museum by the two openings of the rue du Bac and the rue Saint-
Dominique, and as the soldiers stationed in the building could rake
these two streets easily the undisciplined offence was futile. Dumas
looked at the houses about him. He judged that the buildings in the
rue du Bac, which on both sides formed the comer of the rue Gribau-
val, backed on the Place Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin. He communicated
this information to a group of powder-blackened men who had paused
near him and in an instant they were hammering with their muskets

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 201

at the doors of thirty-five, rue du Bac After a pause the door opened
and a dozen men dashed up the narrow flights of stairs to the attia
This room, or, rather, skeleton of a room, formed a natural bastioo —
not a Bastion Saint-Gervais, for it was not so exposed — and from it
Dumas and his companions fired with deadly effort through the
nearby windows of the Museum of Artillery. Five or six troopers,
unaware of this attack from an unexpected quarter, fell and after ten
minutes the rattle of musketry dwindled and died away* A short
while later the porter of the Museum appeared at the door plainly
gesticulating that the soldiers had withdrawn. Dumas and his com-
panions raced down stairs, vaulted the back fences, and made for the
Museum,

The insurgents were already pouring through the corridors of this
home of the past, men with stained faces, bloody hands, and smoking
muskets. "For God's sake!" cried Dumas, "respect the armor!" The
insurgents laughed. It was for the armor and weapons they had
attacked the Museum. What did they know or care about the past!
It was the future that concerned them. Grasping hands reached up
and wrenched spears, pikes, swords, arquebuses, helmets and obsolete
guns from the walls. Dumas decided that the only thing for him to
do was to make away with the most precious objects he could find
and restore them to the nation after the madness of the revolution
was over. He, therefore, seized the shield, helmet and sword of
Francois Premier, the arquebus which Charles IX had used so effec-
tively from the balcony of the Louvre on St. Bartholomew's Day, and
staggered from the Museum with the helmet on his bushy hair, tfae
shield fastened to his arm, the long sword by his side, and the ar^tie-
bus over his shoulder. His appearance was startling and people^
observing him pass solemnly to the rue de rUniversk^ were uncertain
whether a ghost had been disinterred from the Museum or a strange
and outlandish army had descended on Paris. Dumas puffed up his
four flights of stairs thinking that if Francois Premier had really
carried this shield and worn this helmet at Marignan there was no
reason to disbelieve in the feats of Ogier the Dane and Roland,

An hour later Dumas was in the Place de TOd6on where the revo-
lutionary forces were being marshalled. The Place was bristling with
arms. There were men with heavy old-fashioned rampart guns stolen

202 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

from the Museum of Artillery, men dragging cannon captured from
various military posts, men driving carriages heaped with barrels of
gunpowder, and men moulding bullets out of nearby lead-gutters,
At one time the cry, "Paper is wanted for wads," resounded and an
instant later from all the open windows about the Place poured down
an avalanche of books. Dumas received a terrific blow on the head
from a Gradus ad Parnassum. What the Cumaean Sibyl would
have made of this is a mystery. About a hundred old soldiers were
scattered through this mob, and, practical fellows that they were, in
less than an hour they had manufactured three thousand cartridges.
During this period of preparation there was continual shouting. "Vive
la Republique!" "Vive la Chartel" One individual started to bellow,
"Vive Napoleon 111" and, when reproved by others with the explana-
tion that they were not fighting for Napoleon but for the Republic,
rejoined that he would fight for whom he pleased. A man in a
buttoned-up grey coat, a tricorne hat, and holding one hand behind
his back, rode across the Place on a white horse, and, as a joke, some
wags began to shout, "Vive I'Empercur!" An old lady of seventy,
half-blind, took the joke seriously and fell on her knees crying: "Oh,
Jesus! I shall not die, then, without seeing him again." Finally,
ammunition being distributed, guns loaded, and captains chosen, the
entire mob set off down the rue de POdeon singing La Marseillaise.
At the Bussy crossing they were divided into three detachments, one
proceeding toward the rue Sainte-Marguerite, another to the rue
Dauphine, and the third, to which Dumas attached himself, straight
ahead. The purpose of this group was to attack the Louvre by way
of the Pont des Arts, in other words — to run straight upon the horns
of the bull. When this detachment debouched on the quai an ominous
spectacle presented itself to Dumas.

Before him with only the narrow Seine between towered the grey
bulk of the palace of Catherine de Medicis. From every window
leaned two of the Swiss Guard with levelled rifles. A rampart of mat-
tresses had been raised on the Charles IX balcony and behind it
crouched a squad of the Guards. Through the gratings of the two
gardens, the garden of the Infante and the garden of the Queen, were
double lines of Swiss drawn up in battle array. Along the parapet
wound a great snake of cuirassiers glittering with steel and gold, its

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 203

head already in the Tuileries gate while its tail still undulated tihroo^h
the Quai de Fficolc. In the distance stood the Louvre Colonnade
almost hidden by a cloud of smoke. On the right rose the solid
towers of Notrc-Dame with the tricolor flying from their balconies.
The vibrations of the tocsin quivered in the air. High above burned
a fiery sun. From all the houses along the quais sounded a desultory
crackle of rifle-fire. Dumas paled when he faced this spectacle but
he countermarched at the order of his captain and proceeded along
the quai by the Palais Mazarin as far as a small guardhouse. There
he tried to crawl under a turnstile shelter but the coming and going
of many excited men disturbed him and after he had been stepped
on five or six times he crawled out and scuttled for the fountain,
installing himself behind the largest bronze lion he could find. The
great entrance gate of the Palais Mazarin was on his right and on his
left was the small side door in the Institute leading up to the apart-
ments of the people who resided there, among them Madame Chas-
seriau. Directly before him was the empty stretch of the Pont des
Arts and in the center of the further end of the bridge was a cannon.
Dumas drew out his handkerchief, mopped his forehead, and medi-
tated on the solidity of his bronze lion. Behind the cannon was the
undulating regiment of cuirassiers and behind them again were the
Swiss Guards in their red coats with white lace facings and bear-skin
caps with gilded plates. Dumas gazed yearningly toward the small
door of the Institute. Then he looked at the revolutionaries about him*
For the most part they were street boys, shop-men and students.
The older men (and all erf them were young) carried muskets and
fowling pieces while the boys brandished sabres as large as them-
selves, rusty bayonets, and pistols. It was these boys erf the streets,
gamins de la revolution, who formed the vanguard of every attadL
Their ragged garments fluttered behind them as they rushed upon
death shouting for a cause which they barely comprehended. M. de
Launay had heard their shrill voices in the courtyard of the Bastille
on July 14, 1789. It was these boys who swarmed upon the Pont des
Arts when the revolutionary drums beat the charge directly after the
cuirassiers had disappeared within the Tuileries gate. Flourishing
their rusty sabres and discharging their pistols they raced furiously
toward the black mouth of the cannon before them. Dumas, behind

204 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

his lion, saw the lighted match approach the touchhole of the big gun
and strove to make himself as small as possible. There came the fierce
shattering detonation and a spray of grapeshot raked the bridge leav-
ing in its murderous wake a heap of crumpled and twitching bodies.
The Swiss Guards immediately opened a platoon-fire and the attackers,
such as were left with the use of their legs, fell back in screaming
disorder before this hail of bullets. Some of the revolutionists leaped
from the bridge and could be seen an instant later swimming in the
yellow waters of the Seine. Then a huge pall of smoke descended
upon the river and hid from Dumas's view the besieged Palace and
its defenders. Through this smoke from time to time came the vivid
flash of the cannon. Bullets spattered against the bronze lion while
Dumas fired as fast as he could into the curdling curtain of smoke.
At his feet gasped a revolutionist who had been shot through the
lungs and who had crawled painfully toward the fountain for water
only to collapse exhausted just beyond the brink. At the third detona-
tion of the huge gun the young man, observing that the insurgents
were fleeing past him toward the rue Mazarine, the rue des Petits-
Augustins, and the blind alley skirting the Mint, decided that he had
fought for liberty long enough. There was the door to the Institute
and upstairs was the gentle-voiced Madame Chasseriau. Drawing his
head as deeply between his shoulders as he could he ducked for this
door, burst through, slammed it behind him, and raced upstairs.

Comfortably ensconced in a soft-cushioned chair and with a bottle
of Bordeaux and a huge bowl of chocolate before him Dumas rested
like Hannibal in Capua and regaled Madame Chasseriau with a lurid
narrative of the day's happenings. Then he went away by the little
gate in the rue Mazarine and returned home to change his shirt. It
would be unfair to assert that Dumas was a coward for he gave many
evidences of stout courage during his life. The truth was that he was
a theoretical Republican with a decided aversion to violence although
the *|>ectaelc of violence could always arouse the dramatic instinct in
hinL He could be as picturesque as anybody during a revolution,
swashbuGkle Hkc a second Captain Boabdil, carry a gun, even fire it
when he was behind a protecting lion, and venture into fairly dan-
gerous ground; but when it came to rushing into the cannon's mouth

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 205

that was another matter. It took men like Arago, Cavaignac, and
Charras to do that

Dumas, installed in his rooms, had completed his toilet, washed
the powder-stains from his face and hands, and draped himself in an
elegant new shirt when he heard shouting in the rue de rUnivcrsit&
Popping his head out the window he turned his eyes toward the
Tuileries gardens and there he saw what seemed to be thousands of
white pigeons turning over and over in the bright sunlight and flut-
tering toward the earth. These white pigeons were the correspondence
of Napoleon, Louis XVIII and Charles X being scattered from the
windows to the four winds of the earth. The Tuileries had been
taken. The Revolution of 1830 was an accomplished fact. Henceforth
July 29, 1830, would take its place among historical dates. Dumas
put on his coat and made his way toward the quais. He passed the
bronze lion with an affectionate glance, stepped carefully over the
dead bodies that littered the Pont des Arts and attached himself to
the long column of citizens who were pushing through the Tuileries
gate. From the center pavilion floated the tricolor in place of the
white standard of the Bourbons that had fluttered there for fifteen
years.

The interior of the Tuileries presented a scene of indescribable con-
fusion. The corridors and state chambers were crowded with a ges-
ticulating, shouting mass of powder-blackened men and glittering-
eyed women. They surged through the vast halls and rooms fingering
everything, stopping to gape at the portraits, scraping their muddy
feet on the heavy carpets, leaving dark stains on the woodwork and
marks of blood on the balustrades of the stairs. Friend called to friend
in triumph. On the throne of France a student with a bullet through
his chest had been laid and his blood ran down the embroidered
ftcurs dc lys and formed a pool on the dak During the day more
than ten thousand people were to sit upon this throne of Charles X
and scream with laughter as they did so. The mob, its passions lib-
erated, poured through the throne-room to the King's private sttidy
where the rifled secretaries stood with broken drawers and from there
to the bed-room where unmoitionable acts were performed on the
King^s great bed to the c&scenc shrieks of bystanders. The Salk <fe$
Mar6chaux was a dia of noise and thumping feet A dozen students

206 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

were shooting at the portrait of the Due de Raguse and balls had
pierced the likeness through the head and the breast. Dumas, pushed
along by the mob, was shoved into the library of the Duchesse de
Berry and there, much to the gratification of his vanity, he discovered
a copy of Christine bound in purple morocco and stamped with the
arms of the Duchesse. He shoved it into his pocket without a word.
Then he fought his way back toward the courtyard, stumbling through
the congested mass of humanity and holding his breath against the
odor of garlic and sour wine. Outside, a huge crowd gathered about
four men dancing a cancan and cheered as the dancers kicked their
dusty boots toward the hot sky. These terpsichorean artists were clad
in the stolen garments of the Duchesse d'Angouleme and the Duchesse
de Berry and Dumas watched woefully as a thousand-franc cashmere
shawl was torn to tatters.

In the street both acquaintances and strangers were willing and
eager to inform Dumas how the Tuileries had fallen. The four attacks
were described to him. There had been one by the Palais-Royal,
another by the rue des Poulies, a third by the Pont des Arts (which
Dumas knew very well), and a fourth by the Pont Royal. It had
been the second attack, led by Godefroy Cavaignac, Joubert and
Bastide, that had captured the ancient building. Owing to a misin-
terpreted order on the part of the Royalists a regiment had been
withdrawn from the defense before a second had come up to replace
it and Cavaignac's insurgents observing the slackening fire had rushed
through all the wicket gates and gratings and driven the Swiss Guards
before them. In vain had the Due de Raguse striven to rally the
Royalist troops. The Swiss Guards still remembered the tenth of
August, and, flinging their arms away, fled across the Place du Car-
rousel like rabbits. The Due de Raguse, weeping with vexation, with-
drew among the last of the defenders just as Joubert was planting
the tricolor on the gate de THorloge. Well, it was oven The Revolu-
tion was accomplished. The fifteen years* comedy had ended with a
bloody climax. While the ostensible leaders of Liberalism, Casimir
Perier, Laffitte, Benjamin Constant, S&astiani (he of the four gold
snuff-boxes), Guizot and Odilon Barrot had hidden in the wings the
Three Days Drama had been played by Cavaignac, Baude, Charras,
fitienne Arago, Gauja, Bastide, Joubert, and those blood-stained men

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 207

of the people who knew little about arbitration but a deal about
frontal attacks with muskets. It was the children of the proletariat
who won the Revolution of 1830 only to have the victory slip through
their fingers into the ambitious hands of Monseigneur le Due
d'Orleans. The Three Days, then, were no more than a pathetic
parody of 1789, for all it accomplished was the removal of the crown
from a scrupulous but stupid old man and its transference to a more
clever but less honest nobleman. After the bloodshed and the gallant
deaths upon the barricades the rest was farcical. There was the meet-
ing of the Liberal deputies at Laffitte's house, the appointment of the
Marquis de la Fayette to the command of Paris, the last minute
attempt of Charles X to forestall Destiny by revoking the ordinances
and appointing the Mortemart-Gerard ministry, the; negotiations with
the canny Due d'Orleans who still hid in Neuilly— negotiations which
ended with Laffitte's impatient note bidding him to choose between
a crown and a passport, and the establishment of the July Monarchy,
that weak compromise engineered by Beranger and Laffitte. Beranger,
the poet, had likened the Due d'Orleans to a plank flung across a
torrent; eighteen years later another poet, Lamartine, was to remove
that plank.

The day following the capture of the Tuileries, Dumas, loitering
about the Hotel de Ville and listening to the conversation of La Fayette
and his lieutenants, heard the old Marquis remark that Paris was
suffering from a shortage of gunpowder and that if Charles X and
his Royalist troops proposed to march on the city the situation would
be precarious for the new government. Dumas instantly ceased to be
the observing playwright and transformed himself into a hot-headed
d'Artagnan. With that impulsiveness that was always a part of
his nature he strode up to La Fayette and demanded leave to go to
Soissons, capture the powder-magazine there, and bring back the
ammunition. "You are crazy!" snorted the Hero of Two Worlds.
He barely restrained a smile as he observed the tall young man in
the vermilion gilet and pointed shoes. Dumas did not resent being
called crazy by La Fayette. He continued to argue in a most per-
suasive manner, and, to get rid of him, the commander of the National
Guard and military governor of Paris wrote out a request:

208 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

M. Alexandre Dumas access |o General Gerard." There was nothing
like turning crazy young men over to the General who would treat
them with proper military despatch. Dumas took the request, left
the Hotel de Ville, and, as soon as he was outside, forged above the
Marquis's signature: "To whom we recommend the proposition he
has just communicated to us." Then he proceeded blithely on his
way to the office of General Gerard. The General heard Dumas's
scheme for seizing the powder, started to shake his head smilingly,
and then read La Fayette's note. The handwriting was only too
familiar but the sense of it suggested that the old Marquis was going
slightly mad. The idea of entrusting this young dandy with a com-
mission in which he would probably get his crinkly head shot off!
But there it was in plain writing. "To whom we recommend the
proposition . . „" Well, if Dumas desired to die, die he should.
General Gerard picked up his pen and signed the note Dumas had
already written out for him: "The military authorities of the town
of Soissons are ordered to deliver immediately to M. Alexandre Dumas
all the powder that can be found either in the powder magazine or
in the town."

"That is the last of that young man," he thought to himself as
Dumas dashed out the door. In the street young d'Artagnan con-
tinued his forgeries, this time inserting above General Gerard's signa-
ture: "Minister for War." Then he returned to La Fayette. This
time La Fayette thought General Gerard had gone mad. He chuckled
a bit at the "Minister for War" and then wrote out a proclamation
to the citizens of the town of Soissons requesting them to aid and abet
M. Alexandre Dumas in his patriotic designs. Again Dumas hurriedly
left the H6tel de Ville. It was three o'clock in the afternoon and the
fortified town of Soissons locked its gates at eleven o'clock. There
were eight hours, then, in which to travel twenty-four leagues.

Loitering in the square before the Hotel de Ville was a young
painter named Bard, a friend to Dumas and a confirmed Republican.
This youth— for he was only eighteen years old— was leaning against
a wall and observing the world go by. Young d' Artagnan-Dumas ran
up to him. "Come with me," he cried. "Where?" asked Bard, the
specter of a fine meal at Vefour's floating before him. 'To get your-
self shotP* Bard immediately turned into Athos. "Hurrah!" he

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 209

shouted. "Vwc la Rcpublique!" Th<^e was a moment's stuttering
conversation and Bard dashed off to Dumas's house to secure pistols
and a horse. They were to meet at Le Bourget. Dumas scampered
down the rue Saint-Martin, his cloak floating behind him. He trav-
eled on foot to La Villette and there engaged a cabriolet to carry him
to Le Bourget. There was no sign of Bard, so Dumas, to pass the
time in an agreeably patriotic manner, rigged up a tricolor flag out
of several yards of merino and a broom-stick. Hardly was this Repub-
lican gesture accomplished than Bard appeared riding furiously down
the dusty road. The flag was nailed to the cabriolet and off for Les
Mesnil the two heroes started, thrusting their heads out at opposite
sides of the carriage and shouting, "Vive la Rtpubliquel" to the aston-
ished country-folk. The first ten miles were covered in exactly an
hour and the next two stations went practically as fast. The spectacle
of this swaying and jouncing cabriolet carrying a tricolor flag on a
broom-stick and with two tousled heads projecting on either side
and bellowing "Vive la Rtpubliquel" was as comic as it was theatrical.
Dispiritingly enough, it quite failed to rouse the slumbering patriotism
of the plodding farmers who cared less about who was shooting who
in the streets of Paris than whether or not it was going to rain the
next day. At Nanteuil d'Artagnan-Dumas and Athos-Bard met with
a decided set-back. A surly old postboy, who had been assigned them
by a phlegmatic providence, doggedly refused to drive his bony horses
faster than the regulation pace. He observed the tricolor with a sneer.
He intimated that the two young men had escaped from some lunatic
asylum. It was difficult to be a patriotic hero when the populace
refused to recognize the dramatic gesture. Dumas, however, could
rise to the occasion all by himself. First, he secured a switch and
started to belabor the lean flanks of the horses unmercifully while the
old postboy roared his disapproval and strove to hold back the far
from snorting steeds. The switch broke and Dumas, disarmed for
the moment, turned to Bard and shouted for his pistols. The old
postboy grinned to himself and continued to rein in the horses. Bard,
a trile pale at the command, passed the pistols to Dumas and the
postboy, deciding that the pke had gone far enough, halted the
carriage, sullenly dismounted and began to unharness the horses.
Dumas* flourishing Ms pistols, warned him to desist. The postboy

5io THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

rontinucd to unbuckle the leather straps. Then Dumas fired one of
Jic pistols — it had a blank load in it — directly at the postboy's face
md the victim— struck in the cheek by the wad— fell to the ground
ivith a roar of anguish and surprise. He was convinced that he had
^cen killed. Dumas hauled on the postboy's huge boots, leaped
astride the saddle-horse, and the carriage started off at a great rate
:>f speed.

Levignan was reached by half-past eight which left two and a half
hours to cover the remaining nine leagues to Soissons. At Villers-
Cotterets an ovation awaited the two travel-stained heroes. Old1
friends clustered about the carriage and hailed Dumas, among them
Hutin, a boyhood acquaintance, who explained that he knew the
gate-keeper at Soissons and could, therefore, enter the town at any
time during the night. This was welcome news for Dumas and Bard,
who, exhausted with their long ride from Paris, were only too willing
to linger among the honey-pots of Villers-Cotterets adulation. The
rue de Lormet and the rue de Soissons were the same. Nothing was
changed except the dark young man who had gone away from this
quiet backwater of Time seven years before. Dumas sat down to a
steaming supper with a score of his youthful comrades, among them
that Paillet who had ventured to Paris with him on the eventful first
trip. It was charming to sit among the young men who had played
prisoner's base with him in bygone times and listen to the gossip
about familiar names. So many of the girls had married and so many
of the youths had developed in unexpected ways. The same bright
moon shone down on the meadows and the forest and in the park
of Francois Premier the night-breeze rustled through the ancient
beech trees.

Shortly after midnight Dumas, Bard and Hutin were before the
walls of Soissons. Over the city floated the white banner of the Bour-
bons and from time to time the sound of a sentinel's steps could be
heard crunching the gravelled walks. Soissons was royalist; its regi-
ment had not mutinied; M. le Vicomtc de Linicrs, the military gov-
ernor, had remained a faithful subject to Charles X. The fury of the
Three Days had not reached the city. How three headstrong youths
were to rapture this stronghold was a problem to which not one of
them had given any particular thought. Dumas's principle, as always,

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 211

was: act first and think afterwards. But they were there before the
frowning bastions,— d'Artagnan-Dumas, Athos-Bard, and Aramis-
Hutin. There was no Porthos. Hutin's friendly relations with the
gate-keeper secured the trio an ingress to the city and the remainder
of the night was passed in the house of Hutin's mother where the
three young men manufactured a large tricolor flag from the red
curtains of the dining-room, the blue curtains of the drawing-room
and a sheet from the linen-press. It was proposed to raise this revolu-
tionary symbol over the Cathedral in place of the white Bourbon
standard and Bard and Hutin were deputed to this task. If the
sacristan interfered, Dumas announced ferociously, he was to be flung
from the top of the belfry* Bard looked at Hutin and Hutin looked
at Bard but they made no remonstrance. After all, war was war.

Shortly after three o'clock in the morning Bard and Hutin departed
with the huge flag for the Cathedral praying in their souls that the
sacristan be either amenable or sound asleep. Dumas set off toward
the fortified powder-magazine, lurked about until he saw the tricolor
triumphantly flying from the belfry of the Cathedral, leaped the
high wall, and found himself face to face with a captain and a sergeant
who were lounging in the garden. He immediately cocked both
triggers of his gun and stalked toward them with as ferocious a
Republican scowl as he could summon up. He tried to look like a
composite picture of Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. There was
some parley and Dumas exhibited his letters from General Gerard
and La Fayette. The soldiers, now joined by a perplexed colonel who
had come out to sec what the commotion was about, agreed to a
benevolent neutrality— they were Republicans at heart anyway and
only waited the opportunity to give signal proof of it— and Dumas,
accompanied by several Soissons patriots who had appeared due to
the industrious proselytizing of Hutin, marched off to the house of
M. le Vicomte de Liniers.

The military governor, an obnoxiously aristocratic individual, lifted
his eyebrows at the appearance of the travel-stained young man whose
cravat was in ribbons, whose coat was black with travel and bereft
of half its buttons, and whose trousers had been ripped by the rough
wall he had scaled. He restrained a smile and in a voice of polite
irony asked him what he wanted. Dumas presented his letters which

212 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

by this time had become somewhat soiled and rumpled. M. le Vicomte
de Liniers snorted at the signature of General Gerard, explained that
it carried no legal significance for him, that he did not recognize the
sovereignty of the Provisional Government, and that there was no
powder in the magazine, anyway. Rebuffed at this first interview
Dumas hurried out to the magazine, discovered that there were two
hundred pounds of powder in it, learned to his relief that the garrison
was preponderantly Republican in opinion and, therefore, not to be
feared, and then returned to the military governor's house. There he
found M. le Marquis de Lenferna, Lieutenant of Police, and M. Bon-
villiers, Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers, in consultation with M. le
Vicomte de Liniers. Dumas presented his crumpled authorizations
again; the remarks of the military governor grew more jeering; and,
at last, his temper at a ragged edge, the young man snatched his
pistols from his belt, cocked them, aimed them at the laughing officers
who suddenly ceased to laugh, and, in a gutteral roaring voice,
announced that if an order for the release of the powder were not
signed in five seconds he would blow out their brains beginning with
M. le Vicomte de Liniers. A side door opened and a dishevelled
woman burst into the room crying, "My love! Yield! Yield! It is
a second revolt of the negroes!" Dumas listened paralysed. The
hysterical woman continued, *Tield, I implore you! Remember that
my father and mother were both massacred in Santo Domingo!"
Dumas understood, then, that his fuzzy hair, his burnt complexion,
and the hoarseness of his voice had driven this woman— the wife of
the military governor — into hysterics. M. le Vicomte de Liniers, after
some formal objections, yielded and wrote out the order for the
removal of the powder. D'Artagnan-Dumas put his pistols away with
a sigh of relief, disregarded the delays of the Mayor of Soissons and
had the doors of the magazine battered open, saw the barrels of
powder loaded upon carts and driven out through the city gates
followed by a cheering crowd, and prepared for his own departure.
Forty-four hours after he had left the city with Bard he found himself
again in the turmoil of Paris.

Monscigncur le Due d'Orl&ins, now Lieutcnant-General of the
Kingdom and in a few days to be Louis-Philippe, King of France,

THE GUNS OF REVOLUTION 213

welcomed the dark young man who appeared before him, extending
his pale royal hand and murmuring, "Well done. Monsieur Dumas*
You have executed your best drama." He did not explain that the
barrels of gunpowder were quite unnecessary. Dumas blushed, bowed,
and departed from the royal presence with a swelling chest. Mon-
seigneur le Due d'Orleans smiled dryly to himself and muttered:
"What a play-boy!"

PART TWO
MONTE CRISTO

CHAPTER ONE

THE TKIUMPH OF ANTONY
I

*\

THE ardor of Dumas still responded to the martial music of revolu-f
tion. He had conversed too familiarly with the leaders, with La Fay-
ette, Godefroy Cavaignac, fitienne Arago, Charras, to return, at leas:
for the moment, to his sedentary occupation of playright. The rest-
lessness that was an integral part of his nature, that was to carry hirr
over France and Switzerland and Italy, North Africa and Russia (
aroused him to further militant endeavors. France was his stage and&
the young quadroon desired to tread it as prominently as possible.
Literature was of secondary importance. The pitched battle of
romanticism was to him three-quarters of the charm of being a
romanticist. It gave him an opportunity to rise up in the orchestra
and shout anathemas at turgid dramas, to applaud noisily those luxu-
riant plays that deliberately demolished the classical pedantries* He
delighted in reading the grave rebukes administered to him by the
journals whenever he had been particularly obnoxious in the theatre.
An inborn spirit of exhibitionism animated his existence. The Revo-
lution had given him ample scope for extravagant attitudes. Tlie
Three Days, the whirlwind expedition to Soissoas, La Fayette's arms
about him in the Hotel de Villc, the Due d'Qrl&tns* ironical compli-
ment on his best drama, all these unexpected gestures of a kugjhing
Time Spirit urged him toward further fire-works. Gun in harid hcj
joined the motley crowd of soldiers, revolutionists and curiosity4
seekers who filled the roads to Rambouillet on August yd, an undis-
ciplined, rag-tag-and-bobtail division pushed forward by canny poli-
ticians who hoped that this overt demonstration of offense would
hasten the abdication aad banishment of Charles X* The did monarch,

217

2i8 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

entrenched behind his troops at Rambouillet, heard the shouting of
the mob, believed the false statement of Mar&rhal Maison that sixty
thousand infuriated patriots were investing Rambouillet, and retreated.
There was a dignity to Charles X that neither Louis XVIII, who
preceded him, nor Louis-Philippe, who succeeded him, possessed.
He was the last royal knight in France who perished because he was
scrupulous in his tyranny. Dumas, camped before Rambouillet, felt
like a hero of 1789.

Paris seemed dull after this last musical comedy scene. The waves
of excitement that alternately rose and fell ceased to carry him on
their crests. He regretted this, for he desired to play some part in
the reconstruction of the government. Vague delusions of political
grandeur blinded him to his incapacities and he conveniently forgot
that his bravery led him only so far as the last protecting bronze lion.
At Soissons, it was true, he had gone farther, but Soissons had been
a set-piece, his blaze of glory, his best drama. He could be spectacular
in bravery for a day, but for no longer. The temptation to loll in some
Capua over a bowl of chocolate was too great. How then, could he
manage the extended difficulties of a diplomat during a long period
of stress? This was something he did not consider, and the possibili-
ties of an ambassador's post, of a ministry, of a special commissioner's
function spun through his unreflecting mind. He sought for some
excuse to approach La Fayette with a proposal. Harel begged him
to forget these designs and to settle down to work on a drama about
Napoleon Bonaparte. Dumas scorned the suggestion. There was
Spain. He might ask for a post in Spain. He had never seen the
dark-skinned mountaineers riding on donkeys through mountain
passes. How beautiful the feet of the Andalusian dancing girls must
be! There was Austria. He could wear silk breeches at the court of
Vienna and ride in a cabriolet to the battlefield of Wagram. There
was Russia. He had heard all about the huge bears that ate men in
the icy gloom of the Ukrainian forests and the howling wolves that
pursued sleighs along the snow-covered steppes. A modicum of com-
mon sense, however, restrained him from putting forward these pro-
posals to^the old Marquis de la Fayette, and when he did accost him
at the H&el de Ville on August fifth it was not to request an ambas-
sadorship (La Fayette thought he had come to beg a prefecture!)

-.-•#£

Bi,W/;C. *~1^

•&•#£••"

.">" *;<•

r^'*^"* J£Ly***»n ( — «. , , >..

••^^>'" .^^

DUMAS IN 1832
#z<?f£ <??? /^^ bright crest of the
wave of romanticism

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 219

but to urge that he be appointed special commissioner to travel
through La Vendee and discover the possibilities of organizing a
National Guard in that admittedly Royalist territory. La Fayettc
was curious to know how Dumas would go about any such task.
"Have you thought about it?" he inquired. Dumas replied: **As
much as I am capable of reflecting on any subject. I am a man of
impulses and not given to reflection." La Fayette subdued a smile
and told him to go ahead. At least, the young man could do no harm
and La Fayette was relieved that he had not asked for the Ambassa-
dor's post at Vienna. After receiving the letter authorizing him to
travel as Special Commissioner through the departments of La Vendee,
the Loire-Inf erieure, Morbihan and Mainc-et-Loirc, Dumas paused at
the door.

"General," he said.

La Fayette turned.

"Do you authorize me to wear some sort of uniform?**

La Fayette stifled a snort of laughter and nodded.

"Have something made resembling an aide-de-camp's uniform,*' he
replied.

The young man did not have to go far before he found his uniform.
While crossing the Place du Carrousel he met a friend named L£on
Fillet. Fillet was clad in a shako with flowing tricolorcd plumes,
silver epaulettes, a silver belt, and a royal blue coat with trousers to
match. Down the trousers ran beautiful glistening silver stripes.
Dumas stopped with his mouth open and drank in this astonishing
picture of flamboyant glory. It made the bird-of-paradise look like
a crow.

Dumas set out for La Vendee on the tenth of August dad in aa
exact duplicate of L&m Fillet's uniform. On the same
neur le Due d'Orleans ascended the throne of France as

La Vendee was the disputed land. In its dark forest ferocious bat-
tles had taken place between Royalists and Revolutionists during the
great upheaval of 1789. One has but to read Vktor Hugo's Quatrc-
Vingt-Treizc to understand what happened in that terrain of sullen
peasants who lurked in chasms and forests and caves and tore to bits
the troops of the Directory. It was the last stronghold of roya&u* m

220 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

France, the desperate remnant of an uncompromising feudalism.
Dumas, setting forth with the sublime confidence that was a part of
his strength, had not the slightest notion as to the proper method of
approaching these people, nor did he know what to do about the
formation of a National Guard. Clad in his glittering uniform he
passed through Blois, Tours and Angers. At the last named wile the
Assizes were in session and Dumas paused long enough to attend
them. A Vendeen peasant, under arrest for passing counterfeit coin,
enlisted his sympathy and he despatched a letter to M. Oudard beg-
ging clemency for the criminal. Receiving a favorable reply he pro-
ceeded to Meurs, Beaulieu, Baumont and Chemille. Already he
noticed the increasing antagonism aroused by his uniform. Near
Paris it had been all right but the farther he travelled from Paris the
less did this uniform seem to appeal to the populace. Comprehending
that discretion was the greater part of valor and that it is as fatal to
wave a Republican uniform before a Royalist as it is to wave a red
rag before a bull he reluctantly divested himself of his stripes and
epaulets and donned less noticeable garments. Accompanied by the
grateful counterfeiter he proceeded on his way, picking up a deal of
information about La Vendee but doing nothing at all about his
mission. He stopped at La Jarrie long enough to see Melanie Waldor,
and after six weeks of desultory journeying, returned to Paris with
the bright news that new roads should be opened up through
Le Bocage.

Paris had not adjusted itself to the new King and Dumas was
intensely disgusted to observe Louis-Philippe shaking hands right and
left to ingratiate himself with the populace. It did not seem kingly
to the young man who could breathe fiery Republican sentiments one
minute and sigh for the vanished glories of imperialism the next.
He waited impatiently for his summons to an audience and when it
did come he approached Louis-Philippe in such an arrogant manner
that the new ruler was both amused and vexed. He was still further
vexed when Dumas, assuming a political sagacity that was ridiculous,
ventured to advise the future foreign policy of France, Louis-Philippe
nearly choked. "Politics, M. Dumas," he spluttered, "you had better
leave to Kings and Ministers. You are a poet; stick to your poetry."

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 221

Dumas made a deep bow and remarked: "Sire, the ancients called
the poet a prophet." Louis-Philippe impatiently signified that the
audience was over and an injured and humiliated young man left
the chamber. In an outer office he murmured to M. Oudard that his
rupture with the King was now complete. M* Oudard hid a smile
and said nothing. The truth was that Dumas had lost his head.
Because of the commission to La Vendee he now regarded himself
as a political expert, a rank which he was far from deserving. He was
too emotional for politics. As he had admitted to La Fayette, he was
a man of instinct and not of reflection. He proved it by rushing home
and writing out a resignation of his post at the Palais-Royal, He
washed his hands of Louis-Philippe.

On the evening after his interview with the King, Dumas attended
the premiere of La Mhc ct la Fittc and then went to supper at Harel's
house. The food was excellent and the wine was rare. Dumas
expanded and told and retold the incident of his brush with Louis-
Philippe, embroidering it, one may be sure. "That rascal Harel"
nodded and smiled, and winked at Mademoiselle Georges. When
the guests had departed Harel stayed Dumas, who was reaching for
his cloak, and said: "Wait. I want to show you something." He led
the unsuspecting playwright to a charming bed-sitting room with an
adjoining dressing room. "Very nice," murmured Dumas, thinking
of his own bed in the rue de f Universit£ and of M61anie S*, "a delight-
ful place to work in.n "I'm glad you think so," replied Hard, "for
here you stay until you finish that play on Napoleon.** Dumas looked
amazed, enraged and then amused. **No foolish tricks now!" he
exclaimed. Harel shrugged his shoulders. Dumas looked about the
charming room. "I haven't the faintest plan for your ^Napoleon*,**
he complained. Harel waved a hand toward a row o£ books*
"Bourrienne, Norvins, Victoircs ct Conqugtcs, Memorial dc Sainte-
HtUme . . ." "But my mistress," expostulated the playwright At
that moment Mademoiselle Georges entered the chamber. "I have
sent her a bracelet," murmured the canny HarcL Dumas continued
to observe the queenly form of Georges and sighed. <cVcry well,"
he said. "Tomorrow I will set to work and you shall have your play
in a week." *'

222 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

"You arc in a great hurry to leave us," remarked Mademoiselle
Georges.

"It is Harel who is in a hurry * * . not L"

Georges smiled. "Harel will wait," she said.

Mademoiselle Georges was installed in the room next to that occu-
pied by Dumas and it was only through her chamber that he could
leave the house. He manifested no desire to escape. In nine days
Dumas had written a play in twenty-four scenes and nine thousand
lines which carried Napoleon from his first victory at Toulon to the
melancholy Island of St. Helena. At the end of his gentle incarcera-
tion Dumas learned that his Antony had been released by the Censor
for production at the Th£atre-Fran£ais. If the political scene was not
opening propitiously before him, at least he could not complain about
the dramatic one.

His fury with Louis-Philippe had not subsided, and no sooner was
he freed from the labor of Napoleon than he joined an artillery regi-
ment of the National Guard which was being formed by his Repub-
lican friends. He discovered, to his joy, that the uniform he had worn
through a part of La Vendee would, with minor changes, serve as
an artilleryman's uniform. Before 1830 came to its momentous end
he had been promoted to a Captaincy in the Fourth Battery called
La Meurtriere, not because of its bloodthirsty proclivities but because
it contained a large number of doctors. He strutted about with
infinite satisfaction. And then the Demon of Comedy dealt him
another blow. He attended the New Year's reception of the King
in the Palais-Royal in full uniform. He was a little surprised to dis-
cover no men in artillery facings present and still further amazed to
observe the astonished looks upon the faces of his friends. When he
reached the King, Louis-Philippe looked him over and chuckled.
"Bon jour, Dumas," he said, "je vous reconnect bicn Ib." Everybody
burst into laughter. Dumas, possessing not the slightest notion of
what they were laughing at, proceeded to smile haughtily and strutted
into the next room. There a willing colleague explained to him that
the artillery regiment of the National Guard had been disbanded the
day before by Royal decree. The notice had appeared in the Monitcur
and Dumas had failed to see it. An indignant and flushed young man
hastily left the Palais-Roval and fled to the rue de PUniversit&

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 223

Napoteon was produced at the Odcon theater on January 10, 1831,
and obtained a fair amount of success. But it was a bad play and
Dumas knew it, a long picaresque exhibition which depended purely
upon the unrest of the time and the political significance of the prin-
cipal character. Frederic Lemaltre as the Emperor was admirable,
and Dumas admitted that it was the actor who made the drama.
Setting no store by his handiwork, the playwright's sensitive nature
was not unduly lacerated by the pointed criticisms of some of his
friends. It was an episode, a nine days' labor, a friendly gesture for
Harel, and already Dumas was meditating other and more important
things.

II

The rehearsals of Antony at the Theatre-Fran^ais proceeded in the
most disappointing manner and Dumas began to realize that the
national home of drama was to him at least one of those lower circles
of Hell that Dante had omitted from his Divina Commedia. Some-
where in the depths of Hades existed a place where unfortunate play-
wrights were eternally tortured by arrogant actors at endless rehearsals.
It was based directly on the Theatre-Franfais. The imagination of
Satan could never have envisaged it. Faced as he was by a group of
spoiled players who overrode the dramatist and drove directors to the
verge of insanity, Dumas found the situation more than he could
dominate. The trouble lay with the principals, with Mademoiselle
Mars and Firmin. Mars, particularly, was a maddening irritation to
him. She was an idol of the public and she made the most of her
exalted rank, haughtily preempting to herself tl]ie r61es of principal
player, director and playwright. There were moments when Dumas
was uncertain whether he or she had written Antony. Mars, however,
was sure that she had not written it. She despised Antony. She was
quite incapable of understanding the entirely modern character of
Adelc. Though she possessed wit, intelligence, coquetry and elocu-
tionary ability, she lacked the naturalism, the tamcness that was
necessary to render the character of Adelc plausible. She had been
bred in a different school of drama. Firmin, for his part, was unable
to grasp the tone of Antony. It was impossible for this semi-classical
player whose leg ached for the solemn buskin to reproduce the bitter

224 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

irony and fiery passion of the Byronic lover. The rehearsals, then,
proceeded to constant complaints and interruptions from these privi-
leged players. Dumas, hurrying from the satisfactory rehearsals of
Napotton where everybody was pleased with his or her part, found
himself in a maelstrom of dissatisfaction. Mars was ripping to pieces
the part of Adelc. Firmin plucked all the color from the role of
Antony. By the end of a month the drama was but the pale shadow
of itself, and the distracted author, whose very life was imbedded in
this play, realized that his work had been ruined completely. He
could endure the situation no longer.

Victor Hugo, who had completed arrangements for the production
of his Marion Dclormc at the Porte-Saint-Martin theater, came to
Dumas, shook his head lugubriously and admitted that there was no
hope in the Theatre-Fran^ais. No matter what they did the Romantic
pkywrights would be regarded as usurpers in the chilly auditorium
of Racine and Corneille. The flame of Hernani had not ignited the
sombre walls of the national theater. Dumas, in despair over his
rehearsals, agreed with him. "Come over to the Porte-Saint-Martin,"
suggested Hugo, "I have already negotiated for you with the man-
ager, Crosnier, and he is quite willing." Dumas shook his head.
"I have but two plays," he answered, "and both of them are in
rehearsal, one at the Odeon and the other— what is left of it— at the
Theatre-Francis." Nevertheless the prospect of joining Hugo at the
Porte-Saint-Martin appealed to him, and he reserved the suggestion
for further thought.

The premiere of Antony drew near and Dumas listened ruefully
to the remnant of his play. It might as well have been a one-act
curtain-raiser as this pale imitation of a Gymnase drama. On the
Wednesday prior to the first night— it was arranged for Saturday—
Firmin beckoned Dumas aside. The playwright followed him. What
now? Was it proposed to cut out the second and third acts? Firmin
said, "My dear friend," and smiled. Dumas did not smile. Firmin
proceeded: "I do not want to refuse to act the part of Antony for
you, first, because I will play all the parts you assign me; secondly,
because having given me the role of Saint-Megrin, which is a good
one, you acquired the right to give me a bad one after it. . . ." He
stopped in confusion. Dumas waited. If the fellow would only leave

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 225

off his damnable faces and begin I A series of questions brought out
Firmin's conviction that Antony would be a dismal failure unless his
suggestion were followed* "Well?** inquired Dumas. Firmin hesi-
tated and stuttered. "If I were in your place," he said at last, "I would
take it to Scribe.'* Scribe! A red aura seemed to surround Dumas
for a moment. Scribe of the popular vaudevilles! He walked ovei
to the prompter and said: "Gamier, please give me my manuscript/'
The much-pencilled script was handed to him and Dumas walked
toward the door. Mademoiselle Mars, who had been hovering in th<
wings stopped him. "I do not intend to act my part in your play or
Saturday,** she announced. Dumas lifted his eyebrows. "I have speni
fifteen hundred francs on my dresses and wish them to be seen," sh<
continued. Dumas almost smiled. "But why can they not be seer
on Saturday as well as on any other day," he inquired politely
"Because,** said Mars, "we have been promised a new chandelier fo
Saturday and now the man has put us off for another three months
When there is another chandelier I will play in your . . . piece/
"No, you won*t," answered Dumas. "In three months my ... piec
will have been acted at the Porte-Saint-Martin. Adieu, madamc
Au rcvoir, Firmin." He walked solemnly out of the Th&tre-Fran^aii
Well, it was done. He had ascended from Malebolge and the ai
was pleasant in the rue de Richelieu* For an instant he paused in th
street gazing at the bullet marks on the stone facades of the house
Then he turned and walked hurriedly toward the Boulevard Saini
Martin where Madame Dorval lived. He had not seen the littl
Dorval since Alfred de Vigny. * . . Dorval was the dcus ex machin
at the Porte Saint-Martin theater. She welcomed Dumas soinewhs
nervously, explaining that she was renewing her virginity. "Impoi
sible!" roared Dumas. "It is true,** she insisted, "I am becomln
respectable." "Who the devil caused this to come about?** asked tB
playwright. "Alfred do Vigny," expkined Dorval. "I am mad aboi
him. And I have married Merle in order to keep him away froi
me.** Dumas explained that he had come on business. That nigt
he read Antony to her, took over the complacent Merle's room for
study and restored his last act to its original form. The next da
he read the drama to Crosnier who fell asleep during die reading
thereby proving himself die perfect producer. Antony was acceptc

226 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

by the Porte-Saint-Martin at once, although its premiere was deferred
until May. The die was cast. Dumas's break with the Theatre-
Franjais was so complete that he imagined he would never go back
there. Dorval was delightful Bocage suggested the part of Antony
to perfection. Alfred de Vigny, perhaps because of the little Dorval,
was eager to offer advice and actual assistance in the revision of the
script. Dumas resumed his jaunty airs and the cafes resounded to
his uproarious laughter, his unceasing fund of anecdotes, his declama-
tions, and his boastfulness.

Outside the theater the world of Paris reacted on Dumas in diverse
ways. He had relinquished his hope of immediate political preferment
but the flamboyant gestures of the opposition still drew him as a
bright flame draws a fascinated moth, and his Republican sentiments
continued to plunge him into precarious situations. He scorned Louis-
Philippe. The king had humiliated him. He had expected much and
received nothing. He was uneasily aware that Louis-Philippe laughed
at him, regarding him as a sentimental and dramatically minded
buffoon. For his own part, Dumas was very sure that the new ruler
was a Janus-faced opportunist, who extended the hypocritical hand
of friendship in public but conceived sly, tyrannical measures behind
the safe walls of the Tuileries. Dumas could not forget the spectacle
of the perspiring would-be monarch shaking hands with the grimy
populace in the courts of the Palais-Royal during the days of uncer-
tainty. Then, too, the memory of his faux pas at the New Year's
reception still rankled in Dumas's mind. Therefore, the opposition
disturbances that aroused the streets and cafes of Paris to turbulent
activities appealed to him and he frequented those gatherings where
the young Republicans, furious at the tame finale of the Revolution
and the "Democratic** King who had been foisted on them, planned
drastic measures to advance the cause of liberty. Nevertheless Dumas
still played safe. At one banquet where the toasts steadily grew more
revolutionary and where one young hothead flourishing a knife
shouted "To Louis-Philippe F* the startled playwright leaped out a
window and ran for home at full speed. When Louis-Philippe,
bowing pusillanimously to the Republican opinion of Paris, ordered
the ficurs dc lys obliterated from the Royal carriages, Dumas, emo-

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 227

tionally reversing his dogmatic Republicanism, gave vent to a scorn
that knew no bounds. To his imaginative soul the fleurs dc lys were
the symbols of the past glories of France, of the splendors of Valois
conquest and the regalities of Bourbon majesty. He forgot how a
mist had swirled before his eyes at the first glimpse of the tricolor
flying from the towers of Notre-Dame during the Three Days, or,
if he did remember that moment, he managed to merge the two
sentiments by some method of logic peculiar to himself. Louis-
Philippe was a knave. He feared to be a ruler and he was incapable
of comprehending a disinterested democracy. Dumas, in his rage at
the King's cowardice, sent in a second resignation, this time announc-
ing in a longer and wordier message that the man of letters was but
a prelude to the politician and that by the time he was thirty he was
confident of being nominated a deputy. He was twenty-eight when
he made this unfortunate prophecy. The Palais-Royal Accepted his
resignation calmly. This added to Dumas's fury. He continued to *
estrange himself from the government whose front and head had
made life possible for him during his first year in Paris. When the
trouble arose over the July Crosses (decorations awarded to those
citizens who had taken a militant part in the Three Days insurrec-
tion and which Louis-Philippe desired to have inscribed as "given
by the King of the French") Dumas accepted an appointment to the
Committee of Fourteen elected from the various arrondissements to
repudiate this inscription. Was not Louis-Philippe hiding in Neuilly
when the Tuileries was taken by Cavaignac, Bastide and Joubert?
Was not the cross a gift from the nation, from the grateful French
people, and not an award from the King? The joy of Dumas was
excessive when the Government acceded to a modification of the
inscription. The Laffitte ministry fell, Casimir Perier's cabinet was
created, and still Dumas fulminated against the government The
Palais-Royal, if it noticed him at all, viewed him with a half smile.
He was to them an amusing quadroon, a thankless fellow with some
talent, and an irritating individual.

Aside from politics and the dramatic opportunities they offered
and the satisfactory progress of the rehearsals of Antony at the Porte-
Saint-Martin theater, Dumas had Melanie S. to comfort him* He
had been revelling in her charms for some time, to the entire neglect

228 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

of that other Melanie who was comforting herself as best she could
by writing poetry and achieving the position of a blue-stocking in
the Parisian salons to which she had returned from La Jarrie. On
March 7, 1831, two days before the ghost-like Paganini gave his open-
ing concert in Paris, Melanie S. gave birth to a child, a daughter who
was named Marie-AIexandre. Dumas, as usual, was delighted. The
illegitimacy of his offspring— and Marie-AIexandre was not to be
the last— aroused no moralistic qualms. He was as devoid of such
compunctions as a rabbit. He bellowed with joy over his children,
despatched a thousand kisses to the mothers, and turned back to his
Gargantuan labors in letters.

May 3, 1831. Theophile Gautier has described the agitation, the
tumult, the effervescence about the Porte-Saint-Martin theater on the
opening night of Antony. It was a second Hernani, another battle
against classical influences and, this time, a sudden blow in defence
of modernity in the theater. A multitude of carriages slewed to the
curb and from them descended an extraordinary melange of human
beings. There were strange and barbarous faces, great curling
mustaches and pointed beards (the romanticists entertained a weak-
ness for hirsute adornment upon the head, upper-lip and chin), long
hair worn in the Merovingian style or cut like a square brush, extrava-
gant doublets, cloaks with huge velvet lapels and hats of every style
except the usual style of the day. The women stepped from their
carriages apparelled in the mode of the hour, their hair arranged
a la girafe, tall tortoise-shell combs thrusting upward like cocks'
combs. Their mutton-leg sleeves brushed against the tittering by-
standers and their short skirts, gathered up by gloved hands, revealed
their high buskins. Time after time the gaping onlookers parted to
permit the passage of some young master already celebrated, a poet,
novelist or painter who threaded the mob waving his hand to his
friends and flinging his huge cloak about him in true Hernani fashion
as he swept through the portico. Inside the auditorium Dumas
scurried about in a long green redingote buttoned from top to bottom.
He understood that he must recover a standing established by Henri
111 ct sa Cour, weakened by the semi-success of Christine, and almost
' destroyed by die mediocre Napolton. Antony v then, was his desperate

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 229

bid for the adulation that had ceased and upon which he thrived. He
had deliberately flung away his connection with the Palais-Royal in
a moment of pique. There were two children for whom he must
provide and several women, including his feeble mother. He was
sybaritic in his tastes and demanded all the luxuries of life. Antony
was an ultimate gamble by which he hoped to secure his crumbling
fortunes. But would it ? He glanced about the stage. There was not
a single new carpet or decoration, not even a renovated salon. Crosnier
had provided nothing but the actors. Dumas remembered the elabo-
rate mise~en-sc£ne of Henri HI et sa Cour and sighed. It all depended
on the play itself and two actors, the little Dorval and the romantic
Bocage. The playwright returned to the auditorium and sank into
a chain He saw Melanie Waldorf dark face turned toward him from
a distant box.

The curtain rose.

During the opening scenes DorvaPs harsh voice, sloping shoulders
and peculiar gestures alienated a portion of the audience; they could
see no more in her than a vulgar little actress who might well be
playing on the outer boulevards. There was no passion, no fire and
the spectators did not suspect what was in store for them. Bocage,
as the fainting Antony injured by a carriage, was carried in. As he
fainted a second time murmuring, "And now I shall remain, shall
I not?" the audience began to realize the theme and its possibilities.
Adele was married. Antony loved her. He would pursue her to
the end. The curtain fell to moderate applause and Dumas hurried
behind the scenes to hasten the change of act. Within five minutes*
before the scattering applause had ceased, the curtain rose again, J
act belonged to Bocage. He was a figure of bitter misanthropy
amorous threats, a man who knew neither his father nor his
but realized all too well that he loved and that his love was married
to another. Another! "Maltdictionl" roared Antony to the pale and
trembling Ad£le, "OhI si vous savicz combicn le mdheur rend
michantl combien dc fois, en pensant & cct homme, jc me suis
cndormi la mean sur mon poignardl . . . et fai r$v6 dc Grtve et
d'tchafattdl" Melanie Waldor leaned back in her box, her heart
beating violently. Dumas had once hissed such words into her willing
ear. But now another M$anie, Bell Krebsamer, still pale from her

23o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

confinement, sat proudly in the author's box. The second act ended
to a roar of applause from the audience. They had recognized them-
selves at last in these emotional puppets dressed in the fashion of
1831. The melodramatic excesses of Antony, the over-ranting role
of Bocage and the febrile helplessnes of Adele as Madame Dorval
created her could not dam the rising enthusiasm of the spectators.
The curtain lifted on the third act while the auditorium still mani-
fested its approval.

This act, the crucial one, was brutal action from beginning to end.
Dumas himself compared it to the third act of Henri 111 et sa Cour
where the Due de Guise crushes his wife's arm in his iron gauntlet.
The scene was an inn and to it comes Antony in pursuit of Adele.
He seizes all the post-horses in order to force Adele to stop there,
engages one of the two rooms, withdraws to it and waits for the
arrival of the woman he loves. Adele, who is fleeing to her husband
from the influence of Antony, arrives and disappears into her bed-
room. A pane of glass falls with a crash from the balcony door, a
hand appears through the opening and unlatches that door. It opens
and as Adele, hearing the noise, reappears upon the stage, Antony,
pale and determined, stands before her. To the audience of 1831 the
ensuing scene was terrific realism. Adele screams; Antony forces a
handkerchief over her mouth and drags her toward the bedroom; the
curtain falls. There was a moment of shocked and breathless silence
after this climax and then an indescribable fury of applause burst
from the audience. They clapped and screamed for five minutes.
Dumas raced behind the scenes and congratulated his two players.
Then he hurried out to the corridor and meeting Alexandre Bixio
there seized him by the arm and dragged him to the street. The two
men walked toward the Place de la Bastille chattering and laughing,
Dumas, full of his success, acting like "a great lunatic." The cool air
of Paris restored his sanity and he returned to the theater in time for
the better part of the fourth act.

In this act a defence of the modern style of drama had been inserted
(Madame Dorval humorously referred to it as "le feuillcton") and
die long speech was warmly received by the romanticists, their Mero-
vingian coiffures waving approbation. Adele is insulted by a jealous
woman; she is discovered in Antony's arms by the Vicomtesse de

BOCAGE

in the role oj Antony

MADAME DORVAL

She entered the life of Dumas by may of a cab

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 231

Lacy; she disappears filled with anguish; Antony's servant enters
with the disturbing news that Ad£le's husband has returned, and
Antony dashes from the stage, crying, "Wretch! Will I arrive in
time!" Dumas, acute psychologist of audiences as he was, raced
behind the scenes, and cried to the scene shifters: "A hundred francs
if the curtain be raised again before the applause subsides!" In two
minutes the curtain rose on the last act This scene is built entirely
for one last line, a line that became a part of the popular language
of Paris for twenty years. The two lovers are caught in the room;
the husband is beating at the door; Adele prefers death to dishonor;
Antony stabs her to the heart, and flinging the poignard at the feet
of the outraged husband who has broken his way in, exclaims: "JLtte
me rtsistait; jc I'm assassine!" It is impossible to describe the state
of the audience at this unexpected termination. Cries of dismay, loud
laments and shouts mingled with the roar of applauding hands.
Dumas, caught in one of the passages, had the skirts of his long green
redingote torn to shreds by a crowd of young men. Behind the scenes
the players were stupefied by the success. Crosnier was hidden,
Dorval was mad with joy. Bocage was walking in circles. Melanie
Waldor, the tears streaming from her eyes, left the theater alone. The
gasping figure of Alfred de Musset staggered along the hall.

Dumas had recovered everything he had lost. The play ran one
hundred and thirty nights, an inconceivable success in the eighteen
thirties.

There were good reasons for this astonishing triumph. Antony wa*
the first romantic drama in modern dress. It was the first modern
drama, the first play "of the times/* the first complete cleavage with
past traditions. There had been many ancient adulteries on the
Parisian stages but never a modern one in which the sinners mig!il
be recognized as people who lived around the corner. The effect upon
the young romanticists of the day was tremendous. It became die
fashion for young bloods to walk about Paris with an Antony dagger
in their belts, upon it the device: "Adesso e &mpre? The famous
Abb£ de Lamennais invited Dumas to call on him in the rue Jacob;
Antony spread through the provinces and was played as far south
as Marseilles. Hie culminating speech of the drama was upon every-
one's lips. Dumas accepted the new honor? tkat were showered upon

232 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

him with his usual disarming vanity. Paris lay at his feet. Once more
the thousand franc notes rolled in. Again there were elaborate dinners
and loud waistcoats and beautiful women. Dumas began to fill out.
The lean d'Artagnan had ceased to exist and the first suggestion of
Monte Cristo appeared in that hero's place.

Ill

A May of adulation melted into a June of triumph, and Dumas,
bitten again by that unceasing desire to write poetical dramas as fine
as those of Hugo, remembered that he had promised Harel a play
for the Odeon. It was to be about Charles VIL He could not write
in the whirl and heat of Paris, but before he removed himself_to
some quiet spot, there were several adjustments to make. He removed
to a new house in the Square d'Orleans where he occupied a comfort-
able third floor and had as neighbor fitienne Arago. He traveled to
Passy and visited Marie-Catherine and Alexandre fils and acknowl-
edged his seven-year-old son whom he placed in the Ecole Vauthier
in the rue dc la Montagne-Sainte-Genevi£ve. He saw Melanie Waldor
several times and discovered that she held no grievance against him
but still loved him and wrote poetry about him. A cool friendship
established itself upon the still smoking ruins of the old love affair.
He acknowledged his daughter, Marie-Alexandre. He purchased new
gilets of remarkable hues, elaborate walking sticks, pointed boots
and flowing capes. He continued to revel in the plump beauty of
Melanie S.

On the sixth of July, accompanied by her, he traveled by diligence
to Rouen where he remained twenty-four hours exploring the ancient
town in which Jeanne d'Arc had perished in the flames. From there
he went by boat to Le Havre, renewing again his delight in the sea
which had so enchanted him while he was revising Christine. But
Le Havre, with its busy population, was not a place where he could
settle down with any comfort for a period of six weeks' labor and
he looked about for a quiet town in the vicinity. He finally discov-
ered Trouville, then a small fishing village containing a solitary inn.
A day or two later he was settled there in Madame Oseraie's hostelry
in a pleasant chamber that opened on the Valise de la Touque in
one direction and on the sea in the other. The days passed quietly.

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 233

Dumas and Melanie S.> much like a young couple on honeymoon,
strolled on the white sand of the beach, bathed in the clear blue-
green water, angled from small boats, and conversed with the brown-
skinned fishermen. The air was clear and salty. Dumas, his mind
at peace, began to write his fourth full length play. He sat in his
chamber and calmly appropriated what he desired from the many
dramatists he had studied. The result was an astounding pastiche.
It is easy to perceive what the playwright wanted to accomplish. He
desired to write a major poetical play, but he was unequal to the
task. When he cut himself away from swiftly moving melodrama
or colloquial comedy and strove for the grand manner he was lost.
He did not possess the exalted imagination, the intellectual power
or the literary finesse. All he could do was to fall back on models.
Because of this creative weakness Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux
became no more than a ponderous rag carpet of borrowed beauties.
Even the central idea of the drama, a contrast between nomadic Islam
and feudal Christianity, was suggested by Gerard de NervaFs unpub-
lished La Dame de Carouge, which Dumas had read some time
before. In effect Dumas was rearing an imposing and hollow struc-
ture with stones deliberately taken from the edifices of better men.

One day a young banker named Beudin called on Dumas and
introduced himself as one of the authors of the boulevard success,
Trente ans, ou la vie d'un jouer. Together with the schoolmaster
Prosper-Parf ait Goubaux, Beudin formed that half of the collaboration
called Dinaux, the other half being Victor Ducange alone. Dumas
had not talked long with the young man before he discovered that
Beudin had an idea for a play and wanted assistance. The idea, whicH
formed no more than a prologue to an uncreated plot, had been found
by Beudin in Sir Walter Scott's Chronicles of the Canongate, and
Dumas, listening to the young man's enthusiastic description, saw
possibilities in the theme. He agreed to collaborate with Beudin and
Goubaux on this drama, to be allied Richard Darlington, as soon as
he had finished with Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux. The agree-
ment was made by Dumas on his twenty-ninth birthday, July 24,
1831, and on the tenth of August he wrote the final speech of Charles
VIII chez ses grands trassaux. There was nothing to keep him in Trou*
vilk now and, packing his effects, he proceeded back to Paris, to

234 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

which city Beudin, eager to break the good news to Goubaux, had
preceded him. Dumas arrived in the capital too late for the premiere
of Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme, which had taken place on August
eleventh, but he went to a representation on the evening of his return
and there Antoine Fontaney, the poet and lover of Madame Dorval's
niece, saw him, "le grand Dumas, toujours fou, toujours excellent,
parlant, criant & toute la sdle!9

Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux was presented for the first time
at the Odeon on the evening of October 20, 1831. Melanie Waldor,
clad in a bright red robe, sat in a box and watched her lost lover's
drama go down to a complete defeat under the boohs of the audience.

Dumas himself had suspected the debacle. Before the production
he had displayed uncertainty about his verse and almost decided to
rewrite the play in prose. The resounding lines of Victor Hugo's
Marion Delorme had made him uneasy and had awakened a con-
sciousness of his own feebleness in this metier. He had also returned
Harel's thousand franc premium after he had read the drama before
a group of friends who received it coldly. But the official reading
before the Odeon players went well and Dumas's vanity recovered
from the chilly winds of criticism. Mademoiselle Georges was as-
signed the part of Berengere and the roles of Savoisy, Yaquob,
Charles VII and Agnes Sorel were distributed respectively to Ligier,
Lockroy, Delafosse and Mademoiselle Noblet. Rehearsals proceeded
and Dumas, hearing his verses rolled forth by experienced mimes,
built up in his own mind a defence of his poetry. To the last he
possessed no self-criticism.

Two incidents marked the opening night of Charles VII chez ses
grands vassaux.

The armor worn by Delafosse who played the r61e of Charles VII
had been borrowed from a museum and its springs were extremely
rusty. During one of his long speeches the visor fell on the helmet
and Charles VII was promptly extinguished, nothing but an indis-
tinct mumbling issuing from the invisible head. The audience began
to titter. Charles VIFs esquire, being something of a mechanician,
rushed forward and pried the visor up with his poignard, revealing
countenance gf JDcMoss? a? y «| a$ a peony and furioijs jritfi

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 235

miliation. Dumas remarked later in recalling this incident, **With

risor like that, Henri II would not have died at the hand of Mont-

mery. Observe on what the fate of empires may hang. Henri II

is killed because his visor went up; Charles VII came near to being

led because his visor fell!" Visor or no visor, however, Charles

I chez ses grands vassaux was as good as dead.

Dumas, leading Alexandre fih by the hand, departed from the

icon theater where the five acts of his drama had been played to

tilent audience. Father and son walked along slowly without speak-

g, and the small boy sensed the sadness of the man beside him.

imething had happened. Something that stilled the irrepressible

iety of his father. They passed by the old blank wall of the rue

: Seine, near the Institute, and Dumas continued to maintain a

ofound silence. The little boy was forced into a trot to keep up

ith the long strides of the dejected playwright. The bright moon-

jht flung their shadows before them, flickering black skeletons, one

them long and grotesque and the other short and fantastic. Around

em breathed the vast sprawling city, its bright eyes winked out as

,e lamps were extinguished. Dumas turned in at his door in the

pare d'Orleans and climbed slowly to his chamber of the third

x>r. The glory of Antony had departed and in its place was the

itness of Charles VII. Years later, in the preface to his play Le Fils

^aturel, Alexandre Dumas filsf remembering the sad journey home-

rard from the Odeon, wrote: "I have never returned from one of

ly most applauded and clamorous first nights without recalling that

irge cold theater and that silent walk through the deserted streets;

nd, when my friends were felicitating me, I have thought to myself :

: is possible, but I would rather have written Charles VII whkh did

ot succeed." There was more loving loyalty than reason in this

ssertion.

The ebullience of Dumas could not be stifled by failure and already,
:ven before the debacle of his attempt at tragic verse, he was at work
ft Richard Darlington with Beudin and Goubaux. like Antaeus
te fell to earth only to rise the stronger. Failure might crush htm
or a moment, an evening perhaps, but new vistas and fresh oppor-

236 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

tunities constantly opened before him. He strode toward them with
renewed roars of laughter.

In Richard Darlington he possessed a theme that fitted his peculiarly
forceful ingenuity. Within three weeks of the premiere of Charles
VII chcz ses grands vassaux he, with the collaboration of Beudin and
Goubaux, had finished the play, turned it over to Harel, who had
deserted the management of the Odeon theater for that of the Porte-
Saint-Martin, and was watching the first rehearsals. Antony had been
a tragedy, a melodrama rather, of extreme egoism in love; Richard
Darlington was an exposition of egoism in ambition. Richard, a
foundling sheltered and educated by the good Doctor Grey and his
wife, marries Jenny, the Doctor's daughter, in order to gain influence
in the town of Darlington. He is elected Member of Parliament.
Reaching London his ambition pushes him into a skyrocket career
and he achieves a Minister's portfolio. He finds it necessary to rid
himself of his wife in order to make a more aristocratic connection
and the murder of Jenny occasions Richard's downfall and the climax
of the play. Richard is a scoundrel, a monstrosity with a perverted
brain* Surrounding him is his evil genius, the intriguer called Thomp-
son, and the mysterious Mawbray who pops out from behind curtains
and doors at psychological moments, and who of course turns out to
be Richard's actual father . . * and the hangman as well. Dumas
always possessed a softness for le bourreau as readers of Les Trois
Mousquetaires know. Richard Darlington, then, is a brutal play, as
brutal as Antony and as swift and unified in its remorseless action.
It was calculated to stun an audience with a rising series of melo-
dramatic horrors, and as usual in Dumas's plays, there was introduced
a culminating bit of stage management that was certain to arouse
the gasping terror of the spectators. In Henri 111 et sa Cour it had
been the business of the iron gauntlet and the bruised arm of the
Duchesse de Guise. In Christine it had been the death of Monaldeschi.
In Antony it had been the unexpected last line. In Richard Darling-
ton it was die death of Jenny.

This climax, a problem at first with the collaborators, had been
solved by a flash of theatrical genius on Dumas's part. The idea had
been to have Richard fling Jenny from a window. Dumas knew that

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 237

the audience would not stand the sight of a woman struggling for
her life and being dragged toward a window. He also knew that in
flinging Jenny over the balcony Richard would undoubtedly expose
his wife's legs which would arouse the audience, always on the look-
out for these contretemps, to ribald laughter. After a fortnight's
cogitation Dumas solved the problem. Richard double-locked the
door of the room wherein he and Jenny were. Jenny ran to the bal-
cony crying for help. Richard followed her and as he heard foot-
steps outside, closed the shutters of the balcony on his victim and
himself, thus hiding the scene from the audience. A cry resounded
from behind these closed shutters. They opened with a blow from
Richard^s fist and there he was, pale and trembling, alone on the
balcony. It was trickery but it was new to the audiences of the 1830*5.
This was Dumas's m&ier, swift melodrama with unexpected climaxes
and an instinctive comprehension of theatrical values. If he could not
write impressive poetical drama he could at least write "good theater."
He was a superb technician of thrillers.

Richard Darlington was produced at the Porte-Saint-Martin theater
on December 10, 1831, just sixty-one days after the premiere of
Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux. Frederic Lemaitre played the
title part with a force and fury that swept the drama to a complete
triumph. Dumas, meeting Alfred de Musset in the corridor, asked
the poet what was the matter with him. The pale and sensitive
author of Contes d'Espagne et d'ltdie replied: "J'ttouficF For some
reason Dumas refused to share the author's call and Beudin and
Goubaux appeared alone on the stage to acknowledge the applause
of the spectators. Yet Dumas had done by far the greater amount of
work on Richard Darlington. The prologue had been brought to
him but he had conceived the theme. The climaxes had been his and
he had rewritten the entire draft of the play before it was turned over
to Harel. Perhaps the new sensation of working with collaborators
was displeasing to him. Except for his first two vaudevilles all of his
work had been done alone although it is true that he sometimes
leaned on already published and produced work for some of his effects.
Richard Darlington was the beginning of a new method of composi-
tion for Dumas, that of working with collaborators.

238 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Anicet Bourgeois had met Dumas through the actor, Bocage, durino-
the rehearsals of Richard Darlington. Bourgeois had a play in his
coat pocket. He produced it. At least, he produced a plan of a play.
Bocage who had made such a success with the role of Antony now
desired to play an old man, for what reason neither Dumas nor any
one else could understand. But Bocage who had been so material a
factor in the success of Antony would have to be humored, Dumas
humored him by concocting Teresa from Bourgeois's plan, a worth-
less drama in which the role of Baron Delaunay was fitted to Bocage's
requirements. Dumas was three weeks writing this piece, part of the
time being passed among the Christmas fetes of Villers-Cotterets.
Bocage had discovered "a talented young girl who is at the Mont-
parnassc," whose name was Ida. She was just beginning her career;
she would be excellent for the part of Amelie Delaunay (this name
was taken from Madame Dorval who was born Marie-Thomase-
Amelie Delaunay), and Dumas, peregrinating to the Montparnasse
to view this unknown phoenix, went away whistling softly. As a
matter of fact Melanie S., like that Melanie who had preceded her,
had begun to pall.

Terfra, produced at the Theatre de TOpera-Comique (Salle Venta-
dour) on February 6, 1832, made a fair impression. The "talented
young girl" from the Montparnasse, Ida Ferrier, was recalled before
the curtain to receive the plaudits of the audience, and returning
from her first triumph, she met Dumas in the wings. Immediately
she flung herself into his arms, exclaiming: "Ah, you have rendered
me a great service. You have made my reputation. I owe you my
future . . . and I do not know how to thank you." Dumas gazed
down at the fair-haired, short, rather plump young actress and ex-
plained that she could thank him by going to a late supper with him.
The couple vanished and with their gay exit £ deux vanished the
dominance of Melanie S. Mademoiselle Ferrier (born Marguerite-
Josephine Ferrant) had been born in 1811. She was twenty-two years
old, a most enticing age to Dumas.

Carnival time approached and Dumas, who had heard all about
the great bd costumf which had taken place at the Tuileries— a
splendid function where the historical costumes had been designed

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 239

>y Duponchel and the entire corps Icgislatif had appeared — was in
L willing mood to listen to Bocage's suggestion that the playwright
wrganize such a ball for the writers and artists of Paris who, of course,
lad failed to receive invitations from Louis-Philippe. Dumas loved
he flamboyancies of costumes. Antoine Fontaney had encountered
iim in the boulevards one day shortly before the premiere of Charles
711 chcz ses grands vassaux strolling toward Louis Boulanger's studio
vith an amaranthine Arab mantle over his arm. He was going to
x»se in it as Yaqoub, the Moslem of his poetical drama. The idea,
herefore, of strutting about his own rooms in gorgeous vestments
>efore the eyes of artistic Paris was too much to resist. Preparations
Krere immediately instituted to make the bal costumt one that would
)e talked about for years.

Dumas had but four rooms in the Square d'Orleans. They would
lot hold three or four hundred people. So he engaged an empty
mite of four more rooms on the same floor and his friends among
lie artists came with their pigments and brushes to decorate them.
Ciceri designed the ceilings. Delacroix painted King Rodrigo after
lie defeat of the Guadalete; Louis Boulanger did a scene from Hugo's
Lucrtce Borgia; Clement Boulanger, one from La Tour dc Neslc;
Tony Johannot, a scene from the Sire dc Giac; his brother, Alfred,
>ne from Cinq Mars; and Grandville, a huge panel reproducing all
the artistic professions. Barye moulded lions and tigers for the sup-
ports of the window-frames and Celestin Nanteuil originated the
ornamentation for the panels of the doors. Dumas, naturally im-
mersed in plans for the repast, organized a hunting party and the
group journeyed to Villers-Cotterets, where, spreading through Ac
adjacent woodlands, they secured nine plump bucks. Two of these
bucks were roasted whole for the bal. Three were exchanged with
Chevet, the butcher, for a fifty-pound sturgeon. Another went for
a colossal galantine. With decorations completed and steaming
platters of food prepared Dumas was ready tor his epochal evening.
By seven o'clock he had three hundred bottles of Bordeaux put down
to warm, three hundred bottles of Burgundy in die coolers, and five
hundred bottles of champagne on ice. Monte Cristo was in his
clement.

Dumas received his guests in a sea-green jerkin braided with gold,

240 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

breeches of parti-colored red and white silk, and black velvet slippers
embroidered in gold. Melanie S., recalled from the gallery* of memory
to act as hostess, stood beside him clad as Helena Formann, Rubens'
wife. Two orchestras, one stationed in each suite, synchronized
galops. By midnight the eight rooms were a whirl of color, move-
ment, laughter, dancing and music. All of literary and artistic Paris
was there. The staid Doctor Veron, not yet dreaming of his legal
battles with Dumas, was muffled up in rose color; Buloz, as melan-
choly as ever, stalked about in sky blue; Odilon Barrot wore a black
domino; and the old Marquis de la Fayette appeared in a Venetian
costume. Beauchene wore a Vendeen costume and the old Marquis,
knowing that Beauchene passed for a Royalist, called to him: "In
virtue of what privilege are you the only person here who is not
wearing a disguise?'* Mademoiselle Mars, Joanny, Menjaud, Firmin
and Mademoiselle Leverd appeared in the costumes of Henri III et
sa Cour. Mademoiselle Georges was disguised as a Nettuno peasant
girl and Madame Paradol staggered under the heavy splendor of
Anne of Austria. Dejazet, of the beautiful legs, was Madame du
Barry. Rossini entered the room as Figaro. Barye was dressed as
a Bengal tiger; Alphonse Royer, as a Turk; Alfred de Musset, as
a weather-cock; Francisque Michel, as a vagabond; Nestor Roque-
plan, as a Mexican officer; Delacroix, as Dante; and Frederic Lemaitre,
as Robert Macaire covered with spangles. Eugene Sue appeared in
a pistachio domino and Paul Lacroix wandered about in the mantle
of an astrologer. Petrus Borel represented Jeune-France. The list is
endless. Rose Dupuis, Mademoiselle Noblet, Leontine Fay, Bocage,
Moyne, Adam, Zimmennaim, Pichot, Bard, Paul Fouche, Eugene
Duverger, Ladvocat, the Johannots, Auguste de Chatillon, Robert
Fleury; still they poured through the doors in startling and original
costumes, as dolls, toreadors, Turkish slave girls, magicians, the dead
kings of France, Highlanders, Chinamen and pilgrims. Tissot, of
the Academy, who had made up as an invalid, was followed about
solemnly by Jadin, the flower-painter, dressed as an undertaker's man.
Jadin would murmur lugubriously: "I am waiting!" Tissot went
tome in a rage. At one time more than seven hundred people
crowded into the eight rooms. Supper was served at three in the
morning and at nine o'clock, when all good people had gone to their

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 241

daily labor, the bed ended to a final galop danced in the rue des
Trois-Freres, the head of the procession reaching to the boulevard
while its tail was still cavorting in the courtyard of the Square
d'Orleans.

IV

The idea of prose narrative continued to bite at Dumas's unceasingly
active mind. Dramatic successes, bds, love affairs and florid Repub-
lican gestures could not stifle it. Though his days were a hurry of
rehearsals, assignations, cafe meetings, dinners and public manifesta-
tions—it was part of his policy and inner requirements to exhibit
himself in the streets and public places as often as possible— he yet
found time to seat himself at the richly ornamented table in his
apartment in the Square d'Orleans and write with that fury of which
he alone seemed capable. While he had been concocting Teresa with
Anicet Bourgeois he had written another play as well, Horace Vernet
had sent a huge canvas from Rome depicting Edith aux longs cheveux
cherchant le corps df Harold sur le champ de battaille d 'Hastings, and
Dumas, gazing at this painting when it was exhibited, conceived the
desire to write a play with the title Edith aux longs cheveux. To
desire, with him, was to do. All that he knew about the battle of
Hastings, however, was what he had read in Sir Walter Scott's
Ivanhoe. That was of small use to him. He determined, therefore,
not to write a historical play but a drama after the style of Shake-
speare's Cymbeline. A romance by Auguste Lafontaine, a prolific
German writer of the time, gave him his central idea: the .heroine
takes a narcotic which puts her to sleep so that she may pass for dead,
and thanks to this supposed death which releases her from the tram-
mels of the earth, she can marry her lover. Dumas wrote his drama
with customary speed, forgot his hatred of the Theatre-Francis long
enough to read it there, and it was summarily refused. Hard also
refused it, whereupon Dumas ordered it torn up or burnt or flung
in the sewer. From this unproduced and destroyed Edith aux longs
cheveux sprang Catherine Howard two years later.

At the same time the romances of Sir Walter Scott led Dumas into

242 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

the Histoire des dues de Bourgogne by Barante, and a new world, a
world opened up years before by Lassagne, began to unfold before
the young experimenter. Dumas began to dissect and put together
dialogues from Barante's opus. He called them scenes historiques.
Though at first his discovery of the vivid picturesqueness of history
was tentative, he had actually discovered his metier. He saw historical
personages as living creatures. Out of Barante's work rose the dis-
hevelled figure of the mad King, Charles VI, the poetic image of
Odette, the imperious and licentious Isabel of Bavaria, the careless
gallantry of Louis d'Orleans, the terrible character of John of Bur-
gundy, the pale and romantic Charles VII, File-Adam and his huge
sword, Tanneguy-Duchatel and his axe, the Sire de Giac and his
horse, the Chevalier de Bois-Bourdon and his doublet of gold, and
Perinet-Leclerc and his keys. Buloz of the Revue des Deux Monies
welcomed the sketches as they came from Dumas's hand and printed
them in his magazine. The fire had been kindled and during the
first six months of 1832 Dumas applied himself with increasing ardor
to French history.

Scott's novels had influenced the French intellectuals and though
Dumas had used them heretofore for dramatic reasons he saw that
they suggested an example to prose writers. The forgotten advice
of Lassagne came back to him. He remembered Alfred de Vigny's
Cinq-Mars which had appeared in 1826 and Prosper Merimee's
Chronique du Regne de Charles IX, issued in 1829. The little known
Stendhal, of whom the proud young Merimee was an admirer, was
dealing with history. A youthful historian named Michelet was
recreating history in terms of flesh and blood. Vitet was already
known. Augustine Thierry's Histoire de la Conquete de I' Angle-
terre par Ics Normands had appeared in 1825. Hugo had just wit-
nessed the triumph of Notre Dame de Paris. Balzac's Les Chouans
had been offered to the public in 1829. The time was ripe and Dumas,
quick to sense the impulses in the literary air about him, began to
read French history. He was like a naive and ignorant gosse at first,
and Delanoue, coming into his apartment one afternoon, found him
immersed in a curious little book. Looking over Dumas's shoulder
the visitor discovered the volume to be the Abbe Gauthier's Histoire

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 243

de France, a rhymed recital composed for schoolboys. Delanoue burst
out laughing. He began to recite:

Neuf cent quatre-sept voit Capet sur le tr6ne.
Ses fils out huit cents ans comer vi la couronnef

Dumas attempted to hide the book. Delanoue dragged it from him
and continued:

Henri-Trois, de Bologne, en "France est ramcnt,
Redoute les ligueurs, et tneurt assassinel

Dumas blushed violently. Delanoue inquired: "Did you get the details
for Henri III et sa Cour from this?" With dignity Dumas explained
that he dredged the details for his play from L'Estoille, Brantome,
d'Aubigny and Sancy. Delanoue began to advise the would-be writer
of historical romances. He told him to buy Thierry and Chateau-
briand and Sidoine Appollinaire and Tallemant des R6aux, to go
back to the chroniclers; in other words, he repeated the advice of
Lassagne, renaming the old authors and pointing out the new ones*
particularly Thierry, who had emerged upon the scene since 1824.
Within a day or two Dumas was reading Thierry and enjoying the
exhilarating experience of witnessing in his mind's eye an entire
living world of people of twelve centuries before. He was spellbound,
enchanted. In after years, Dumas, writing of this period, remarked:
"I perceived that, during the nine years which had rolled by, I had
learnt nothing or next to nothing; I remembered my conversation
with Lassagne; I understood that there was more to see in the past
than in the future; I was ashamed of my ignorance, aad I pressed
my head convulsively between my hands." The future author o£
Les Trois Mousquetaires and La Dame de Monsoreau was thirty
years old when he made this discovery. There remained twelve long
years in which to prepare himself for the lean Gascon of the long
sword. With that prodigious concentration and recklessness of time
and strength which were portions of his fulminating nature he
plunged into a course of wide reading, carrying it on with all his
other activities.

244 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

A sapphire blue sky in which a powerful sun emanated warm rays
hung like a canopy over Paris. On the early green of the Tuileries
gardens, women, in their light spring garments, walked about laugh-
ing and chatting. The revolutionary cabals, invigorated by the
delightful weather, postponed their conspiracies and went into the
suburbs of Paris to pluck flowers. The city had not experienced such
peace for many years and Dumas, leaning from his window in the
Square d'Orleans, the open volume of history lying on the table behind
him, breathed in the warm air. Spring in Paris was perfect. The
chestnut buds were out. The year 1832 seemed auspicious for charm-
ing triumphs. But from India and by way of Russia and England a
black demon was circling down on the metropolis. Suddenly
through the mellifluous weather came a murmur that increased to a
terrified shout. "A man has just died in the rue Cauchat. The cholera
is in Paris !" Instantly a black pall seemed to draw itself across the
blue sky. Men and women rushed from their homes crying, "The
cholera! The cholera!" just as seventeen years before they had stum-
bled out shouting, "The Cossacks! The Cossacks!" The days that
followed were days of terror and dismay. Through the poorer quar-
ters the cholera sped leaving a swath of black-faced corpses behind it
The hospitals filled. Men ran through the boulevards with stretchers
on which writhed plague victims who often died before the pest-
houses were reached. Pedestrians walking in the streets would sud-
denly fall to the ground, twist like an epileptic, turn blue and expire.
The doctors and Sisters of Charity fought desperately against the
scourge but they were outnumbered and unequal to the task. As the
deaths increased wild rumors permeated the city. It was said that the
Government, to get rid of the surplus population, was flinging poison
into the public fountains and the casks of the wine merchants. Gis-
quet, the Prefet de Police, made the abominable mistake of hurling
these charges back against the Republicans. Placards were put up and
torn down and in this city where multitudes were dying— on the
eighteenth of April alone the number of mortalities reached a thou-
sand—unfortunate wretches, accused as poisoners without cause, were
knocked down with clubs, assassinated with knives and torn to pieces
by dogs ancl the talons of ferocious women. Hie implacable blue sky

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 245

rith its mocking sun glowed above a city that had become both
barnel-house and slaughter-house.

From his window in the Square d'Orleans Dumas saw the unending
*ries of funeral corteges on their way to the Montmartre cemetery,
'ifty or sixty would pass in a day, the black plumes waving above the
Leads of the skinny horses. Already the supply of coffins had given
ait and corpses were wrapped in tapestries, tipped from these ironi-
ally-colored hangings into graves and covered with a shroud of lime*
Vhat did Dumas do during this terrible season? First of all, with
he assistance of Anicet Bourgeois and Eugene Delrieu, he composed
t one-act comedy, Le Man de la Veuve, which was produced during
he epidemic at the Theatre-Frangais as a benefit for Mademoiselle
Dupont. A few spectators, daring the streets where the drums beat
ncessantly and the stretchers passed by, attended the premiere. Then
Dumas continued his historical researches for a book he had conceived,
o be called Gaule et France. He shut himself away from the plague
is Stephen Bloundel, the grocer of Wood Street, did in London in
[665. Friends came to see him during the evenings. Ida was there to
shower affection on him. Liszt, the composer, came and pounded
away at the bad piano and ended by breaking it to pieces. Hugo
recited his latest poems. Fourcade and Delanoue and Chatillon and
Boulanger talked of art. Behind the curtains it was warm, the food
was good, the wine was rare. There was laughter. Outside the bells
tolled and the black-plumed horses stumbled along the cobbles. That
rascal, Harel, who had sublimely announced through the press that
"it has been noticed with surprise that theaters are the only public
places where, whatever the number of spectators, no case of cholera
has yet appeared," forced his way in and demanded that Dumas
rewrite a play called La Tour de Nesle which the manager carried
under his arm. Dumas waved him away. He did not feel like work-
ing. It was better to sup and laugh and talk and spout verses and play
music while the black terror stalked abroad.

One evening, the fifteenth of April, when Dumas stood at die top
of the stairs shouting farewell to Liszt and Boulanger, he was seized
with a slight trembling. He leaned against the bannisters for support
and his maid, Catherine, exclaimed at his pallid appearance. A shak-
ing possessed his entire body and this was followed by an extreme

246 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

chill. "It is queer/' he mumbled. "I feel very cold." "Ah, monsieur,**
cried the maid, "that is how it begins!" Dumas staggered to his bed
chattering, "A lump of sugar . . * dipped in ether * . . a doctor."
Tremblingly he began to disrobe himself. The distracted maid,
hardly conscious of what she was doing, brought to the shivering
victim a full wine glass of ether, and he, ignorant of the contents,
drained it at a draught. At that moment he felt as though he had
swallowed the sword of the avenging angel. He fell unconscious
upon his bed. Two hours later when he awakened from his trance
he was in a vapor bath, and a doctor assisted by a friendly neighbor
was attending him. He who thought he had swallowed the sword of
fate now thought that he had waked up in hell. For a week he
remained in bed, hot and cold, delirious, aching in every limb, and
every day "that rascal Harel" called with his play tucked beneath his
arm, sat in the hallway, and waited impatiently for the stricken
dramatist to recover his senses.

When Dumas, very feeble as he rose from his bed, hobbled to the
sunlight of the open window, he saw a bright blue sky, smiling faces,
and heard the exhilarating hum of fearless and joyous intercourse.
The bright sun shone down on Paris, and women clad in brightly-
hued gowns strolled about the fresh greenery of the Tuileries gardens.
The epidemic had passed. The black demon had vanished as noise-
lessly as he had appeared.

Harel, his clever face twisted in a confident smile, sat doggedly in
his chair and waited. Dumas flung up his arms in helpless surrender
and said: "Well, what is your play about?"

Harel explained. A young man from Tonnerre named Frederic
Gaillardet had written a drama about the orgies of the infamous
Marguerite de Bourgogne in the Tour de Nesle, that gloomy round
tower that had once stood close to the Pont Neuf . Master Francois
Montcorbier dit Villon had mentioned Marguerite in his Ballade des
Dames du Temps Jadis.

. . . Ok cst la Royne

Qui commanda quc Buridan

Fust jett6 en ung sac en Seine?

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 247

But Frederic Gaillardet could not write and his play was unactable,
It needed revision and extensive carpentering. Harel went on to
explain that Jules Janin had tried to improve it but except for the
addition of several excellent tirades had added nothing of value.
Would Dumas improve the script? Harel cocked his head on one
side and waited. Dumas complained of his weakness. The fever was
still in his bones, his eyes dazzled, he could hardly lift his head. "I
will send my secretary Verteuil to take your dictation," suggested
Harel. "I am dying, idiot !" exclaimed Dumas. Harel whistled softly
and gazed at the ceiling. "Well," said Dumas, rolling over with his
face to the wall, "send Verteuil with your damned script tomorrow I"
As he reached for his hat Harel murmured, "I must have the complete
play in two weeks." Dumas heard the door close softly behind the
manager. He will kill me, he thought. Nevertheless, the idea of the
play pleased him. Margaret of Burgundy. Buridan. The gloomy
tower. The corpses thrown by night into the Seine. What was the
fellow's name? . , . Paillard ... no, no ... Gaillard . . .
Gaillardet.

Verteuil appeared bright and early and was amazed at the skinny,
pallid, exhausted shell of a man who lay on the bed. It would never
do. "Harel will kill you!" he exclaimed. Dumas waved a weak hand.
M. Gaillardet's play was unrolled and read to Dumas. He raised
himself weakly on his arm while a faint spark shone in his eye. "No^
no ... he has gone wrong after the second scene . . . another
climax entirely ..." That afternoon he began to dictate his own ,
version of La Tour de Nesle, including but two of Gaillardefs scenes
and a solitary tirade by Jules Janin. In nine days the script was in the
hands of Harel and the rehearsals, which had started with the com-
pletion of the first scene some days before, were well under way. It
was his play, Dumas felt, for he had recreated it out of a few borrowed
hints and some scattered speeches, but Gaillardet alone should have
the credit for it. He wrote the fledgling playwright to tfcis effect, kit
an indignant young cock immediately made his appearance in Paris
denouncing the collaboration as a fraud perpetrated upon him and an
humiliation that he would not accept in silence. Harel sat in his office
and smiled. A law suit would be excellent publicity. Dumas, still
weak and light-headed, was troubled. Still . . . it was his play.

248 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Harel forced the indignant young Gaillardet into a compromise. The
program should read "By Frederic Gaillardet and * * * ."

On May 29, 1832, La Tour de Nesle was produced at the Porte
Saint-Martin theater with a cast which included the trustworthy
Bocage as Buridan, Lockroy as Gaultier d'Aulnay, Delaf osse (who had
no visor to trouble him this time) as Philippe d'Aulnay, and Made-
moiselle Georges as Marguerite de Bourgogne. Dumas, still weak
from the effects of the cholera, sat in a stage box with Odilon Barrot
and his wife and saw the drama mount steadily to a dizzy triumph.
The terrors of Antony and Richard Darlington were lost in the super-
terror of this moving melodrama which actually rose to tragedy in
several of its scenes. La Tour de Nesle contained all the elements of
pure melodrama, historical interest and tragic horror. The two adver-
saries, Buridan and the licentious Queen, moved steadily through a
series of imbroglios to that horrible moment when they realized that
they were contriving the death of their son. And in the prison scene
where the desperate Buridan, a close-kept prisoner, turned the tables
on Marguerite who had come to gloat over him and forced her to
release him from his bonds French drama reached a new apex. The
play swept Paris. Its premiere marked the first of eight hundred
performances. It stood for years as a symbol of high perfection in
French melodrama. Dumas, sitting beside the vivacious Madame
Barrot, listened calmly as Bocage, dressed in the doublet and boots of
Buridan, came forward and announced: "The author . . . Monsieur
Frederic Gaillardet," to the stormy applause of the audience. The
older dramatist walked feebly down the stairs and passed the young
man from Tonnerre who stood in the midst of a swirling mass of
well-wishers. Let M. Frederic have his triumph. Already the rumor
was spreading through Paris that * * * stood for a well known
writer, for an experienced dramatist, and the spectators had not failed
to distinguish a personal touch in La Tour de Nesle that reminded
them of the work of a tall young man who wore extravagant gilets.
Dumas did not realize at the time that this collaboration, unsought
for on the part of the young fire-eater from Tonnerre, was to end in
that familiar order: pistols for two.

He began to realize it the next day. Harel slyly changed the billing
to read: La Tour de Nesle, par * * * ct Fr£d6ric Gaillardet. Making

B O C A G E

As Buridan m La Tour de Nesle

BOCAGE

In Teresa

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 249

the asterisks more important than the name infuriated Gaillardet who
wrote a letter to the press about it. Dumas watched the developments
with some unrest. Harel responded in the paper by insisting that
nineteen-twentieths of the play had been written by the collaborator
inconnu. Gaillardet riposted by making public Dumas's letter to him,
the letter in which the elder man had promised the sole glory of La
Tour de Nesle to the younger man. Dumas then lost his temper and
wrote to the press a strong letter commenting on Gaillardet's use of a
personal note and asserting that he had written the play without even
having seen the younger man's version. It was now open war between
an angry young man from Tonnerre who saw himself the victim of
a powerful playwright and a powerful playwright who saw in the
young man from Tonnerre nothing but a selfish cub* Gaillardet did
the one thing he could; he went to court and secured a decision
adjudging La Tour de Ncsle to be his own composition on technical
grounds. The asterisks were switched back, and for a time the excite-
ment died down. Damage, however, had been done to Dumas, for
this affair was the first in which the playwright had been accused of
purloining another man's work, and his enemies — and there was a
countless number of them in Paris who resented the success of the
nobody from Villers-Cotterets— possessed a new weapon with which
to attack him.

On the first day of June, while litigation over the authorship of La
Tour dc Neslt was beginning to excite literary circles, General La-
marque, that Lamarque whom Napoleon had created a Marechal de
France at St Helena, died of the cholera. His death was of inflam-
mable consequences, for the Republicans were using the name of tiie
Emperor as a weapon against the Legitimists. It was this Lamarque
who had exclaimed: "The peace of 1815 is no peace; it is a halt ia tie
mud!" His memory, therefore, stood for a revolutionary symbol and
the radical Republicans, among them fitienne Arago> Bastide and
Godefroy Cavaignac, saw in his obsequies an opportunity to overthrow
the July monarchy. Martial preparations were made and on June
fifth, the day of the cortege, all the revolutionary elements followed
the bjer through the streets of Paris, bearing concealed weapons i>e-
neath their cloaks and shouting, "Honor to General Lamarque.5*

25o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Dumas who had known tie General slightly was in the midst of
this din. His republican principles were still burning matters to him.
Marching beside the artillery with a tri-colored sash about his arm
and a saber in his hand, he saw the thousands of National Guards-
men, artillerymen, workmen, students, old soldiers, refugees and
beggars who filled the Faubourg Saint-Honore. He also observed the
soldiers of the King, carabiniers, dragoons and light infantry, for
Louis-Philippe understood only too well that Paris this day was a
volcano liable to erupt fire and death. Overhead the electricity-charged
air burst into a driving rain. A fever of unrest permeated the stormy
atmosphere as the catafalque, beside which walked the old Marquis
de la Fayette together with generals and high dignitaries, was borne
through the streets, about the Vendome Column and along the boule-
vard Bourdon. Minor skirmishes between angry students and stupid
police marred the solemnity of the parade. One youth had his throat
slashed and the blood streamed down on his July decoration. "Where
are they leading us?" shrilled a student. A sonorous voice replied:
"To the Republic! And we invite you to supper with us tonight
in the Tuileries." Dumas saw men tearing up stakes which were used
as props for the young trees that had replaced the old ones cut down
during the Three Days. He understood that this multitude, grumbling
to one another, clutching concealed pistols beneath wet cloaks, needed
but a spark to inflame it. The body passed the city limits and the
mourners surged back. The rain had stopped but the sky was still an
abysmal black.

Dumas, exhausted with the long march, was half-carried into a
restaurant where he was revived with iced water and a huge fish pie.
It was while he was eating that he heard the sharp clatter of five or
six shots. His weakness seemed to leave him and throwing the price of
the fish pie upon the table he ran out of the restaurant toward the
nearest quai. There seemed to be a great commotion about the Pont
d'Austerlitz. No doubt of it, another revolution was to succeed the
ravages of the cholera in Paris. When Dumas reached the bridge he
found it guarded by men in blouses. "What is it?" he shouted. "What
has been happening?" One of the guards replied: "Only that they
are firing on the people, and the artillery has returned the fire; phc
Louis-Philippe is at his last gasp and the Republic is proclaimed.

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 251

Vive la Republiquc!" This declaration was, to say the least, premature.
It was true enough that within an hour or so a state of insurrection
existed in the city, but it was a demoralized insurrection, lacking in
the unified ferociousness of the Three July Days. Dumas, from a
window of the Porte Saint-Martin theater, to which he had retreated
when the sharp crackle of gunfire in the surrounding streets had
grown ominously close, saw a mother beating her son because he had
thrown a stone at a dragoon. The playwright lowered his head.
'The women are not with us this time," he muttered. "We are lost!"
The specters of shouting women with flashing eyes and loosened hair,
those tigresses of the proletariat who fell at the barricades with their
men, flashed across his mind.

Revolutionists were hammering at the stage door of the Porte Saint-
Martin and Dumas, recovering from his reverie, ran down the stairs
to Harel who was walking up and down wringing his hands. "They
will pillage the theater," exclaimed the manager. Dumas faced the
perspiring men. They wanted rifles. If it was necessary they would
seize them. Dumas made one of his dramatic gestures. "Have twenty
rifles brought out, Harel," he said. When the guns — they had been
used for properties in the ill-fated Napoleon — were produced, Dumas
distributed them to the insurgents saying, "It is I, Alexandre Dumas,
who lend you these guns; those who get killed I will not bother, but
those who survive will bring back their arms. Is that understood?"
It was, A few minutes later the theater was empty. Dumas, changing
his clothes — he had been wearing an artilleryman's uniform — pro-
ceeded to M. Laffitte's house where he listened to the startled deputies
as they hissed like geese.

The Republicans could not carry the city with them and by the next
morning, June sixth, only two quarters, those of the Place de la Bastille
and the streets contiguous to the entrance of the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine, were defended by the insurgents. During the day these posi-
tions were captured by governmental forces and the abortive revolu-
tion collapsed. Dumas, pale and sick, saw the Republican hopes
dissipated again by the disciplined front of the Royalist troops and the
apathy of the populace. "Is not everything at an end now?" asked
Francois Arago, when the coipmittee of deputies left Laffitte's house to
seek out Louis-Philippe and protest against the revolt of the pr evioro

252 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

day. "No!" said a man of the people who was standing near Arago,
"They are waiting for the tocsin from the Church of Saint-Merry, for
so long as a $ic\ man's death rattle can be heard he is dive" It was
not time for the tocsin.

Dumas began to worry about his own skin. He knew that he had
been under suspicion as a militant republican for almost a year. Harel,
whose eye was always cocked on business, came to him on the seventh
of June and demanded a play. Reluctantly Dumas dragged forth three
acts of a drama called Le Fils de V&migr& which he had begun some
time before from a hint by Anicet Bourgeois. The playwright was
ill and worried. He felt lethargic. He had pains in the head. He
wanted to get away from Paris, to go on a journey and refresh his
mind with new scenes and strange customs. He was also fearful.
Any moment there might come a knock at the door and behind the
summons might appear an officer of the police. During the seventh
and eighth of June he called in Anicet Bourgeois and they scrambled
together the last two acts of Le Fils de l'£,migr£. On die ninth of
June, Dumas read in a legitimist paper that he had been taken with
arms upon him at the Cloitre Saint-Merry, judged by court-martial
during the night and shot at three o'clock in the morning. The
account of the execution was so vivid that the startled Dumas felt his
body for probable bullet holes. The next morning he received a letter
from Charles Nodier which read:

My dear Alexandre — I have at this moment read in a newspaper
that you were shot on June 6, at three in the morning. Be so good
as to tell me if it will prevent you from coming to dine tomorrow
at the Arsenal, with Dauzats, Taylor, Bixio and in fact our usual
friends.— Your very good friend, Charles Nodier, who will be de-
lighted at the opportunity to ask you for news of the other world.

Dumas smiled a trifle wanly and wrote back that his shadow would
appear at the Arsenal. He was but the shadow of himself now. The
cholera had made mare serious inroads than he had imagined, and the
excitement of the early June days with their abortive revolution and
the trouble over La Tour de Nesle had retarded his health still more.
It was an ill young man, therefore, who received a brief visit from a

THE TRIUMPH OF ANTONY 253

polite aide-de-camp of the King bearing news that the advisability of
the playwright's arrest was under consideration and that perhaps the
air abroad might be beneficial. Louis-Philippe was tired of his quad-
roon play-boy with the tfoc-mont&e.

For a month or six weeks Dumas was occupied in clearing up his
affairs, forcing five thousand francs out of the niggardly Harel, secur-
ing a passport and bidding farewell to all his friends. On the evening
of July 21, 1832, he drove through the gates of Paris towards Auxerre.
The city by the Seine looked beautiful in the dim light: church spires,
the dome of the Institute, the Vendome Column, and the towers of
Notre Dame gleaming against the mauve canopy of the sky. He had
been a part of the city's life for nine years without interruption and
now he was an exile. He sighed and set his face toward Switzerland,
At least there were mountains there and he had never seen mountains.

CHAPTER TWO

NOMAD

DUMAS was enchanted with Switzerland. He played like a boy and
his illness fell from him as by magic. He forgot the aggravating whirl
of Paris, the nervous tension of theatrical productions and the dangers
of republican manifestations. At Geneva he admired the jewel shops,
especially the large one conducted by Beautte, and all his negro blood
yearned for the glittering arrays of precious stones. He went to the
theater and saw Jenny Vertpre, "cette gracieuse miniature de Made-
moiselle Mars" in one of her more famous roles. At Ferney (now
Ferney-Voltaire) he visited the chapel and read the inscription, "Deo
Erexit Voltaire/' and dryly remarked, "Its object is to let the world
know that God and Voltaire have become reconciled." He never
approved of Voltaire-worship. At Coppet he wept beside the bed upon
which Madame de Stael had died. At Bex he fished by night using a
bill-hook and lighting his way with a lantern, and at the Lake of Zug
he shot a trout with a fowling-piece. He visited Chamounix and saw
the Mer de Glace and shivered, remarking that he suffered from
md-de-mer. He went chamois hunting with Swiss guides and suffered
from his usual attacks of dizziness when he climbed to high altitudes.
He cooked a huge omelette for some charming women at an inn,
observing: "An omelette is to cookery what a sonnet is to poetry."
In other words, he was himself, jovial, witty, boyish, an agreeable table
companion and a keen observer of life. Three of his pilgrimages
deserve to be noted in greater detail.

He breakfasted with M. de Chateaubriand at the Hotel de TAigle
in Lucerne and stuttered like a country bumpkin, so much was he in
awe of the old father of Romanticism. Chateaubriand was charm

254

NOMAD 255

itself and he talked freely with Dumas about contemporary politics
and his own attitude toward the perplexing problems of the day. The
author of Le Genie du Christianisme was weary. He took Dumas to
see the Lion of Lucerne and the younger man inquired: "Which
names would be inscribed on the gravestones of royalty to balance
these popular names if a similar monument were raised in France ?"
"Not one!" replied Chateaubriand. "Do you really mean that?" ex-
claimed Dumas. The old man said: "Perfectly; the dead do not get
themselves killed.** Chateaubriand proceeded on his way to feed
water-fowls, and Dumas followed him filled with an intense venera-
tion for this calm veteran of life. "If you regret Paris so much/* he
asked, "why not go back to it?" Chateaubriand answered: "I was at
Cauterets when the July Revolution took place. I returned to Paris;
I beheld one throne in blood and another in mud, lawyers drawing up
a charter and a king shaking hands with rag-and-bone men. It was
sad as death, especially when, as in my case, one is filled with the great
traditions of monarchy." A moment later he murmured that Henri
V, the son of the Duchesse de Berry, should have been made king
in place of Louis-Philippe. Dumas reminded him of the evil genius
that followed the name Henri. Henri I was poisoned, Henri II killed
in tournament, Henri III and Henri IV assassinated. Chateaubriand
shrugged his shoulders and replied: "It is better to die by poison than
in exile; it is sooner over and one suffers less."

Dumas's second pilgrimage was to Reichenau where Louis-Philippe
in his days of exile had taught arithmetic and geography for five
francs a day. His sentimentality conquered his anger here and Dumas
wrote a long letter to the Prince Royal, the young Due d'Orl&ns,
describing the small college and the schoolroom and suggesting that
it be made into a memorial, This curious gesture on the part of a
republican who had been invited by the royal house to leave Paris is
evidence of the usual inconsistency in Dumas's political opinions* It
was also, perhaps, a sly attempt to soften the irritation of Louis-
Philippe. "It was," declared the sentimentalist in his letter to the
King's son, "I admit, with emotion intermingled with pride, that, in
this very place, in the room situated in tbe middle of the corridtor,
with its folding door, its flower-painted side doors, its coraer
places, its pictures of Louis XV surrounded with git aral>esqp&e$

256 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

its decorated ceiling; it was, I say with keen emotion, that, in this
room, where the Due de Chartres had taught, I gathered information
concerning the strange vicissitudes of a royal personage who, not
wishing to beg the bread of exile, worthily bought it with his work/*

A short while after dropping his tear over the vicissitudes of the
Orleans family Dumas was at the Chateau d'Arenenberg paying his
devoirs to Hortense Bonaparte, ex-Queen of Holland. He saw Madame
Recamier there and thought that she was beautiful as she entered the
hall dressed in a black gown and with a dark veil wound about her
head and throaL Juliette was fifty-five years old at this time. Dumas
pleased the ex-Queen and he remained at the chateau for three days,
admiring the pictures of Napoleon, reading Victor Hugo's ode on the
death of the due de Reichstadt, the clipped eaglet who had passed
away at Schonbrunn on July twenty-second of this year, and discuss-
ing politics with Hortense. The Queen sounded him thoroughly on
the condition of affairs in Paris and Dumas made one amazing
prophecy. Hortense asked him what advice he would give to a Bona-
parte who dreamt of restoring the glory and power of Napoleon and
Dumas answered: "I would tell him to obtain the cancelling of his
exile, to buy a plot of ground in France and to make use of the
immense popularity of his name to get himself elected a deputy, to
try by his talent to win over the majority of the Chamber, and to use
it to depose Louis-Philippe and become elected king in his stead.'*
The shadow of the Coup d'lttat of 1851 must have hovered over
Arenenberg for a moment.

It was at Arenenberg that Dumas found French newspapers and
hastily acquainted himself with what had transpired since his absence.
M. Jay, a mediocre political writer, had been elected to the Academy
over M. Thiers. A painter named Blondel had achieved the Institute
with eighteen votes to Delaroche's three. Mademoiselle Falcon had
made her debut in Robert le Diable. The Saint-Simonians were in
trouble. Two men had received death sentences from the Seine Court
of Assizes for political offences and Paris was in an uproar about it
SIBCC the death of Louis XVIII capital punishment for political crimes
had been superseded by gentler measures. And Le Fils de I'fimigrt
by MM, Anicet Bourgeois and Alexandre Dumas was announced for
immediate production at the Porte Saint-Martin theater. Dumas

NOMAD 257

decided to return to Paris. He had seen enough of Switzerland, his
note-books were crammed with material and the vision of applauding
audiences, midnight suppers and red mouths danced before his eyes.

He reached Koenigsfelden before he secured a newspaper giving an
account of the opening night of Lc Fils dc VlLmigrL The journal was
his old enemy, Lc Constitutional, the periodical he had ridiculed in
Antony, and it did not mince matters in its scathing treatment of the
unfortunate drama Dumas had so hurriedly concocted with Bour-
geois. Dumas, a trifle surprised at observing his name prominently
displayed in the critique— he had urged its suppression before he
left Paris— read grimly the account of how the disgusted audience
rose before the final scene and left the theater. "Criticism of such
plays as these is impossible," declared Lc Constitutional, "one leaves
them as quickly as one can, as one kicks aside a repulsive object."
And as a final prod at the playwright: "His talent seems to be
completely dead."

By the beginning of October Dumas was back in Paris and it was
not long before he discovered that his fortunes had shifted once more.
The debacle of Lc Fils dc VlLmigrt had practically ruined him as a
dramatist. Henri 111 ct sa Cour, Antony, and La Tour dc Ncslc were
forgotten. Nothing but the flat failure was remembered. Theatrical
managers who had once been sycophantic now avoided him on the
street and did not seem to notice him at dinners. Veron who but a
short while before had been begging him for contributions to La
Rcvuc dc Paris discovered that he had no room left in his periodical
for the name of Dumas. Sneering innuendoes about the crisp-haired
quadroon appeared in the smaller journals. Dumas swallowed hard.
It was curious. It was incomprehensible. Ten months before Paris
had been at his feet and Richard Darlington was the subject of sakm
conversation. Six months before La Tour dc Ncslc had aroused specu-
lation, argument and praise. And now he was as deserted as tfce
cheapest and most unsuccessful boulevard dramatist. Well, Paris was
like that, short-memoried, genuflecting before the shadow of success,
haughty and distant to failure* Every triumph was but the mainte-
nance of one's perilous position and each failure was a step backward.
There was no progression. He had been away less than four montbs

258 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

and suffered one failure and now his name aroused either silence or
ridicule. He looked in the Annuairc and read: "It is a mass of turpi-
tudes, a sequence of scenes as false as they are ignoble, which it would
disgust us to enumerate." That was about Le Fils de I'&migre, Then
he turned to a review of a drama called Perinet Lcclcrc in the same
issue and read: "It bears witness to literary and historic studies very
rare in modern dramatists, and has in general the great advantage over
most of the plays of this theater (the Porte Saint-Martin), particularly
Le Fils de I'Emigre, of not revolting the spectator constantly by a
jumble of crimes and pictures of debauchery each more horrible than
the last." Well, well! Perinet Leclerc had been dramatized by Anicet
Bourgeois and Lockroy from Dumas's scenes historiques in the Revue
des Deux Mondes. But the Annuaire did not know that. And some
time later when Dumas collected these same scenes historiques in book
form he was accused of lifting the best situations from Perinet Leclerc.
What should he do now? The Swiss journey had been expensive
and among his many obligations were the care of his mother, Alex-
andre ftls and Marie-Alexandre. Melanie S. had disappeared from his
horizon but Ida Ferrier was relying upon him for the furtherance of
her career. He had flung his money right and left, on beds, rich foods,
extravagant garments and many women. It was a state of affairs that
tortured him, for his tastes had been spoiled by success and the idea
of eating six sous dinners in the rue de Tournon was too dreary a
prospect. He knew that he would have to forsake the theater until
the antagonism against him had died down. What else was he fitted
for? News of the death of Sir Walter Scott gave him an idea. Prose!
Why, yes. He had been told that he possessed wit, that he com-
manded an excellent narrative vein. There were the scenes historiques,
which had been printed by Buloz and there was his unfinished Gaule
et France. He would settle down to the history of France and reinvig-
orate it, injecting into it the passion which Scott had lacked. So
during the late fall and winter of 1832 he led a quiet life, passing the
greater part of his time in his apartment where he ravished the learned
volumes of Thierry and Chateaubriand and pieced together his curi-
ously unscholarly but vivid panorama of Gaule et France, a work
extraordinarily readable, crammed with unexpected viewpoints and
colored with astonishing prophecies, among them a prophecy of the

NOMAD 259

future Republic. It was a compilation, to be sure, but one so suffused
with the ardent and reckless personality of the author that it assumed
the stature of an original composition. M. Thiers's police arrested
Madame la Duchesse de Berry at Nantes and Dumas continued to
write. Victor Hugo's Le Roi s' Amuse was produced for one perform-
ance in late November at the Theatre-Francis and then interdicted,
but Dumas, so often the brilliant and noisy parakeet at premieres, did
not attend. He was writing. Also, a coldness had crept into his rela-
tions with the Sun-God, a rift widened by over-talkative mutual
friends. The political trials of the periodicals, Le Carsaire and La
Tribune, took place, and the right of association to discuss politics
without authorization by the Government was established to the
delirious joy of the Republicans, and still Dumas wrote. Herold's
opera, Le Pre-aux-Clercs, was sung at the Opera Comique and the
pen of the amateur historian continued to travel steadily over sheet
after sheet of blue paper. To begin a new career at thirty required
intensive application.

II

As the year 1833 moved toward a fair spring and the chill winds
that roared through the Cite and along the boulevards diminished,
the busy pen of Dumas began to slacken. Huge piles of manuscript
cluttered the broad table in the Square d'Orleans. Beside his Gatde
et France, now almost ready for the press, he was composing a series
of articles about his Swiss travels, essays so compact with humor and
sprightliness that the lean Buloz snapped them up for his Remte des
Deux Mondes. Money was beginning to flow into the empty coffers.
It was time to relax again, to refresh himself at those bright social
fountains of wit and laughter that dotted the city. The Sunday eve-
ning gatherings at the Arsenal found him as buoyant as ever, as
expansive in his affection for Charles Nodier. The cafes knew him.
In a cerise gilet and a green cloak he could be seen at the Caf£ de
Paris, that gathering place of journalists, deep in conversation with his
old friends, Nestor Roqueplan, Alpioase de Leuven, V6ron, Duf ouge-
rais, the director of La Made, and Maz6res, die dramatist. Or he
would be sprawled at one of the small tables in the Cafe du Divan

260 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

discoursing with that comedian, M£ry the Marseilleise, or the brilliant
Henri Monnier, or the exuberant Theophile Gautier, or the strange
Gerard de Nerval whom he had recently met. At the Cafe des Aveuglcs
he sat and listened to Blondelet play upon four tambours at once.
Time passed rapidly in this way. Gaule et France was entrusted to the
printer and the series of chapters on Switzerland was refashioned into
the first Impressions de Voyage.

Into this vibrant activity came the dark shadow of perplexing poli-
tics once more. Early in February mysterious reports concerning the
illness of the captive Duchesse de Berry appeared in the periodicals.
The meaning was plain: Madame was enceinte. An immediate fury
broke out in the antagonistic camps of Legitimists and Republicans.
La Corsaire bluntly intimated the cause of Madame's seclusion and a
Legitimist paper, Revenant, after refuting this calumny on royalty,
received a collective challenge from the Republicans. Paris became a
whirlpool of passions, and young men stalked about breathing oaths,
oiling their pistols and polishing their swords. Armand Carrel, editor
of Le National, composed a diatribe against the Duchesse de Berry,
and immediately received a list of twelve Legitimists, one of whom
he was required to meet. Dumas could not disengage himself from
the mounting fever. He flew to Carrel's house and offered himself
as an opponent against the twelve Legitimists. Carrel, who had become
anti-Romantic and therefore cool toward Dumas, patiently explained
that it was to be only a single encounter. A few days later Roux-
Laborie, the representative of the Legitimists, shot Carrel through the
groin during a formal duel. Carrel became one of the heroes of the
city. Renewed challenges flew like a flock of birds through the streets
and Dumas, pressing eagerly toward the field of action, proceeded to
challenge the Legitimist Beauchene. Carrel, however, after a few days
of danger, grew convalescent and forbade any more duels. The storm
died down, and Dumas, who had been only moderately interested in
the Duchesse de Berry's immaculate status, returned to his prose.

On the tenth of May Madame la Duchesse de Berry, confined in the
Citadel of Blaye, gave birth to a daughter. She had been secretly
married to Comte Hector de Lucchesi-Palli, a prince of the House of
Campo-Franco.

NOMAD 261

His brief foray into political excitement terminated, Dumas found
the composition of prose rather dull. He had attended the first per*
formance of Hugo's Lucrtcc Borgia in spite of the coldness existing
between him and the Sun-God, and the sight of an audience, the
glitter of the stage and the musty scent of the dusty theater had
awakened a nostalgia. After all, there was nothing comparable to
sitting in an author's box and listening to the plaudits of the mob*
Memories of the premieres of Henri 111 et sa Cour, of Antony, Richard
Darlington, La Tour dc Ncsle, flooded back to his mind. The debacle
of Le Fils dc VfLmigrt was forgotten. It would soon be a year since
it had halted his dramatic career. The sight of Anicet Bourgeois, the
faithful Anicet, looming in his doorway one morning brought these
reveries to a decision. Couldn't something be done with that idea he
had given Anicet for a play some time before the Swiss journey?
Anicet's eyes sparkled. Within a week they were collaborating on a
drama which they called Anglic and which would serve Ida Ferrier,
whose plumpness was steadily increasing through inaction, as a means
of return to public favor.

Gaulc ct "France was published during the late summer, and though
Dumas as a historian was laughed at in some quarters, he was taken
seriously by a number of indubitable authorities. Augustin Thierry
was frank in his praise. It was possible that he recognized his own
influence in the work. The amateur historian prepared to settle back
and bask in the warm sun of a new renown.

The pleasant days of autumn passed and then, on the first of
November, Dumas was awakened from his day-dream. A ferocious
attack on his work appeared in the Journal des D&bats. It was signed
by one Granier de Cassagnac and it accused the playwright-historian
of filching his situations and characters from Goethe, Schiller, Waker
Scott and Lope de Vega. This first article was based mainly cm Gaulc
ct "France but it was followed by others, the second appearing 00 the
sixteenth of the month, and in them the new critic of the amazed
Dumas arrayed in order a long display of various plagiarisms to be
found in Henri III et sa Cour, Christine, and Charles VII chez ses
grands vassaux* There was sufficient ground for some of these accusa-
tions, but Cassagnac often exceeded himself in the heat of his subject,
attributing to Dumas debts that were, to say the least, extremely

262 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

remote. Too many situations were common property and Romanti-
cism itself paraded too boldly in borrowed plumage to warrant forcing
Dumas into the position of scapegoat. Who was Granier de Cas-
sagnac ? He was an obstreperous young journalist who had been born
in Gers, who had come to Paris in 1832, who had attached himself to
the Romantic cause and who had been tucked graciously and conde-
scendingly under the regal wing of Victor Hugo. It was not long
until Dumas discovered that the Sun-God had been responsible, either
actively or tacitly, for the Cassagnac attack. It was Hugo who had
recommended Cassagnac to the editors of the Journal des Debats.
It was Hugo who had revised the proofs of the first article. The
reasons for this curious estrangement between the two field marshals
of the Romantic army were not hard to find. Hugo, swollen with
pride, was at the same time the victim of an almost feminine jealousy.
The successes of Dumas had been too much for him. The nobody
from Villers-Cotterets was a constant topic of discussion in the news-
papers and salons. The pre-eminence of Victor Hugo was threatened.
Another more subtle reason became apparent five days later when, on
the fifth of November, Hugo's Marie Tudor was produced and re-
vealed itself as having been inspired by Dumas's Christine. The Sun-
God was merely covering himself. His Lucrece Borgia which had
appeared so short a time before, also bore points of resemblance to
La Tour de Nesle. He who was not above suspicion could think of
nothing better than to divert that suspicion as speedily as possible. It
was for this reason that Cassagnac even accused Dumas of pillaging
HernanL Then, too, Dumas's wit irritated Hugo. During one of their
infrequent meetings in theater foyers Dumas had exclaimed: "Why
do you make the poor sickly bigoted Mary into a shameless courtesan?"
Hugo had responded grandly, "For that matter, what pains you took
to violate your Queen Christine." Dumas's reply was crushing:
"Quand je la mole, moi, je lui fais un enfant!"

Hugo's vicarious victory through the pen of Granier de Cassagnac
was short lived. Dumas wrote a warm letter of expostulation to him,
and the perturbed Sun-God strove to dodge the indictment, at la^t
weakly intimating that the article had been printed by mistake. The
thin excuse did not blind the ranks of the Romanticists. Even Saiate-
Beuve, struggling between his intense admiration for Hugo's work

NOMAD 263

and his badly concealed love for Hugo's wife, deplored it. Alfred de
Vigny, always a friend of Dumas, was emphatic in his disapprobation
as were most of the younger writers. Comments against Hugo began
to appear in the papers. Nevertheless the damage had been done and
the smirch of plagiarism was never to be lifted from Dumas's work
during his lifetime. His curious method of collaboration was mis-
represented, his originality of temperament was denied and his vitality
and magic touch were ignored.

This onslaught did not retard his vigor, however. He was welcom-
ing the publication of the first Impressions de Voyage, attending the
rehearsals of Angele at the Porte-Saint-Martin and moving his effects
to a larger and more elaborate apartment at number thirty, rue Bleu.
Thereafter Ida Ferrier and Dumas possessed the same address. Angle
was produced on December 28, 1833, and proved to be a success.
It was to be the last of the plays in the vein of Antony except pos-
sibly one. That group, which includes Richard Darlington in addition
to the two mentioned, and possibly Kean, gave a romantico-melodra-
matic picture of the moeurs contemporains of the 18305, and from it
sprang a vast number of natural successors. But as far as Dumas's
development was concerned, the vein was ended. Of over fifty plays
that he was still to write (one cannot be sure of die number) more
than half were based on historical characters and periods. In some
cases the plots were frankly fantastical. A further group included
operettas and light comedies. The success of Angele acceieratsd
Dumas's dramatic impetus and as the year 1833 ended, the conceptions
of several dramas were stirring in his mind.

Ill

Three important episodes marked the restless life of Dumas daring
the year 1834. Catherine Howard was produced; the ^^^rangis
attempted a rapprochement; and he fought a duel with Frederic
Gaillardet. Interweaving this trio of occurrences were the compk-
cated threads of his vividly-hued existence, an existence that alternately
amused and amazed Paris. His ceaseless energy carried him every-
where, to the caf&, along the wide stretches of &e boulevards ad
through the auditoriums and green rooms of a dozen theaters. We

264 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

might be encountered at the exhibitions of pictures, draped in his
extravagant garments, sometimes with the plump Ida Ferrier clutch-
ing his arm. Again he might be observed at the studio of some writer
or artist with Alexandre fits. His prose articles continued to make a
fairly regular appearance in the Revue des Deux Mondes, He had a
hand in several plays. There was La Vcnitiennc, for example, which
was produced at the Porte-Saint-Martin theater on March 18, 1834,
and though announced as the work of Anicet Bourgeois it was in
reality a collaboration between him and the author of Anglic. Later
in the year, on June 24th, a revue produced under the tide of La Tour
de Babel at the Theatre des Varietes revealed the witty touch of
Dumas in several of its scenes. The young man acquired a secretary,
an Italian named Rusconi who had served General Dermoncourt in
the same capacity. He was again on the top of the wave, living his
life in public and affording the newspapers amusing material for
their pertinent paragraphs.

It was in the early spring that the Theatre-Fran$ais, scene of Dumas's
first triumphs, attempted a rapprochement. One bright morning the
playwright was surprised to receive a summons to the Home Office
from M. Thiers. M. Thiers did not beat about the bush. He pointed
out that the Theatre-Franf ais was going to the devil, that Dumas and
Hugo had been very successful at the Porte-Saint-Martin, and that
he was considering playing the works of dead authors on Sundays
only at the national house of drama and reserving the rest of the
week for such living forces as Hugo and the young man before him.
Dumas was properly impressed but at the same time he pointed out
that the Theatre-Franjais required actors who could carry modern
roles, such mimes, for instance, as Madame Dorval, Bocage and Fr&i-
eric Lemaitre. Thiers compromised. He agreed to the admission of
Madame Dorval and an understanding that the other players were
to be engaged later. He further agreed that Dorval should make her
debut in Antony. Dumas, for his part, agreed to write two pieces a
year for the Th^atre-Franjais, Hugo presumably to be approached on
the same terms. So much was settled and Dumas hurried away from
the Home Office to acquaint Madame Dorval with her elevation to
the national theater. At first matters went smoothly. "The little
Dorval," whose contract had not been renewed at the Porte-Saint-

NOMAD 265

Martin, was delighted. Antony was placed in rehearsal, that same
Antony that had been almost killed by the recalcitrance of Made-
moiselle Mars and Firmin. The date of the premiere was fixed, April
28, 1834. But Dumas had failed to take into account his old enemy,
Lc Constitutional. On the morning of the day set for the premiere
Dumas's ten-year-old son thrust a fresh copy of Lc Constitutional
into his father's hands. The boy had been sent by Goubaux with
whom, at that time, he was at school, Dumas unfolded the paper
and noticed mention of the Theatre-Franfais in the first line of the
leading article. He sat down and read it through.

Public money (thundered Lc Constitutional in a fine academical
frenzy) is not intended for the encouragement of a pernicious sys-
tem. The sum of two hundred thousand francs is only granted to
the Theatre-Fran^ais on condition that it shall keep itself pure from
all defilement, that the artistes connected with that theater, who are
still the best in Europe, shall not debase themselves by lending the
support of their talent to those works which are unworthy to be
put on the national stage, works the disastrous tendency of which
should arouse the anxiety of the Government, for it is responsible
for public morality as well as for the carrying out of laws. Well,
who would believe it? At this very moment the principal actors
of the Porte-Saint-Martin are being transferred to the Theatre-
Fran^ais, and silly and dirty melodramas are to be naturalized there,
in order to replace the dramatic masterpieces which form an impor-
tant part of our glorious literature. A plague of blindness appears
to have afflicted this unhappy theater. The production of Antony
is officially announced by Lc Moniteur for tomorrow, Monday.
Antony the most brazenly obscene play that has appeared in these
obscene times! Antony, at the first performance of which respect-
able fathers of families exclaimed, "For a long time we have IK&
been able to take our daughters to the theater; now, we can no
longer take our wives!" So we are going to see at the theater of
Corneille, Racine, Moliere and Voltaire, a woman flung into an
alcove with her mouth gagged; we are to witness violation itself
on the national stage; the day of this representation is fixed. What
a school of morality to open to the public; what a spectacle to

266 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

which to invite the youth of the country; you boast you are ele-
vating them, but they will soon recognize neither rule nor control!
It is not its own fault; but that of superior powers, which take no
steps to stem this outbreak of immorality. There is no country in
the world, however free, where it is permissible to poison the wells
of public morality. In ancient republics, the presentation of a dra-
matic work was the business of the state; it forbade all that could
change the national character, undermine the honor of its laws and
outrage public modesty.

Dumas whistled to himself, thought of the Lysistrata, smiled wryly
and hurried off to the Theatre-Fran^ais to supervise the final dress
rehearsal of Antony. At two o'clock in the afternoon Jouslin de la
Salle, the manager, walked up to him and silently presented him with
a note. It read:

The Th£atre~Fran$ais is forbidden to play Antony tonight

Thiers.

Dumas jumped into a cab and was driven to the Home Office.

M. Thiers shrugged his shoulders. He understood how hard it was
on Dumas. It was true that Antony had been disrupted from its run
at the Porte-Saint-Martin. It was also true that Madame Dorval was
in a bad fix, that she had no role for her debut. But . . . He shrugged
his shoulders again. It was not the article in Le Constitutional that
had occasioned this volte-face on the part of the Government. It was
something else altogether. It was the Budget. "The . . . what?"
inquired Dumas. Thiers repeated it: the Budget. "What has the
National Budget to do with my play?" asked the dramatist. "I had
the whole Chamber against me," explained Thiers. "If Antony had
been allowed to be played tonight, the Budget would not have passed.
Remember that such people as Jay (who had written the leader in
Le Constitutionnel), fitienne, Viennet and so forth . . . can com-
mand a hundred votes in the Chamber, a hundred people who vote
like one man. I was pinned into a corner— Antony and no budget,
or a budget and no Antony I" Thiers shrugged again. He concluded:
"Ah, my boy, remain a dramatic author and take good care never
to become a Minister!"

NOMAD 267

Dumas brought suit at once against Jouslin de la Salle, as manager
of the Theatre-Fran^ais, in the Tribunal de Commerce for breach of
contract, and after some delay due to dilatory tactics on the part of
the defence, gained ten thousand francs' damages. The decision, in
reality, was against the Government and not against the hampered
theater. Once again the young dramatist had been treated shabbily
by the national home of drama. The moss-covered walls of the
classical Bastille still held firm against the assaults of modernity.

The irrespressible young man, after his customary fulminations
against those in the seats of the mighty, turned to Catherine Howard.
This play, rewritten from that Edith aux longs cheveux which had
slumbered in his escritoire for two years, was, according to its author,
an "extra-historic" drama. He meant that the action was purely
imaginary although the characters were historical. "I merely used
Henry VIII as a nail whereon to hang my picture," he announced
in the preface to the printed version. King Lear and Cymbeline
afforded precedents for such an unusual proceeding, he explained. He
forgot that Lear and Cymbeline were mythical creatures and that
the imagination of the dramatist might do what it desired with them
whereas Henry VIII and Catherine Howard were well known his-
torical characters whose existences were fairly familiar to the intelli-
gent public. * But Dumas was toujours audace. He offered the Parisian
public a surprising drama in which Catherine Howard's husband
gives her a narcotic to save her from Henry VIIL The bluff King
Hal, thinking his prospective bride dead, weds her anyway by placing
a ring on her apparently lifeless finger. Catherine, issuing from her
trance, becomes feminine enough to desire to reign and accepts the
crown. Thereupon the miserable husband uses the narcotic himself
to escape the vengeance of the King. The drama ends with the exe-
cution of Catherine at the hands of her resuscitated husband, — the
curious fellow reappearing as a masked hangman — Ic bourreau, that
dismal individual for whom Dumas displayed such affection all his
life*

Catherine Howard was produced at the Porte-Saint-Martin theater
on June 2, 1834, and scored an emphatic success. Delafosse played
Henry VIII and Ida Fcrrier essayed the role of Catherine, The

268 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

dependable Lockroy was cast as Ethelwood, Due de Dierham, the
unfortunate husband of Catherine. Dumas went about explaining
that in Antony he had made a drama of exception, in Teresa a drama
of generality, in Richard Darlington one of politics, in La Tour de
Nesle a drama of imagination, in Napoleon a drama of circumstance,
in Angtlc a drama of manners, in Henri III ct sa Cour a drama of
history and in Catherine Howard a drama of extra-history.

Early in the autumn an officious friend placed a copy of La Musee
des Families into the hands of Dumas who saw therein an article on
La Tour dc Nesle written by Frederic Gaillardet. Gaillardet had dis-
appeared into the backwardness of Time during the past two years.
He had won his law-suit over La Tour de Nesle which had now run
some two to three hundred performances, and his name had been
displayed prominently on the bills of the sensational drama. The
vexed issue of actual authorship had lain dormant during that time.
Dumas still counted the play as his own. So did Gaillardet. The
article in La MusSe des Families brought the dragging argument to
its climax. Dumas, reading Gaillardet's historical account of the
infamous Tour de Nesle, happened upon a sentence in which the
younger playwright declared La Tour de Nesle to be his "first and
best drama." With more testiness that usual the older man responded
in a long letter to Henri Berthoud, director of La MusSe des Families,
in which he gave his own version of the authorship of the play, assert-
ing flatly that the composition owed little or nothing to Gaillardet's
script. Gaillardet immediately answered with his version of the facts,
a recapitulation that defiantly affirmed that he, an innocent and help-
less young man, had been the victim of a series of felonies on the
part of Harel and Dumas. As a matter of fact, the problem is a vexed
one and not likely ever to be fully solved. Gaillardet undoubtedly
conceived the idea and a part of the structure. Janin added a few
improvements, mostly dialogue, to the Gaillardet version. Dumas
unquestionably rewrote the entire piece and moulded it into a clever
and sensational melodrama. Harel indubitably attempted to cheat
Gaillardet out of his share of the honors. All except Janin were at
fault. Gaillardet had a collaborator forced upon him but he was too
inexperienced to comprehend that his drama was worthless until it

NOMAD 269

was made into a play — a technical feat he could not perform. Dumas
slighted the young man too much, calmly appropriating his idea and,
with that superabundance of thoughtless acquisition that was his,
claiming all the honors. Harel was "that rascal" always, placing
clever business shifts before integrity. There was only one answer
to the question now, Dumas issued a challenge to Gaillardet.

The two men met at Saint-Mand£ about noon on October 17, 1834.
Dumas, accompanied by two acquaintances who were acting for him,
Longpre and Maillan, arrived first, breathing fire and fury. Shortly
afterward Gaillardet, clothed entirely in black, reached the duelling
ground with his two seconds, Frederic Soulie and Fontan. Alexandre
Bixio made his appearance as surgeon to the event. There was the
usual strutting to and fro, and Dumas, who had set his heart on
swords (they were safer), made a final plea for them. But Gaillardet
as the challenged party possessed the right of choice and he .insisted
on pistols. Dumas began to brood upon the fact that it was very
difficult to hit a skinny young man garmented in dark clothing. He
put forth a last despairing request for swords (the seconds could
always halt a duel with swords before it reached too perilous a, situa-
tion and bullets had an unpleasant way of reaching mortal spots)
but Gaillardet was adamantine. Pistols it would have to be. Dumas,
who had no right to question the challenged party's choice of weapons,
ordered a five franc piece spun in the air and a declaration to be
written down that the challenged party's seconds refused to permit
the selection of weapons to be decided by lot. This was done aact a
perturbed dramatist with crinkly hair took his position. The signal
was given and Gaillardet, pale and determined, ran to the limit line
and waited for Dumas who advanced slowly, ziz-zagging as much
as possible to embarrass the aim of his opponent Gaillardet fired but
his excited aim was so bad that Dumas did not even hear the whistle
of the bullet. He waggled a hand to the four witnesses to show that
he had not been hit. Then he fired in his turn, discharging his pistol
at random, he explained later, because he could find no spot of wlAe
on the black-clothed antagonist at which to aim. It did not occur
to him to aim directly at tie black figure who was so tew yards away*
After these discharges Dumas demanded that the pistols be
again and GaUlardet, much to Dumas's unrest, seconded tlie

27o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

The attendants, however, refused to permit the duel to go any further.
Dumas then suggested that swords be used* Gaillardet promptly
demurred. A few solemn phrases were mouthed and the combatants
climbed into their respective cabs and drove back to Paris. Honor
was satisfied. Until 1851 Frederic Gaillardet's name alone was on the
play-bills of La Tour de Nesle.

IV

Restlessless had disturbed Dumas long before his Optra boufic
encounter with Frederic Gaillardet, a restlessness that the excitement
of rehearsals, political exasperations, prose publications and social
febrilities could not dissipate. He had eaten the strange fruit of travel
and the flavor of it was pleasant. He was now to become a citizen
of the world. During the thirty-six years of his life that remained
he was to occupy the majority of them in traveling, in observing
foreign places and in setting down his impressions in that long and
amusing series of impressions dc voyage that had started with the
Switzerland volume.

Shortly after the duel with Gaillardet he was off on the real begin-
ning of these journeys — the Swiss trip had been no more than a forced
prologue — accompanied by Godefroy Jadin, Amaury Duval and a
dripping-mouthed bulldog by the name of Mylord. The Midi of
France was Dumas's objective and during the winter he explored that
pleasant terrain with all the assiduity of the enthusiastic amateur.
Through Aigues-Mortes, Aries, Tarascon, Beaucaire, Nimes, Avignon,
Valence, Orange, Vaucluse and Marseilles, including a trip to Corsica,
he passed searching out the centers of architectural and antiquarian
interest, talking to natives, studying their habits and filling notebook
after notebook. He avoided the towns where the new monster of
machinery ruled, for he hated and feared the callous insensibility of
iron. In the Rhone valley although he was a meager drinker he
revelled in the wine of Saint-Peray. At Cavaillon he bargained for
juicy melons, offering his works in exchange. At Nimes he walked
by night in the ruined amphitheater h la Chateaubriand, striving to
revive in h& imagination the vanished society that had shouted itself
hoarse in this stone arena. It was here that Mylord, dripping hate

NOMAD 271

and poison from his fat jaws, strove to attack the bulls during the
branding. At Mornas the self-confident traveler experienced difficul-
ties in comprehending the peculiar Provencal dialect of the natives
and was tempted to imitate an Englishman who cackled when he
desired an egg. At Avignon, he insisted on sleeping in room number
three in the H6tel du Palais-Royal where his godfather, Marechal
Brune, had been assassinated by the inflamed populace. At Aries
another burst of sentimentality produced a short fit of religious humil-
ity and he offered fervent prayers before the little wooden saint he
had blithely stolen from a church in Baux. So he passed through the
Midi accompanied by his amused entourage, dividing his time between
melons and prayers, saints and bull-branding, wine and sentimental
speeches about Marechal Brune. Wherever he went he collected
stories, anecdotes, bits of local color, tatters of knowledge and historical
facts. The notebooks swelled with a heterogenous treasure.

No sooner had he returned to Paris, taken a few turns about the
boulevards, looked into several theaters, shuffled together a number
of short stories for a prospective volume to be published by Dumont,
kissed the white hands of "the little Dorval" and Mademoiselle Mars,
and reveled in the plump charms of Ida Ferrier, than he longed to
get away again. This time he would broaden his travels, cross frontiers
and walk through the streets of Rome. Early in 1835 ^e departed,
having accomplished nothing in Paris, accompanied as before by
Jadin and the cat-terrorizing Mylord. Scattering money right and
left he passed through Hyeres and viewed from the misty shore the
dark islands of Port Cros and Porquerolles; through Draguignan
where he saw the mound of the prehistoric inhabitants of the Medi-
terranean, coast; through Grasse where he meditated on Fragonard
who was born there. He passed through Cannes and observed St. Mar-
guerite in the distance crowned by the dark fortress where the Man
in the Iron Mask had once been immured and to whose crumbled
door an as yet uncreated hero named d'Artagnan was to come; through
Golf c Juan, dreaming for a moment beside the quietly lapping water
over which had come the Emperor from Elba twenty years before;
through Nice, the birthplace of Massena, and so along the scarped
Comiche to the mountainous frontier of Italy, Turning back foe a
moment he recollected pleasant incidents that had marked this

272 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

through France. He had discovered the Mediterranean and even
issued a manifesto about it. At Marseilles he had eaten Gargantuan
dinners with the jolly Mery and listened to his amusing tale of
La Chaste au Chastre. A convict had hailed him in the little seaport
of Toulon and claimed Mademoiselle Mars as a mutual acquaintance.
The fellow had been footman to the famous actress and was now on
his way to Genoa after having stolen the jewels of the tragedienne. It
had all been amusing, instructive and unusual, a sea of life and his-
torical memories from which he had fished up many an outlandish
murex to grace the rich fare of the impressions de voyage. It was time
to cross the frontier.

Genoa was charming but he had not been long in the birthplace
of Christopher Columbus before he was visited by emissaries of King
Charles-Albert of Sardinia who politely ordered him out of the state.
He was, it seemed, under suspicion of being a radical. Both irritated
and pleased, Dumas sailed for Naples. There he planted his head-
quarters, having changed his identity to that of an M. Guichard whose
passport he was using. But the idea of the boisterous playwright
concealing himself was ridiculous. Though for a time he masqueraded
as M. Guichard and wandered about the countryside viewing ruins
and listening to stories about brigands, it was not for long. He stood
out too prominently on the landscape. His personality was too pro-
nounced. He was too fond of hinting his identity. The expected
therefore happened when, one morning, he was awakened by a Com-
missionaire de Police and carried off to his office and submitted to
an interrogatory. It was not so easy, after all, for a talkative son of a
Napoleonic General to peregrinate through the Italian states. Why
was he traveling under a false name? Dumas explained it was because
King Ferdinand would not let him travel under his own. It was a
very good excuse and ought to have silenced the officious policeman.
It did nothing of the sort. What was his right name? Dumas
announced it with gusto: Alexandre Dumas. Had he any titles?
Dumas drew himself up. He certainly had. His grandfather had
received the title of Marquis from Louis XIV and his father had
refused that of Count from Napoleon. He stretched the fact a bit in
this last affirmation, but according to Dumasian logic if the Emperor
had not hated his father he might have given him the title of Count

NOMAD 273

All the Mar£chaux had possessed it. And General Dumas had missed
the baton sheerly because of his Republican sentiments. Therefore,
he had, so to speak, refused the title. The weary police officer
remarked: "Why don't you assume your title?" Dumas answered:
"Because I can get on just as well without it." This crusher did not
deter the officer from making some remarks about prison. Where-
upon Dumas produced various letters, one from the French minister
of public instruction which commended the traveler to the kind
ministrations of foreign officials. The officer shrugged his shoulders
and within a short period of time Dumas, Jadin and the bulldog were
on their way to Rome, where it was to be hoped hospitality would
prove warmer.

In the Holy City he was granted an audience with Pope Greg-
ory XVI. The day was one of excitement and dismay for Dumas.
He had no uniform and the lack of gold stripes and plumes dis-
heartened him greatly. He was still more disheartened when he
disgorged his dress suit from his luggage and found it lamentably
worn about the elbows and knees. His legs tottered beneath him as
he ascended the steps of the Vatican. Pope Gregory XVI was gracious-
ness itself and smiled as Dumas kissed his toe and exclaimed, "TiK
et Petrol" The conversation between the two men was amusing.
Gregory XVI delicately reproached Dumas for being a wandering
child and further declared that the stage should be a pulpit. The
author of Antony blamed the corruption of the theater on Voltaire
and Beaumarchais. He for his part would like nothing better than to
be a missionary in the theater but he would be instantly sacrificed if
he attempted any such quixotic role. However, if His Holiness would
encourage him . . . Dumas dropped his eyes modestly* He was
already meditating a subject for a grand moral play. It was about
Caligula. "You might introduce the Early Christians/5 remarked the
Pope naively. Dumas was uncertain. There might b^ difficulties about
the lions. Still ... he would see. As a matter of fact Caligula had
been suggested by Anicct Bourgeois as a possible framework to
display a trained horse owned by the Cirque FranconL Gregory XVI
still smiling, gave Dumas his benediction and several rosaries anct
crucifixes and the solemn playwright backed out of the holy presence.
A few days later— he had departed from Rome and was at

274 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Castcllana— Dumas was apprehended by Papal carabinicrs and
escorted to the border of the papal states. The Pope might welcome
him but the Pope's officials would do nothing of the sort Dumas
discovered that he had been denounced from Paris as a writer of
revolutionary plays and a member of the Polish Committee. With
some bravado he admitted the revolutionary plays but he swore up
and down that he had nothing to do with the Polish Committee.
Florence was his next destination and here he found the refuge
that was to be his second home for the rest of his life. Next to Paris
he adored Florence. "Florence" he exclaimed, "cst VEldorado de la
liberte individuelle" The month was June, the most charming of
all months in Northern Italy, and the ancient city was preparing for
the fetes of St. John. Flowers abounded, crowds of laughing and
gesticulating merry-makers filled the streets, music sounded. It was
all charming. It was even delightful to hear the many clocks in the
city strike the same hour for twenty minutes. "Why is that?" asked
Dumas, "why do they not coordinate time better here?" A nearby
Tuscan responded: "Que diable avcz-vous besom de savoir I'heurc
qu'il est?" It was true. Dumas settled down for some weeks of fine
eating, short jaunts to neighboring sites of interest and pleasurable
converse with the natives. The spell of Florence crept into his heart.
He would return year after year to this pleasant spot. But even so
he could not remain planted for any length of time, and charming
though Florence was, it was not many weeks before he was planning
an escape to other places. Together with Jadin and Mylord he engaged
a boat and sailed about Sicily and Southern Italy, even visiting Naples
again. He studied the Calabrian towns and expended a wealth of
classical quotations over Paestum and its vanished roses. He made
himself ill eating macaroni and polenta. He was caught in a terrific
storm at sea and enjoyed unexpected sensations. He climbed volcanic
slopes, ^Etna, Stromboli, and Mylord burned his paws on the way.
Mylord, indeed, was a problem at times. He killed so many cats
that it was necessary for Dumas to draw up a tariff of damages, pay-
ing off the indignant Sicilians at the rate of one franc per slaugh-
tered feline. At length, nearly two years having elapsed since he had
gazed upon the towers of Paris, Dumas started toward the French
capital. Waiting eagerly for him was the plump Ida whom he had

NOMAD 275

almost forgotten, his crippled mother who ventured forth very seldom
now, and a tall boy of twelve who called him father.

Dumas worked as he played, with an unremitting assiduity, and
it was not long before he had regained the ground in Paris that two
years' absence had sacrificed. He renewed old friendships, cultivated
new editors and play producers, crept again into the public prints,
manifested himself in the popular cafes and studios and scattered
his ban mots about the city. In March a five-act piece called Lc Mar-
quis dc Brunoy was produced at the Theatre des Varietes. Dumas,
though unnamed, had a hand in it. At the same time he was whip-
ping into shape more ambitious efforts, among them Kcan, written
in collaboration with Theaulon and Frederic de Courcy, and Don
Juan dc Marana, a mystery play. Parallel with these dramas was a
volume of romanticized historical incidents called Isabel de Bav&rc,
eight chapters of which had appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes.
It was during this period that Dumas had a falling out with Buloz
and ceased to contribute to his magazine.

Don Juan de Marana was presented at the Porte-Saint-Martin
theater on April 30, 1836. In a sense it marked the return of Dumas
to the Parisian stage, for it had been two years less a month since his
last acknowledged drama, Catherine Howard, had been produced.
The new play proved to be a curious resumption of activities, for it
was a "mysterc? a symbolical effort somewhat h la Calderon, a con-
glomeration of spirits sacred and profane with the scene shifting from
heaven to earth and once even to hell. Don Juan, he of Marana and
not the libertine of Tenorio, was fought over by good and evil spirits.
As usual Dumas, when he was in a hurry to produce something^
deliberately purloined a number of situations from other dramatists,
and the scoffing Parisian critics observed to their mingled irritation
and amusement, a musty and hollow mosaic based upon Prosper
M&imee's Les Ames du Purgatoire and exhibiting a decided indebt-
edness to Moliere, Shakespeare, Goethe, Hoffmann and Alfred de
Musset, One critic, the representative of the Journal des Dfbatf>
outlined an amusing sketch of these ransacked authors appearing in

276 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

phantom form one after the other like the ghosts in Richard 111 to
reproach Dumas. The light-fingered dramatist, however, went merrily
on his way, rejoiced in the spectacle of Ida Ferrier in the twin roles
of the Good Angel and Sister Martha— Ida had been waiting a long
time for a role worthy of her plump charms — and turned finally from
the problematical success of La chute d'un ange (the sub-tide of Don
Juan de Marana) to a subject which Theaulon seems to have con-
ceived, Kean, ou DSsordre et GSnie. Don Juan dc Marana was actually
no more than another betrayal of Dumas's intense desire to write
poetry and his inability to triumph in such a form.

Kean, ou Dtsordre et Genie, produced at the Theatre des Vari&es
on August 31, 1836, proved to be a decided success and a drama that
was to hold the stage for many years, thanks to the mimetic skill of
Frederic Lemaitre. It may be regarded as the last of the sequels to
Antony, a throwback to those studies of egotism that had placed
Dumas as an important French dramatist. This time it was a vivid
transcript of the artistic genius, that most arbitrary of all egotisms, for
Dumas, taking the figure of the great English actor, Edmund Kean,
refashioned him into a peculiarly French person, a character who
studied the effects of human passions on himself in order to represent
them with fierce fidelity in the mimic world of the theater. Kean,
therefore, is shown as a link between social extremes, a man carousing
in the "Coal Hole" with such questionable old friends as John Cooks,
le boxeur, and Ketty la blonde; and then as a reverse to this picture,
mingling with the aristocracy, defying Lord Mewill (Dumas's English
names were always astonishing) making passionate love to the
Comtesse de Koeff eld and finally insulting the Prince of Wales from
the stage of Drury Lane. This play is another example of Dumas's
skill in dramaturgy; it proved its long vitality through Charles Coch-
lan's adaptation of it, The Royal Box> a drama revived as recently as
1928 in New York. Dumas seems to have been unable to place Ida
Ferrier in Kean although he had been extolling her merits and begging
pleasant squibs about her from the journalists. After the semi-d£b&cle
of Don Juan de Marana she was to be found at the Theatre du Palais-
Royal for a short time, where on May a6th she appeared ia Anna and
Les Deux Frfres and on September i5th in Grain de sable.

With the success of Kean behind him and Isabel de Bavitre just

NOMAD 277

issued from the press of Dumont, Dumas could afford to relax for
the moment. The desire for a brief vacation from the whirl of Paris
dominated him. The opportunity came in the form of an invitation
from the young Due d'Orleans to be royalty's guest at the camp in
Compiegne. The end of 1836 found Dumas installed in the home of
a guardsman's widow, Madame d' Arras, at St. Corneille. Whenever
the due desired him at the chateau he sent down an invitation. This
cultivation of the Due d'Orleans led directly to a tentative rapproche-
ment between Dumas and Louis-Philippe.

One episode at Compiegne impressed itself vividly on the mind of
the sentimental dramatist. He had accompanied the young heir on a
hunting expedition and at its conclusion took part in a cold repast
that was laid out on the bright grass adjoining the chateau. The Due
begged Dumas to carve a cold pheasant that reposed before them
but the flattered guest refused and passed the knife to Pasquier, doctor
and surgeon to the due. Pasquier acquitted himself skillfully, and
d'Orleans, fallen into a state of abstract melancholy, observed the
shining knife and the dissected bird. His entourage regarded him
questioningly. "What am I thinking?" remarked the prince as he
roused himself. "I am thinking that in his line of duty as my doctor
Pasquier will one day arrange me as he has that pheasant." Less than
six years later the due, fatally injured in a carriage accident, died in
the arms of Pasquier, and it was this celebrated doctor who performed
the necessary autopsy on the body.

On May 30th the Due d*Orl£ans espoused the Princess Hel£ne of
Mecklenbourg-Schwerin and on the eleventh of June the marriage
took place, inaugurated by a grand f£te in the Mus£e Historique of
Versailles. Louis-Philippe celebrated the momentous occasion by
granting several decorations and when he saw Alexandre Dumas's
name on the list, suggested by the due, he promptly ordered it
removed. Louis-Philippe had not recovered from his irritation at his
former employee at the Palais-Royal and he did not intend to grant
the cross of the Legion of Honor to him. Two incidents, however,
caused him to change his mind. Victor Hugo's name was also on
the list and hearing that the name of his old comrade had beea

278 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

removed he forgot their differences long enough to announce that
he would not appear at the fete for his decoration unless this injustice
was repaired. Also, three days before the ceremony the good-natured
Due d'Orleans secreted Dumas in one of the galleries at Versailles
and when Louis-Philippe passed through, the playwright, forgetting
his Republican ferocity, rushed forward and prostrated himself before
the King. Louis-Philippe, half-pleased and half-irritated, leaned for-
ward and, in imitation of Napoleon, pinched Dumas's ear and mut-
tered, "Grown-up schoolboy!" The next day the name of Dumas was
replaced on the honors list.

When the crosses were presented, however, Dumas experienced the
tortures of a humiliated man. There was a grand cross for Arago;
Thierry and Victor Hugo received officers' crosses; Dumas was handed
a simple chevalier's decoration. At the same time another chevalier's
decoration was presented to some obscure person present. Dumas put
his cross in his pocket instead of immediately hanging it at his button-
hole. There was no reason for this exhibition of pique on his part.
He had been away from Paris two years. His return had been sig-
nalized by the solitary success of Kean, a drama essentially popular
in its qualities. His Republican ranting had estranged him from the
King. Actually he had much to be thankful for. The Parisian popu-
lace had taken him to its inconsistent heart again and he had achieved
a fair degree of intimacy with the Due d'Orleans. Louis-Philippe had
tweaked his ear, suffered his presence at the royal fetes and, at the
instigation of the due, to be sure, admitted him to the Legion of
Honor. The tactical errors he had committed as a boastful adherent
of the Republican cause appeared to have been forgotten. It was his
vanity that developed his feeling of grievance against fortune. Curi-
ously enough, this vanity seems to have been devoid of the elements
of personal jealousy. He could witness with smiling approbation the
heaping of honors upon others. Victor Hugo, he felt, deserved an
officer's cross; it was the imagined neglect of himself that perturbed
him. He showed his petulance, but his grievance did not last long.
Before many weeks had passed he put his injured pride behind him,
started an opira comiquc with Gerard de Nerval and adjusted himself
again to the continued composition of Caligula.

NOMAD 279

VI

The sallow-faced Buloz, who had recently been appointed commis-
sioner of the Theatre-Fran$ais, surrendered at last to the urgent plead-
ing and angry ultimatums of Dumas and drew up a contract for Ida
Ferrier. He engaged her at an annual salary of four thousand francs
for the period of one year to run from the first of October. Dumas
was delighted. He had engineered puffs for her in the daily press,
forced her rotund charms upon the ecstatically minded Theophile
Gautier and otherwise pushed her forward in the semi-Bohemian life
of his milieu. Ida does not seem to have deserved it all. She appears
to have been tempestuous in temperament, jealous-minded and griev-
ously limited as an actress. Her beauty was of the over-ripe variety —
perhaps a welcome contrast to the meager charms of the more famous
Parisiennes of the day — that could arouse Theophile Gautier to such
panegyrics as: "Quc dire dcs cheveux? Us sont les plus fins et Ics plus
abondants du mondcl DCS mains? Adorablcsl Des pieds? Minces
etdelicatsl De la figure? Ravissantel Ducou? Blanc et renfit comme
celui d'un cygnc! Des epaules? Divinesl De la tattle? Enfin nous y
voilbl Mile. Ida a en luxe et en cxots ce que la moitit des fernmes de
Paris n'a pas du tout; aussi Ics maigres de la trouver trop grasse, trap
puissante, et de dire que Mile. Ida n'a que la t&te" And so forth and
so on until the bewildered reader sinks beneath this flood of honey.
Other critics muttered comments on Ida's too evident callipygous
charms.

Ida was to make her debut in Caligula and by late summer rehears-
als were in progress at the Theatre-Frangais. Buloz determined to do
his best by the play and dispensed no less than thirty-nine thousand
francs (besides a prime of five thousand to Dumas as author) on the
production. There were several reasons for this generosity. Caligula
was, strange as it may seem, the first premiere of a full-length play
by Dumas at the Theatre-Frangais since Henri 111 et sa Cour in 1829*
Since that first triumph the national house of drama had produced
only the one-act Le Man de la Veuve in 1832. Dumas had not forgot-
ten the heartbreaking negotiations with the Th^atre-Fran^ais concern-
ing Christine and Antony and the engagement of Mademoiselle
Dorval It was necessary that the theater make a decided gesture d:

280 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

friendliness toward him. The theater, for its own part, realized the
need of a rapprochement, for Dumas was too famous to ignore, and
most important of all, he could fill the spectators' seats. Every effort
therefore was made to render Caligula a success- On October 31
Piquillo, the operetta Dumas had written in collaboration with Gerard
de Nerval and which had been set to music by Hippolyte Monpou,
was presented at the Opera-Comique. Its success was slight and'
proved but an interlude between the rehearsals of Caligula.

Caligula was produced on December 26, 1837, at the Thedtre-
Fran^ais with Ligier as the Emperor and the fair Ida as Stella. It
bored a large audience from the first, and long before Masalina's
melodramatic cry, "A moi ly empire et Vcmptreurl" Dumas Knew he
had written another failure. He had counted heavily upon the favor-
able reception of this tragedy which was mainly concerned with the
conversion by a Christian maiden of her pagan lover, and he was
bewildered by the disastrous reality. There was color and movement
in this p&cc h dtcor and the author could hardly realize his failure.
At the line, "]c te baptise au nom de la Trinite samtc" a voice from
the gallery roared, "Ah, the Jesuit!" It was followed by a storm of
hissing. Jadin, friend as ever to Dumas, dragged out one of the most
persistent hissers and discovered from him that he was one of the
regular claque and that he had received instructions from those actors
of the Theatre-Franfais who were not in the production to do all he
could to damn Caligula. Dumas, who had "squared" the leader of
the claque— an act not so much of bribery as necessity in those days-
was furious at this treachery. For days afterward whenever a smart
buck on the boulevards wanted to express his boredom he would say,
"You caligulate me, my dear boy." Jokes about Ida's callipygom
charms aroused guffaws in the cafes. The unfortunate tragedy ran
but twenty nights at the Theatre-Francis, each time at a loss, and
Mademoiselle Ida was cast in no more roles there, her contract being
quietly dropped. Once again Dumas had tasted the torment of humili-
ation in the Bastille of Racine. After the premiere he and Ida went
home, and viewed somewhat gloomily the bronze by Barye which
had been delivered with the cards of the Due and Duchesse d'Orf&ns.

The cold winter winds that blew along the boulevards and lashed

NOMAD 281

at the steamed windows of the cafes brought more than the chill of
the season with them. They brought the chill of death as well. The
first months of 1838 Dumas passed in quarreling with Ida, excusing
and vindicating Caligula, arranging two short tales, Pauline and
Pascal Bruno, in a volume for Dumont which he called La Salic
d'Armcs, and concocting a sequel to James Fenimore Cooper's The
Pilot which appeared under the title of Le Capitaine Paul. Dauzats,
the artist, had given him the idea for this last work. It was hurried
and his heart was not in it. He was brooding over his Odyssey at
the Theatre-Fran$ais. He was the unfortunate Odysseus steering
vaguely upon dangerous rocks. Now and then he went to the Arsenal
and called upon his old friend, Charles Nodier. Charles was always
the same, kindly, sympathetic, a spiritual father who smiled at the
vagaries of the dusky son. But even the Arsenal was not the same.
The old group had broken up, new faces were to be seen, and Dumas
began to feel that he was no longer a young man. He was thirty-six
years old. He had nearly twenty plays behind him and seven works
in prose. His son was fourteen years old, a tall boy whom he consid-
ered removing from boarding-school. It would be pleasant to have
Alexandre fils near him. His daughter, Marie-Alexandre, was seven
years old and she sometimes came to stay with him although Ida
Ferrier hated her and made it unpleasant for the child. Somewhere
in the misty world outside of his interests were Marie-Catherine
Lebay, Melanie Waldor, Bell Krebsamcr and even "the little DorvaL"
They were all growing old. He felt intensely depressed as he sat at
his desk in the rue Bleu and heard the chill winds with their prophecy
of death rise to the hurly-burly of March blasts and sink again to the
pleasanter breezes of April. The chestnut buds came out on the trees
along the boulevards and the sun shone again. May melted into June
and the bright-skirted women walked in the Tuileries Gardens as
they had walked during the year of the cholera epidemic. July with
the wild festivities of its Bastille Day moved toward the tonidncss
of August and the prophecy of death was fulfilled.

An excited messenger knocked at the doors of the house in the
rue Bleu on the first day of August. He brought word that Madame
Dumas had been stricken down for a second time with apoplexy, this
time with apoplexie foudroyante. Dumas ran to the Faubotirg du

282 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Roule and found his mother senseless. His cries seemed to pierce her
dulled brain and she opened her eyes and appeared to recognize him.
The distracted man seized a pen and scribbled a note to the Due
d'Orl&ns and then sat down by his mother's bed and watched the
ominous course of the malady. Marie Elizabeth Labouret seemed to
be withering away before his eyes. An hour passed and he heard
the scraping wheels of a carriage pause before the door and an instant
later a voice saying, "De la part du prince royal" Dumas started up
and went into the next room where he found the valet dc chambrc
of the Due d'Orleans waiting to inquire about Madame Dumas.
"Very badly," replied Dumas in reply to the man's question, "There
is no hope for her." The servant hesitated and then explained that
the Due himself was below in his carriage. Dumas hurried down the
stairs. The door of the carriage was open, and staggering toward it
the playwright fell with his head on the knees of the prince royal.
"I do not know how long I remained there," Dumas wrote in his
memorial of the due several years later. "All I know is that the night
was beautiful and serene and that, through the pane of the opposite
door, I saw the glittering stars of Heaven."

CHAPTER THREE

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO
I

DUMAS moved forlornly through a kbyrinth of obsessive memories
for several days after the death of his mother* He realized that he had
neglected her during recent years and his guilty conscience perturbM
and aroused him to a painful self-examination. While he had paraded
through Time and partaken of all the sensorial pleasures of existence
he had relegated her to the dismal loneliness of her chambers. Life
had broadened out for him as it had narrowed for her: which was,
he realized bitterly, the law of the young and the old. Yet he had
always possessed the comfortable feeling that she was there some-
where just outside of his orbit, that he might turn a corner or two,
climb a few narrow flights of stairs, open a door, and find her, quiet,
crippled, smiling at the sunlight that poured through the window,
and waiting with that sublime patience that is the bulwark of old
people against despair. She would be waiting for him, of course.
Because she had been there he had not missed her. The fact that he
did not see her was a trivial fact. The consciousness of her existence
was enough. But now she was no longer there and he missed her
terribly, missed her with that agitation of mingled shame and longing
that was a part of his inconsistent nature. Tears blinded him as he
recalled her patient expression and her self-denials. Amaury Duval
had completed a drawing of Madame Dumas shortly after her death,
and Dumas, observing it on the desk before him, drew it toward him
and inscribed beneath it these lines:

Ohl mon Dicul dans cc mondc ou toutc bouchc nic>
0& chacun fault aux picds Ics Tables de la Lot,

283

284 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Vous m'avez entendu, pendant son agonic,
frier a deux genoux, le coeur ardent de foi.
Vous m'avcz vu, mon Dieu, sur la junebre route
Ou la mort me courbait devant un crucifix,
Et vous avcz comptS les pleurs qui, goutte a goutte,
Ruisselaient de mes yeux aux pieds de votre Fils.
Je dcmandais, mon Dieu, quc, moms vite ravie,
Vous retardiez V instant de mon dernier adieu;
Pour rocketer scs jours, je vous offrais ma vie,
Vous riavez pas voulu, soyez beni, mon Dieul

How sorrowful it all was and how sympathetic his friends had been
to him! Amaury Duval, Jadin, Gerard de Nerval, even Victor Hugo.
He had written to Hugo, a trifle timidly, inviting him to assist at the
funeral obsequies and Hugo's response had been immediate. "I would
have wished a less sad occasion to shake your hand," wrote the Sun-
God. "You will see tomorrow, as soon as we gaze into each other's
face, that you were wrong ever to have doubted me. I will be at your
house tomorrow at the hour you name. You have done well to count
on me. It is a return of noble confidence worthy of you and worthy
of me. Your friend, Victor." So they had stood shoulder to shoulder
while the body, light as a child's, had been borne from the room, and
ridden in the same coach behind the black-plumed horses.

Durnas's sad reveries over his mother awakened memories of his
father. How steadfastly she had stood beside that worthy man and
comforted him as he sat wearily in the poverty-stricken rooms in
Villers-Cotterets and gazed silently at the dusty sword on the wall!
Mont-Cenis! The bridge of Clausen! The twisting streets of Cairo!
He had been a hero, a dusky Hercules, le diable noir. A pride tinged
with sadness swelled in the bosom of Dumas. All France was scat-
tered with marble memorials to the marechaux who had fought with
the Emperor but nowhere was there a statue of General Alexandre
Dumas. There should be one, a lofty figure, but not in thankless and
short-memoried France. It should be in the land of his birth, in the
island of black men like him, in Haiti. Under the stress of emotion
Dumas addressed an open letter to the Haitians (obviously a reply
to a group of Haitians in France who had sent him their condolences

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 285

on the death of Madame Dumas, and, perhaps, awakened this chain
of thought) suggesting methods by which a subscription might be
raised with which to commission and erect a statue in Haiti to the
memory of General Alexandrc Dumas. The son thought that the
subscriptions should be limited to men of color, to negroes, and that
each one should donate no more than a franc. The project came to
nothing but the gesture was not without its pathetic side.

The warm days succeeded one another and Dumas's first passion
of sorrow gradually lifted. He could not resist the appeal of the
Parisian streets and theaters. For instance, the Bayaderes were exciting
the public with their strange music and Oriental dances. While
Saravana played the cymbals and lifted his mysterious eyes upward
Tille, Amany, Soundiren and Rangoun danced, their brown bodies
giving off a pleasant scent of musk. Jullien, the chef d'orchestre at
the Cafe Turc, conducted his famous Valse dc Rosita and the bour-
geoisie of the Marais whirled to it. At the Theatre-Fran^ais a dark
young Jewess named Rachel had just made her debut in Horace.
La Taglioni had recently been reengaged to dance at the Opera and
Fanny Essler was delighting the critics, among them Theophile
Gautier, with her versions of the mazurka and the cracovicnne. Along
the boulevards passed animated crowds, the men — influenced by the
Saint-Simonians — wearing their hair long and the women swaying
beneath the First Empire turbans which had come again into fashion.
All of this was pleasing and yet it left Dumas still restless and per-
turbed in spirit. Finally, he decided that he would go away for a time,
that he would forget his grief in the stranger diversions of foreign
cities. He had but little money and in order to raise more he drama-
tized Lc Cafitainc Paul, a few days' work, and took the script to his
old friend, Porcher, who accepted it somewhat reluctantly as collateral
for a loan. With the welcome cash safely stowed away Dumas made
immediate preparations for departure. First of all, there were long
discussions with Gerard de Nerval. Dumas had decided that it should
be Germany this time, the blue smiling waters of the Rhine and the
sweet sentimentalities of the blond Teutons who drank beer and read
Goethe and adored music. Le bon Gtrard, who knew all about Ger-
many, promised to meet Dumas there; Ida Ferrier hastily purchased
a traveling outfit and some new gowns; Dumas secured several

286 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

of introduction that would open important doors to him; and the
way was clear for another auspicious departure from the city by the
Seine.

On August twentieth Dumas, accompanied by the fair Ida, started
for the pleasant shores of the Rhine by way of Belgium. He went for
three reasons. The nomadic instinct, suppressed for some time,
asserted its dominance again. His grief over his mother's death and
the debacle of Caligula made Paris unbearable for him. Germany,
the land of Goethe and Schiller and Lorelei and enchanted castles
dreaming on sunny crags, called him in the sweet voice of romance.
It was delightful to be on the road once more, to be jouncing over
country thoroughfares in the creaking diligence while placid towns,
their red roofs shining, and brown-armed reapers in the hot sun
slowly slid by. The weather was flawless and his heavy spirits lifted
as he gazed out at the rich green of the meadows over which the
battalions of Napoleon had once tramped, listened abstractedly to
the pleasant chatter of Ida Ferrier whose essentially urban mind
discovered infinite curiosities in the panoramic farmlands, and antici-
pated with agreeable expectations the meeting with Gerard de Nerval
who was to join him at Frankfort-on-Main. The gentle and fantastic
spirit of de Nerval appealed to him just as his own gusty, humor-
loving and active temperament charmed the unworldly and dreamlike
mind of the poet. He was sk years older than le bon Gtrard, more
experienced in the ways of the social world but far less attuned to
those mysteries of the spirit, those maladies of the soul that were to
force de Nerval into an insane asylum within three years. Already
the love of the gods cast its eery light over the poet. The communion
between the two men was unusual because they were poles apart, yet
it was not difficult to understand.

Brussels delighted Dumas. He engaged rooms at the Hotel de la
Reine de Suede, ambitiously studied and made notes on the facade
and interior of Van Ruisbroek's Hotel de Ville, gazed up at the soaring
towers of Sainte-Gudule, stood solemnly before the recently erected
tomb of Comte Frederic de Merode in the exquisite chapel of Notre-
Dame de la D£livrance, laughed at the Rabelaisian spectacle of the
famous fountain of the Manneken-Piss, visited the palais of the Prince

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 287

d'Orange, and wandered through the curious streets, dining in the
tiny restaurants and discussing Belgian history with the red-faced
natives. Garbed in his finest coat and his tallest hat he called upon
King Leopold and was referred to the summer palace at Laeken, to
which place he immediately traveled and was cordially received by
the ruler. He made the usual pilgrimage to the field of Waterloo and
meditated, as all Frenchmen do, on the reasons for God's champion-
ship of Wellington and Bliicher, At Anvers he stood with bowed
head before the tomb of Peter Paul Rubens and at Bruges, before the
brown belfry in the market-place, he recalled the Foresters of Flanders,
Lyderic du Bucq and Guy de Dampierre. Receiving an invitation
from King Leopold he attended the Jubilee of Malines, a religious
celebration honoring Notre Dame d'Hanswyck who had, according
to ecclesiastical authorities, evinced her predilection for the people of
Malines for eight hundred and fifty years. He went to Liege and
inspected the formidable fortifications of the city that had once been
destroyed by Charles the Bold. At Aix-la-Chapelle, the gateway to
Teutonic lands, he held his head high in memory of Charlemagne.
It was time to enter Germany, to sail along the blue waters of the
Rhine, to meet Gerard de Nerval at Frankfort-on-Main. This Belgian
tour had impressed on Dumas again the spectacular qualities and
lifting romance of historical times.

He arrived in Cologne at ten o'clock in the evening, tired and
soiled with travel, and discovered that the unlucky wanderer who
enters a hotel during the hours indues is caught like a mouse in a
trap. The door closes behind him and he must remain captive until
the next morning. He cannot go out again. Dumas, somewhat of
a noctambulist, resented this for he desired to have his first glimpse
of the great cathedral by moonlight. However, the imposing and
unfinished bulk proved quite as astounding by day and the excited
traveler passed many hours wandering through the aisles, watching
the craftsmen laboring like bees within a huge hive, climbing to the
dome and observing the surrounding streets from that inspiring
height, and gathering the many legends that clustered about this
Gothic temple whose corner-stone had been laid by Archbishop
Conrad of Hostaden in 1248. The Medieval Ages seemed to blossom
into a phantom life in Cologne. Robert of Deutz, Caesarius of Hei*

288 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

terbach, Duns Scotus and Blessed Albertus Magnus traversed the
winding streets again. The armed burghers marched out to the bloody
field of Worringen and the enraged weavers rose furiously against
the tyrannical patricians. Dumas would like to have remained longer
in the city where Clovis had been crowned but his rendezvous with
de Nerval drew near and he departed reluctantly from the ghosts of
the past. He passed through Coblentz and admired the gloomy walls
of Ehrenbreitstein and eventually reached Frankfort-on-Main. There
was no fantastic Gerard there. However, there was the famous
Pfarrturm of the Cathedral of Saint Bartholomew to admire, the
Liebfrauenkirche, and the Church of the Teutonic Knights. Through
the streets patrolled the Prusso-Austrian troops who had been there
since the riot of 1833. The populace had heard of the great Dumas
and the noble families of the city were assiduous in paying attentions
to him. Dumas, with Ida Ferrier on his arm, passed gaily through
the social functions and made majestic appearances at the theater.
He squandered money (the cash he had borrowed from Porcher),
exhibited Ida in costly and startling costumes, ate enormously, and,
incidentally, paid his respects to the house where Goethe had written
a portion of Wcrther, After some weeks news came from Gerard
de Nerval. He was stranded in Strasbourg with a single franc. Le bon
Gerard, after all, was a true poet.

Money was hastily forwarded, and, after some days, Gerard de
Nerval turned up in Frankfort-on-Main, none the worse for his penni-
less predicament He greeted Dumas with a sweet smile, kissed the
white hand of Ida Ferrier, and began his rambles about the city.
There were discussions as to the possibilities of collaborating on one
or more plays, and, because of de Nerval's intimate knowledge of
German life, letters, and history, both men decided to limit their
efforts to a Teutonic theme. A drama based on Karl-Ludwig Sand's
sensational murder of Kotzebue in 1819 appealed particularly to
Dumas and he insisted on visiting the scene of the assassination at
Mannheim, talking with the executfimer, gazing upon the fatal sword,
and collecting material about the excited students who dipped their
handkerchiefs in Sand's blood after the mad idealist's head had been
dissevered. What Gerard dc Nerval thought of this gory subject is
a mystery. Most of the time his mind was probably far away dans la

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 289

grotte ou nagc la sirtne. So discussing possible themes, exhausting
them, and creating others the two curious friends, one all earth and
gusto and the other all air and witch-fire, passed through Heidelberg,
Carlsruhe and Baden-Baden. With them went the fair Ida. In the
terrain of the Grand Duke Leopold, Dumas received unexpected and
irritating news. Porcher, doubtless aware that his loan would never
be repaid, had sold the script of Paul Jones, the drama Dumas had
hastily concocted from Le Capitaine Paul, to an obscure theater called
the Pantheon and there on October twelfth the play had been pro-
duced and had failed. Dumas was enraged. The Theatre du Pan-
theon, indeed! An old church turned into a hall of entertainment
where they offered such fare as Dennery and Granger's Lcs Peiits
Souliers, ou la Prison de Saint-Crepin and Paul de Kock's Le Pompier
et l'1-Lcaillerel It was plain enough how this had happened. Theodore
Nezel, the director of this obscure theater, was the nephew of Porcher.
There was nothing to be done except to rush back to Paris before the
last tags of his prestige had been torn from him by over-zealous
creditors, friends and enemies; so Dumas interrupted his leisurely
peregrination of the Duchy of Baden, postponed his playwriting
projects with Gerard de Nerval, saw to it that Ida's bags and trunks
were packed, and turned his anxious face toward the city that delighted
and depressed him. It was autumn when he reached the boulevards
again and this time he settled in the rue de Rivoli, at twenty-two.
He cast up his debts and found them appalling. How could they
swell as such a rate? There was something miraculous about it.
Blithely, however, he settled down to work. The ravens of his own
ingenuity must be made to provide for him, and, as they were indus-
trious birds, he had no particular fear for the future.

The intensity with which Dumas labored when it became a struggle
for bread and cheese (or rather, in his case, rich sauces and fancy
ices) continued unabated through the winter of 1838 and far into the
spring of 1839. Anything that turned up became grist for his indus-
trious mill. Creative inspirations, newspaper squibs, plays, transla-
tions and novels issued pell-mell from the quarters in the rue de
Rivoli where the unwearying pen squeaked ceaselessly. Ida yawned
and wandered helplessly about the rooms but the bushy head bf
Dumas did not rise from the desk until the determined stint had been

290 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

accomplished. Such sustained assiduity was not without its reward
and the exceedingly flat wallet of Dumas began to swell perceptibly.
Destiny sometimes manifests itself in strange ways. Two occur-
rences, slight in themselves, became straws of fate showing which
way the winds of fortune were blowing for the author. In Acte he
wrote his first historical romance, for Isabel de Baviere had been only
a compilation. And Gerard de Nerval had brought to him a play
by a young man named Auguste Maquet. Maquet was a scholarly
youth, born on December 13, 1813, *m Paris- He had studied at the
College de Charlemagne, taught there for a brief period and then,
failing to achieve a professor's appointment about 1835, had turned to
literature* In 1830 he had been one of the young men who had
roared the loudest at the premiere of Victor Hugo's Hernani. At that
time he was known as MacKeat and for some time after he had pub-
lished verses under that anglicised name. Gerard de Nerval had
found a kindred spirit in him and the two men had become close
friends and collaborators. During 1837 Maquet had composed a drama
called Un Soir de Carnavd which Gerard had read and decided
because of its flaws to take to Dumas, who, after all, was a supreme
technician. Dumas arranged Un Soir de Carnavd into actable form,
renamed it Bathildc, placed it for production at the Theatre de la
Renaissance (Salle Ventadour) with the proviso that Ida Ferrier enact
the principal role, and generously suppressed his own name as a col-
laborator. Bathilde had its premiere on January 14, 1839, *&& scored
a fair success, to the great delight of Maquet who saw his name on
placards for the first time. Intoxicated with dreams of future glory
he betook his tall figure and mousquetaire moustaches to the Biblio-
th£que and started to extract material from that rich source for a
romance on the conspiracy of Cellamare. The extraordinarily pic-
turesque qualities of French history appealed to him, too.

April brought no less than three premieres at three different
theaters. Not one of the plays had been composed by Dumas alone,
but in each case he had been the dominating factor. On the second
of the month Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, written from an idea sub-
mitted him by Brunswick, was produced at the Th^atre-Fran^ais
with no less a star than Mademoiselle Mars (she was sixty years olid) ;

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 291

on the tenth L'Alchimiste, a drama written in collaboration with
Gerard de Nerval and plainly inspired by Milman's Fazio, was pre-
sented at the Theatre de la Renaissance with Ida Ferrier sharing the
honors with Frederic Lemaitre; and on the sixteenth Leo Burcfart,
a second collaboration with Gerard de Nerval, was ushered into life
at the Porte-Saint-Martin theater. It was a full month but its para-
mount importance was due to Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle. This play,
a volte-face in relation to his previous dramatic endeavors, established
Dumas as a distinguished author of comedy, and it still holds its
place in the repertoire of the Theatre-Fran^ais. Dumas had recited
it — there had not been time to write it out — to the committee of the
national theater and they had accepted it unanimously. This sparkling
comedy of intrigue in an artificial milieu of aristocratic sophistication
is one of the landmarks of French drama. The double-motived plot
is concerned with (i) the wager of the Due de Richelieu that he will
secure a compromising assignation with the first woman he meets,
and (2) Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle's attempt with the aid of the
Marquis de Prie to rescue her father and brother from the Bastille;
and it moves with a surprising grace and agility, the romantic ele-
ments of which Dumas was so much a master being woven into a
complicated pattern which scintillates with witty dialogue and unex-
pected situations. The shade of Beaumarchais must have smiled at
this drama.

The success of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle changed the complexion
of things for Dumas. The Theatre-Frangais granted the author a
prime of five thousand francs beyond his royalties. Queen Christine
of Spain, to whom for some unexplained reason Dumas had sent the
original manuscript of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, responded with the
cordon of a Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic. As
usual with him, he began to lessen his labors and strut forth once
more along the boulevards where he was eyed admiringly by the
younger men and lighter women. He patronized the best caf£s; he
made his appearance at beds with Ida Ferrier (and sometimes other
women) clinging to his arm. He bought bric-a-brac and jewels, and
loaned money to his penniless friends with majestic recklessness. His
vanity suggested still greater triumphs and he began to cast an envious
eye toward the Academy. To Buloz he wrote: "Mention me, theft,

292 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

in the Revue for the Academy and ask yourself how it is that I am
not there when A ... (Ancelot?) is a candidate." He announced
to his friends that he had written Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle with a
packet of pens that had been sent to him by the Due d'Orleans when
that prince royal had married. Friends laughed and friends admired.
Friends also began to murmur about the plump Ida, her extrava-
gances, her mannerisms and her shameless bids for publicity. Dumas
did not hear or ignored these remarks and continued to parade her
about Paris while the dandified Roger de Beauvoir, an old acquaint-
ance and friend of the playwright, curled his moustache contempla-
tively and observed Ida's callipygous grace sway by.

Dumas conducted his inamorata to one bal too many, however. One
evening he presented himself at an affair given by the Due d'Orleans
and, either ignorant of or dismissing any question of etiquette, ven-
tured to present her to his patron. The Due d'Orleans was an amiable
young man who had been amused often enough by the divagations
of Dumas but this was too much. It was also too public. "It is quite
understood," he remarked rather icily to the astonished playwright,
"that you could present to me only your wife." Dumas, who had
understood nothing of the sort, returned to the rue de Rivoli in a
contemplative mood. The due's intimation was tantamount to a
command, which, if disobeyed, would certainly mean the loss of a
valuable friend and the cessation of important patronage. Dumas
gazed attentively at Ida, who, divested of her elaborate ball-gown,
was moving like some full-breasted swan about the room. Well, why
not? He had lived with her for seven years. On the whole, he had
adjusted himself to her admirably. It was true that she displayed
jealousy occasionally and that she was rather selfish in her demands;
but then, all women were like that. Jealousy was the ultimate com-
pliment from a woman to a man and selfishness was a congenital
feminine trait. Besides, she was better-looking than most women.
Her rotundity might be a trifle pronounced but there was something
attractively Oriental about it; she was not like the meager desmoiselles
of Paris who gloried in an exceeding slimness that was positively
unhealthy. No wonder Theophile Gautier rose to lyric raptures when
he enumerated her charms. No wonder Roger de Beauvoir curled

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 293

his moustaches a trifle agitatedly when she entered the room. Then
there was the old Duchesse d'Abrantes, now dead, who had approved
of Ida and suggested time and again that he should marry, have
legitimate children, and establish a settled household. That was an
argument for the marriage for the Duchesse had possessed many
lovers and knew whereof she spoke. The time came when the blood
flowed slower and the twilight of pantouftes darkened the ultimate
horizon. Dumas began seriously to consider this problem of marriage
as the summer merged into the autumn and the autumn faded into
the whiteness of winter. At the Gaite they produced Les Chevaux du
Carrousel, ou le Dernier jour de Venue, a play introducing Napoleon,
by Paul Foucher, Victor Hugo's brother-in-law, and Alboize; but
this did not divert Dumas from his matrimonial meditations. Virginie
Dejazet pleased Paris at the Theatre du Palais-Royal as Richelieu in
Les Premises armes de Richelieu toward the beginning of December;
still Dumas considered Ida and the possibilities of a legalized menage
with her. He thought about it as he hastily flung together the pages
that made up his contributions to Les Crimes Celebres. The Due
d'Orleans had put him in a fine position, indeed. Alexandre fils, now
fifteen years old, made a noisy appearance in the rue de Rivoli but
if Dumas entertained any thoughts about Marie-Catherine Lebay he
kept them to himself. He still hesitated to make this extraordinary
gesture of marriage. Could he, by any manner of ratiocination, con-
vince himself that he was adapted to the role of a husband? Then,
quite unexpectedly, a convincing argument crushed all his doubts.
Ida's guardian bought up his old debts and threatened to use them
as a weapon to protect the honprable future of Mademoiselle Ferrier.
That settled it; he would get married, then. He would get married
in the Chapel of the Chamber of Peers and he would have famous
men surrounding him as he ceased to be a free man.

The ceremony took place on February 5, 1840, in the Chapel of the
Chamber of Peers, as Dumas had planned. Ida Ferrier appeared
elaborately gowned and coiffed, and Dumas, a trifle plumper than
the Dumas who had ventured upon Paris seventeen years before,
strode importantly to the altar accompanied by his famous witnesses*
They were Chateaubriand, old and slyly smiling; Villemain, some-
what puzzled and out of place; Charles Nodier, a trifle ironical in

294 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

his bearing; and Roger de Beauvoir, faultlessly clad and perfumed*
Several young comtes dressed the background The sacred words
were spoken and Chateaubriand advanced slowly to bless the pre-
sumably blushing bride. As he lifted his thin hands he noticed that
she had dcs chases considerables a mettre dans son corset. The old
author of the Genie du Christianisme thought of the fallen kings he
had blessed and turning to Roger de Beauvoir muttered: "You see,
my destiny does not change. Even at this moment all that I bless
falls." Roger de Beauvoir curled his moustache and smiled.

There was a short interim between the marriage of Dumas and his
hegira to Florence. One day he met Prosper Merimee on the boule-
vard and the meticulous disciple of Stendhal and author of the chroni-
cle of the reign of Charles IX asked Dumas why he was not busy on
another comedy of the genre of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle for the
Theatre-Fran^ais. "Because I have not been asked," replied the new
benedict proudly. Merimee walked away smiling, for he, like most
of the more serious writers in Paris, enjoyed the expansive boyishness
and naive vanities of Dumas. A few days later Dumas received a
formal order for a new comedy from M. de Remusat, the French
Minister for the Interior. The wit of the new husband continued
to delight Paris and furnish numerous squibs for the journalists. One
evening he appeared at M, d'Argout's home for dinner festooned
with several decorations, among them the ribbon of a certain order
of which he had recently been created commander. M. Chaix d'Est-
Ange, the lawyer, who was present, remarked enviously: "My dear
Dumas, that ribbon is of a villainous color. One would think that
it was your woolen vest peeping out." "Not at all," replied the
playwright. "It is the same green as that of the grapes in the fable."
Another time, Adolphe Dumas, a minorr dramatist whose Camp des
Croises had been produced at the Theatre-Frangais, met the author
of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle in the foyer and ran up to him ejacu-
lating: "It will soon be said 'the two Dumas' as they now; say 'the two
Corneille.'" "Good-evening, Thomas," responded Dumas. Thomas
was the decidedly lesser-known brother of the great Pierre Corneille.
It was during this short period of de Bergerac-like swaggering that
Villemessant, the founder of Figaro, first described the appearance

CHATEAUBRIAND

The old father of Romanticism was a witness at the
wedding of Dumas

ETIENNE MELINGUE
As the Angel of Evil in Don Juan de Marana

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 295

of Dumas. A concert was arranged at Herz's Hall for the benefit of
Sylphidc, the journal conducted by Villemessant at that time, and it
was rumored that Alexandre Dumas was to make an appearance.
Scores of expectant eyes were turned toward the door instead of the
platform where the industrious musicians scraped away and a murmur
of pleasure interrupted the melody when the quadroon dramatist
entered the hall. The audience stood up to view him better and
Dumas passed slowly down the aisle as though he had been a king
at his own levtc, shaking hands indiscriminately, nodding majesti-
cally, and greeting people he had never seen before. Villemessant
described him as tall and the finished type of cavalier, the negroid
heaviness of his features lightened by sparkling blue eyes, his solid
shoulders and sturdy stature suggesting one of the Russian Life
Guards. "He displayed in his person the perfection of many races,"
noted the journalist, "the impetuosity of the blood of Africa had been
toned down by the elegance of European culture." It is instructive
to bear this friendly portrait in mind in view of what the malevolent
Jacquot was to write five years later.

About this time Auguste Maquet reappeared from his long immer-
sion in dusty historical tomes. Dumas met him one day on the boule-
vards and accosted him heartily, asking the timid and scholarly
minded fellow if he had any little thing up his sleeve that might be
worked into a play or a book. "I want to make a role for Rouffe at
the Gymnase," Maquet admitted that he possessed a manuscript, the
result of his delving into the historical complexities of the conspiracy
of Cellamare, which he called Bonhommc Buvat. He would gladly
surrender it to Dumas for he had striven in vain to place it in various
publications. If Dumas would . . . The young man (he was but
twenty-seven) stood on one foot and then on the other. Of course
Dumas would ... He requested Maquet to send the manuscript to
his house. To know Auguste Maquet at this time predicates the
understanding that he was primarily a journeyman scribbler, that he
was an exceedingly shy youth with a wholesome respect for the
dominance of Dumas's personality and ability, and, that while he was
ambitious, he was wisely so. He was content at this period to remain
a secondary figure, to achieve an adequate subsistence by the modest
path of journalism an<J hack-writing. He had been willing to collabo-

296 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

rate with Gerard de Nerval and see his own name suppressed. He
was equally willing to collaborate with Dumas on the same conditions.
There is a neat little problem here that appears to be not so much the
result of an inferiority complex as an intelligent understanding
that his prime function, at least for the present, was that of assistant,
that he knew his limitations and understood that he was primarily
a research-worker and not a creator. There is no reason to believe
that he did not welcome the long noviciate of collaboration with
Dumas that started so auspiciously in 1840. He could afford to wait
and profit by the literary comradeship of the stronger nature. After
that noviciate he had imbibed so much of the technique and gusto
of the older man that he could stand on his own legs— but rather
tremblingly— and a slowly awakened self-pride and vanity did the
rest. But this Auguste Maquet of the later years had been created by
Alexandre Dumas. In the early 1840$ such an independence wa$ very
far from him although he did publish two books of his own. His
measure may be taken from Le Beau d'Augennes (1843) and Les Deux
Trahisons (1844). Even in these works he probably had the benefit
of consultations with Dumas. Excepting these two independent ven-
tures the literary life of Maquet from 1840 to the publication of
La Belle Gabrielle in 1853 was one of partnership with stronger
natures, with Dumas in the sixteen romances, with Arnould and
Alboize in the Histoire de la Bastille (1844), with Alboize in Les
Prisons de I'Europe (1844-46), and with Jules Lacroix in the play
called Valeria (1851).

Florence continued to call Dumas in the most tantalizing manner
and by June he had written to a friend explaining that his future
address would be that Italian city. A few weeks later he was settled
with Ida in the via Arondinelli, his habitation being rented to him
by an English acquaintance named Cooper who was attached to the
British Embassy. It was delightful in Florence. The sun shone
steadily; Ida had not yet taken her wedded state too much for granted;
the macaronis were drowned in the most delectable sauces; a few
friends raised the supper parties to amusing symposiums; the days
were long and beautifully adapted to writing. After his period of
swaggering through the boulevards of Paris, Dumas recognized the

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 297

necessity of intensive and swift writing and settled himself to it with
that sustained application that he could command always when need
was his driver. First of all, there was the play to be written for the
Theatre-Francis and he started at once on Un Manage sous Louis XV,
another comedy on the order of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle. It is
possible that he received suggestions for this drama from his old
friend, Adolphe de Leuven, who now held a modest place among
the minor dramatists of Paris, and Lherie (Brunswick), who had
brought him the beginning of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle. Then there
was a mass of manuscript that Grisier, his old fencing master, had
turned over to him. It was a jumbled account of Grisier's recent tour
of Russia and imbedded in it was a charming love-story which Dumas,
with his eye for effect, extracted, played up, and made the most
engrossing part of Le Maitre d'Armes. By far the most important
literary production of this busy period, however, was the rewriting
and extension of Auguste Maquet's modestly surrendered Bonhomme
Buvat, which flowered beneath the pen of Dumas into four absorbing
volumes and appeared eventually in Le S&cle under the familiar title
of Le Chevalier d'Harmentd. This romance is exceptionally impor-
tant as a land-mark in the career of Dumas for in it for the first time
and completely may be found all those qualities that bulwark the
fame of the novelist today. It was the open door into those vast fields
of French historical romance wherein Dumas was to browse so
delightedly for the next ten years. Maquet possessed the key, — his
research ability and eye for material; with that key the portal to the
great future of Dumas was swung open.

All this activity (and no adjective fits it except furious) reveals one
important fact, — the evident shift of Dumas* interest from the stage
to the printed book. He who had been a playwright up to his thirty-
sixth year, who had passed the formative years of his life in concocting
dramas of all sorts, comedies, tragedies, verse-plays, vaudevilles, comic
operas, and melodramas, was now reaching out toward a more ambi-
tious field of endeavor. The Time-Spirit was urging him to it. The
great plains of fiction, plains dotted with the historical debris of the
past, stretched before him fair and inviting and he rushed into them
like a gusty bandit taking what he desired, calmly "lifting" material
if it suited his purpose, polishing, cutting, making "readable.*' He

298 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

was a vulgarisateur — he said it himself years later — and he gloried in
this function that was to make him the delight of countless millions
of common people all over the world. Though he might regret that
he was not a penseur like Victor Hugo or a rcveur like Lamartine he
still possessed an indisputable genius, — the astounding ability to create
live figures that continued to live in the minds of his readers through
the most vivid and unforgettable adventures. He possessed a quality
that Mr. George Saintsbury called Dutnasity. He was unconstrainedly
natural and primitively emotional and blessed with a constantly
agreeable wit and the delectable insouciance of the born raconteur.
Already these traits revealed themselves in his prose, in the excellently
conceived historical novel, Acte, in the sparkling pages of Lc
Capitaine Pamphile, above all, in the first maturity of Lc Chcvdier
d'Harmentd. Captain Roquefinette was the first of a long line of
swashbuckling heroes. The master feuilletoniste was budding rapidly
and the period of bourgeoning was but two or three years away.
Back in Paris Auguste Maquet, ignoring the excitement over Hector
Berlioz's concert at the Salle Vivienne and the production of George
Sand's Cosima at the Theatre-Fran^ais, was already at work on
another historical romance to be called Sylvandirc, which would give
a glimpse of the court of Louis XIV in his later days, under the
domination of Madame de Maintenon. He would turn the first rough
draft of this work over to his great new friend. At the same time
the canny editors of the more important periodicals began to take
notice of the increasing interest displayed by the public in serialized
stories.

Spurred toward the capital by sentimental loyalties and the usual
impending squabble with the Theatre-Frangais, Dumas appeared in
Paris in season to pay his New Year's devoirs to the Due d'Orleans.
The writer had apparently forgiven the prince for forcing him into
marriage. The prince received him graciously and even sent for his
young son, the tiny Comte de Paris, and presented the ebullient writer
to the child. Dumas kissed the infinitesimal fingers of the illustrious
heir, who, for his part, found the novelist more amusing than a danc-
ing bear. Either in emulation of the fair Ida or because of the rich
polentas a&d succulent tj&woms of Florence, Dumas was rapidly

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 299

losing his tall athletic figure and achieving a suspicious rotundity.
"Make a wish for my son," suggested the due and Dumas solemnly
volunteered, "May it be a long time before he becomes a king." "You
are right," returned the due. "It is a villainous calling*" "It is not
because of that that I have made this wish," explained Dumas. "It is
because he cannot become king until after the death of Your High-
ness," "Oh, I can die now," answered the due sombrely. "With the
mother that he possesses he will be raised as though I were here."
Then, extending his hand towards the quarters of the Duchesse
d'Orleans, he said, "It is a quinc (five winning numbers) that I gained
in the lottery,'* There were a few more words, principally about a
history of the famous French regiments that the due had commis-
sioned Dumas to write, and the author took his departure convinced
that the meditative Due d'Orleans was more Hamlet-like than even
During this same January of 1841 Dumas made another attempt
for a jauteuil in the Academy. Victor Hugo had been elected on the
seventh of the month to the chair left vacant by the death of the
ancient enemy of Romanticism, Nepomucene Lemercier, and this had
quickened the ambitions of Dumas. He had once prophesied that
Hugo would succeed Lemercier in the Academy. To Charles Nodier
he wrote, "Do you think at this time I would have any chance for
the Academy? Hugo has succeeded. All his friends are mine, also.
Think of this at your next meeting and sound out Casimir Delavigne,
who takes some interest in me . . ." Nodier lifted his quizzical eyes,
smiled at the wall, and, presumably, did what he could. There was
a decided prejudice against the admission of Dumas to the Academy,
a prejudice based, apparently, on two things, — the fact that Dumas,
for the most part, lived his private life in public and the fact that his
plays, dealing so often with frank and melodramatic subjects, revolted
the conservative and dominating faction of the Forty Immortals*
Dumas might have understood the difficulties before him if he had
not been blinded by his vanity. As it was, he went ahead regardless
of the laughter and ridicule he aroused among the more "literary"
celebrities. What if Balzac had called him "that negro"; he had scored
off the author of the Comedie Humaine many times; and Balzac,
like himself, was an outsider from the Academy. In the meantime
Dumas consoled himself by out-tricking his antagonists. The Theatre-

300 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Fran§ais, for instance, had scornfully rejected his Un Manage sous
Louis XV and just as the dramatist's enemies were chuckling with
triumphant joy he produced the letter from M. de Remusat ordering
the play. The laughter stopped abruptly and the play was accepted.
After all, what did a fauteuil in the Academy matter beside these
practical triumphs ? The Academy was the graveyard of mummified
genius. All the same . . . Dumas suppressed his lacerated vanity
and strove to think of other things.

His laughter echoed through the salons and cafes of Paris inter-
mittently, for Dumas came and went with surprising irregularity. At
Madame de Girardin's home he would arrive breathlessly and explain
that he had merely dropped in for conversation. "From where?"
"Why, Florence, to be sure." With an excellent chat in prospect it
was not too much exertion for him to make the long uncomfortable
journey. Sociability was a necessity and he deplored the gradual ces-
sation of after-theater supper-parties and their animated conversation.
There was so much to talk about. The Theatre-Fran^ais, for instance.
This year had marked the retirements of Mademoiselle Mars, Joanny,
and Saint-Aulaire. Mars had taken it so nobly. Dry-eyed she had sat
in her box and remarked to the zealous admirers who were sorrowing
over her loss, "Ceci, mes infants, peut bien passer pour un entcrrement
de premiere classed A young actress named Augustine Brohan had
just made her debut in soubrette roles. Rachel was detested by the
other players at the Theatre-Franf ais and a rival named Mile. Maxime
had been opposed to her. L'lnvindble, however, still held her own.
The Theatre du Renaissance, which had opened its doors with Victor
Hugo's Ruy Bias, closed them forever on May twenty-third. Those
amusing dwarfs, Caroline and Carlo Laponne, were to be seen at
the Theatre-Saqui. A gentleman named Leon Fillet had retired from
the directorship of the Opera, abandoning his powers to Duponchel
who shared them with Nestor Roqueplan. Fillet had been the young
man in the astonishing uniform whom Dumas had seen when he hur-
ried from the presence of the Marquis de Lafayette in 1830 to prepare
for his tour of La Vendee. Balzac still thought he could write plays.
What . . . after Vautrin ? Subjects were endless. Dumas deplored,
too, the rapidly-spreading custom of smoking, complaining that it

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 301

tainted the air, dulled the palate for fine sauces and subtly-flavored
foods, and produced a phlegmatic mood in men* His own mouth
appears to have never been closed long enough to support a pipe.
His love of fantastic costumes persisted, and, though he was swelling
to astonishing proportions (the lithe and melancholy gallant who
wrote Henri III et sa Cour and who coughed gently into a fine
cambric handkerchief was but a dream of the past), he continued
to play the incroyable of his day. Women complicated his already
complicated life and any thoughts of fidelity to the fair Ida that he
may have conceived in the Chapel of the Chamber of Peers were
dispersed upon the sparkling air of Paris. It was natural that he
should become fair game for the newspapers. Alphonse Karr in Les
Guepes and half a dozen other editors found a rich mine from which
to extract nuggets to adorn their sheets in the bubbling wit, childish
vanity and inconsistent gestures of Dumas.

On June I, 1841, Un Manage sous Louis XV was produced at the
Theatre-Fran^ais with a capable cast including Mademoiselle Plessy,
Menjaud, and Dumas's old friend, Firmin. It scored an instantaneous
success and within a year had been presented forty-nine times, an
excellent record for a repertory house. The plot was thin (it is con-
cerned with the manage de convenance between the Comte de Can-
dale and Mademoiselle de Torigny and the amusing steps by which
they progress from mutual aversion through indifference and jealousy
to affection) but its motivation was sufficient to afford Dumas the
opportunity to create scene after scene of smart dialogue. Oscar Wilde
could not have done better. In this play (as in Mademoiselle de Belle-
Isle before it and Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr which was to follow
it) Dumas revealed his complete command of glittering dialogue,
an ability that was to add so much to the lasting charm of the his-
torical romances. He had achieved his formula if so dancing a prose
quality may be called a formula and he was quite ready to venture
upon those numerous scenes of court-life and intrigue under the
debonair kings of France. It is quite true that viewed from the
narrow attitude of the French purist, the Academically-minded critic
immersed in the classical tradition of Gallic letters, he possessed no
style. And yet his quality is intensely recognizable. It is simple
enough to identify the touch of Dumas in his typical work even

302 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

though that work be shared with one or more collaborators. He
dominated his material with an unmistakable gusto.

With Un Manage sous Louis XV safely launched to the plaudits
of the Parisian public it would seem as though it were time for Dumas
to rest, to retire for a season and admire his own laurels; but he was
incapable of rest. Standing still would be sure to tire him out. There
were flying trips to be made between Florence and Paris, a jovial
greeting to Ida in Italy and a boisterous conversation with Theophile
Gautier in France. There were books, always books, to turn over to
importunate publishers. He seemed to shake them from his massive
form. It was during this arduous year that Alexandre fils, now
seventeen years old, went to live with his father. Dumas ptre, fling-
ing himself upon project after project that he might pour more gold
into that coffer of his (which appears to have been without any
bottom), paused long enough to embrace the lad, lead him to a few
salons and show him off, and induct him into the extravagances of
his own amoral life. Alexandre fils, who had left the College Chaptal
without securing his baccalaureate, viewed his undisciplined father
with dismay and affection and instinctively felt that he, the son, was
the elder of the two. Dumas laughed and continued on his hurried
way. There was barely time to confound Balzac at a soiree; just a
minute to secure Alfred de Musset's Spectacle dans un fauteuil from
which he planned to make a play; only a second in which to spend
the last of his francs on new gowns for Ida; then, off to Florence
again where the sun was warm and the ravioli was delectable.

Ill

Before returning to the Italian city in 1842, Dumas, mindful that
he was now in his fortieth year, made another attempt to storm the
impregnable bastions of the French Academy. To his old friend,
Baron Taylor, he wrote: "Don't forget about the Academy: stir up
Nodier, Barante, and Mol£: they arc, I imagine, the three persons
you can influence most. If my presence is desirable, one word from
you will bring me back.'* As usual, nothing came of this plea and
the rather disgruntled author, as he arrived in Florence, muttered to
Ida: "I asked to be the fortieth but it appears they desire to make?

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 303

me do quarantine. (Jc dcmandc h fare Ic quctrant&mc, mats il farmt
qtt'on vcut me jcurc jairc quarantaine.)" The play on words probably
cheered him up. He immersed himself in the social life of the French
colony in Florence and forgot the callous indifferences of Paris. To
call upon one's friends and gossip animatedly, to dine well at tables
where the service was a liturgy, to write assiduously beside an open
window from whence one could see the kaleidoscopic life of the
streets and the lazy Italians dawdling in the shadows, to travel, these
were the joys that mattered. Among the more important houses open
to Dumas was that of Prince Jerome Bonaparte, the Villa Quarto
near Florence, and to this hospitable mansion Dumas repaired soon
after his arrival in Italy in 1842. Prince Jerome was worried. His
son, the young Napoleon — later to be the well-known "Plon-Plon" of
the Second Empire — had quitted the service of Wurtembourg and was
returning to Florence. There were political reasons for his retire-
ment. France was slyly threatened by an imminent coalition of
powers because of the Egyptian situation and Prince Jerome did
not want his son exposed to possible service against Louis-Philippe.
"When he comes/' remarked the prince to Dumas, "I will turn him
over to you." Dumas was dubious. What could he do with a prince ?
It might be very like having a white elephant on one's hands. "What
good can I do him?" he asked in a faintly-surprised voice. "Teach
him about France, which he doesn't know," suggested Prince Jerome,
"and take him for some trips through Italy if you have the time."
Dumas was seized by an inspiration. "Has he seen Elba?" he in-
quired. Prince J6rome shook his head. "Very well," concluded
Dumas. "I will take him to the island of Elba, if that is agreeable
to you. It is fitting that the nephew of the Emperor should terminate
his studies by an historical pilgrimage." Some time later when the
young Napoleon arrived in Florence this proposed excursion was
put into execution. Dumas and his royal charge, each of them with
a thousand francs generously supplied by Prince J6rome in his pocket,
set sail from Livorno for Porto-Fcrrajo in a small barque called, curi-
ously enough, Lc Due de Rcichstadt. A storm came up and the small
vessel was tossed furiously on the waves of the Mediterranean, much
to the discomfort of Dumas who began to worry about possible fatal-
ities. Suppose the young prince were drowned? The young prince

304 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

did not worry at all because he was too occupied: he was dreadfully
sea-sick. Elba was reached safely, however, and Dumas hustled his
royal charge ashore with a sigh of relief. The tour of the island was
accomplished in excellent style. The prince saw where his unfortu-
nate uncle lived from May, 1814, to February, 1815. He admired the
treeless mountain ranges and the peak of Monte Capanne. He talked
to the natives of Porto Ferrajo, Orte Rio, and Porto Longone. Then,
the historical pilgrimage completed, Dumas decided that he would
enjoy some hunting. A day was passed on the neighboring island of
Pianosa in shooting at rabbits, silly little animals that did not possess
enough sense to hide themselves. It was while Dumas and Prince
Napoleon were engaged in this agreeable occupation that the older
man, always observant, noticed a sugar-loaf-shaped rock that thrust
out of the blue sea at some distance from the shore. The guide fol-
lowed his glance and remarked: "Excellency, if you went over there
you would find splendid hunting." "What is there?" inquired Dumas.
"The island is overrun with wild goats," explained the guide. "Other-
wise it is deserted." "And the name of the island?" "They call it
the Isle-de-Monte-Cristo." The name struck the fancy of Dumas and
he gazed inquiringly at the young prince who had just knocked over
another rabbit. "Tomorrow we shall go there and shoot goats," prom-
ised the youthful Bonaparte. Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo. There
was something tantalizing and suggestive about the name. It did
not sound like the other little islands around Elba, — Pianosa, Capraja,
Palmaola. The next day Dumas and his royal protege were rowed
out to the mysterious island where, it was reported, there were the
ruins of a once-famous monastry called San Mamiliani, but before
they disembarked one of the brownskinned Tuscan oarsmen warned
them that the island was deserted, that it was en contumace, and that
anyone landing there would be liable to quarantine for five or six
days upon arriving at any port. Quarantine. Quaranttime. Dumas
had almost forgotten those confounded words. He explained to the
prince that he possessed a horror of quarantine, and that, to speak
truly, he had no passion for wild goats. It was decided merely to
row around the island and establish its geographical position and
general shape and then return to the stupid rabbits on Pianosa,
The circuit of the gloomy rock was made and Dumas viewed with

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 305

curiosity the savage scenery, the clefts in gigantic stone, the strange
silence unbroken save for the distant bleat of a startled goat There
might very well be a deep and securely hidden cave among those
rocks secure from the prying eyes of men and the feet of ignorant
travellers. Monte-Cristo was en contumacc. A cave filled with jewels.
Was there a ruined monastery there? A secret-eyed abbe kneeling over
the jewels. The cavern of Ali-Baba. Faint memories of his boyhood
reading in the Arabian Nights crept through the mind of Dumas
as the Tuscan oarsmen turned the boat toward Porto Ferrajo and the
sharp slap of their oars spurted jewel-chains of water into the sunny
air. Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo. What an excellent name it would
make for a romance.

One evening some months after the trip to Elba, Prince Jerome
presented a very pained and shocked face to his guest as Dumas
mounted the steps of the Villa Quarto. This was unusual for the Prince
was jolly enough in spite of his lost kingdom and "Plon-Plon," his
son, was a youth of spirit and humor. Dumas was instantly beset by
the most painful forebodings. "What is it?** he inquired rather
feebly, for he detested sorrow. "We have received a report that the
Due d'Orleans has been killed in a carriage accident," replied Prince
[erome, whose agitation was very plainly for Dumas and not for the
ruling house of France. For an instant the heart of Dumas seemed
to stop beating. The Due d'Orteans dead? His patron? The prince
upon whose knees he had wept the fatal day his mother died ? Dtimas,
is super-buoyant and sentimental in grief as he was in joy, staggered
toward Prince Jerome crying: "Permit me to weep over a Bourbon
n the arms of a Bonaparte." The dinner was a sad and tasteless affair
ind Dumas excused himself as soon as he could and hurried back to
Florence. Prince Napoleon accompanied him and both of them
repaired to the Cachines for verification of the news. It was true.
Bad news is always true. The Due d'Orleans had been flung violently
xom his carriage when he had risen in excitement to aid the cocker
n restraining the run-away horses. His senseless body had been
picked up in the Chemin dc la Revoke near the Porte-Maillot and
:arricd to a nearby house. Four hours later he died without recovcr-
ng consciousness. The date was July thirteenth.

•o6 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

The grief of Dumas was excessive, and, viewed from the colder
\nglo-Saxon attitude, a little theatrical. But it is difficult not to be
:onvinced of the sincerity of this sorrow. One must take into con-
;ideration the explosive Gallic temperament and the romantic nature
>f Dumas before criticizing the obviousness of his anguish. He had
been peculiarly charmed by the Due d'Orleans and a profound affec-
tion for that serious-visaged young prince had developed as the months
brought them in closer intimacy. This affection was tinged with an
awareness of the comfortable joys of patronage, perhaps, but even
this regard for self-interest does not seriously impugn its authenticity.
Dumas expressed his grief by writing feverish letters of sympathy to
all the Royal, family, to the Due d'Aumale, to the Queen Marie-Amelie,
to the Duchesse d'Orleans, that quinc that the dead due had won in
the lottery of life. He even composed a prayer for the little Comte
de Paris. "O mon ptre qui ctcs aux deux, faites-moi tel que vous &iez
sur la terre, et je nc demand? pas autrc chose a Dieu pour ma gloire
h moi, et pour le bonheur de la France" To Le Stick he contributed
a memorial article and Villemessant, who read it while he was in his
bath, declared that he wept so copiously that the tub almost over-
flowed. On July twenty-sixth Dumas learned from the Journal des
Dtbats that the funeral ceremonies would be held in the Cathedral
of Notre-Dame de Paris on August third and that the inhumation
at Dreux would take place the next day. He determined to be present
at these solemn functions. Starting on the twenty-seventh of July he
boarded the little steamer for Genoa. On August first, by travelling
day and night, he reached Lyons and at three o'clock on the morning
of the third he was at Paris. He assisted in the ceremonies at Notre-
Dame, heard the solemn music as it swelled through the high nave,
saw the dignitaries of the kingdom in their black mourning bands,
and gazed apathetically at the bright sun shining through the stained
glass of the windows. The next day he travelled to Dreux with three
college friends of the dead prince, the deputy Guilhem, Ferdinand
Lcroy, secretary-general of the prefecture of Bordeaux, and Bocher,
the prince's librarian. At the royal tomb he stood with bare head
and witnessed the sad solemnity of the inhumation. He recalled Aat
it was exactly four years since he had seen the body of his mother
laid away and this intensified his grief.

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 307

Some days later Doctor Pasquier, with whom he had once sat on
the bright grass at Compiegne in the Due d*Orl£ans* company, sent
him the blood-stained serviette on which the due's head had rested
after the accident. It was one of the few things that Dumas retained
all his life.

But he was not troubled for long. The road was fairly clear before
him. He was fully aware of the trend of taste in popular letters. The
long serials of Eugene Sue and Frederic Soulie were enormous straws
showing which way the huge wind was blowing. Auguste Maquet,
who had turned over to him the first draft of Sylvandire, loomed
distinctly in his projects for the immediate future. It was necessary
for him to relinquish his residence in Florence, first of all, and remain
in Paris where he could watch the development of events more closely.
Goodbye, Italian sunlight and lazy days. Goodbye, Prince Jerome
and "Plon-Plon." It was no hardship to remain in Paris. The summer
of 1842 was charming and the capital laughed and murmured agree-
ably under its bourgeois ruler, a trifle bored, perhaps, but not yet
manifesting too noticeable an impatience. One could drive out to
Au Rendezvous des Briards on the shaded road of Vincennes and
dine luxuriously with such excellent fellows as Auguste Luchet,
fimile de Girardin, Felix Pyat, the chansonnier Breant and Maurice
Alhoy. The lights beamed warmly and the sleepy birds could be
heard chirping in the trees. An excellent chef de cuisine* once of
Philippe's in die rue Montorgueil, had just purchased the establish-
ment of Parisot in the rue Contrescarpe and was preparing delicious
fare for wise gourmets. His name was Magny and soon it would be
associated with a new group of literary figures who would congregate
in one of his rooms and devour enormous dinners. The Bal dcs
Acacias had recently opened and innumerable painters, among them
Paul Delaroche, made it a point to frequent the lively resort and
select from the habitues, mostly Jews, models for their salon pictures.
In all the quartiers tiny shops were springing up where one coold
purchase une fosse de bouillon for twenty-five centimes. Music
streamed forth pleasantly from the open doors of the cafes and the
dop-clop of horses' hoofs sounded constantly on the cobbles of the
boulevards. The colored multitude of people flowed back and forth

308 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

in the streets. Madame Planat, the modiste, was the fashionable
trade's lady of the day and her artfully designed bonnets h la du
Barry might be seen in all the foyers. The courtisancs, not yet as
flamboyant as they would be during the reign of Napoleon III,
mounted the steps of the Op&a; the jMcs, bright-eyed and bird-like,
wandered along the boulevards; and in the quarter about Notre-Dame
de Lorette the little Ivrcttts* their full skirts billowed by the breeze
and their bonnets tied neatly beneath their dimpled chins, hurried
around corners and through alleys and up long flights of stairs to
Bohemian studios. It was the era of Henri Murger. Dumas, who
savored all aspects of Parisian life, saw everything, relished it, and
expatiated for the hundredth time on the joys of the metropolis. It
was easy to forget Florence and easier still to do without Ida. The
bloom had vanished from his marriage and he would see her but
seldom from now on. Toward the end of September the loyal citizens
of Villers-Cotterets, hearing that their famous compatriot had returned
to Paris and settled again in his old lodgings in the rue de Rivoli,
offered Dumas a banquet. He appeared and revelled in the honors
paid him and renewed his friendships with half-forgotten comrades.
On December second, Halifax, a play with an English setting, was
produced at the Theatre des Varictes. Dumas had written it in col-
laboration with D'Ennery and while it was typical of his new manner
it was not distinctive. He was getting his feet planted solidly on the
ground now, recovering from the shock of the Due d'Orleans' death,
and cleverly making himself absolutely necessary to the popular
journals. The year 1843 witnessed him in the full swing of his activ-
ities, entirely aware of what he was about, and moving steadily with
the current of public favor. Of course, he could not refrain from
making his usual faux fas. Dumas would never have been Dumas
if he had not committed these egregious errors of judgment. Casimir
Delavigne died and left two vacancies behind him, his fauteuil in
the Academy and the post of librarian in the Biblioth£quc dc Fon-
tainebleau. Dumas, walking in the funeral cortege behind the body
of the man with whom he had once worked in the Palais-Royal,
actually forgot himself so far as to ask Montalivet, who was walking
beside him, for the vacant fauteutl. He also desired the librarian's
post for Alcxandre fUs. This was striking while the iron was alto-

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 309

gether too hot and Montalivet naturally refused to discuss the matter;
but people talked and Dumas soon discovered that his tactlessness had
aroused a small storm of censure against him in the press. He did
not improve matters a whit by writing to Lc Stick: "As several papers
have stated that I had sought and obtained the post of librarian at
Fontainbleau, I shall be much obliged if you will contradict this news,
which has no foundation. If I had desired either of the chairs left
vacant by the illustrious author of Lcs Mcssenicnnes, it would have
been only his chair at the Academy," This loud hint fell upon obsti-
nately deaf ears and Dumas came no nearer the coveted fauteuil in
1843 than he had in 1840. There was no hope for him there but It
took him a dreadfully long time to accept the humiliating truth.
One is a little sorry to see this dogged pertinacity so ill-rewarded (no
matter how grave the tactlessness often involved in its expression)
and yet it would be difficult to conceive Dumas as an Academician.
He never seems to suggest one; there was always too much life in
him. Other affairs proceeded much better. His version of Sylvandirc
was completed and being serialized; August Maquet was already
ferreting out new material for future books; Lc Chcvdicr d'Har-
mentd was issued in four volumes and received joyously by a large
audience; and the Theatre-Frangais, that alternate enemy and friend,
had accepted a new play entitled Lcs Demoiselles dc Saint~Cyr, which
Dumas had written with De Leuvcn and Brunswick.

One important event this year must have saddened Dumas although
he was connected with it only by sympathy. That was the production
of Victor Hugo's Lcs Bur graves on March seventh at the Theitre-
Frangais. It was the last feeble blow struck in defence of the Romantic
Movement that Hugo had enunciated sixteen years before in his intro-
duction to CromwelL The movement was outdated although it still
manifested itself in weakening ways. Vacquerie and Prosper Merim&,
still fighting against time, had gone to C&estin Nanteuil, one of the
Romantic gods of 1830, and begged him to raise three hundred young
men to be employed as a claque in imitation of the embattled cohorts
of Hernani. Nanteuil shook his long hair sadly and answered with
a profound melancholy: "Young men, go back to your master and
say that there is no longer any youth. I cannot furnish three hundred
young men." It was true. The days charged with the electricity of

3io THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

excitement were over. Men no longer were young or if they were
they congregated in the Cafe Momus, next door to the Journal dcs
Dcbats, and discussed other matters than Romanticism. There, play-
ing tric-trac, one might discover Henri Murger, Champfleury, Courbet,
Bonvin, Chintreuil, Pierre Dupont and Jean Journet. It was another
Bohemia with other ideals than those of the young men of 1830. The
Parisian public preferred to go to the Theatre-Italien and listen to
Donizetti's opera-bouffe, Don Pasqudc, or the Cirque-Olympique
where they could laugh at the antics of the clown Auriol rather than
sit through high-minded Romantic dramas. So, in spite of excellent
acting Les Burgrav es fell flat. It was hissed from the beginning to
the end. Dumas had escaped the current of defeat by changing his
style and when Lcs Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr was produced at the
Theatre-Franjais on July twenty-fifth with Firmin and Mademoiselle
Plessy in the leading roles it scored a complete triumph and took its
place as a regular addition to the repertoire. Like Mademoiselle de
Belle-Isle and Un Manage sous Louis XV it was bright and sparkling
and eager audiences crowded to see it. But if the spectators liked it
some of the critics did not There was Jules Janin, for instance. In
the Journal des Debats he scored the "verbose sterility" of Dumas
and remarked: "You must be on your guard, for at the least distrac-
tion he makes a dupe of you. If you don't put your finger on the
particular passage that has been stolen he makes a fool of you." The
plot of Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr was ridiculed and Dumas was
upbraided for his carelessness. The article was quite amusing to read
but it did not amuse Dumas. He witnessed with amazement one of
his old friends turning upon him and using the same malicious
weapons that Granier de Cassagnac and a dozen other nonentities had
employed,— half-truths, false perspectives, and personal bitternesses.
Naturally he lost his own equilibrium and wrote an indignant letter
to the Journal des Dibats. There were bitter polemics between Dumas
and Janin in the press and then the usual climax was reached— a
duel. The principals, accompanied by their seconds, arrived on the
field of honor. Dumas, as the aggrieved party, chose swords. He had
not forgotten Fr&leric Gaillardet. "I will never fight with the^ sword,"
declared Janin firmly. "I know a secret thrust that would lay you
low in a second. Pistols!" Dumas shook his bushy head violently. "I

THE PORTAL TO MONTE CRISTO 311

should be an assassin if I consented to pistols/* he said. "I can kill
a fly at forty paces." The two antagonists, overcome by each other's
magnanimity, stared at one another for an instant and then flew into
a warm embrace. In this way was honor satisfied between geniuses
of France in the 1840*8.

Two more plays and several books filled out the generous produc-
tion of Dumas during this year. Louise Bernard, a drama written in
collaboration with de Leuven and Brunswick, was produced at the
Porte-Saint-Martin on November eighteenth and Le Laird dc Dum-
bicfy was given at the Odeon on December thirtieth with Virginie
Bourbier, an old flame, in the role of Nelly Quinn, "actrice de Drury
Lane, mcdtresse du Roi" Neither drama amounted to anything. They
were capable "theater" for their time and that is all that can be said
about them, except, perhaps, that Le Laird de Dumbicty proved to
be such a failure that it flung Dumas so out of sorts with the stage
that he applied himself more assiduously than ever to the romances
he was writing with Auguste Maquet. The books were more exciting.
They, after all, were the spring-board from which he hoped to rise
to that pleasing notoriety that was his greatest pleasure in life. There
was Georges, a story of the Ile-de-France, written with Mallefille;
Ascanio, an historical romance of the times of Francois ler in which
Benvenuto Cellini appeared and which was written in collaboration
with young Paul Meurice; Le Corricolo and La Villa Palmieri, two
volumes of impressions de voyage; Filles, Lorettes, et Courtisanes,
a study of the frail femininity of Paris; and Un Alchirniste au dix-
neuv&mc s&clc> a biography of Henri de Ruolz, the musical com-
poser and chemist. It was heterogenous work but through it beat a
pulse that was unique and that predicted an immediate victory in
public favor. Dumas was fairly on the upward road, ready to emanci-
pate himself from the past, and adjust himself to the future. He
knew what the era desired. It was time to begin* The arc of his
career lifted toward the skies.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE KING OF ROMANCE

DUMAS, approaching the zenith of his career, found the time pecu-
liarly ripe for him. It was the era of the efflorescence of the feuittcton
and in this form of writing, this serialized narrative of adventure,
intrigue and gustiness that appeared day by day in the journals, the
romancer found himself admirably at home. Three important and
necessary elements made possible the supreme success of Dutaas.
They were: the will of the public, the discovery of the romantic
potentialities of French history by Dumas, and the appearance of
Auguste Maquet at the right moment. It was a sublime combination
for a volatile and undisciplined talent congenitally disposed toward
popular effort: an audience, a subject, and a meticulous and pains-
taking aide to shoulder the laborious task of research. From 1840,
roughly speaking, to the eve of the revolution of 1848 Paris led a
calm and prosy existence in the home, the streets and caf&. It was
pleasant enough to sit in the sun at small tables, sip absinthe, play
dominoes and glance through the papers. There was something
positively intellectual in perusing the snippet of diurnal fcuilleton.
It did not take long and it afforded a subject for conversation. It
speedily grew into a widespread habit. Every journal offered its daily
bit of fcuillcton and the French public finally expected it as unthink-
ingly as the aperitif before dinner. Along the boulevards the news-
papers flowered over a thousand tiny round tables, and the bored
public, bored by inactivity, by Louis-Philippe, by M. Guizot, by the stale
flavor of the bourgeois monarchy, experienced a vicarious adventure in
musketeers and historic personalities from a larger time. Dumas was as
prepared for his audience as it was for him. He, too, lived vicariously
in the great deeds of heroes, and he was particularly adapted to pass

312

THE KING OF ROMANCE 313

them on to less imaginative folk. Color, swift movement, the give and
take of repartee, swords and conspiracies excited htm as much as they
did his readers. He could laugh unroariously over his Chicot as he
created him and burst into tears at the death of Porthos. If he was not
a scholar in the true sense of the word, that mattered little; Maquct was
his scholar and Maquet became a part of his brain. He could nose out
the historical material and fling down the glittering treasure trove
before Dumas, and the romancer, with an unerring skill and intuitive
prevision of universal appeal, could arrange these finds into the lasting
patterns of the novels. Dumas had found his formula at the precise
moment that the Time-Spirit provided him with an eager audience.

The three years from 1843 to 1846 were years of mounting glory.
Dumas rose to a pre-eminence far above even the great days of Antony.
His fortunes were at full tide and he labored like a giant to perpetuate
them. There was no time to travel and but little time to play. In the
modest lodgings at 22, rue de Rivoli, or at 109, rue de Richelieu, or at
45, rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin, or in the Villa Medicis in the rue du
Boulingrin at Saint-Germain— for he moved about much during this
period — he would sit at his desk and apply himself intensively.
Clothed in his fantdons & pied and shirt-sleeves, his arms bared to
the shoulder and his collar unfastened, he started to work at seven
o'clock in the morning and continued until seven at night when his
son came to dine with him. Sometimes his lunch remained untouched
on the little table by his side where the servant had placed it. He had
forgotten to eat. In the evening, after he had dined with Alexandra
fils> he would recount to his son all that his characters had done during
the day and rejoice in the thought of what they were going to do on
the morrow. "Ah, those happy days!" wrote the son in after years.
"We were both of an age: you were forty-two, and I was twenty!"

There were constant interruptions but they did not halt the steady
progress of the novels. The author would stretch a bare arm in greet-
ing to the unexpected visitor and continue to write with the other hand*
Guests in the antechambers could hear him roaring with laughter at
the remarks of his own characters. The industrious Maquet was
forever rushing in and out, bringing material dredged from the BWi-
oth£que or hurrying away for more. When Dumas was m

3i4 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Germain a steady stream of notes and copy passed between the two
men* "Man ttis cherf—De la copie le plus vite possible, quand ce nc
scrait, qu'une dizaine de pages et surtout le premier volume de d'Artag-
nan« A vous, Dumas!' "Si vous avez un moment je serais bien aise
de vous voir. Noubliez pas de vous procurer le volume de I'histoire
de Louis XIII qui traite du proems de Chdais et les pieces y relatives.
Apportcz-moi en meme temps ce que vous avez de travail prepare
pour Athos" "Mon cher ami,—Cest curieux. Je vous avals tcrit ce
matin pour que vous introduisiez le bourreau dans la sctne, puis j'ai
jet£ la lettre au jeu en pensant que je I'introduirais moi-m&rne. Or, le
premier mot que je Us me prouve que nous nous sommes rencontres. A
vous, et piochez, car je suis sans besogne depuis deux heures. Que fen
de pour n heures du soir. A vous, A. D" Maquet was the perfect
aide. He ransacked the histories of France, filled in chapters, and once,
when one of Dumas's packets of copy for a journal was lost, rewrote
the entire section from his own memory. He was the second brain of
Dumas, almost anticipating the demands of the stronger nature. He
was assiduous, painstaking, tireless, a fit assistant for the restless and
gargantuan application of the novelist. A hint from Dumas was
enough. "Mon cher ami, — Nous avons dans votre prochain chapitrc,
& apprendre par Aramis, qui a promts a d'Artagnan de s'en informer,
dans quel convent est Madame Bonacieux, ce qu'elle fait dans ce con-
vent et de quel protection la reine I'entoure" Over night Maquet would
scramble the chapter together, forward it to Dumas, and the next day
the romancer would reshape it and hurry it on to the newspaper thai
was printing the serial. It was not a question of one romance, but of
several at a time, sometimes five. Guests, debt-collectors and women
might pass through the doors of the Villa Medicis or the Parisian apart-
ments but the work never faltered. It proceeded miraculously and each
day the eager public opened its newspapers to find the new instalments.

Quite suddenly the Paris of 1844 was g^PP^ and held spellbound
by Les Trois Mousquetaires and the fame of Dumas outsoared even
that of the windy politicians of the day. What was M. Guizot beside
d'Artagnan? What did the dull and aging Louis-Philippe matter now
that the sly Cardinal Richelieu was manoeuvring against Anne of
Austria? Dumas (and the unnamed Maquet) ruled Paris. Les Trois

THE KING OF ROMANCE 315

Mousquetaires was one of those amazing books that occur once or
twice in a century* Its sources were few but sufficient. The hook-nosed
and fierce-visaged youth on a wind-galled yellow pony, who cantered
into French romantic fiction in 1844, rode straight out of Courtilz de
Sandraz' Memoir es de Monsieur d'Artagnan, an apocryphal work pub-
lished at The Hague in 1700. Maquet discovered the volumes and saw
the possibilities of romance in them. In them were d'Artagnan and
the three musketeers, Athos, Porthos and Aramis; Miladi and Roche-
fort (Rosnay in de Sandraz) ; the journey to Paris; the rivalry between
the Cardinal's guards and the King's musketeers. Dumas fell upon
this material with a bellow of joy. It was easy to piece out the story
from other sources. Les Memoires of Laporte furnished the abduction
of Madame Bonacieux. Roederer's Intrigues Politiques et Gdantes de
la Cour de France gave the story of the diamond studs sent by Anne
of Austria to Buckingham. Tallemant des Reaux and Madame de la
Fayette were ransacked for other hints. From the fertile mind of
Dumas himself came Grimaud, Mousqueton, Bazin and Planchet and
the epochal journey to Calais. With so much excellent material at hand
the problem became one of marshalling the incidents and capturing
the swashbuckling flavor of a period. How much Maquet did is un-
known, but it may be surmised that his duty was the securing of color,
of historical incidents, of characters and the composition of first drafts
of chapters. Dumas called incessantly for these rough drafts, which
he would revise or rewrite introducing new episodes and the swift
play of dialogue. The fact that these characters had once been actual
figures in the life of France, that d'Artagnan was one Charles de Batz-
Castelmore, the fifth son of Bertrand de Batz, seigneur de Castelmore,
that Athos was a Bearnese gentleman named Armand de Sillegue
d' Athos, that Porthos was an adventurer from Pau named Isaac de
Portau, and that Aramis was in reality Henri d'Aramitz, a squire and
lay abbot of Beam, is interesting but unimportant Dumas translated
these personages into figures of his own fancy. He gave them a new
life and a new flavor. One has only to compare the heroes of Les Trois
Mousquetaires with their prototypes in Courtilz de Sandraz' book to
realize the enduring strength and intuitive taste of the novelist.

Dumas was indefatigable. Maquet was prodded continually for copy
and we may imagine him, fired by the example of the older

3i6 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

bustling about the libraries of Paris, nosing through historical tomes,
scribbling as fast as he could, rushing from Paris to Saint-Germain
and back, laboring day and night to feed this ambitious furnace of
a Dumas* Lcs Trots Mousquctaircs was not the only book being
written; there were half a dozen other ventures as welL It was enor-
mous, this industry of Dumas, and muttering voices began to hint
that no one man could write so much in such a short space of time.
Of course it was impossible unless Dumas's methods of authorship
be taken into account. Pushed by newspaper editors, driven by con-
tracts and urged by his all-embracing ambition, he created his peculiar
manner of composition, of engaging assistants to do the rough work
for him, to fetch and carry, to assemble material, to place before him
the chaos from which he evolved his absorbing narratives. He was
like Napoleon creating campaigns and ordering his marechaux to carry
out specific orders. He was like the great Italian painters who per-
mitted their apprentices to paint in the backgrounds. There is not one
of the great novels that is not completely dominated by Dumas, not one
in which his mind and temperament are not imbedded; they belonged
to him and he to them in spite of the assistants. It is only necessary
to read the books written by these assistants alone to acknowledge this.
Dumas was still Dumas without Maquet and Meuricc and Florentine,
but not one of those estimable men amounted to anything without
Dumas. He was the force, the plunge, the brain, the style, the gusti-
ncss, the humor and the scheme.

Within a few months of the termination of Lcs Trois Mousquctaircs
Dumas again astonished Paris with Lc Comtc de Monte Cristo. This
enormous work came from several sources. First of all, there were the
name and recollection of the mysterious island about which he had
traveled with the son of Prince J6rome Bonaparte. He had promised
to put it in a story some time. Then there was the suggestion of Lc
Journal dcs Dtbats that instead of writing the proposed Impressions
dc voyage dans Paris he produce a sensational romance that might
repeat the vast success of Eugene Sue's Mysttres dc fans. A short
story, Lc Diamant ct la Vengeance, discovered in Peuchet's La Police
Dwo*l£c> gave him the central idea, that of a mysterious man return-
ing to Paris to punish the villains who had maltreated him years before.
The matter was discussed with Maquet and gradually the shape of

THE KING OF ROMANCE 317

Monte Cristo was unfolded. It was planned to lay the opening chap-
ters in Rome, and Dumas had already mapped out and partially written
the adventures of Albert de Morcerf and Franz d'Epinay and was about
to continue with Monte Cristo's arrival in Paris when Maquct stopped
him with a sudden suggestion. The youth of Monte Cristo must be
developed. Marseilles, Danglars, Edmond Dantcs and Mercedes, the
Abbe Faria and the Chateau d'lf, these were the characters and scenes
that should be related not as memories recalled by Monte Cristo in his
later years, as Dumas had intended, but as the opening movement of
the novel. Dumas considered the suggestion, agreed and recast the
book in the three parts that the whole world knows: Marseilles, Rome
and Paris. Once started Monte Cristo proceeded swiftly, for Dumas
was entirely free in this work; he was bound by no historical charac-
ters or dates, his imagination had full swing; therefore it is the most
personal and revealing of his works. It is certain that Dumas saw him-
self idealized and sublimated in the character of Edmond Dantcs*
Monte Cristo with his fine clothes, his jewels, his vanities, his love
of travel, his romantic mysteriousness, his power, his liberality— "A
million? Why, I generally carry that much about on me as pocket
money!" — his egoism, was precisely the ideal of Dumas. The expansive
gestures and the all-powerful will of the Comtc were reflections of
that self-dramatization that was so much a part of Dumasfs nature.

Monte Cristo held Paris enthralled. Every day an eager public
seized the Journal dcs D&bats to discover what that fellow, Edmond
Dantcs, was doing. Dant£s lived for them. He evolved out of a legend
into a reality and he has maintained that reality ever since. Guides
today show visitors the cell of Monte Cristo in the Chateau dlf . Duma%
bowed over his desk, heard the loud acclaim but he did not desist from
his labors. He was building a huge monument now of which Lcs Troi$
Mousquctaires and Monte Cristo formed the cornerstone, and there
were many other blocks of granite to be hoisted into place. When he
walked abroad he was admired by eager crowds, and all manner aui
condition of people flocked to Saint-Germain. Louis-Philippe, observ-
ing die revival of Saint-Germain and the comparative dullness of
Versailles where he resided asked the advice of Montalivct as to die
best method of enlivening the royal suburb. Montalivet said: "Sire,
Dumas has a fortnight's confinement to do for National Guard duly;

3i8 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

make him do it at Versailles." The indignant King turned his back
on his minister and did not speak to him for a month. The idea that
his quadroon ex-copy clerk with his tete-montee should outdo him as
the center of attraction was both humiliating and disturbing. Dumas
admitted his enlivening qualities. "I carry with me wherever I go—
I don't know how it is, but it is so— an atmosphere of life and stir which
has become proverbial. I have lived three years at Saint-Germain, and
the people of that respectable Sleepy Hollow no longer knew them-
selves. I imparted to the place a go and liveliness which the inhabitants
at first took for a sort of endemic and contagious fever. I bought the
little theater; and the best actors and actresses from Paris, coming
down to supper with me, used often to perform one of my plays for
the benefit of the poor. The hotel keeper had no rooms left; the livery
stable ran out of horses; the railway company confessed to me one day
an increase in their receipts of twenty thousand francs a year since I
had come to live at Saint-Germain."

The effect of the romances upon Paris was prodigious. Men met
in the streets and discussed the adventures of d'Artagnan. Villemessant
awakened his wife in the middle of the night to tell her that Edmond
Dantes had escaped from the Chateau d'lf . Balzac admitted to Madame
Hanska that he had passed the entire day reading Les Trois Mousquc-
taircs* Theophile Gautier has written about the excitement that main-
tained in the city as instalment after instalment of the romances ap-
peared. It is not necessary to speculate about the reasons for this
popularity. First of all, there were the novels. There had been nothing
like them in France before, nothing so stirring, nothing so popular in
intent, nothing so vivid and skillful and sustained in interest. They
were calculated to appeal to an extremely wide audience, to the man
in the street as well as the scholar in his study. Coterie authors might
sniff at them as vulgar productions, might point out that the chapters
were lacking in style, that there was no profundity, that the structures
were sprawling, that history was perverted to serve the ends of ro-
mantic fiction, but no amount of cavil could erase the vivid impression
these books left on the minds of readers in all stations of life. Then
there was the time itself, a dull time wherein the inactivity of Paris
could only be lightened by vicarious participation in fictional adven-

THE KING OF ROMANCE 319

ture. People fled to these books from ennui. It was a natural reaction,
the same sort of reaction that had culminated in the Romantic move-
ment and the Revolution of 1830. It would, perhaps, be going too far
to intimate that the romances of Dumas awakened the imagination
and strengthened the purposes of the proletariat of 1848, but it is mani-
fest that the Time-Spirit was carrying a people, unbearably bored,
toward a vital explosion, and that the literature of the time is always
an important aspect of the Time-Spirit At any rate, during these
years of the great romances Dumas was the uncrowned king of Paris.
Attacks might shake him but he did not fall from his throne. He
would lose his scepter only when the inconsistent populace shifted and
turned toward other idols.

In the midst of this triumph a malevolent attack upon the integrity
of Dumas was launched by a M, Jacquot who masqueraded under the
high-sounding name of Eugene de Mirecourt, Jacquot had applied
to Dumas for employment as an assistant — he had a novel up his sleeve
and it needed retouching— but the novelist, either through thought-
lessness or scorn, ignored the young man. Jacquot bided his time. In
December, 1844, when the successes of the annus mirabilis seemed to
have soured him beyond silence, he despatched a curiously worded
resolution to La Societe des Gens de Lettres. It condemned the practice
of keeping "literary workshops." "It is reported," declared Jacquot,
"that a prolific pen contrives by active unworthy devices to triple its
means by hiring humble assistants, from whom he buys work at so
much a page. We have now the spectacle of a man coining down from
the throne of genius to step into the mud of traffic, and setting up a
shop for thought." The assembled members of La Societe des Gens
de Lettres, among them the Academician Viennet, Felix Pyat, Massoe*
Mole-Gentilhomme, the "Bibliophile Jacob" and a rather confused
Maquet, stirred uneasily. They were quite aware at whom this attack
was directed although no names were mentioned. Jacquot proceeded:
"This man should not be allowed to fling away the mask and set him-
self up as a coryphee of shame. He should not lay his hand 00 Reputa-
tion, that white-winged maid, to drag her through the mire and violate
her before public gaze." The assembly listened to this drivel without
a word. M. Viennet, who detested Dumas, looked cross-eyed cbwut

320 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

his nose. There undoubtedly was a kernel of truth in what Jacquot
had to say. There sat a squirming Maquct to prove it. Nevertheless
there was too much smoke, smoke of bombastic rhetoric, smoke of
manifest venom, for the small blaze that certainly existed. Collabora-
tion was no crime; and if the assistants of Dumas were content to
remain nameless the moral question involved was rather small. There
was the duty of the author toward the public, of course; that might be
considered. As M, Vicnnct cleared his throat to speak the door opened
and Dumas entered. An embarrassed silence greeted him, a silence
he did not observe at first as he dug a plump fist into Viennet's ribs,
wrung the hand of Maquct and clapped "Bibliophile Jacob" on the
shoulder. Someone handed the resolution of Jacquot to Dumas. He
read it hastily, his face flushing at the innuendoes; then he burst into
a rage and emphatically denied employing assistants. A moment later
he recovered himself and publicly acknowledged Maquet, much to
the discomfiture of the modest assistant. It was obvious that Dumas
was confused, taken by surprise and uncertain of what to say. His
vanity was affronted, it is to be suspected, as much as his sense of guilt
was awakened. It would be a long and complicated story, this explana-
tion of his methods of collaboration. In what way could he make
clear how much of himself was in his books and how his own mind
permeated, almost magically, that of Maquet, for example? The
meeting of La Societc des Gens de Lettres came to an uncomfortable
termination after the passing of a weak resolution that it "was urgent
to regulate the principles of collaboration in literary works."

Jacquot, however, was not finished. He had merely cast the first
stone* Now he was preparing a boulder calculated to smash to bits
the reputation of Dumas. Early in the next year, 1845, he published
at his own expense a bitter pamphlet called Fabriquc dc Romans:
Maison Alexandra Dumas ct Cic. It sold widely and created an instan-
taneous scandal, for it was crammed with spicy detail, malevolent
description and a long scries of serious indictments against Dumas as
a writer* Accusations were made concerning the indebtedness of Dumas
to other works and to a Ibng procession of assistants. The charges of
Granicr dc Cassagnac were revived and enlarged. Novel after novd
and play after play were dissected and traced back to purportedly origi-
nal sources. Minute details of plagiarism and shameless filching from

THE KING OF ROMANCE 321

helpless writers crowded the pamphlet. Not satisfied with his attempt
to destroy the integrity of Dumas as an author he tried savagely to
destroy him as a man. "The appearance of M. Dumas is pretty familiar/*
he wrote, "the figure of a drum-major, the limbs of a Hercules in all
their conceivable extension, prominent lips, African nose, curled head
and bronzed face. Scrape his hide and we find the savage under-
neath. He exhibits the marquis and the negro at once, but the marquis
scarcely goes below the skin. The marquis plays his part in public;
but in private life he betrays the negro. He flings his gold out of the
window, flies from one love to the other: blonde or brunette, it is all
one. There we have the marquis. The sex, though it may be dazzled
by an ancestral name and a lavish prodigality, is obliged to have re-
course to a smelling bottle to neutralize a certain doubtful perfume.
There we have the negro. Does he travel ? He swears at the postillions
and pays the guides lavishly. When he arrives at an inn, he stoutly
damns the host, turning everything topsy turvy. Marquis again. When
he gets home, he drags off his clothes and goes to his work in the pic-
turesque deshabilU of our first parents. He flings himself on the
hearth like a Newfoundland dog; he breakfasts, snatching from coals
roasted potatoes, which he devours without peeling. Negro! He
loves to frequent places and prostrate himself before kings— Marquis!
Like the chief of an Indian tribe, to whom travelers present beads,
M. Dumas loves everything that glitters. He has ribbons of all kinds,
decorations of every country. Such toys turn his brain. Negro all
over! In fact he is a most original and fantastic personage. He is
a boaster and a swaggerer: at one time proud as Satan, at another as
familiar as a city-grocer; today, blustering, tomorrow a coward. Caprice
is his law, and the first impulse sways him.'*

Dumas summoned Jacquot to court with the result that the author
of Fabriquc dc Romans: Alexandre Dumas ct Cic. was sentenced to
fifteen days' imprisonment. The damage had been done, however,
and the accusations hung over the career of Dumas like a storm-doud
for the rest of his life. He had been tarred with mercantilisme litttratrc
and the stain was never to be removed. Jacquot's attack had unleashed
a pack of lesser jackals who traduced Dumas continually, invented the
wildest talcs about him, enlarged the gossip and ridiculed him witj*
that savagery peculiar to a certain type of Frenchman. If Dumas stif-

322 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

fcred beneath the storm of libels and sneers he did not show it too
much* He paraded the boulevards, he entertained, he wrote, he
laughed and he loved. He joked about his "collaborators" and he could
afford to do so. The wave was still rising with Dumas on its crest.
His indignant son might rush into the offices of a newspaper that had
printed some of these libels and tear up the papers, but the father was
content to sit back and listen complacently to the snarling of the wolves.
Let them show their teeth. He knew precisely how much he was
indebted to his collaborators and how much they were indebted to
him. Let these collaborators, whose minds he seemed to pick like the
veriest sneak-thief, write books of their own and show what they could
do without him. Let the public decide between them. Who was it
who brought the inventiveness, the dash, the crisp, sustained dialogue,
the ebullient characterizations to these feuilletons which charmed all
Paris? Was it Maquet? Was it Paul Lacroix? Was it Fiorentino?
Was it Mallefille? Was it Paul Meurice? No; it was Dumas, Alex-
andre Dumas, who conceived so much that he required hacks to carry
out his innumerable schemes, just as Michael Angelo had required
anonymous stone-cutters to aid him in quarrying divine forms out
of hard marble.

Vilification and legal complications did not stop the flood of books
proceeding from the pen of Dumas. Saint-Beuve, worried about the
future of letters, might complain about the enormities of the industrial
age, and Jules Janin might grumble about the curse of the feuilkton,
but the workshop of Dumas and Maquet continued to issue books. The
theater lured Dumas only faintly at this time, although there were two
productions that require mention, one of which eventually plunged him
again into the febrile whirl of stage life.

With the aid of Maquet he wrote a dramatic version of Vingt ans
aprts which, under the tide of Les Mousquetaires, was produced at the
Ambigu-Comique on October 27, 1845. Melingue, a handsome young
actor whom Madame Dorval had discovered in Rouen, played the part
of d'Artagnan. When Melingue advanced upon the stage to announce
the author he coupled the name of Auguste Maquet with Alexandrc
Dumas and the worthy assistant, sitting in a box with his family and
never expecting such an honor, burst into tears. Dumas had been watch-

THE KING OF ROMANCE 323

ing the young Due de Montpensier, and when he saw that impression-
able prince wince and turn pale at the scene of the execution of Charles
I he rushed back stage and ordered the gruesomeness of the action
lessened. Later he paid his respects to the Due de Montpensier. The
due asked why so excellent a play should be produced at a secondary
theater. Dumas replied: "Because I have no theater of my own, and to
have such a theater a Government license is necessary." The prince grew
thoughtful and a dim hope sprang up in the breast of Dumas. A week
later Dumas was summoned to Vincennes and there the Due de Mont-
pensier informed him that he had begged a license from Duchatel for
a new theater for Dumas and that the novelist might, if he wished, call
it the Theatre Montpensier. Dumas realized that here was the oppor-
tunity to conquer another world. Heretofore his plays had been pro-
duced by directors over whom he had no power; with the Theatre
Montpensier at his disposal, however, he could do exactly what he
wished, produce whatever he chose and engage what actors he liked.
Louis-Philippe, hearing about the prospective theater, called his son
to him and ordered him to have his name removed from the under-
taking. "Princes are not allowed the excitements of bankruptcy," he
dryly remarked. Dumas, therefore, had to content himself with the
title, Theatre Historique. A company was formed to float the enter-
prise; the Hdtel Foulon and the adjoining cabaret, L'fipi-scie, on the
Boulevard du Temple, were bought and within a few months laborers
were at work demolishing the old buildings and raising the Theatre
Historique.

The second production by Dumas during this period was Unc Fille
du Regent, dramatized from the romance of the same name. It was
produced at the Theatre-Fran^ais on April i, 1846, and it ran for four-
teen performances. Dumas, very likely, was not too interested in this
production; he had more important matters in hand. The Theatre-
Historique was rising slowly on the Boulevard du Temple and near
Saint-Germain another amazing edifice was nearing completion. Dur-
ing the laborious days of 1844 Dumas, troubled by the countless visitors
to Saint-Germain, determined to rear himself a house somewhat
secluded from the town. Between Saint-Germain and Pecq and near
Marly-le-Roi he found an excellent site for a dwelling and calling in
an architect he discussed the possibilities of a modest house. But as the

324 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

discussions went on the edifice grew in structure and by the time
building actually began he had planned a chateau-villa of some size
and great expense. In July, 1844, ke invited a number of friends to
view the site and made an engagement with them to see the finished
building on that day three years hence. Near Marly-le-Roi stone-
masons, carpenters, diggers and painters went to work raising the
chateau in which Dumas intended to settle himself like some benevo-
lent old king who had conquered the world. The summer of 1846
passed to the agitation of all these enterprises. It is amusing to view
Dumas at this time, already stout, growing a trifle grizzled, contributing
to half a dozen periodicals an endless series of instalments of romances,
hurrying to the Boulevard du Temple to see how the Theatre-
Historique was progressing, rushing down to the site near Marly-le-
Roi with suddenly conceived additions to the chateau, cultivating the
young Due de Montpensier who now succeeded the lamented Due
d'Orleans as his patron, reveling at the Villa Medicis with charming
young actresses, dressing louder than ever, creating rare dishes for
friends, and using Paris for a playground as though it had been de-
signed particularly for him. Somewhere in Italy a forgotten Ida,
Marquise de Pailleterie, lived by herself and somewhere in Paris a
middle-aged woman called Marie-Catherine Lebay observed this
splendor from afar.

II

One September morning Dumas found in his mail a note from M.
de Salvandy inviting him to dinner. This was important. M. de
Salvandy was Minister of Public Instruction for Louis-Philippe.
Arrayed in his most elaborate gilet, with several fobs dangling and
clutching an expensive cane, Dumas repaired to the home of M. de
Salvandy. The dinner proved to be excellent M. de Salvandy
broached his subject direcdy after the dessert while Dumas in the
pleasant relaxed stupor of the satisfied gourmet leaned back and
politely refused the proffered pony of brandy. M. de Salvandy was
talking about Algiers. Dumas opened his eyes as his mind reverted to
that hot morning in 1830 when he had dismissed his dream of a
voyage to Algiers with Melanie S. in order to carry a gun to the
barricades. That had been sixteen years ago* The Minister of Public
Instruction explained that the French people did not know enough

THE KING OF ROMANCE 325

about their African colony and that a volume written about it by
some popular author might lessen that ignorance as well as have some
political significance. A readable book full of color and anecdotes.
Similar to those impressions de voyage. . . . M. de Salvandy sipped
his brandy and eyed M. Alexandre Dumas. "What arrangements have
you made for the winter?" he inquired politely. "I never make
arrangements/' replied Dumas. "I am like a bird on the branch of a
tree. If there is no wind, I stay there; if a wind comes, I open my
wings and fly with it." Apparently the wind was about to blow south.
The insouciant "bird on the branch" forgot the half-dozen feuittetons
he owed various periodicals. M. de Salvandy mentioned a sum he
proposed to grant the traveling author who undertook the expedition.
Dumas remarked modestly that he would supplement that sum by
three times as much if he were going. "You would not be doing it
economically," murmured the Minister. "Really, my dear Minister,'*
protested Dumas, "if you imagine that I practice economy, you must
allow me to say that, for a Minister of Education, you are very imper-
fectly educated." M. de Salvandy cleared his throat. "When can you
start?" he asked. "I should require a government vessel to be put at
my disposal — for myself and my friends," continued Dumas, thought-
fully. M. de Salvandy demurred, then agreed. "I suppose you are
busy just now?" he inquired. "I shall have to sell some railroad
stock," explained Dumas. "I can do that in two or three hours,"
Then, as an afterthought, he added: "And I shall have to finish off a
few novels. That will take a fortnight. I will start for the south in a
fortnight."

The idea appealed vastly to Dumas as he wandered home that nigkt
Algiers. Dark-faced men in turbans and veiled women with stained
fingernails. Contemptuous-nosed camels padding by the forgotten
ruins of an old civilization. Bazaars crowded with the rich stuffs of
the East. What was the continuation of Joseph Ralsamo compared
to this prospect? His contracts could lie in abeyance for three majitii&
The Theatre-Historiquc and the chateau near Marly-le-Roi could rise
from the earth without his presence. The idea appealed even more
strongly the next evening when, dining with the Due de Montpensier
at Vincennes, he broached the subject and the young prince, approviEtg
it, added: "It would be better still if you were to visit Spain on yqer

326 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

way to Algiers. I should like you to be present at my wedding in
Madrid on the twelfth of October." That settled it. The railroad
stock was sold. A special passport was secured from M. Guizot for
Alexandre Dumas, "traveling on a mission from the Minister of
Public Instruction.'* Alexandre fils was encountered on the boule-
vards. "I am going to take you with me/' remarked the father.
"Where?" demanded the young man, envisaging a delightful dinner.
'To the Freres Proven^aux?" "No, no," returned Dumas. "To Spain
, . . to Algiers." "Oh, very well/' said the son, "we are off to Spain,
then." Letters were despatched to Auguste Maquet and Louis Bou-
langer. Maquet, seated on the grass belonging to M, d'Aligre on the
He de Chatou and complacently fishing, received his letter, read it,
dropped his rod and hurried back to Paris to buy a trunk. Boulanger,
standing before a white canvas on which he intended to paint his
salon picture for 1847, thought the matter over for five minutes,
dropped his brushes and began to rummage through his studio for
his misplaced valise. On the third of October all the world seemed to
be gathered in the courtyard from which started the Laffitte and
Caillard diligences. Adieux were made. Dumas saw that his three
large trunks bursting with new clothes and his six chests of guns and
pistols were safely installed in the vehicle. A horn blew and off the
diligence started to the cheers of friends. A quarter of an hour later
Dumas, Maquet, Boulanger, Alexandre fils and a negro domestic
whose name, Eau de Benzoin, had been shortened to Paul, were aboard
their train, and the locomotive was snorting showers of bright sparks
into the night air, leaving behind it Paris, a half-built theater, the
skeleton of a chateau, some unfinished novels, an unpainted canvas,
six or seven broken contracts, one or two forgotten love affairs and
several bewildered and indignant editors.

It was a figure of importance who ventured upon Spain, a guest of
royalty and a special envoy from the French government who traveled
with a suite, clothed himself in resplendent garments and accepted
with a twinkling gravity the courtesies of the thin-bearded hidalgos.
Madrid glowed with life and color; there were songs in the streets;
dancers with clicking castanets; dark-eyed women with mountainous
combs from which fell their lace mantillas like white waterfalls;

THE KING OF ROMANCE 327

long-faced Dons with crafty eyes and parchment-skinned foreheads;
gypsies with pale bosoms and smouldering glances. The young Due
de Montpensier walked through the unending series of marriage fetes
with his betrothed, the slim sister of Isabella of Spain, and as close
behind him as possible walked Dumas. On the twelfth of the month
the elaborate ceremony turned a Spanish princess into a French
princess, and the novelist who had been a poverty-stricken youth from
Villers-Cotterets stood beside the son of the King of France and signed
the marriage contract as one of the witnesses. Afterward the Grand
Cordon of Charles III was presented to him, still another decoration
for that chest already bespangled with orders. When the wedding
ceremony was over Dumas, augmenting his party with Desbarolles,
the palmistry expert, and Giraud, the artist, completed a brief tour of
Spain. Barcelona. Malaga. Cordova. Seville. Cadiz. The usual
adventures befell him. The atrocious quality of the food was appall-
ing. "In Italy your food is bad, and the only good restaurateurs are
French; in Spain you have no food at all, and the good restaurateurs
are Italian!" He cursed the execrable fosadas and consigned the dis-
obliging posaderos to a warmer place than Spain. He discovered one
way of circumventing these greasy purveyors of inedible food; he
pre-empted the kitchen of each inn he visited long enough to prepare
one meal with his own hands. When he was not cooking he was
observing the Spaniards with an attentive eye. The women drove
him to distraction. When the Andalusian girls danced before him he
grew lyrical. "What eyes! What feet! If I do not describe the feet of
these lovely women, it is really because their feet can hardly be said
to exist!" The cachucha. The ole. The vito. The fandango. Anita
dancing on the table while the glasses crashed to the floor. The white
silken calves of Carmencita and Pietra. They had heard about tike
French romancer and were eager to see him. . . . "It seemed just as if
I were a Sultan entering his harem, minus the eunuchs." But when
he kissed the thin, blue-veined hand of Anita he realized at once that
he had committed a faux fas. To Maquet he confided that these girls
were of a v ertu j6roce. At the House of Seneca in Cordova the
princesses were not so cold; but Dumas and his friends had made a
vow of chastity before they left Paris and, having kissed the wiffiag
foreheads of the inmates of this temple of pleasure, they departed.

328 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

There were bull-fights to witness, theatrical managers to greet,
enthusiastic townsmen still exhilarated by the adventures of d'Ar-
tagnan to smile upon, a private bull hunt organized by the Comte
d'Aguila to thrill one, Alexandre fils to watch, for he lagged behind
the party and lost himself for a day or two at a time. No journey
Dumas had ever undertaken proved as successful as this triumphal
tour of Spain under the powerful protection of the Due de Mont-
pensier and the French ministry. There were no disappointments, no
humiliations, no disturbing visits from foreign police officials, nothing
but smiling welcomes and enthusiastic receptions. It was suggestive
of the travels of an Eastern potentate, of a powerful Monte Cristo
passing gorgeously through a civilization that bowed low before

Le Veloce, commanded by Captain Berard, rode at anchor in the
harbor of Cadiz. It was a war-steamer of two hundred and twenty
tons which plied as a despatch boat between Oran and Tangiers.
Dumas boarded it. He was received with the honors befitting a gov-
ernmental officer, presented a complimentary letter from Marechal
Bugeaud's secretary and assigned to his quarters. On November
twenty-first the vessel drew out of the port of Cadiz while Dumas and
his companions, minus Alexandre fils who was lost again, stood on
the deck and watched the receding coast of Spain. The waters were
calm and, except for the violent seasickness of Maquet, the crossing to
Tangiers was uneventful. Trafalgar was passed and Dumas meditated
the history of England and France. He thought it might be summed
up in six words: Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Aboukir, Trafalgar and
Waterloo. Yet, he thought, England might disappear from the surface
of the earth and the half of the world upon which she weighs so
heavily would applaud; but were the torch that blazed in the hands
of France extinguished half of the world, thrust into impenetrable
darkness, would emit a cry of agony and despair. It was in the early
evening, two or more days later, that the mountains of Tangiers,
crouching shapes like languorous lions, loomed in the clear African
twilight. As the boat churned into the harbor Dumas could hear the
distant howls of hyenas and jackals, lonesome ululations that drifted
across the desolate hills. Here at last was mysterious Africa, the land of
Jinns and outlandish monsters, of sly slant black eyes and figures muffled

THE KING OF ROMANCE 329

in white, of high shrill horns and thudding drums, of long-barreled
guns and Arabs in dusty bournouses, of bearded Jews in long caftans
and fat suspicious-eyed Turks. He could smell the strange odor of the
Orient. The travelers were eager to get ashore and observe this land
that was as old as Time, this strange edge of civilization that bordered
the womb of ancient history — the Mediterranean. Among the curious
spectacles Dumas witnessed was an elaborate Jewish wedding. He
talked to Arabs and he wandered through the narrow streets and
bazaars. Then returning to Le Veloce, for this stop was but a brief
foretaste of Africa, he saw the anchor raised and the bow of his vessel
turned toward the Pillars of Hercules. Gibraltar was reached, Gibral-
tar inhabited by English soldiers and monkeys, and there Alexandre
fits was found awaiting patiently the arrival of the boat. He had
occupied his time in writing poetry. The British governor of Gibral-
tar, Sir Robert Wilson, "a magnificent old man of sixty-six or sixty-
seven years," welcomed Dumas heartily, pressed some Moorish pottery
upon him and witnessed his departure with reluctance. On the
twenty-sixth of November the war steamer reached Tetuan and here
Dumas learned that his boat had been assigned originally to pick up
some French prisoners who had been captured by Abd-el-Kader.
Dumas insisted that Le Veloce carry out her original assignment and
the boat was turned toward Melilla where, according to rumor, the
unfortunate Frenchmen, under the command of Colonel Courby de
Cognord, were to be found. On arrival there it was discovered that the
released prisoners, weary of waiting for their rescue ship, had gone
to Djema-r-'Azouat, and there, as guests of Colonel Macmahon (later
to be the famous Marechal of the Second Empire, and still later a
President of the Third Republic) Dumas found them. He arrived in
time to take part in a huge banquet given by Macmahon in honor
of the prisoners. The few days of quick journeying in search of the
French soldiers had excited Dumas to a high pitch and the triumph
of the culminating banquet seemed to have a curious effect upon die
imaginative brain of the romancer. He began to think that he had
rescued the prisoners himself, when in point of fact he had merely
chased after them in a vessel that was, he admitted, a "mauvais
marcheur" By the time he returned to Paris he was certain that he

330 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

had played an instrumental part in the deliverance of his militant
countrymen from the treacherous clutches of Abd-el-Kaden

The day after the banquet at Djema-r-'Azouat, Dumas, eager to be
the first to communicate the great news to the French officials, agreed
to Captain Berard's desire to proceed at once to Algiers. It was during
the evening of November twenty-seventh that the vessel departed from
Djema-r-'Azouat. The next day and night and the morning of the
day after they crept along the coast. Dumas, Desbarolles, Boulanger
and Alexandre ftls were on deck most of the time while Maquet, who
had bumped his head against a low beam, and Giraud, who was sick
from fear of seasickness, kept to their cabins. About nine o'clock on
the morning of the twenty-ninth the cry of "Algiers! Algiers!"
brought the ailing couple into the sunlight. The African city lay
before them, beginning at the sea and climbing the mountainous
background to Fort de TEmpereur. As Le Veloce doubled the pier
prior to dropping anchor Dumas orientated Algiers in its sun-splashed
surroundings; to the right stretched the blue sea, to the left the plain
of Mitidja extended from Rassauta to Ben-Afroun, and in the rear the
peak of Atlas rose over Cape Matifou. France in Africa. It stirred
the novelist to see the familiar uniforms of the officers congregated
along the piers and to hear the language of Paris spoken by tie
clustering groups of white-robed figures. Disembarking with celerity
Dumas immediately communicated the news of the deliverance of the
French prisoners from Abd-el-Kader. It was received with the proper
excitement by the military officers but with a disappointing lack of
enthusiasm by the speculators, commercial travelers and bourgeois
merchants who merely asked, "What prisoners?" Another disappoint-
ment awaited him. Marechal Bugeaud, the Governor, was absent and
would not return for a fortnight. Dumas's ardor was dampened, for
he had been especially recommended to Bugeaud and was confident
of receptions and entertainment from him. General de Bar, now in
command, was an excellent fellow but he was an unimaginative
soldier from whom no particular guidance was to be expected. Very
well. Dumas decided to profit by the absence of Marshal Bugeaud
and visit Tunis. He presented his letter putting Le Veloce at his
disposition to General de Bar. The General, uncertain as to what

THE KING OF ROMANCE 331

powers had been placed in the hands of Dumas, referred him to Vice-
Admiral dc Rigodic. The Vice-Admiral, also dubious as to the eti-
quette of the matter, decided to honor the writer's request and sanc-
tioned the departure of Le Veloce for Tunisian ports.

Dumas, now in complete control of the war-steamer, forgot the
objective of his commission and departed toward the east. A brief
halt at Bizerta was made and Le Veloce then proceeded to Tunis,
entering the bay one fine day when the sun turned the huddled houses
into a blaze of white. Twenty-one shots from the ship's cannon saluted
the African city and the echoes, heard among the ruins of Carthage,
announced that Alexandre Dumas had arrived. The visit to Tunis
proved pleasant and instructive. Dumas visited the bazaars and pur-
chased rich hangings, carved woodwork, pottery, jewelry and furni-
ture. He studied the Moorish and Arab women, noticing particularly
their fine eyes and their inclination toward grossness as they aged.
He amassed a quantity of notes on the habits and appearance of
Arabs, Moors and Jews. He visited the holy Marabout of Sidi-
Fathallah and secured an interview with Sidi-Mohammed, whose
favor he won by presenting him with a French newspaper verifying
the safe arrival in France of the Bey of Tunis. Sidi-Mohamined was
so pleased that he presented Dumas with the Order of the Nicham.
The ruins of Carthage were visited and on the grey crumbling wall
Dumas inscribed the name of Chateaubriand with the point of his
knife. A solemn pilgrimage was made to Chapelle Saint-Louis. At
Bona Dumas met the lion-killer, Gerard, from whom he heard
extraordinary stories of the chase, stories which he set down in his
notebooks and rewrote and sold when he returned to Paris. Tunis
was left behind and a halt was made at Constantine. There Dumas
purchased a red-eyed, mangy, ferocious vulture for twelve francs*
He baptised it Jugurtha, and against the advice of Maquet who shud-
dered whenever his own eyes encountered the red malevolent stare
of the bird, announced that he would take it back to France. Jugurtha
was placed in a large cage and conveyed by coach from Constantine
to Philippeville. From Philippeville there was a fatiguing walk of two
miles to Stora where Lc Veloce awaited her distinguished group.
Jugurtha's cage was too heavy to carry, so the bird — it was now in a
fury of rage because of the many indignities that had befallen it— was

332 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

removed from its prison, a long rope was attached to its scrawny neck
and Dumas began to drive it before him like a turkey. Jugurtha
scornfully soared into the air. Yanked down forcibly by the rope the
bird swooped upon the plump leg of Dumas and removed a generous
slice of the calf. Dumas slashed about him with a stick and almost
decapitated Jugurtha before the bird, surrendering with sullen reser-
vations, fell in with the arrangement and stalked gloomily to Stora
and aboard Le Vfloce. Desbarolles, Boulanger and Alexandre fils
were weak with laughter at the spectacle.

Ill

When Dumas returned to Paris two storms burst over his bushy
head. If he had expected to return in triumph wearing his new
decorations, the Grand Cordon of Charles III and the Order of the
Nicham, he experienced a disappointment. An angry conclave of
editors pounced upon him much as a pack of hounds leap at a bear.
The great playboy, so regardless of duties and promises, so expansive
in ambition and intermittent in execution, had exasperated even his
closest friends. They were not willing to welcome him with the
fanfare he expected, to listen to his embroidered talcs of embassy in
Spain and Africa, to ignore his procrastinations and defalcations. Not
at all. He had abused their confidences, disrupted the serialization of
his fcuillctons in their periodicals and angered their subscribers.
Dumas, bustling into Paris in mid-January, 1847, overloaded with
baggage, guns and Tunisian wood-carvers, to say nothing of Jugurtha,
found a serious action at law confronting him. No less than seven
periodicals were plaintiffs in the action: La Presse, Le Constttutionnel,
Lc Stick, Le Commerce, La Patrie, Le Soleil and L'Esprit Public.
Dumas despatched his Tunisians to Saint-Germain to carve the wood-
work for his cMtcau, took a hasty glance at the nearly completed
Th&tre-Historique, engaged a few actors and then faced his formid-
able array of antagonists. The attack against him was led by Doctor
V&on of Le Constitutionnel and fimilc de Girardin of La Presse.
Doctor Veron's attitude needed no explanation, for the romancer and
the editor had never t>ecn close friends; but it was strange to discover
fimile de Girardin in this gatirc. What was the matter with the

THE KING OF ROMANCE 333

fellow? Did he not understand that France had called Alexandra
Dumas to Madrid and Algiers and that patriotic duties came before
those silly bits of paper called contracts ? fimile de Girardin preserved
a very long and aggrieved face and proceeded with his legal battle.
There was no time for Dumas to expatiate on his Spanish tour and his
African trip. The stage for his immediate actions was akeady set and
it was a large and dusty courtroom.

The incidents of these proceedings might well have served an astute
librettist as material for an oftra-boufic. When the hearings opened
before the first chamber of the Civic Tribunal of the Seine on January
30, 1847, the courtroom was crowded to suffocation with writers, edi-
tors, actresses and curiosity-seekers, for it was rumored that the great
Alexandre Dumas would appear in person to plead his cause. Perhaps
he would be wearing all his decorations. He did appear — minus the
decorations, however — and Paris laughed for weeks after at the
memory of his naive and bombastic defense. The case against Dumas
was simple and obvious. In March, 1845, he had concluded an agree-
ment with Doctor Veron of Lc Constitutionncl and fimile de Girardin
of La Pressc by which his services would be reserved to them exclu-
sively. Dumas promised to furnish nine volumes a year for five years
and publish in no rival periodicals. This agreement was adhered to
until October of the same year when the two editors were surprised
to find various publications announcing new works by the author.
Dumas was summoned before them but he extricated himself from
their accusations in his usual indefinite way. To Doctor Veron he
promised a new work. La Dame dc Monsoreau. It arrived in scraps
at the most impossible hours, generally just when Lc Constitutionncl
was going to press, and flung the editorial rooms into a state of
"continual perturbation." The situation at La Pressc was even worse*
Joseph Balsamo had been running there and the last instalment, ap-
pearing just before the Spanish trip, had ended with these lines:
"After this there was little left for the young man except to die. He
closed his eyes and sank upon the ground." There, declared the indig-
nant advocate for fimile de Girardin, the character had remained for
six months while M. Dumas went hunting lions in Africa. In short,
Dumas had kept none of his promises, only partially fulfilled his
agreements, accepted payments for which he had made no return and

334 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

embarrassed the editors. Damages of fifty thousand francs were
demanded.

Dumas's defense was a triumph in burlesque. He bellowed; he
slapped his chest; he harangued the court on the serious purposes
behind his absence from Paris. Had he not been the only Frenchman
invited to the wedding of the Due de Montpensier? Was it not true
that the Grand Cordon of Charles III had been awarded him not as
a man of letters but as Alexandre Dumas-Davy, Marquis de Pailleterie?
There was a murmur of laughter in the courtroom. Truly, this Dumas
was a magnificent buffoon. The gesticulating orator proceeded,
blandly indifferent to the chuckles he aroused. He had gone to Tunis,
whose prince, though a native, was not a savage. That prince, unfortu-
nately, was in France but the brother of that prince, Sidi-Mohammed,
had received him with the honors due an envoy and had pinned on his
breast the Order of the Nicham. In Algeria he had collected the most
precious documents which he would place in the office of the court
within four days. It would take him that length of time to make a
book of them. Finished with these grandiose flourishes he considered
the case against him. He admitted the agreements with Doctor Veron
and fimile de Girardin but pleaded that they did not cancel his
anterior agreements with the other periodicals mentioned. "I had
eighty volumes to publish with them," he declared in a loud voice,
"to wit: Monte Cristo, Le Fils dc Milady (Vingt cms afrts), Lc
Vicomte de Bragelonne, Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, the end of
La Guerre des Femmes, Le Stecle de Louis XIV, L'Histoire de la
Pcinture, and others, forming altogether eighty volumes or two hun-
dred and twenty-six thousand lines to publish; such an amount,
assuredly, that if the Academy sat down to do it (and they are forty)
they would be hard pushed during the two years." He proceeded:
"I did what no man has ever done before. I commenced the publica-
tion of five romances at one time in five different journals and I
carried the work to its end. My adversaries are there to say if I have
ever given a single line that was not in my handwriting. Three
horses, three domestics and the railroad were hard put to it to trans-
port my copy and bring back the proofs. At two o'clock in the
morning my servants were again on the road to Saint-Germain."
Alternately laughing and gasping with amazement his auditors

THE KING OF ROMANCE 335

listened. There was a distinct touch of megalomania in this rolling
defense, an elephantiasis of the ego that was as disturbing as it was
laughable. What would happen to a man who went on at this rate?
It was about this time that Doctor Cabarrus prophesied that Dumas
would be insane within two years. The novelist was becoming too
convinced of his ascendency, too certain of his vastness in the French
scene. Still the extraordinary performance in the courtroom had in
part accomplished its purpose, and when the Civic Tribunal handed
down its decision on February nineteenth, the day before the Theatre-
Historique opened its doors, the damages petitioned by Doctor Veron
and fimile de Girardin were considerably reduced. Duinas's debt to
Veron was fixed at six and one-third volumes to be furnished within
a specified time and three thousand francs penalty. The award to
Girardin was similar except that the amount of writing was raised
to eight and one-fifth volumes. One wonders if Dumas did not under-
stand the psychology of his French audience and overplay his megalo-
mania for its benefit.

The tumult of this storm had not died away before a second tempest
burst. The scene was the Chamber of Deputies and the subject was
the African trip on Le Veloce. On February tenth, M. Castellane, an
officious deputy whose immediate desire was to embarrass the govern-
ment, rose from his chair and put a sharp question to the Ministry.
Was it a fact that a well-known contractor for stories had been paid
a large sum to make Algiers known to France and to the . . . Cham-
ber? Had this person (cc monsieur) been provided with a vessel at
the expense of die State? "I say nothing of the burlesque side of the
transaction, but there is a certain delicacy to be observed as regards
the navy and its sailors, to say nothing of the vessel having been used
as a Royal packet." The Minister of Public Instruction was requested
to justify this unusual act of placing a naval vessel at the disposal of a
private person. The Minister of Marine was also asked why Le Veloce
had been remqvcd from her proper route and how much coal had
been consumed by her and what the cost of it was. A second officious
deputy, M. de Malleville, abetted M. Castellane in the onslaught upon
Dumas and his mission. The government ministers were slightly
incoherent in their replies. The Minister of Marine intimated that

336 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Marechal Bugeaud had written that the affair was a mdcntendu, that
Le Veloce, regularly employed between Tangiers and Oran, had
stopped at Cadiz in its regular course but that it had gone to Algiers
instead of Oran because of the misinterpretation of an order. The
cruise from Algiers to Tunis was due to the importunities of the
writer who had insisted that such a journey was necessary for the
accomplishment of his mission. M. de Salvandy was called to the
Tribune. In a haughty and final manner he closed the matter by
admitting that the mission had been simply for Algiers, but that he
did not find it consistent with the dignity of the Chamber to ask him
to reveal what passed between him and a man of letters.

The episode was an excellent example of petty politics and malicious
insult. We may gauge the meanness of the attack upon Dumas by
the fact that he was referred to throughout the proceedings as "this
person" (ce monsieur) although he was without a doubt the best
known figure in the French capital. As for the justice of the attack, it
is rather difficult to discover. Dumas certainly had a "mission"; it was
so stated in his passport. Le Veloce was delegated to carry him to
Africa; if he seemed to be going too far in requisitioning that vessel
for the Tunisian venture it must be remembered that he alone was the
director of his mission. It is true that Lc Veloce was expected to drop
Dumas at Oran after picking him up at Cadiz but Le Veloce was also
expected to pick up the French prisoners at Melilla, and, presumably,
to carry them to Algiers from which port they might be sent back to
France. As a matter of fact, there seems to have been just as much
uncertainty on the part of the officials, M. dc Salvandy, the Minister
of Marine, Marechal Bugeaud and Vice-Admiral de Rigodie, as there
was presumption on the part of Dumas. Any one of these persons
could have prevented the Tunisian trip if they had desired so to do.
It was patent that the novelist had been the butt of an aggrieved
opposition.

Dumas, for his part, defended himself by an abrupt gesture. He
challenged M. Castellanc to a duel, and the faithful Maquet chal-
lenged M. de Malleville. Both deputies took refuge behind the
inviolability of their governmental positions and the affair simmered
down to muttcrings on their part, some resonant declarations on that
of Dumas, and a gnashing of teeth on the part of the Jacquot-

THE KING OF ROMANCE 337

Mirecourt group, who, expecting to witness the demolition of Dumas,
saw instead a reversal of public opinion in his favor* Indeed, the
public could not remain out of sorts with the novelist for any length
of time. Although he might exasperate them by failing to fill his
obligations, his personality was a mollification in itself. He did not
possess the mental hauteur of Hugo or the small snobberies of Balzac.
His vanity was as frank as that of a Fiji monarch covered with
colored bits of ribbons and glittering shells and seated on a throne.
He could enjoy the flamboyance of his attitude as well as his retainers,
What could a public do but forget its irritation before such a magnifi-
cent pose? Even fimile de Girardin, now that the unpleasant court-
room scenes were over, could not refrain from renewing his friendly
relations with Dumas. The two storms passed, then, and the novelist
found himself none the worse for them. He was still in the ascendent.
The finishing touches were being put to the Theatre-Historique; the
players were already in rehearsal for the first performance. The walls
of the chateau near Marly-le-Roi were raised and furniture was being
moved in. The market for feuilletons was still abundant. Thackeray's
open letter in La Revue Britannique accusing Dumas of "lifting" two
stories without acknowledgment was tempered by eulogy. The cold
weather was lifting and the sun shone longer every day in Paris.
God was in His heaven. Louis-Philippe was on his throne. The future
was roseate.

During the afternoon and evening of February 20, 1847, a marchand
de chansons wandered up and down the long queue of impatient
people along the Boulevard du Temple and peddled hastily printed
broadsides. The queue had been there since the night before, had
partaken of thick soup and hard bread, reposed on beds of straw that
littered the pavement, drained cups of watery coffee in the pale dawn,
shuffled restless feet throughout the long day and now, to divert itself,
purchased the broadsides still wet with fresh ink and bellowed the
stanzas printed upon them. The air was Veux-tu faairc. The title was
Le Thtdtrc Dumas. The words ran:

On dit qu'au iht&trc Dumas
On pourra prendre ses 6bats;

338 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Vive I'auteur des Mousquetaires,
Veux-tu t'taire, veux-tu t'taire,
Bavard, veux-tu t'taire.

L'thedtre ouvert, aussitot
On y jouera la Rein' Margot
Fureur bien s&r die va faire.
Veux-tu, etc.

Dans les pieces de poison
On y mourr'ra pour de bon
Au public $a pourra plaire.
Veux-tu, etc.

De son bonnet d 'colon
Faudra s'munir, dit-on,
Car stjour il faudra faire.
Veux-tu, etc.

Celui que I'appetit prendra
Table d'hote trouvera;
On mangera bon et pas cher.
Veux-tu> etc.

Les Funambules, les Frangais
Ne feront plus pour leurs jrais.
Debureau se descsptrc.
Veux-tu, etc.

Les directeurs de Paris
De f'la ne sont pas rams
Us seront forces d'mieux faire.
Vcux-tu, etc.

It was the opening night of Alcxandrc Dumas's Theatre-Historiquc.
The impatient mob, waiting to view the first performance of La Reint
Margot, gazed upward at an imposing facade. Two huge caryatides

THE KING OF ROMANCE 339

designed by Klagmann supported a balustraded balcony behind
which opened a demi-cupola with elaborate murals by Guichard,
Above this arched opening was the pediment dominated by a nude
figure of the Genius of the Seven Arts and on each side were groups
representing the Cid and Ximena and Hamlet and Ophelia, personifi-
cations of tragedy and drama. Tall pillars lined the entrance beneath
the balcony and a blaze of light shone from the four great lamp-
posts. When the doors were opened and the crowd poured into the
theater a happy innovation greeted them. Instead of the usual semi-
circle which maintained in the playhouses of the time Bellu and
Daunay, the architects, had created a long oval, broad rather than
deep, with the lines of boxes and galleries parallel to the stage. The
decorations by Sechan were lavish; the plafond was painted with
allegorical figures and there was a hemicycle of famous poets and
actors. Before the audience which crowded the seventeen hundred
seats and massed in the passageways at the rear hung a vast red and
gold curtain from behind which came the noise of shifting scenery
and the barking of an excited stage manager. Hippolyte Hostein,
formerly of the Ambigu and now the nominal director of this new
house, hurried to and fro, excited for the first time in his life. This
was a new venture. There had been nothing like it in the history of
the French stage. It was, in effect, intended to be a European theater
as well as a national playhouse.

Dumas witnessed the realization of one of his dreams in the Theatre-
Historique. He now controlled his own house. He could produce
what he pleased in any way he chose. All this was due to the young
Due de Montpensier and when the prince entered his box accom-
panied by his suite Dumas was voluble in his thanks. It was an
excellent theater, comparable with the best in Paris. It was solid, too.
Had not Dumas tested its strength by inviting several thousand
Parisians to a preview of the house? A thousand flattered men and
women had crowded the theater, unaware that their presence had
been asked merely to test the strength of the flooring. For Dumas it
was a propitious time for a new theater. Buloz had just been appointed
administrator of the Th^atre-Frangais and there was an estrangement
between that yellow-faced editor and the novelist. Mademoiselle Mars,
old and neglected, was dying m the rue de la Lavoisier. Opera was

34o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

beginning to come into its own. Mademoiselle Alboni, described as
the elephant who swallowed a nightingale, was about to make her
debut at the Opera-Comique, and Verdi's Jerusalem had been ac-
cepted by the Opera- Alfred de Musset's Un Caprice was in rehearsal
at the Theatre-Francis. New faces and new ideas were beginning to
appear in a disquieting manner, just as the Reformists were beginning
to show their teeth against the bourgeois reign of Louis-Philippe. In
England a heavy-lidded man named Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
observed the agitation of the Reformists with some interest. Dumas,
whose great days were bound up in the era of Louis-Philippe, must
have realized his good fortune in possessing the Th£atre-Historique,
although when the great red and gold curtain rose at six-thirty on the
evening of February 20, 1847, he could not have known that it marked
the peak of his career in the dramatic life of France.

An excellent company under the direction of Hostein had been
gathered for the first performance. Etienne Melingue, the distin-
guished romantic actor who had already made his worth known in
tla plays of Dumas, acted Henri de Navarre. Rouviere, one of
Dumas's discoveries, played Charles IX and carried away the honors
of the evening by his remarkable personification. Marguerite de Na-
varre was acted by Madame Perrier-Lacressionniere. Other members
of the troupe were Messieurs Laferriere, Bignon, Lacressonniere, Col-
burn and Boutin, and Mesdames Atala Beauch£ne, Person and Lucie
Mabire. La Reinc Mar got, an acknowledged collaboration with Au-
guste Maquet, was an extremely long play and when the curtain fell
upon the fifteenth scene it was after three o'clock in the morning. The
Due de Montpensier sat bravely throughout the nine hours of per-
formance, and so, too, did Thlophile Gautier, who wrote the next
day in his critique of the drama: "We must ask the indulgence of the
reader, for, without being like good old Homer, we are likely enough
to be found nodding as we write, and dropping our pen in the middle
of a sentence. We did not get to bed until broad daylight.*1 In spite
of its length the effect of La Rcine Mar got was tremendous and the
Th^atre-Historique was triumphantly launched on its first year. The
public crowded the theater for the very reason that eventually it stayed
away. In these plays refashioned from the popular feuillctons of
Dumas they heard a phraseology that they not only loved but knew

fiTIENNE MELINGUE
As Chicot in La Dame de Monsoreau

ETIENNE MELINGUE

As d' Artagnan in La Jeunesse

des Mousquetalres

THE KING OF ROMANCE 34*

by heart. They saw in physical action upon the stage the characters
they had pictured in their mind's eye as they devoured the daily
instalments. But this was sure to pall, because at best only a part of
their curiosity was engaged. When the troublous days of revolution
came — and they were only a year away — the audiences forsook the
dramas of the Theatre-Historique for the dramas of the streets. But
for the present Dumas was at the high pitch of his popularity, the
most famous figure in the capital, and he moved like an Eastern king
through all this adulation. On the first day of May, Louis-Philippe's
fete-day, when the various fonctionnaires appeared at the Louvre to
pay their respects to the King, a heavy figure was to be observed in
the grand gallery, striding along in the habiliments of a commandant
of the National Guard and with a bosom suggestive of a jeweler's
window in the Palais-Royal, for upon it glittered five crosses, four
vari-colored decorations and three collars. Dumas was going to pay
his respects to the King.

Play succeeded play during the first year of the Theatre-Historique
and all of them proved either greatly or fairly successful. On the
twentieth of May L'ficolc des Families by Adolphe Dumas (who was
no relation of Alexandrc) was produced. But Dumas was somewhat
averse to presenting dramas by other writers. Maquet and he could
satisfy the demand. Lc Mart de la Veuve, the charming bit Dumas
had written with Anicet Bourgeois and Eugene Delrieu in 1832 and
which had been produced during the fatal cholera month, was revived
on May twenty-fifth. On the eleventh of June Intrigue et Amour was
presented, a hurried and mediocre adaptation from Schiller by Dumas,
and it scored only a fair success. It was on August third that the
second great success aroused the audiences of the Theatre-Historique
to loud demonstrations, A dramatization of Lc Chevalier de Maison-
Rouge was staged. It rose steadily to the foudroyant triumph of the
scene of the Revolutionary Tribunal where the condemned Girondins
sang Mourir four la patrie.

Par la voix du canon d'alarmes.
La France appelle ses enfant*.
"Aliens, dit le soldat, aux armesl

342 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Ccst ma nitre, jc la defends.
Mourir pour la patric,
Ccst le sort le plus beau, le plus digne d'envie!"

Dumas, listening to the song as he stood in the coulisses, said to a
bystander: "Our next revolution will be performed to that tune." He
was right. Six months later the enraged bourgeoisie was parading the
boulevards and roaring Mourir pour la patric while the aged and
bewildered Louis-Philippe was fleeing to England.

After the long performance of Le Chevalier de Maison-Rougc
Dumas, now installed in his chateau at Saint-Germain, discovered that
it was too late to travel home and so begged asylum of Melingue for
the night. Melingue took Dumas home with him, showed him his
bed-chamber and, exhausted from his performance, retired to his own
room and climbed into bed. He was dozing when he heard a thun-
derous racket in the next chamber. Starting up the actor hurried to
the door of Dumas's chamber, rapped sharply and cried: "What is the
matter?" A round perspiring face peered through the door. "Noth-
ing," said Dumas, "nothing at all. I am arranging your chamber.
The armoire a glace was deplorably placed and the bookcase is much
better where I have put it." Melingue thought that four o'clock in
the morning was too late, or too early, to arrange furniture. He said:
"You have done enough butchering this evening at the theater."
Dumas had been revising the mise en sctnc at the Th^atre-Historique
to the nervous irritability of the players. "I forbid you to change
anything in my house. The furniture looks well enough where it was
and the mise en sctne of my apartment pleases me as much as the
mtse en sctne of Le Chcvdier de Maison-Rougc displeases you." He
blew out Dumas's candles and sulkily returned to his bed. Next
morning Dumas repeated to Melingue: "I assure you that your book-
case would be much better placed by the wall toward the court and
your armoire on the side toward the garden. If you try it you will sec."

One other production was made at the Th&tre-Historique during
1847. It was the translation of Hamlet which Dumas had made with
Paul Mcurice and which had been privately performed at the Saint-
Germain theater some time before. Rouvi&re again made a distinct
impression, this time in the r6Ie of the Prince of Denmark, Dumas,

THE KING OF ROMANCE 343

gazing back over the list of productions, congratulated himself. The
Theatre-Historique was a manifest success. It had drawn to itself
a large public and the receipts for the first year totaled seven hundred
thousand francs. The prospects for the future seemed bright. He had
his theater and his chateau between Saint-Germain and Marly4e-Roi.
What he would do when the flame burst and the throne fell was
another matter. His sense of the dramatic would guide him then.
But during the summer and autumn and early winter of 1847 it did
not seem that any throne would fall. The Reformists bellowed and
planned their banquets of demonstration, but the entire Revolutionary
movement, if it could be dignified by that name, was like a damp keg
of powder. Here and there it sputtered feebly but there was no
thunderous detonation nor did one appear to be in prospect. The Paris
of 1847 like the Paris of 1869 did not see the shadow on the other side
of the door. That portal was always blown open by unexpected guns.

In July of this prosperous year the chateau near Marly-le-Roi was
ready for visitors. Melingue christened it Monte Cristo. Dumas
invited some five or six hundred guests to the fairy palace, not quite
completed, which Plante had reared. The guests saw rising before
them an edifice half chateau and half villa embowered in trees and
surrounded by a luxuriant garden. Before it stood the massive form
of the proprietor dressed in an elaborate National Guard uniform, a
broad smile on his face, large hands extended in welcome. Now he
was Monte Cristo himself, the man who owned the world, whose
mines of gold were all the journals of Paris which printed jcuillctons
and a theater which was crowded nightly, and he assumed the role
with the gorgeous histrionism of a negro- The chattering visitors,
journalists, authors, actors, actresses, hangers-on in the Bohemian
milieu of the capital, walked up the path toward the giant above
whose head rose the two high campaniles of his impossible dwelling.
They gazed upon Monte Cristo and were alternately impressed and
amused. The white stone walls were covered with exquisite traceries
copied from those of Jean Goujon in the Louvre by one Choistat and
the curving lines of the great bow windows were carried up into the
roof. Prominently carved in large stone letters was the motto Dumas
had taken for himself, "J'tdmc qui m'aime" Around the building

344 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

ran a balcony, such a balcony as might shelter some Roxane while a
hidden Cyrano de Bergerac cried out his love from the shadows
beneath the moon-splashed walls. Leaded windows, turrets, flam-
boyant weather-cocks and carven faces started out from the glittering
stone of the curious facade. The assembled guests looked and whis-
pered among themselves. They spread over the grounds, wandering
through the leafy gardens and crowding the circular terrace which
ended in a grassy slope and down which artificial streams flowed in
cascades. They paused before the miniature island not far from the
central building and admired the toy water-gate and the two-foot
moat across which Dumas might step like a new Gulliver in Lilliput
They gazed at the theatrically constructed kiosk on the island and saw
red letters on every brick that composed it. Advancing they discovered
that each one of the bricks was inscribed with the title of one of
the plays or books of Dumas. He had created enough titles to cover
the entire building. Peering through the quaint windows they dis-
covered that the interior of the small kiosk was a tiny hexagonal room
with a ceiling of sky blue studded with golden stars and cross-beamed
with oak which had been carved into imitation foliage. Blue cloth
hangings swayed from the door and windows, and a lofty and ex-
travagantly festooned mantelpiece filled one corner. The petitencss of
the chamber limited the furniture to one chair, a large and strong one,
and a small solid table. But that was enough. Upon the table were ink,
paper and quill pens. Above the door was the warning, "Cave cancm"
It was the den of Dumas, the sanctum sanctorum of the fcuillcton.

Turning back to the chateau-villa the guests trooped through open
doors flanked by dark-skinned Moslems in flowing robes and turbans,
the two slaves of the Bey of Tunis whom Dumas had brought back
from Africa. Inside they found a waiting room with walls delicately
carved in fret-work and with designs created by Klagmann, a salon
hung in costly cashmeres, a dining room walled with oak paneling
and a small chamber which Dumas affectionately indicated as "la
chambre Arabe" This amazing room, so calculated to create the
atmosphere of the loving tfre-b-t&e, was a sort of super-Oriental divan
divided by Moorish arches. Its walls and ceilings were a single design
of beautiful arabesques recalling the supreme moulding of the Al-
hambra. The arches were hung with violet velvet and about the lower

THE KING OF ROMANCE 345

half of the fretted walls ran a series of mirrors. The guests gazed and
sighed. The lights were dimmed in this chamber; the air was redolent
with the gentle scents of harem perfumes. Like the star-studded kiosk
on the little island this, too, was obviously one of the private work-
rooms of Dumas. It was unfinished as yet — indeed, it would never
be completed — but it was sufficient for its appointed task.

Upstairs, up elaborate stairs, went the procession of guests and they
found a series of chambers imitative of varying periods. There was a
Gothic room, cool and twisted and slightly sardonic in its atmosphere.
There was a Renaissance room piled with curious furniture and
walled with reproductions of great paintings. There was a Henri II
room, wide and airy and not too crowded with chairs and bed. There
was a Louis XV room in which Madame du Barry herself might have
slept. The guests discovered new wonders at every turn, rich stuflfs
from Africa, hangings, chairs, old weapons, curiosities ransacked from
the antique dealers of Paris, vases and pictures. They hurried down-
stairs and up again, around the grounds once more where they came
upon a coach house and stables, in which four blooded horses neighed
and rolled their eyes. Then there was the conservatory, the fruit and
flower gardens, the dog-kennels where half a dozen hounds bayed, the
aviary where Jugurtha, the mean-spirited vulture, glared viciously from
his corner; the poultry yard and the monkey-house where three apes
squealed and gabbled at the peering actresses. It was like an Arabian
Nights dream, the dream of a mind that fed itself on the Thousand
and One Tales of Sheherazade. One last touch. Leon Gozlan paused
before a huge frieze of medallions representing all the famous authors
from Homer to Victor Hugo. The stone faces of the literati gazed
down in speechless amazement at their surroundings. "I do not see
you there," said the journalist to the strutting figure in the National
Guards uniform. Dumas drew himself up and replied, "Me? Oh, I
shall be inside!"

Divine Monte Cristo!

Life in the chateau-villa proceeded on a scale as elaborate as the
architecture and furnishings. Open table was maintained always, and
although guests were expected to confine themselves to a week-end
they made unexpected appearances every day and at all hours. The

346 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

adventurers and parasites flocked from Paris to make the most of this
golden opportunity, wolfing rich foods, borrowing as much as Dumas
could give them and even settling down until better prospects turned
up for them. A succession of fair and frail women (among them
Madame Scrivanek, Allemandc ragofoante et stupide) passed through
the high door above which was printed, "J'aime qui m'aime? and
assumed the duties of chatelaine. These femmes adorables devoured
the income of Dumas. No matter how many thousands of francs he
earned from his writings and his plays, they vanished as speedily into
the bright air above Monte Cristo. The tremendous vitality of Dumas
was never more apparent than during the few years he lived at Monte
Cristo. By day he worked, retiring to the star-studded kiosk and
deliberately turning his chateau over to the hordes of visitors. Clad
in white trousers and shirt, he sat by the window and wrote, having
his meals brought to him. He could hear the loud laughter from his
extravagant chateau and it seemed to please him as he buried his
shaggy head deeper in the feuilleton of the moment. By night he
played, sitting at the head of his table, ordering champagne when the
mn ordinaire was exhausted, leading the entire gathering to the hotel
at Saint-Germain when the provisions at Monte Cristo ran out, and
enlivening his feasts with the most elaborate entertainments. Natu-
rally it could not last. Before the first year had sped away the cred-
itors, those doleful vultures who always followed Dumas, were circling
down on Monte Cristo, bootmakers, tailors, wine merchants, provision
dealers, jewelers; but Dumas met them with a bland smile, kept them
to dinner, increased his debts by ordering more and sent them away
puzzled and disgruntled. He had a way with him, they admitted,
and when they were in his presence they thought him the best fellow
in the world— no wonder the natives about Marly-le-Roi shouted
gaily to Monsieur Doumass— but when they reached Paris empty-
handed a growing irritation possessed them. He had filled them with
cajoleries and promises and fine food and they had agreed to supply
him with more goods.

Meanwhile the political temperature was rising. Dissatisfaction with
the ministry of M. Guizot and the narrowness of Louis-Philippe
mounted to a climax. The Riformistc demonstration in Paris was
forbidden and the Time-Spirit turned the corner of 1848 with a solemn

THE KING OF ROMANCE 347

and threatening face. At the Th£atre-Historiquc Dumas presented a
dramatization of the first half of Monte Cristo. It was played in two
parts, the premieres taking place on February third and fourth, and
it seemed to please the audiences, although these people were already
engrossed in more serious matters. The political vanities of Dumas
did not assert themselves as vibrantly as they had in 1830, in spite of
the fact that he was manifestly friendly to the Reformist? movement.
But when the February Revolution burst, that demonstration which
became an insurrection and then, at the eleventh hour, was turned
into a revolution by excitable soldiers, the ardour of Dumas flared
forth. While Louis-Philippe was fleeing from Paris sobbing, "Comme
Charles XI" and the mobs were parading the boulevards singing
"Mourir pour la patric" the novelist, in his National Guard uniform,
was attempting to rouse the apathetic folk of Saint-Germain. He was
at the Chamber of Deputies in Paris when the proposal to make the
Duchesse d'Orleans Regent was vetoed. To fimile de Girardin, editor
of La Presse, he wrote: "To you and to the Constitutional belong
my novels, my books, my literary life; but to France my words, my
opinions, my political life. From this day forward there are two
persons in the writer, and the public man will be the complement of
the poet." The old ambition was burning within him once more, but
not so fierily, not so demonstratively as it had years before. There
were reasons for his lukewarm attitude. In the first place, he was
older and more lethargic. In the second, he was bound by curious
ties and obligations to the Orleans dynasty; for Louis-Philippe had
been his first patron, the dead Due d'Orleans had been his second
and the Due de Montpensier was his third. Again, the Revolution
seemed like a regrettable accident, an explosion that had not been
expected nor desired. Still further, Dumas had flourished under the
reign of Louis-Philippe and perhaps he suspected the obvious truth
that the era of the jeuillcton and the Theatre-Historique would pass
with that ruler. At the same time, Republican sentiments bubbled up
within him and the idea of a seat in the Assembly followed closely
the climax of the Revolution. Was not Lamartine a part of the pro-
visional government that now ruled the anarchistic city of Paris? Why
should he not take his seat as one of the governing fathers of France?

348 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

In thd midst of the turmoil and angry redistribution of power,
Dumas began to consider the possibility of a political career.

Dumas did not realize that the February Revolution of 1848 was
the beginning of la chute for him, that his great days were finished.
An era had been abolished with Louis-Philippe, and Dumas belonged
to that era. The new state of affairs, the domination of Louis-
Napoleon Bonaparte, meant another mental attitude, a fresh social
consciousness and another literature. The placid days when the
fcuillcton spelled excitement were over. The reorganization of the
Second Republic was to bourgeon into the extravagant era of the
Second Empire, and not for twenty-five years was Paris to know the
peacefulness which had marked the reign of the Orleans dynasty.
Dumas's first gestures during this new era were untactical for a man
ambitious of election to the National Assembly. He established a
periodical, Le Mois, with the motto, "God dictates and I write." God
dictated many curious things during the short career of Le Mois, among
them a protest against the removal of the equestrian statue of the Due
d'Orleans from the courtyard of the Louvre, a demand that the Due
de Chambord be recalled from exile and another that the government
of Algeria be restored to the Due d'Aumale. On March fourth Dumas
wrote to the exiled Due de Montpensier: "I was proud, my lord, to
be called your friend when you occupied the Tuileries; now that you
have left France I claim that title." In Saint-Germain an angry Repub-
lican attempted to shoot him for calling the prince "my lord." Another
furious burgher of Saint-Germain observing Dumas's breast covered
with medals and orders shouted during a political meeting: "There's
a Republican with a fine lot of crosses!" Dumas replied: "If I wear
these things it is not for vanity, I swear to you; but purely and simply
from not wishing to disoblige the parties that gave them. Where is
the good of annoying these poor kings!" In the face of anti-Orleanist
sentiment such conduct was little less than mad. Yet Dumas with a
sublime ignorance of his own precarious standing searched for a
favorable constituency from which to take his place in the National
Assembly. He decided against the department of the Seine-et-Oise
because the natives regarded him as "immoral." The department of
the Aisne was dismissed because of the raid on Soissons in 1830,

THE KING OF ROMANCE 349

Eventually he decided on Yonne, a district that produced many
grapes. His campaign there was a farce from beginning to end. At
Joigny he was received with hisses and one fellow shouted: "Ho,
Ho! Negro!" There was an uproar and for a time it seemed that
the meeting would end in a free for all fight. One of the electors
cried: "You profess yourself a Republican; yet you assume the title
of Marquis de la Pailleterie, and you have been secretary to the Due
d'Orleans." From the platform Dumas answered: "Yes, I once
claimed that title, of which, as being my father's, I am proud; that
was at a time when I had made no name of my own. Now I am
someone on my own account; I call myself plain Alexandre Dumas,
and all the world knows me. You, Monsieur, as well as any other —
you, an obscure nobody, who come here to see me and insult me,
just that you may be able to go away and tell people tomorrow that
you have known the great Dumas . . ." Before the conclusion of
the meeting Dumas held his audience in the palm of his hand by
his witty anecdotes, his sentimental appeals, his gestures and his evi-
dent sincerity. Yet he was not elected to the National Assembly.
When the votes were counted his defeat was decisive. The ambition
to have a place in the Assembly was never to be satisfied any more
than that other ambition to sit in the Academy.

So busy had Dumas been during his political campaign that he
hardly noticed the drop in his fortunes. The public which was for-
merly so avid of historical romances and plays no longer cared for
them. History was being made on the great stage of Paris, contem-
porary history, and it was infinitely more vivid than the resuscitated
times of Louis XIV. Why should audiences sit in the Theatre-
Historique and applaud mimic battles and conspiracies when they
could view kindred actualities in the streets, shudder at the June riots,
observe Cavaignac, the dictator, riding down the boulevard, or see
the pale expressionless face of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte raised in
the National Assembly? So the audiences at the theater on the Boule-
vard du Temple dwindled, and instead of the 700,000 francs taken
in during 1847, the paid admissions in 1848 reached 300,000 francs.
The repertoire, of course, had been disturbed by the Revolution, and
except for the production of Monte Cristo the only new play offered
was Catilina which had its premiere on the fourteenth of October.

350 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

The less said about this play the better. Books continued to come
from the industrious pens of Dumas and Maquet. Les Quarante-Cinq
and Le Vicomte dc Bragdonnc were issued to readers too disturbed
by contemporary events to receive them as they had received Les Trois
Mousquetaires and Lc Comte dc Monte Cristo. Then there were
Impressions de voyage: de Pans h Cadix and Impressions de voyage:
Le Veloce ou Tanger, Alger et Tunis, presumably the two works
that M. de Salvandy (now, alas, vanished from sight) had desired as
a result of Dumas's "mission" to Africa; but who cared about Africa
at this time? The topics of immediate interest were Paris and whether
Louis-Napoleon would be elected President of the new Republic. He
was. This election opened the door to the new era, but for the moment
it seemed that nothing would be changed. Although the Theatre-
Historique had slumped in receipts during 1848 Dumas was sanguine
for 1849, After all, 1848 had been a crisis, a troubling of the waters.
Now, however, the whirlpool had quieted. Maquet was so certain that
Dumas would make a vast fortune that on March 10, 1848, just after
the February days, he signed an agreement by which he turned over
to Dumas all his author's rights in the novels for the lump sum of
145,200 francs, to be paid in monthly instalments over a period of
eleven years. It seemed like money in the bank to Maquet for the
unfortunate young man did not realize the precariousness of Dumas's
status.

Slowly at first and then with increasing speed the fortunes of Dumas

tumbled from their high estate. The attempt to bolster up the

Theatre-Historique during 1849 was but partially successful Four

plays were produced, three of them dredged from the popular

romances, but they failed to kindle their audiences as Le Chevalier de

Maison-Rougc had done in 1847. On February seventeenth La Jeun-

esse des Mousquctaircs was presented, but not even the wiry d'Artag-

nan of Melinque saved the performance. On July twenty-sixth an

elaborate production of Le Chevalier d'Harmcntd, with Numa as

Buvat and A. Roger as Roquefinette, failed to arouse the spectators!

This drama was followed on October first by La Guerre des Femmes

which marked the return of the trusty Melingue in the r61e of the

Baron de Canolles. One more production remained, Le Comte

Hermann, presented on the twenty-second of November. This play

DUMAS TOWARD 1850

He bad just passed the peak of his popularity

ALEXANDRE DUMAS, fils

THE KING OF ROMANCE 351

was interesting as a comment on the growth of Dumas as a dramatist,
for it was a modern drama, a return to the type of Antony and Angtle.
The fierce passion of those earlier days had disappeared, however,
and in its place was a mellower attitude toward the social scene. Not
one of the four plays was an outstanding success and when the end
of the year came Dumas realized that the Theatre-Historique was
running into debt. Except for one, Lc Collier dt la Reine, the books
published in this year were negligible. It was difficult for Dumas to
comprehend that the great days were over, but the fact must have
been evident to him as he cast about each week for money to meet
his obligations. Monte Cristo had developed into a white elephant
and the proprietor was already flinging art treasures and decorations
to importunate creditors. One day the worried Dumas heard a shrill-
voiced young actress explaining that "son protccteur" was thinking
about buying Monte Cristo for her. "Your friend is rich, then?" he
demanded. "Very rich," chirped the actress. "He is an angel. It
seems to me, sometimes, that he has wings." "De$ ailcs dc pigeon!"
grumbled Dumas passing on his way.

Quite suddenly he found himself fighting with his back to the
wall. The Second Republic of the Prince-President had done what
Jacquot and his pack could not. do—destroyed him financially. If he
thought about it at all it must have seemed strange to him, his rocket-
like career that had shot upward in 1844 and then dropped in a
shower of sparks after five years of splendor. Fortune was an incon-
stant jade, at one moment pressing the riches of the world on a beggar
and at the next hurling a king from his throne. She was like the city
of Paris, fair, frail and forgetful. Dumas began to know again the
pinch of poverty; all that he possessed was being swallowed up by
the expenses of the Theatre-Historique and Monte Cristo. When
Madame Dorval died penniless in 1849 he pawned the Order of the
Nicham, his most elaborate decoration, to pay for her funeral, fimile
de Girardin refused him small loans. Friends began to fall away and
new faces appeared in positions of importance. The shadow of the
spirit of the impending Second Empire lengthened along the boule-
vards. At the Th&tre-Historique the productions continued through
1850, Urbctin Grandicr on the thirtieth of March and La Chassc au
Chastrc on August third, but the actors played to empty benches.

352 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Dumas turned to other theaters from which he might hope for a
little money but except for one or two one-act productions there was
no help there. He was a man bowed beneath two burdens, the
Theatre-Historique and Monte Cristo. He could not put them down
nor could he carry them. His debts grew to mountainous proportions
and the bailiffs made their appearance at Monte Cristo, dismantling
the chateau of its most extravagant furniture. A few books were flung
in the face of disaster but they were of little avail. Early in 1851 the
complete crash came. Monte Cristo had been fully mortgaged to
carry on the Theatre-Historique, and the theater that had been
launched so successfully under the auspices of the Due de Montpensier
closed its doors. It was all over. Nothing was left but the vast barn
of a theater that would be torn down presently to make way for one
of Louis-Napoleon's boulevards. The creditors took over Monte Cristo

and Dumas was homeless.

•

On the early morning of December 2, 1851, Louis-Napoleon Bona-
parte, Prince-President of France, surprised Paris with a coup d'etat,
putting into execution those secret plans he had kept in a private
portfolio ominously marked "Rubicon." That day the dismayed
populace discovered that the Assembly had been arbitrarily dissolved,
martial law proclaimed, and a new constitution drawn up, a plan
of government to be headed by a president elected for a term of ten
years. This project was to be submitted immediately to the "good
people" of France for vote. As most of the opposition leaders and
antagonists of the new dictator had been quietly arrested in their
homes during the night and spirited away to prisons, the people in
the streets found themselves without leaders. Still, though the masses
seemed apathetic and would not pour out to the barricades as they
had in 1830, there was desultory fighting. These reckless demonstra-
tions reached their peak on the fourth of the month when barricades
were raised in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the Boulevard Bonnc-
Nouvelle, and the rue Montorgueil. Musketry-fire swept these flimsy
defenses and innocent bystanders at the corner of the Faubourg Pois-
sonni&rc were shot down. Cavalry regiments followed by infantry
(for the army stood firm for Louis-Napoleon) charged down the
.contested streets and the stains of blood left on the cobbles that day

THE KING OF ROMANCE 353

were to be the last souvenirs of the enraged Republican spirit in France
for nineteen years. Victor Hugo, who was abroad early and in immi-
nent danger of his life from the Bonapartists, witnessed his ideal
France crashing down in blood and dust and shame. Before Jonvin's
glove shop there was a pile of corpses, among them an old gentleman
still clutching his umbrella and a youth with a monocle in his eye.
The Maison Doree, the Cafe Anglais, and the Cafe de Paris, once
centers of defiant propaganda, were raked by the fire of the troops.
A little boy running into a toy-shop was shot down on a heap of toys.
Eight black-nosed cannon were wheeled into position before the carpet
warehouse of Sallandrouze. M. Piquet, a seventy-year-old doctor, was
shot as he sat reading in his drawing room. Jolivard, the painter,
standing before his easel, crashed to the floor with a bullet in his skull.
Boyer, the chemist, was bayonetted by the lancers as he lounged
behind his counter. Before the Theatre des Varietes lay fifty-two
corpses, eleven women among them, pathetic reminders of how kings
come to their thrones and dynasties are changed. Through this
horror passed Victor Hugo, pale and despairing, with the agitated
Juliette Drouet in search of him. In a few days it was all over; the
bodies were carried away; the blood was washed from the grey stones;
and the waxen-lidded Prince-President observed Paris lying in the
hollow of his hand, A furtive-eyed and nervous man in the garments
of a lower-class otwricr hurried through the station at Brussels on the
fourteenth of the month. It was Victor Hugo fleeing from the city
he would not see again until 1870. December twentieth a popular
plebiscite approved the drastic gesture of the Coup d'fitat by 7,439,216
votes.

Louis-Napoleon was thankful. On the first day of 1852 a solemn
Te Deum was celebrated at Notre Dame de Paris, a service expressing
gratitude to God that France had been saved for a Bonaparte. There
was a thick fog over the city and hoar-frost armored the slender trees
in the parks. There were grey-green slabs of ice in the Seine. In the
Place du Parvis before the ancient cathedral there were lines of troops,
their standards snapping in the chilly air above them. From the
Invalides the cannon could be heard firing ten reverberating shots
for each million of votes that sanctioned the Coup d'£tat. Above the
carved portal of Notre Dame hung a great red tapestry with the total

354 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

vote embroidered in gleaming letters of gold. Flags. Banners, Ori-
flammes. The tambours rolled when Louis-Napoleon, clad in the
uniform of a general of division, entered the cathedral followed by
the sly Magnan and the obsequious de Saint-Arnaud. He had achieved
his purpose; he knew that the next step was simple. The second of
December had been his Eighteenth Brumaire. Had he not prepared
for this gesture during the past three years by shackling the press,
suppressing antagonistic and liberal associations, corrupting the army
(where already they were shouting, "Vive I'Empereurl"), and pro-
pitiating the powerful Church Party? It was unfortunate that General
Changarnier had never received his order from the slow-moving
French patriots and put the ambitious Prince-President in a panier &
saladc and driven him to the Fortress de Vincennes without delay.
But General Changarnier, on this day of rejoicing, was being trans-
ferred to the Fortress of Ham (where once Louis-Napoleon had cooled
his own heels) and with Changarnier were Cavaignac, Le Flo,
Lamoriciere, Bedeau and Charras. At the same time Louis-Napoleon
made a gesture. He liberated great numbers of Republican prisoners
(men caught in the dragnet of the night between the first and second
of December) from the Fortresses of Mazas, Vincennes, and Mont-
Valerien; unfortunately, however, they were all lesser individualities
and not capable of disturbing demonstrations against the dictator.
Even the release of Thiers from Versailles and the permission accorded
him to return to Paris meant little.

Where was Dumas during all this excitement? Was he behind the
barricades in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine or bearing a musket in the
Faubourg Poissoniere? Was he in the shoving mass of spectators on
the Place du Parvis when Louis-Napoleon thanked God for placing
France in his eager hands? He was in neither place for the year 1851
had been a period of exasperation and mental horror to him and he
had lived through it fighting his own losing campaign with fortune
and ill-disposed to quarrel for France or a Bonaparte. He was like a
negro slave fleeing through a swamp and pursued by howling blood-
hounds. The swamp was Paris. Wherever he set his foot the ground
gave treacherously. The howling bloodhounds were importunate
bailiffs. If he stopped at all during this troublesome flight it was to
laugh for that was the one thing that misfortune could not steal away

THE KING OF ROMANCE 355

from him. Whether he was on the crest of the wave or in the trough
of a muttering sea his ebulliency remained unimpaired. Before the
Coup d*£tat he had made a few last desperate bids for success. In
April he had witnessed the presentation of his La Barrtirc dc Clichy, a
spectacular military melodrama calculated to please the Prince-Presi-
dent, at the Theatre National, but its success had been small. During
April and May the third and fourth parts of his huge dramatization
of Monte Cristo, Le Comte dc Morcerf and Villefort, had been pro-
duced at the Ambigu-Comiquc. Scanty audiences who had already
forgotten the first two parts of Uontc Cristo, viewed it disdainfully
and turned away toward other things. Monte Cristo belonged to the
era of Louis-Philippe. Dumas saw that his predicament was extreme.
Dust gathered on the empty seats of the The&tre-Historique and the
statue of the Arts gazed woefully across the Boulevard du Temple.
At Marly-le-Roi a dismantled chateau was knocked down at auction
to the highest bidder and the outrageous edifice into which the reck-
less proprietor had poured hundreds of thousands of francs was sold
for but little more than thirty thousand. Jugurtha, the misanthropical
vulture, who had been purchased as a curiosity by the owner of the
hotel at Saint-Germain, grew grey and philosophical as he observed
the indecent divagations of fortune. If he mused at all he must have
thought with a grim pleasure that the indignity suffered by him when
he had been driven like a turkey down the hot road to Stora had
been wiped out by the subsequent indignities heaped upon his unfor-
tunate master. The glory of Monte Cristo had departed. Dumas, then,
was too absorbed in his own misfortunes to take any active part in
the Coup d'fitat. Unlike Hugo, he did not possess the integrity of
fanaticism. Besides, the memory of his unfortunate career as a poli-
tician during 1848 must have rankled still in his bosom. It was better
to keep away, to hide one's self in the excitement and so avoid process-
servers, bailiffs, creditors and the humiliations of defeat,

He still functioned after the Coup d'fitat, however, for on December
thirtieth, twenty-eight days after the destruction of the Second Repub-
lic, Le Vampire, a fantastic drama by Dumas and Maquet, was pro-
duced at the Ambigu-Comique, The role of the mystic fairy Mflusinc
was played by a charming young actress named Isabelle Constant who
had also made an appearance in La Barrtire de Clichy. Once again

356 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

the spell of bright eyes was upon Dumas and his fatherly interest }n
this girl soon developed into a more intimate relation. Lc Vampire
was the last acknowledged offering made by Dumas to the Parisian
stage before he became an exile from the city. It was curious. When
he first came to Paris to live he had gone to a play called Lc Vampire
and there, sitting beside him and reading an Elzevir, he had met
Charles Nodier; and now, twenty-seven years later, he witnessed a
play of his own on the same subject that was, in some measure, the
period set by Time to his career- Between those two dramas rested
the great arc of his adventurous days. He had but little more to give
Paris. He was fleeing before the furies now and his acquaintance saw
little of him. During 1852 he disappeared from the public whirl.
Once he protested from Brussels about an unauthorized dramatization
of Ascanio. Had he settled there by that time? Meanwhile, the star
of Louis-Napoleon rose and shone brightly and the political phenomena
of the year were decisive. On March twenty-ninth the Dictatorship
was terminated when the Chamber met in the Salle des Marechaux
at the Tuileries and on November seventh the Senate announced that
the imperial dignity had been reestablished in the persons of Louis-
Napoleon Bonaparte and his heirs male. On November twenty-fifth
the corps legislates declared the vote that made Louis-Napoleon
Emperor. There were 7,824,129 ayes to 253,149 noes. During the night
of December first Louis-Napoleon received the crown of France at
Saint-Cloud and the following morning, exactly one year after the
Coup d'&tat, he rode from Saint-Cloud to the Tuileries while the can-
non roared, the banners waved, and the military bands played Partant
pour la Syrie. It was as good a time as any to finally flee from this
remorseless city that, except for implacable creditors, had completely
forgotten him; so Dumas packed away a few precious remnants from
his days of grandeur, turned his business affairs — an incomprehensible
and apparently hopeless puzzle — over to a wise little Jew named
Hirschler, and bade farewell to Paris. Gathering what cash he could
for immediate expenses and taking with him a tiny negro lad that
"the little Dorval" had once brought to him for a page, he boarded
the train for Brussels. Behind him was wreckage; before him was
nothing but his vigor and a determination to retrieve his fallen
fortunes. .

CHAPTER FIVE

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER

WHEN Dumas and his little negro Alexis walked out of the station
at Brussels in Belgium the snarling trumpets of the new Emperor,
Napoleon III, were still vibrating along the quais of the Seine. They
heralded more than the change of a dynasty. They were the brazen
annunciators of a new era in letters, in drama, in art, and in the deli-
cate task of living. Romanticism was really dead. It had been in its
final agonies ever since the debacle of Victor Hugo's Lcs Burgravcs
in 1843, and the nine years that had elapsed were no more than a long
rattle in a gasping throat that had once been as sonorous as the trum-
pets of "the Dutchman.0 The polished boots of the Second Empire
had stepped over a lintel whereon lay the dessicatcd but still feebly
twitching body of Hernani. From the safe haven of the grey city of
Brussels Dumas could gaze back at the monstrous changes that were
taking place, at the gradual transformation of a city that had been
the bourgeois capital of a bourgeois King for eighteen years and the
uncertain fantasia of a Prince-President for three years. Now it was
to be the seat of an upstart Emperor, the center of European gaiety
to which all the crowned heads of the continent were to come, the
astonishing playground of expositions and galas, of extravagant beds
and operas and gambling and reckless women. Dumas did not pause
long to brood upon Paris, but adjusted himself as quickly as possible
to his new surroundings. He was penniless; he had no collaborators;
it was necessary that he write furiously if he were to pay off the
mountainous debts he had left behind, live with that degree of extrava-
gance upon which he thrived and make possible in the not too distant
future a triumphant return to the French metropolis. It was pleasant

357

358 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

to indicate, never directly, that one was in exile because of political
reasons, for that sounded so much finer than to confess that one was
hiding from one's creditors. It placed one on a level with Victor
Hugo, for example. Since August the Sun-God had been thundering
from Jersey against Napoleon-le-Petit and his chdtiments had been the
delight of the dispersed Republicans. But the more malleable nature
of Dumas demurred at a definite exile that would make his return
to Paris impossible until the Emperor finally fell from his throne.
After all, he was primarily a writer, a novelist, a poet, a dramatist,
and only secondarily a publicist and propagandist. He thrived upon
the Parisian scene, and even before the newness of his exile in Brussels
had worn away he was longing for the flesh-pots of the capital. What
restaurants! What women! What gaiety! The realization of this
desire would mean uninterrupted labors and he set himself to them
immediately.

Settled at 73, Boulevard Waterloo, he began to write. His dwelling

was not a second Monte Cristo, but it was a fairly luxuriously

appointed house well adapted to the entertainment of the horde of

French exiles who crowded the Belgian city. These men came and

went, ate enormously and drank excessively; but Dumas, in his attic

at the top of the house, labored through the racket and piled up sheet

after sheet of blue paper covered with his even handwriting. One

among these exiles who drifted to the Boulevard Waterloo proved to

be a god-send. Noel Parfait, a former representative of the people

and a friend of Victor Hugo, had been proscribed some time before.

Penniless, separated from his wife and family by the decree of the

Emperor, Parfait made the Boulevard Waterloo house his second

home, and it was not long before he was installed as a member of

the family and acting as secretary to Dumas. Parfait was conscientious,

strict, observant, thrifty, a buffer between Dumas and his sponging

friends, and soon these friends, disapproving of the tactics of the new

secretary, referred to him as Jamais Content. He was a bore and a

tribulation to them. Why did not Dumas get rid of this death's head

at the joyous feast? Dumas smiled to himself. "Jamais Content'

Parfait remained, and order evolved itself out of the chaos of the

household. The new secretary managed the menage, held the purse,

became an inexorable minister of finance to Dumas, checked all

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 359

domestic waste, indicated methods of retrenchment, settled the bills
regularly, fought with dishonest servants and drove sharp bargains
with the sly tradespeople. He watched the wine cellar and saw that
it was not completely gulped down by visitors. He forced Dumas to
pay immediately for any purchases, books or pictures or clothing,
that he became liable for. The result was that while there were no
debts neither was there any money in the cash-box. Even Dumas
became irritated and complained: "Here for the last six months I
have had an honest man in my house, and upon my soul I have never
been so badly off in my life!" Yet Noel Parfait was an excellent addi-
tion to 73, Boulevard Waterloo, and Dumas knew it.

"Jamais Content'' acted as a copying secretary as well as treasurer
to Dumas, and he accomplished a formidable amount of work. During
the months he assisted Dumas he made four copies — one each for
Belgium, Germany, England and America— of the original scripts of
Les Memoires, Ingenue, Une Vie d' Artiste, Conscience I'lnnocent,
Le Pasteur d'Ashbourn, Le Page du Due de Savoie, Catherine Blum,
Isaac Laqucdem, Le Sdteador, Le Capitaine Richard, La Corntesse de
Charny, and of three plays, La Conscience, La Jeunesse de Louis XIV
and Les Gardes Forestiers. In the widely spaced Cadot edition of the
works of Dumas this would correspond roughly to nearly four hun-
dred volumes. Parfait, like his master, was a demon of energy. Every
day the two men would mount to the attic where they were safe from
the innumerable visitors, and there they would sit for the greater part
of the day, each writing furiously. Hours would pass without a word.
Dumas was working against time, to settle his debts, to make possible
his return to Paris; Parfait was laboring for his food and lodging
with a fine integrity that more than paid for them. The pens scratched
ceaselessly; the copy was despatched to five countries; the drafts were
cashed and applied on old debts. Back in Paris Hirschler, the admir-
able little Semite, was doing all that he could to compound Dumas's
debts. There was a bed in this attic-studio, and occasionally, in the
middle of a sentence, Dumas would stand up, stretch, walk over to
the couch and fling himself upon it, falling asleep as soon as his bushy
head hit the pillow. In fifteen or twenty minutes he would rise,
thoroughly refreshed, and resume his composition. He put down the
material that poured out of his mind with a rushing speed, aever

360 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

stopping to indicate periods, commas and paragraphs. That was
Parfait's function. Receiving the paper still wet with ink, the secretary
would arrange the material into its finished form. In this way an
enormous amount of work came out of 73, Boulevard Waterloo.

The ingenuity of Dumas was never better manifested than during
this long season of travail in Belgium. He had no collaborators, no
nosing jackals of letters to run down his themes for him, no anxious
young men tumbling their tentative efforts upon his lintel so that he
might pick them up and translate them into that smoothly flowing
procession of narratives that was his peculiar product. All that he did
he had to do by himself. And first of all he turned to his own life,
to that surprising and sometimes ridiculous series of forays against
fortune, and began to recapture it in bubbling chapters which vividly
resurrected the past. Indeed it was time to recapitulate, to turn back
and cast up the long disorderly account. Was he not fifty years old and
a man who from his twenty-first year had been an integral portion of
the creative life of the French nation? What did it all mean? What
had he accomplished? From the isolated vantage point of Brussels
he could gaze back at a score of years and strive to elucidate the pat-
tern of his existence. He would write about it. He would relate these
astounding episodes one to the other. He did not see his life steadily
nor did he see it whole; it was rather through the golden veils of
vanity that he perceived the miraculous career that was his own. Yet
who could draw the dividing line between his vanity and his sincerity?
Not he; not any idle reader; his audience would have to accept his
enlargement, often as unconscious as it was deliberate, of the perturbed
and gusty progress of his days. So in the high attic at 73, Boulevard
Waterloo, Brussels, with the faithful Noel Parfait by his side, he began
to set down the long tragi-comedy of his life, interlarding it with
multitudinous sketches of the men he had known and the events
through which he had passed. Mes MJtnoires ran to ten volumes; it
was dedicated to the honorable Comte Alfred d'Orsay, "my fellow-
craftsman and my bosom friendn; it was one of the most meaty works
the volatile and self-dramatizing creator had ever conceived; and it
assumed its important position among the revelatory documents of
the nineteenth century.

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 361

Simultaneously with this extended work (which, as a matter of
fact, he did not finish until he had returned to France, and which,
unfortunately, he did not carry beyond the year 1832) other labors
proceeded. He would write the story of the wandering Jew, for
example, carrying the career of that lost soul through the centuries,
but Isaac Laquedem was suppressed after the second volume by the
shocked censors of "the Dutchman" with the waxed imperial, and
the announced thirty volumes never materialized. Then there was
Ingenue, an amusing work which started as a serial in Le Sticle but
was stopped by the indignant descendants of that Restif de la Bretonne
who had written Monsieur Nicolas, ou le Coeur Humain Devoile and
La Vie de Mon Phe. There were Le Capitaine Richard and Le Pas-
teur d'Ashbourn, the last a tale manifestly paraphrased from some
forgotten English or German story. Anything at all was welcome
fish that swam into this avid net stretched in the attic of the Belgian
house. The prodigious fisherman thought of that fitienne Melingue
who had created d'Artagnan on the lost stage of the Theatre-His-
torique and the result was Une Vie d' Artiste, an account of the early
struggles of the handsome actor whom the little Dorval had discov-
ered at Rouen. An idle reading of Iff land's Gardes Forestiers aroused
memories of Villers-Cotterets and the life of the foresters in the sur-
rounding woodland, and Catherine Blurn trickled from the ceaseless
pen. The abrupt finish to Ange Pitou occasioned by the diminishing
interest in the feuilleton disturbed Dumas; there was no link between
that book and Le Chevalier de Maison-Rougc and too many of the
characters had been left hanging indecisively between heaven and
hell; therefore the omission would have to be remedied. Le Comtesse
de Charny was the result, a full length novel which demonstrated
emphatically that Dumas could continue his M&moire$ d'un Medecin
series without the aid even of the meticulous Maquet. Some gossip
of a Belgian writer occasioned another novel, Conscience I'Innocent,
a charming book that owes something to Hendrik Conscience's
Le Consent. Le Page du Due de Savoie, written during this period,
is more mysterious. Was Paul Meurice the author of this work, as
he was of Les Deux Dianes, or did he write from a plot that Dumas
had outlined ? There are certain touches in this book that are obviously
from the vast creative well of Dumas. Perhaps Meurice, after writing

362 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

from the suggestions of the older man, sent on his script for revision
and rewriting and Dumas made it his own. There was Lc Salvador
which Dumas later disowned but which probably was conceived with
the aid of some unknown assistant. Plays as well as novels were
written in this hive of an attic. There was La Conscience which
Dumas dedicated to Victor Hugo, inscribing: "Receive it as the testi-
mony of a friendship which has survived exile and will, I trust, survive
even death. I believe in the immortality of the soul." Then there was
La Jeunesse de Louis XIV, dedicated to the faithful Noel Parfait as
a ''souvenir d'exil." And there was Les Gardes Forestiers, a dramati-
zation of Catherine Blum. The sun shone on Brussels and the rain
fell upon the grey stone buildings; processions, both religious and lay,
passed through the narrow streets, and trumpets blew in the grassy
squares; but the assiduous pen in the attic at 73, Boulevard Waterloo,
did not falter. Every completed page brought the writer that much
nearer Paris.

All this assiduity nevertheless left Dumas some time for pleasure
when he might entertain his friends or wander about the city. There
were casual appearances at the playhouses when he impressed his
presence upon the audiences by noisy applause. There were evenings
of small talk with the congregated exiles. Once there was a gorgeous
supper party where the guests reveled until dawn in the surprises
prepared by their host, Spanish dancers in flamboyant shawls, singers
of old French chansons and tirades by famous actors, unexpected plays
on a lilliputian stage hastily erected. There was sparkling conversa-
tion, the popping of champagne corks and extraordinary foods pre-
pared from rare recipes, fimile Deschanel described the armorial
escutcheons of Chateaubriand (dead), Lamartine (forgotten), Hugo
(in exile), Nodier (dead), and Dumas himself (neither dead nor
forgotten but waiting his hour of release from a foreign land) which
hung upon the walls of the decorated salons. Through the gathering
of gay men and women passed the form of "Jamats Content" Parfait
watching to see that the champagne was not wasted and that no
thoughtless visitors walked away with material souvenirs of the
evening.

During this period the little Semite Hirschler was accomplishing
wonders in Paris. With the ingenuity of a born diplomat he engi-

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 363

necred favorable settlements of the long array of Dumas's debts, paid
so many sous upon the franc, made promises, attended to the drafts
sent to Paris by the wise Parfait, and one bright day forwarded the
welcome news to Dumas that it would be safe for him to return to
Paris. It was like a release from prison. The long labors in the Boule-
vard Waterloo ceased and an excited French author ran for the train.
One fortune had been lost but it was still possible to make another.
Perhaps a magazine? He was returning to Paris as empty-handed as
d'Artagnan. Very well. Let the magazine be called Le Mousquetaire.
Late in September, 1853, Dumas stepped from a cabriolet in the Place
Louvois and entered the little hotel where he was to live for some
time while recovering his lost ascendency. The great sea of Paris
roared about him once more and his spirits were enlivened.

II

In Paris there were both rejoicing and chagrin. The friends of
Dumas greeted his reappearance with merry satisfaction, but the
enemies, the clique that had sneered and hissed at "this negro," were
silenced by the bitter disappointment of the writer's return. They
had imagined him finished, worn out, cast aside, driven from the
city, and here he was, larger than ever, gayer, carrying fresh bundles
of manuscript beneath his arm, negotiating with editors, printers and
paper firms, raising funds in miraculous ways and confidently estab-
lishing himself as the proprietor and editor of an impossible periodical.
It was inconceivable. This man was like Antaeus; the harder he was
flung to earth the stronger he rose. The object of this bitterness strode
blithely along the boulevards and turned a wide smiling face toward
the disconcerted jackals. He heard the belittling prophecies. "It is
impossible that such a preposterous undertaking as this proposed
journal de A/. Alexandra Dumas will live." "Merci, messieurs!9
responded Dumas, "Le Mousquetaire will live precisely because it is
impossible." Unperturbed by evil prophecies and sanguine for the
future, he proceeded to organize his journal. It would be a personal
organ; everything would be entertaining and intimate; politics would
be eschewed. There were enough suppressed periodicals and proscribed
patriots. No, Le Mousquetaire would offer causeries on literature and

364 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

art, short stories, poems, novels, essays, personal items, and above all
Alexandra Dumas en manches de chemise. There would be reverent
genuflections to the great writers of the immediate past, Nodier,
Chateaubriand and Lamartine. Editorial quarters were secured, two
small ground floor rooms in the courtyard of the Maison d'Or oppo-
site the savoury smelling restaurant of Verdier, and a tiny chamber
on the third floor where the master might sit before a pine table
and write. Assistants were engaged, young men such as Alfred
Asseline, Philibert Audebrand, Aurelien Scholl and Henri Conscience;
and the first issue of Le Mousquetaire appeared on November 12, 1853.
In every cafe it was eagerly perused.

Fantasia of Le Mousquetaire.

It was to be expected that any undertaking by Dumas should
develop into a bedlam and this magazine was no exception. All Paris
flowed into the courtyard of the Maison d'Or, burst past Michel, the
ex-gardener at Monte Cristo and now the hypothetical cashier of
Le Mousquetaire, streamed through the business office where no busi-
ness was ever transacted, crowded the dark little room where the
"archives" were kept and pushed by the indignant business manager,
Martinet, into the editorial room, a fireless chamber where the young
"regulars" strove to write amidst a babble of voices. Actors, painters,
sculptors, musicians, curiosity-seekers, down-at-the-heels authors, jour-
nalists, long-haired poets and crafty-eyed spongers arrived early and
stayed late. All races were represented, Latins, Slavs, Germans, Afri-
cans, Hebrews from Mont Sinai, Catholic mystics from Italy and
turbanned Mussulmen. The incessant hub-bub shook the windows of
the surrounding houses. M. Alexandri, a Moldavian boyar, who lived
in the court, ran to his window constantly and exclaimed, "I think
they are slaughtering somebody out there!" Another neighbor, not
less startled but with a sense of humor, would reply: "There is prob-
ably a woman suffering from pangs of child-birth in the courtyard."
Verdier alone, the owner of the restaurant opposite, was undisturbed.
He stood before his door rubbing his plump hands together delight-
edly and saying, "The police can no longer pretend that there is too
much noise in my restaurant. I will send them to listen to Le Mous-
quetaire." Dumas, in his small third floor office, would lift his head

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 365

from his copy when some particularly tempestuous outburst rose from
the court, spring up in a fury from his chair, rush to the balcony and
shout, "What the devil are they doing? Cutting each other's throats?"
It was nothing more than ten poets, five novelists, twenty-five critics,
some fantaisistes and a few general writers shrilly recommencing the
dialogues of Plato in the heart of the business district of Louis-
Napoleon's Paris.

Comparative peace reigned in the third floor office, and here only
was any real work done. Dumas, seated at his pine table, covered
sheet after sheet of paper. The room was as bare as the cell of a
cenobite. There were no ornaments, pictures or statues, nothing but
the pine table covered with a red cloth, three cane chairs and a tiny
Etruscan vase holding a single flower. Dumas, meagerly clothed even
in winter, bare-chested and bare-armed, bowed his crinkly head over
the blue paper and wrote, wrote of anything at all; and when he ran
out of ideas he would walk in the courtyard with some friend or
wander along the nearby streets and gaze through windows, read
signboards or watch pedestrians. Out of thin air would come an idea
and back he would go to his "nest of serpents," as he called his offices,
and spin it into an engaging causerie. Guarding the third floor study
was Rusconi, the little Italian who had once been with General
Dermoncourt and whom Dumas had taken into his service a long
time before. Rusconi was a faithful factotum. He blacked Dumas's
boots, wrote some of his letters for him and introduced the visiteuses
to the private office. He worshipped Dumas. In his broken accent
he would say: "Listen well. I saw Napoleon Bonaparte in Elba when
I was a commissaire de police; I saw Madame la Duchesse de Berry at
Nantes at the moment of her arrest when I was secretary to General
Dermoncourt; and I see M. Alexandre Dumas every day. Conse-
quently I flatter myself with having been close to the three greatest
personages of this century." In spite of the precautions taken to isolate
himself, Dumas could never refrain from interrupting his work when
some old acquaintance appeared, and during the few years that
Le Mousquctairc existed a heterogenous procession of people, some
known to all of France and others indistinguishable ciphers, passed
through the door of the Maison d'Or above which was written:
"Le public n'entrc fas id."

366 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

The procession was unusual and sometimes amusing. There was
that excellent rogue, Roger de Beauvoir, twirling his cane and scat-
tering mots. The pale figure of Gerard de Nerval, escaped for the
moment from Doctor Blanche's insane asylum, tramped up the three
flights of stairs. Young Octave Feuillet, already known to the theater-
goers of Paris, brought in some bright article. There was Mery, fresh
from Marseilles and bursting with amusing tales. He was growing
older now; there was a wintry touch of grey in his long hair, but his
ardour was undiminshed. Theophile Gautier, his once slim form
grown portly and his rose-colored gilet laid away with his memories,
was another visitor who recalled the past, the bright days when all
the world seemed to hang in the balance of the uncertain premiere
of Hcrnani. Theodore de Banville, the sophisticated rhymster and
friend of Charles Baudelaire, came to submit verses, and perhaps to
speak of those strange Fleurs du Mai his friend was writing. Emile
Deschamps, the great fimile who was a kind of ancestor of the new
generation, appeared often, a red ribbon in his button-hole and pale
gloves in his aged hand. The aura of the almost legendary Cenacle
hovered about him. Dumas would rush delightedly toward this
veteran of the Romantic days, crying, "Unc bonne rtvtrence h mon
iLmile, messieurs!" Another frequent visitor was the Vicomtesse de
Saint-Mars, better known under her nom-de-plume, Comtesse Dash,
a wise and worldly woman of uncertain age and rotund figure who
laughed at her Dumas but exhibited a sincere affection for him.
Meyerbeer, the composer, might be found deep in conversation with
Madame de Girardin, formerly Delphine Gay, the tenth muse, but
now an old and ailing woman. That ancient Royalist, Jules de Saint-
Felix, was another familiar figure in the courtyard of the Maison d'Or.
He, it was rumored, had been a page to Louis XVIII, and it was
certain that he had been in the entourage of Charles X in 1830. He
had written a romance called CUopatrc, but it had not been a success,
and now in the winter of his days he was reduced to living by means
of hack writing. Still another visitor was Adolphe Dupeuty, "un gros
garfon, la figure bouffie, de large* fyaules" who gathered bits of
theatrical news and gossip for Le Mousquetaire. Nor must Privat
d'Anglemont, a huge mulatto from the Antilles, be forgotten. Erratic
and Bohemian in his tendencies, he managed to eke out a meager

EMILE DESCHAMPS

He was one of the instigators of the
R o man tic M o svem en t

SAINTE-BEUVE

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 367

living by free-lance journalism. There were Paul Bocage, the nephew
of the great actor; Alexandre Weill, author of Couronne; Jules Viard,
the future creator of the £cho$ in Le Figaro; Pierre Bernard, once
secretary to Armand Carrel; Eugene Moreau, a retired actor who had
translated Gogol's Dead Souls; Henri de la Madelene, Eugene
Woestyn, young Henri Rochefort: personalities who took their places
large or small in the eternally shifting pantheon of French letters.
During the first year of its existence the contributors to Le Mousquc-
taire, besides those enumerated above, included Alexandre Dumas fils,
Alfred Asseline, Casimir Daumas, Georges Bell, Leon Gatayes,
Aurelien Scholl, Gaston de Saint-Valry, A. Desbarolles, Alfred Bas-
quet Amedee Marteau, Comte Max de Goritz, E. Nevire, J. Nevire,
Foulgues, Eimann, C. Bernis, Maurice Sand, A. de la Fizeliere,
Madame Adele Esquiros, Madame Celina Ravier and Madame
Clemence Badere. Two of these contributors, Comte de Goritz and
Madame Clemence Badere, deserve further mention.

Comte Max de Goritz, well-built, nervous, with blond mustaches,
first appeared at the Maison d'Or as "translator extraordinary" to
Dumas. He purported to be a Hungarian nobleman, and people
whispered that once he had acted as aide-de-camp to Kossuth. His
charming wife, it was also whispered, was the daughter of the Due
de Richemont, pretender to the French throne, and grand-daughter
of Marie Antoinette. For a brief period the comte made daily appear-
ances at Le Mousquetairc where he translated any promising matter
from German papers that might appeal to Dumas. He was gentle-
manly, aristocratic in manner, educated. Philibert Audebrand, one
of the junior editors of Le Mousquctairc, charmed by the folitesse
of the mysterious comte, appeared often in his company, dined at his
quarters and beamed upon the languid Madame la Comtesse. One
day Urbain Pages, who had replaced Martinet as business manager
of Le Mousquctaire, sat down beside Audebrand. "Are you disposed
to listen to some advice?" he inquired. "Go on," said Audebrand.
"You have some inclination to continue your intimacy with Max de
Goritz?" "That is true." "Well, believe me when I urge you not to
push things too far." The junior editor asked why. "For several
reasons," replied Fag&s, "and decidedly the first one is that no one
knows who he is." Audebrand insisted that he did know who

368 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

de Goritz was and that Dumas himself patronized him. "Bast!"
retorted Pages, "That fellow is neither a comte nor a political refugee.
He is a German adventurer, a Semite named Mayer, and he is guilty
of a dozen crimes." "But Alexandre Dumas wrote a dedication in
one of his books to the wife of this man and gave her the title of
comtesse in it," protested Audebrand. "Don't you know," Pages
remarked, "that when there is a pretty woman in view our illustrious
writer is capable of anything?" It was true. A few days later the
Parisian police were in search of Comte Max de Goritz who had
slipped out of Paris. At the Maison d'Or the affair caused a sensation
which was revived some weeks later when news came that the indus-
trious adventurer was using the name of Dumas to obtain money
fraudulently from various sources in the South of France.

The case of Madame Clemence Badere was both pathetic and amus-
ing. She was an intense and humorless creature in whose bosom
fluttered a sentimental desire for the Ideal. Leaving her dull and
pragmatic husband in the provinces, she came to Paris obsessed with
an ambition to make a place for herself in letters. It was natural for
her to gravitate toward Le Mousquetctire; all freaks found their way
to the Maison d'Or sooner or later. Dumas, therefore, was faced one
morning by a rhapsodic woman in spectacles who offered him a short
story entitled Les Aventures d'un Camilla et d'un Volubilis. He
accepted it graciously; he accepted all things graciously from women
whether they were old and ugly or young and pulchritudinous. But
after Madame Badere had bared her quivering soul to Dumas's sensi-
tive ear and departed, he peeped into the manuscript, smiled to him-
self and carefully put it away in the bottom of the furthest drawer.
It was atrocious. It was a series of barbarisms and amateurish pap.
Perhaps Dumas hoped that this would be the last of Cl&nence Bad&re,
that she would return to her father, the hatter of Vendome, or to her
husband. But the bespectacled muse was of a more persistent caliber.
Now that she was "launched in literature" she made it a point to
appear often at the Maison d'Or, to take the bewildered Michel into
her confidence, to pour the yearnings of her heart out to Rusconi and
to inquire for Monsieur Dumas. Dumas was always invisible. He
saw her coming from a distance and fled to the privacy of his third-
floor office Madame Badere's persistency had its reward, however.

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 369

or wearied with her importunities, Dumas reluctantly disgorged the
ivcnturcs d'un Camtlia ct d'un Volubilis from the drawer and printed
:. But in printing it he revised it extensively and wrote a new intro-
luction to it. This was a blow to the pride of the author; she saw
he delicate child of her brain mangled and torn beyond resemblance,
n a series of letters— they would be called highfaluting today— she
lemanded that the tale be reprinted in its original form. Dumas,
ntertained with these curious documents, promptly printed them in
tie correspondence columns of Lc Mousquctairc. Madame Badere
etaliated by securing a sheriff's officer who enjoined Dumas to reprint
he story as the author had conceived it This was too much for
Dumas, who lost his temper. He printed the first version, but with
11 the barbarisms underlined. The victim of this humiliation ran
rom lawyer to lawyer, from sheriff's officer to sheriff's officer, but
ould get no redress. The officers of the law would have nothing to
lo with her. Perhaps they had read her story. Then the irate woman
at down and aimed a shot at Dumas. It appeared in the form of a
lamphlet, Lc Soldi Alcxandre Dumas, and it made a bitter com-
•arison between the rays of the sun and the collaborators of Dumas,
laving fired her shot the lady of the spectacles disappeared, and some
aeasure of peace was restored at the Maison d'Or,

The career of Lc Mousquctairc was as beset by financial difficulties
s it was by chattering friends and importunate contributors. There
ras never any money in the cash-box, and from the beginning the
usiness manager led a life calculated to drive a sane brain into gib-
Bering idiocy. Martinet, who held this position for the first two
aonths, almost perished from the strain. It was in vain that he
lounted the three flights of stairs with long overdue bills in his hand.
)umas would wave him away with, "What do I keep you for? Pay
be people and don't bother me." The perplexed Martinet, looking
s though he had just fallen from a horse, would stutter, "Pay them!
tut, chcr mdtrc> there is no money in the cash-box." "No money!"
)uinas would roar, "What has become of die new subscriptions that
amc in this morning?" Martinet would answer, "It hasn't been ten
akiutcs since you took three hundred frajncs out of the castabox for
our personal requirements." The reply of Dumas would be magnifi-

37o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

cent, "Three hundred francs! What is that? Why the copy I have
written today for the paper would have brought me four times that
amount from La Presse or Le Sticle!" Martinet would stagger down
the stairs to fence as best he could with the creditors.

Both Polydore Millaud and Villemessant, hearing of the waste and
disorder in the offices of Le Mousquetaire, offered to associate them-
selves with the periodical, for their experience convinced them that
a great success might be made of the venture, but Dumas wanted no
partners. To Villemessant he wrote: "My dearest comrade, what you
and that heart of gold, Millaud, have proposed is admirable, and I
have no doubt would succeed. But the dream of my whole life has
been to have a journal of my own, entirely my own. This object I
have now attained, and I calculate that the very least it can bring me
in will be a million a year. I have not yet withdrawn a sou from the
receipts for my articles, a sum which at forty sous the line, by this
time represents two hundred thousand francs, earned since starting
the paper, a sum which I shall leave to increase quietly in stock, so
that in a month or so I can have four or five hundred thousand francs
at once. Under these circumstances you will see that I am not in need
of money or of a manager. Le Mousquetaire is a gold-mine, and I
mean to work it all myseE Au revoir, my dear friends, I grieve that
I have only two hands with which to squeeze your four."

This impossible arithmetic must have made an experienced business
man like Millaud smile. In point of fact Le Mousquetaire was not
doing so well. True enough, by the end of two months the circulation
had been boosted to ten thousand, four thousand of it from regular
subscribers, but this seems to have been the peak. After that a decline
set in. Dumas was nevertheless offering uncommonly good fare.
Mes Mtmoires ran serially throughout the first twelve months, and
the greater part of the cauteries and special articles were excellent.
There was life and spirit in the magazine. Dumas, intent on pro-
curing the best, constantly canvassed his friends, and though many of
these friends, as forgetful of promises as Dumas himself, failed to
fulfil their obligations, the general tone of Le Mousquetaire during
its first season was admirable.

Heinrich Heine, from his sick bed in the rue d' Amsterdam, eagerly
awaited each number. Lamartine, from his retreat at Saint-Point,

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 371

wrote: "I have opinions on things human but not on miracles; you
are superhuman. The world has sought perpetual motion; you have
done better — you have created perpetual amazement. Farewell; may
you live, — that is, may you write! I am here to read." And from
Jersey, his island of exile, the Sun-God wrote: "Dear Dumas, I read
your journal. You restore to us Voltaire. Last consolation for dumb
down-trodden France. Vale et me ama. Victor Hugo."

It was not from want of contributors and enthusiastic friends, then,
that Le Mousquetaire suffered, but rather from the congenital reck-
lessness and disorderliness of its editor and proprietor. Dumas could
labor for extended periods with unsubdued fury, but he could not
systematize expenditures, build up a capital and plan ahead. He
expected instant results from instant labors. His ideal was the sudden
coup. Money flowed into the Maison d'Or during its first year, but
it vanished as rapidly as it appeared. To Dumas a cash-box was a
convenient place from which money might be extracted for the
pleasures of life, not a locked coffer wherein to deposit one's profits.
He was as romantic in business as he was in literature. Because of this
lack of calculation in financial matters the moneys induced by the
seductive columns of Le Mousquetaire dissipated like frail morning
mists. Even the proceeds from the four plays produced during 1854
were squandered with a magnificent disregard of any bourgeoise
cautiousness. These productions were: Romulus, a one-act comedy
Dumas had written in an inn at M61un in 1851 and which was pro-
duced at the Theatre-Frangais on the thirteenth of January; La Jeun-
esse de Louis XIV, a comedy in five acts which the Thedtre-Franfais
had accepted but would not play and which, therefore, had its
premiere in the Theatre du Vaudeville, Brussels, on the twentieth
of January; Le Mar brier, a drama in three acts which was presented
at the Theatre du Vaudeville, Paris, on the twenty-second of May;
and La Conscience, a five-act drama which had its first presentation
at the Od£on on the fourth of November* Perhaps the proceeds from
these .plays went toward debts remaining from the wreck of the
Th^tre-Historique. At any rate, there was no money to show for all
this activity. So the Jew was always at the portal of the Maison d'Qr,
the young editors waited in vain for their salaries, but remained never-

372 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

thcless because the editorial office was such an amusing madhouse,
and the contributors begged ceaselessly for their overdue payments.

Ill

The changing world began to impress itself on Dumas. He realized
that Paris, shouting about victories in the Crimea and the fall of
Sebastopol, humming with preparations for the Exposition Univer-
selle, raising arches for the impending visit of Victoria of England,
announcing that Nicholas of Russia was dead and that the baleful
shadow of the Slav had been lifted from Europe, was in process of
transformation from the dark, sprawling metropolis of Romantic days
into an international capital of broad boulevards. The realization did
not depress him but it troubled him. It made him suspect his own
age. Perhaps he was growing old, after all. Had he not overheard
remarks about the growing greyness of his bushy hair and the lament-
able enlargement of his girth? Even his friends were growing old and
dying. Late in January, 1855, ^e had been disturbed by the news that
Gerard de Nerval, "le bon Gfrard" with whom he had wandered
through Germany, had committed suicide. And in midsummer he
had followed the body of Delphine Gay, the wife of fimile de Girardin,
to the cemetery. He no longer saw Alfred de Vigny. Auguste Maquet
was estranged and meditating a lawsuit against him. Victor Hugo
had just been expelled from Jersey and had settled on the Isle of
Guernsey, fimile Deschamps was old and feeble. The specter of
death gazed out of the worn face of Alfred de Musset. Michelet was
dreaming of the past in Italy. There were new faces everywhere.
But if all these sad changes troubled his mind at times, yet he could
jauntily assert himself in this new milieu. What did it matter whether
it was the Paris of Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis-Philippe or Napo-
leon III ? The scene changed but he was the same, eternally gusty,
eternally boisterous, eternally entertaining* The great days of the
jemllcton may have gone and an obnoxiously analytical note may
have crept into the literature of the Empire but he was still the wise
vulgarisateur, the ever-flowing cornucopia of stories and cauteries, and
as long as the bourgeoisie existed he would possess his audience. So
he continued with young Paid Bocagc to spin out the huge shapeless

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 373

fabric of Lcs Mohicans dc Paris, to pen his cauteries, to enliven bis
columns with attacks on the yellow-faced Buloz, to advocate various
philanthropies, to agitate for a monument on the grave of Balzac, and
to take the pale and sweet Isabel Constant to the races.

Sometimes he admitted his loneliness to his old friend Delacroix,
complaining to the sympathetic painter that he no longer saw Alex-
andre fits who was busy with his own triumphs (Le Demi-Monde was
running successfully at the Gymnase) and that his daughter, Marie-
Alexandre, now a tall dark girl of twenty-four, paid very little atten-
tion to him, although she did appear occasionally at 77, rue d* Amster-
dam, where he now resided. Another lonely man, the unfortunate
Heinrich Heine, did desire to see Dumas. He wrote: "But why do
you not come to see me, my dear Dumas? I understand that you live
at present in the same rue d' Amsterdam from whence I packed off
some time ago to settle in the Champs Elys£es, 4 Avenue Matignon,
where you may find me at any hour. It is not far from your house
and your cabriolet can bring you here in five minutes. Shame upon
you! While you, young man, delay coming an old fellow of seventy-
five, who lives in the Marais and who obstinately makes all his jour-
neys on foot, our illustrious doyen Beranger, came to see me the other
day in spite of the bad weather. I had not seen Beranger for twenty-
five years but I found him as alert as a Parisian gamin. A lady, whose
name you know and who was present during this visit from Beranger,
marvelled at his excellent appearance, and, when we told her that
he was seventy-five years old, refused absolutely to believe it and
insisted that he could be no more than sixty. The response that the
chansonnier made her diverted me for the whole day; for with a sad
and sly expression and lingering sweetly on his words he said, 'You
fool yourself and if you will permit me to give you proof I will con-
vince you that you are wrong and I am actually my seventy-five
years.* What a venerable mischievous child!" Dumas went to see
Heine and the dying poet talked brilliantly from the bed of his
affliction. He went to the Princcsse Mathilde's salons, and presented
her with a copy of Les Chfoiments. Sometimes he might be found
seated on the terrace before Tortoni's, discussing life and letters with
fimile de Girardin and Gautier and Nestor Roqueplan. But there
were periods whea he disappeared for days at a time. Where was

374 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

he? Seated in his third floor office scribbling tales or essays? Or
meditating new ways of circumventing the growing coldness of
Louis-Napoleon's Paris? Once he traveled to Brussels and descended
from the coach before 73, Boulevard Waterloo, his old residence of
exile which he had retained, and attempted to enter the house; but
he discovered that it had been re-let and was occupied by a Doctor
Brayer. He commenced suit against the landlord but desisted when
he learned that he had never rented from the actual proprietor. Con:
signing Belgium, Brussels and all the judges to the devil he returned
to Paris. Dumas's restlessness began to make serious inroads on the
quality of the material in Le Mousquetaire, and it became evident
that Dumas was weary of writing prodigiously and yet having barely
a sou to show for his application.

On the fifteenth of May, 1855, the Exposition Universelle was
formally opened, and on the eighteenth of August, in the early eve-
ning, Queen Victoria of England, returning the visit of Napoleon III,
rode through the newly opened Boulevard de Strasbourg on her way
to Saint-Cloud. Although the lateness of this august arrival had some-
what dampened their ardor, more than eight hundred thousand
people, many from the nearby towns, crowded the streets and cheered
the Queen as the carriage passed in murky light beneath the triumphal
arch and by the decorated house-fronts. In 1520 Henry VIII had met
Frangois ler on the famous Field of the Cloth of Gold between Guines
and Ardres; in 1688 the proscribed James II had sought asylum at
Saint-Germain; in 1843 this same Victoria had shaken the hand of
Louis-Philippe at the Chateau d'Eu; but this visit was of even more
momentous circumstances. It marked the cementing of a lasting
friendship between two great nations. Waterloo was forgotten. There-
after Paris was a playground for Englishmen; signs reading "Ici on
farlc anglais" appeared in shop windows; provision was made for the
entertainment of foreign visitors; and a subtle change manifested itself
in the volatile city. Plays, bds and illuminations entertained the Eng-
lish Queen during her week or so in France, and Paris took on the
semblance of a huge carnival. Dumas strode through all this exhibit-
ing his customary delight in colorful movement and jovial excitement.
When he heard that the Queen had indicated a desire to view a special

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 375

performance of Les Demoiselles de Saint Cyr he received tie news
with a naive display of vanity. "You ought to be pleased," a friend,
meeting him in the Chaussee d'Antin, remarked. "Not only did the
Queen ask to see your play, which she had already seen in London,
but she enjoyed it even better the second time." "It is like its author,"
remarked Dumas, "the more one knows him the more one loves him.
But I know what would have amused her still more than seeing my
play — to see me also! Honestly, it would have amused me, tool"
"Why don't you ask for an audience ?" inquired the impressed friend.
"I am certain that it would be granted." "Well, I did think of it,"
replied Dumas. "A woman as remarkable as she is, who will probably
remain the first woman of the century, ought to have met the greatest
man in France! It is a pity, for she will go away without having seen
the best sight in France — Alexandre, King of the world of Romance — "
and then, remembering the famous chemist whom everybody called
Dumas le savant, he added "Dumas the Ignorant!" With a roar of
laughter he proceeded down the Chaussee d'Antin.

His restlessness persisted and neither triumphs in Paris nor the
necessity of applying himself to intensive labors if he were to extricate
himself from debt could keep him at his desk. Books appeared, in
1855, La Dern&re Annee de Marie Dorval, Le Page du Due de Savoie,
and the first portion of Salvator, a sequel to Les Mohicans de Paris;
in 1856, Les Grands Hommes en Robe de Chambre; Richelieu, and
Madame du Defland; in 1857, Le Meneur de Loups, Les Compagnons
de Jehu, which had been serialized in Le Journal pour tous, Le L&vrc
de mon Grand-Ptre, a story by the Comte de Cherville which Dumas
touched up, Cesar and Les Grands Hommes en Robe de Chambre.
But between their publications he disappeared, turning up in Mar-
seilles or, as in 1856, making a trip to Chalons-sur-Marne, Sainte-
Menehould and Varennes for documents and topographical knowl-
edge of the flight of Louis XVI, or again, as in 1857, visiting England.
Not even his plays could hold him in Paris. In 1856 three had been
produced: L'Orestie, which opened at the Porte-Saint-Martin on Janu-
ary fifth; La Tour Saint-Jacques la Bouchcrie, played at the Th&tre
Imperial du Cirque on November fifteenth; and Le Verrou de la
Reinc, presented at the Gymnase on December fifteenth. None of

376 . THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

these plays is worth considering, nor is L'Invitation h la Vdse, the
charming but inconsequential bit which the Gymnase presented on
August 3, 1857. These books and plays were hastily conceived and
not too much care was taken to maintain even a respectable level of
excellence. What was happening to this prodigious worker who had
returned from Brussels so certain of himself and sanguine for the
future? What had four busy years in the Paris of Louis-Napoleon
taught him? It is easy to reply to the first question but more difficult
to answer the second. What had obviously happened to Dumas was
a double shift in values that affected his fortunes and his prestige.
The first shift was in himself, and it was betrayed in the exhaustion
of his vast fertility. He who had depended so much upon his collabo-
rators and research workers for a decade or more could produce by
himself nothing but the repetition of a personality that had become
exceedingly familiar to Paris and therefore stale. His agreeable quali-
ties were potent enough to newcomers, but he had taken on the
semblance of an old story to the populace that had grown up with
him. They had had their Dumas with them for nearly thirty years
and in all of that time he had been the same, undisciplined, faulty,
full of high and colorful arcs into the Romantic skies, and swift drops
into the superficial flatnesses of journalism. In the 1850$ there were
more flatnesses than colored arcs. Dumas had emptied himself of his
surprises, and his audiences, which had traveled in Time beyond
even the best of those surprises, were a bit contemptuous, a bit too
sophisticated, a bit too immersed in the new spirit of things. It was
this changed taste of the public that made up the second shift in the
fortunes of Dumas* A new generation of writers was asserting itself
and Dumas was badly equipped to challenge comparison with it.
From the literary viewpoint he was an untidy but amusing old man
striving to run with the youngsters. The youngsters did not run.
That was the gait of the outmoded Romantics. They traveled at a
slower pace, gazing about them with sharp analytical eyes. If Lcs
Trots Mousquetaires was the book of 1844, then Madame Bovary was
the book of 1857. Paris had become sophisticated. The cape-and-
sword era in fiction had given place to the boudoir-and-drawing-room
era. It was on the very day of the Couf d'fitat that the first novel
gf th$ Qoncwjt brothers appeared; and in 1855 they were writing

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 377

in their journal: "Put into a novel a chapter on the feminine eye
and glance, a chapter composed of long and serious observations."
These brothers who desired to kill all adventure in the novel, and
Flaubert, Zola, Renan and Taine were the manifestations of the shift
in the Time-Spirit that was so disastrous to Dumas.

On February 7, 1857, &s strongest link with Paris snapped. Lc
Mousquetaire ceased to exist It had been a sad affair during its last
year but its failure was still sadder. It had started so auspiciously and
the expectations of Dumas concerning it had been so grandiose. Now
where was that half-million of francs that was to be dredged from
this gold mine? A strange silence fell on the courtyard of the Maison
d'Or and M. Alexandri no longer ran to his window in expectation
of seeing somebody slaughtered on the cobbles. The long-haired poets
and gesticulating fantaisistcs departed. Well, it could not be helped.
Dumas discoursed as extravagantly as ever, but moments of depres-
sion settled upon him with increasing regularity. He announced that
he would found another journal and write it all himself. And, then
again, he would go away and see those portions of the great world
that he had dreamed about but never explored. He became a bird
of passage, constantly flying from Paris and then returning to plan
new flights. A silence would fall over his usual haunts; voices would
murmur, "What's become of Dumas?" and then around the corner
he would come, rotund, smiling, full of strange schemes and laugh-
able stories. Early in April he appeared in London, acting as special
correspondent for La Prcssc during the general elections, A funny
country 1 He snuffed the foggy air and laughed. He gazed at the
masked visages of the reticent Englishmen and laughed again. There
was too much fog in their throats for conversation. Even the papers
made ridiculous mistakes about distinguished visitors. To the Times
he wrote: "As the Times is considered to be the best informed journal
in Europe, and as I am anxious that it should continue to deserve its
reputation, allow me to correct two errors into which you have fallen
as regards me. (i) I am not M. Dumas fils, but M. Dumas ftrc\
(2) I do not write for La Pressc 'by the line* but for my own pleasure."
It was not that he was jealous of his son's reputation but he was tired
of being reminded that Dumas fils W3$ more <w cowwt witfc the

378 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Time-Spirit than he* He loved young Alexandra but, after all, he
was himself and not his son, even though that son had stated: "My
father is a great child born when I was very young." If the English-
men would only get the fog out of their eyes they might see better.
The English Sunday appalled him. "On Sunday everything is for-
bidden in London; when I say London, I say England; and when
I say England, I say the English possessions. At Southampton a barber
was fined twenty-five hundred francs for having shaved a man and
on Guernsey an innkeeper was fined a hundred francs for selling a
noggin of gin. In London, after having worked six days one does
not rest on the seventh, on s'cnnuicl Sunday in London gives one an
idea of what the Kingdom of the Sleeping Beauty was like before
the Princess was awakened." It was the usual Continental amaze-
ment at the Anglo-Saxon's strict observance of the Sabbath. Dumas
passed the doleful day in his hotel composing Ulnvitation h la Valse.
Later in the spring, in May, he returned to England, this time with
Alexandre fits, to see the Derby run off on Epsom Downs. He arrived
on Monday in order to escape the deadly English Sunday and returned
to Paris on Saturday for the same reason. He put up at the London
Coffee House, Ludgate Hill. The London of Dickens, unclean,
sprawling, grimily picturesque, was all about him but his peregrina-
tions seem to have been limited. He visited the wax-works of Madame
Tussaud and gaped delightedly at the countless souvenirs of the
French Revolution. There was Marat's bath-tub, for example. The
fact that there was another one in Paris did not disturb his pleasure.
For an hour he strolled along the gravel paths of Hyde Park. "In
Hyde Park," he noted, "you find the finest horses and also the prettiest
women in London, and therefore in the whole world. But to do the
Englishman justice, his first glance is for the horse, and, one might
almost add, his first desire." Dumas barely noticed the horses, but
he paid assiduous attention to the charming women. He saw some
pretty girls in Rotten Row (le chemin pourri, as he called it), and
imagined that he had realized in a flash the native quality of the
heroines of Shakespeare. These graceful blonde creatures were, to
him, the very doubles of Rosalind and Beatrice. His Gallic ebullience
urged him into conversation with some of the Englishmen he met
and he was amazed at their reluctant answers. "An Englishman,

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 379

astonished at your question, says *Ho!'; if he is very much astonished
he says, *Ho! Ho!'; but, however astonished he is, he never makes
any answer."

Derby Day arrived and Dumas, the guest of a Mr. Young, traveled
to Epsom Downs in true English fashion, in a coach and four with
postillions, braying horns, and hampers crammed with food and
liquors. Swaying along the country road he went in an inextricable
crowd of four-in-hands, mail-coaches, broughams, landaus, phaetons,
buggies, cabs, donkey-chaises and hansoms. The names of these con-
veyances delighted him. The heat, the pushing mobs of cockneys,
the bawling gypsies, the dust, the dirt, the quarrels, the loud-mouthed
bettors, the peep-shows and the games of chance did not lessen his
enjoyment in the spectacle, although he did note a trifle wryly:
"Derby Day is the carnival of London which has no carnival." On
the Downs he decided: "A gallop is the regulation pace on Derby
Day; everything goes at a gallop — even the donkeys." Pushed hither
and thither by the conglomeration of excited folk, dodging dog-carts
(which he called voitures des chiens)> avoiding itinerant merchants
of unappetizing refreshments and heady liquors, he received his first
complete immersion in English life, his bath of a foreign humanity.
It was an experience that he seemed to enjoy more for its curious
facets than for any pleasures of the senses, and though he spoke
warmly of his English friends, we may suspect that he was very glad
that he was a Frenchman going back to France where the lively
populace took a more immediate pleasure in pleasures. The pilgrim-
age to the Derby accomplished — Blink-Bonny won — Dumas called
the race-horse Joli-Clignoteur—ihe Crystal Palace investigated, Cre-
morne Gardens visited and the Great Eastern admired, Dumas re-
turned to Paris. He had arrived at certain convictions about the
English. "The English, the least artistic and most industrial (I say
'industrial' and not 'industrious') of peoples, have almost achieved
art by force of industry." "The English think that the bigger a thing
is, the greater it is." "The Englishman generally has the spleen in
November. You may fancy that that is because of the fog, which
commences in November and doesn't go away until May. Not at
all! They have the spleen because they have been deprived of the
fog for four months. You may ask me what the English make their

38o THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

fogs of? Of coal, I suppose, but that is a detail. It was not the good
God who made the fog, it was the English!"

Back in Paris, Dumas put into execution his threat to found another
periodical. He established Monte Cristo, a publication which, he
declared, would be purely his own mouth-piece. The first issue ap-
peared in May. It was a weekly instead of a daily, and while it
achieved a fair audience it never reached the circulation Lc Mous-
quctdrc had commanded during the first few months of its existence.
Monte Cristo was primarily a causcrie sheet. It did not matter what
the subject might be, English life, hunting elephants, phrenology,
art, macaroni b I'ltalicnne; he would attack it with gusto. Naturally
Monte Cristo was plentifully besprinkled with the first person singu-
lar. Politics he left severely alone. What Napoleon III was doing or
why he was doing it might be matters of burning moment in the
privacy of one's chamber but they were not the proper subjects for
an intimate chatter-sheet. Dumas was beginning to indulge in pru-
dence, a quality he had scorned most of his life. Too many periodicals
had been suppressed by "the Dutchman" or were being censored by
politicians whose object was the continued consolidation of the Em-
pire. Yet Dumas could show his indignation fearlessly enough when
it seemed incumbent so to do for honor's sake. There was, for in-
stance, his quarrel with Mademoiselle Augustine Brohan. She had
been a good friend to Dumas; he had brought the petite Isabel Con-
stant to her house; her acting— and she was one of the outstanding
comediennes of her time — had done much to maintain the popularity
of some of the writer's plays. Yet when she attacked the political
conduct of Victor Hugo in Lc Figaro the rage of Dumas knew no
bounds. Hugo was a defenceless exile, fair game for all the cowardly
little ink-spatterers in Paris; and to Dumas it seemed shameful that
the Sun-God's manifest sincerity should be impeached. Mademoiselle
Brohan had written under the nom-dc-plumc of Suzanne, but Dumas
quickly discovered the author and despatched a letter to the Th£atre-
Fran^ais demanding that the actress be denied the privilege of appear-
ing in any of his dramas in the future. He was depriving himself of
a charming exponent of some of his best r61es but he did not care.
Hugo and he had been brother-musketeers of the Romantic days and
the ancient motto still held firm: one for all and all for CHIC.

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 381

The shadow of Auguste Maquct hovered over Dumas during this
period. What had the mustachioed ex-collaborator been doing all this
time? Many things* He had written a number of books without
assistance, planned them and composed them entirely on his own,
and while they had not been astounding neither had they been bad.
They were Dumas without the tang. During 1853 an<^ ^54 La Belle
Gabridlc had appeared. In 1855 he gave Lc Comtc dc Lavtrnie to
a not too eager public; and La Maison dc Baigncur was issued during
1856. It was during this year that Maquct, giving up all hope of
remuneration for past services from Dumas, resorted to the courts.
The famous document of 1848 in which he had assigned all his rights
to Dumas for the lump sum of 145,200 francs payable in monthly
instalments over a period of eleven years he claimed was broken, and
he applied to the courts for a revocation of this agreement, half the
author's rights, and his name on eighteen novels. Why had he done
this? For several reasons. He had witnessed his bright dream of a
fortune dissipated by the collapse of the Th6atre-Historiquc, the
bankruptcy of Dumas, the Coup d'fitat, and the flight of Dumas to
Brussels. Still Maquet waited patiently. The spell of Dumas was
on him. Not even the insidious whispers of the anti-Dumas clique
could shake him. But time passed; Lc Mousquctairc blossomed,
flourished, dwindled and died; it became apparent to the younger
man that Dumas (circumvented by fate as much as his own extrava-
gance) would never make those long overdue payments. It became
no longer a question of friendship but a matter of justice. Then too,
the irritation occasioned by constantly seeing those eighteen books
with the solitary name of Dumas upon their covers had its effect.
After all he had written important portions of them and he had
slaved in the galleys of various biblioth£ques to dredge out of for-
gotten tomes the historical color and incidents for these books. He
forgot that he was a secondary figure, a secretary who moved at the
direction of the master and who was like a mesmerized mind ani-
mated and guided by the personality of Dumas. It did not occur to
him that while Lc BcUc Gabricllc was good, it was at its best only
the shadow of the full-bodied novels Dumas had conceived and he
had executed with him. Neither did he remember that he had vei&-
tured into this association open-eyed, that there had never been any

382 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

question of full partnership in the collaborations, and that he had
burst into tears of gratitude that memorable evening in his box at
the Ambigu when, much to his surprise, he had been announced as
collaborator with Dumas of Les Mousquetaires. He had not expected
it for there had never been such an agreement. He forgot all these
things and remembered only his years of hard labor and the meager-
ness of his financial reward for them. It was as an enemy, therefore,
that he attacked Dumas in the courts.

It was painful to observe these two old friends who between them
had established the cape-and-sword romance in French literature, so
ranged against each other. Dumas continued smiling and friendly
and boasted that he bore no hard feelings toward Maquet. "Why
should he?" thought Maquet bitterly. "He has had all the best of
it. He had the money and spent it. He still has the fame." There
was some moral justice in Maquet's bitterness but no legal rights and
the courts recognized this in 1858 when they denied his demands
but acknowledged his collaboration and awarded him the twenty-
five per cent statutory dividend. Maquet retired angrily from the
unequal contest. Dumas was a scoundrel. He was a treacherous old
negro. The victim of these epithets shrugged his shoulders ruefully.
What could he do? He lamented the estrangement of Maquet but
he could not pay even the twenty-five per cent dividend. One needed
money to make payments and the francs that flowed into the coffers
of Monte Cristo flowed out as swiftly as they had during the days of
Le Mousquetairc. No, he could do nothing. Poor Maquet. He was
still fond of him. Maquet was comparatively young — he was only
forty-five— and might do great things in the future. But for a reason
not hard to find, he never did anything. He had lost the animating
influence that had sustained him through so much labor. The secret
was lost. Dumas saw him march furiously out of his life and sighed
to think of the many estrangements there were in this changing
world. But he did not sigh for any length of time. There were too
many things to do. A journey to Marseilles, and the production of
Lcs Gardes Forcstiers at the Grand-Th&tre there on March 23, 1858.
The premiere of L'Honncur cst satlsfait at the Gymnase in Paris on
June 19. And books, three of them: Lc Capitainc Richard, BlacJ^ and
L'Horoscope*

THE STRUGGLING MUSKETEER 383

The seasons passed swiftly to these efforts and to the concoction of
countless causeries. There were splendors and parades in Paris. The
salons intrigued Dumas; the best restaurants lured him; a few old
friends remained with whom he might discourse about the past. But
the mark of time was upon him. It was evident in his restlessness, in
the growing suspicion that the capital had relegated him to a lesser
place, in the faltering of his dramatic enterprises and the increasing
difficulties of creating successful novels. The swift life of Paris
increased and Dumas could hardly keep pace with it. He began
to think again of far-away places. "Posterity," he announced, "com-
mences at the frontier." He might have said, "The old order
changeth. . . ."

CHAPTER SIX

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
I

DANIEL DOUGLAS HOME, a young Scotchman of feminine appearance,
amazed and perturbed Paris during the winter of 1858. He was in
league with powers beyond the grave and at his bidding these invis-
ible spirits appeared and rapped tables, lifted chairs and shook win-
dows in their frames. Shuddering duchesses and uneasy counts
witnessed these manifestations with a fearful pleasure. It was a new
thrill for the enervated society of the Second Empire, a frisson calcu-
lated to arouse lethargic natures soporiferous from easy luxuries.
Home, the spirit medium, passed like a new Cagliostro through the
salons of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It was natural that Dumas
should seek out this surprising phenomenon, for all his life he had
believed implicitly in the magic of somnambulism, in animal magnet-
ism and in chiromancy. No Haitian negro dancing before his Voodoo
altar was more superstitious than Dumas, Home, to Dumas, there-
fore, was an authentically inspired adept in communicating with the
unseen world. The meeting was arranged %by mutual friends and an
intimacy sprang up between the writer and the medium. Dumas,
wide-eyed and open-mouthed, would gaze at the table-turning, and
the Scotchman would accept gracefully the homage implicit in the
older man's silence. They visited caf£s together, the theaters and the
homes of mutual friends. One day Home took his French companion
to the Hotel dcs Trois Empercurs in the Place du Palais-Royal where
the Russian Comtc Kouchclef, his wife and entourage were staying.
The Comtc Kouchclef was a Cossack of the Zaparog tribe beyond the
cataracts of the Dnieper. His conversation was a stream of thrilling
talcs of the fierce life of the hard riders of the steppes, and Dumas,

384

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 385

attuned always to the hoofbeats of romance, became a frequent visitor
to the Trois Empereurs. Home's visits were for another purpose. It
was his desire to marry the sister of the Comtesse Kouchelef. Dumas
was present when the prospective wedding was announced. It would
take place in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg! The fortress of Peter
and Paul! The Nevsky Prospect! The city of Ivan! And Russia!
Moscow! The Kremlin! The city that Napoleon had destroyed!
Nijni-Novgorod! Kasan! Astrakhan! Sebastopol! The slow waves
of the Volga! The eyes of Dumas glistened. Comte Kouchelef noticed
this and smiled. A few days after the announcement of the betrothal
had been made public he approached Dumas and said: "We leave for
Russia in five days and we are going to take you with us." Dumas
bounded from his chair. "Impossible!" he gasped. They convinced
him that it was not impossible. He asked for two days in which to
make up his mind. They gave him ten minutes. Five days later he
was on the Cologne express with his face turned toward the Slav city
of Peter.

As the train sped across France Dumas's spirits lifted in the exulta-
tion of the wanderer. He had remained sedentary too long; he was
a nomad, a bird of travel, an explorer of the world and its wonders;
it was no matter that he had left so many unfinished things behind
him. Providence would take care of them. Or Louis-Napoleon. He
did not care which. As for his journal, Monte Cristo, he had left that
in charge of a deputy-editor and had vaguely promised to forward
travel causerics. At Cologne they changed to the Berlin train, and at
Berlin they went to the Hotel de Rome where there were not enough
beds to accommodate them. Dumas slept in the bathtub. From Ber-
lin they went on to Stettin and there they boarded a steamer, Le
Wladimir> for St. Petersburg. Dumas was joyous and amusing. One
of his fellow passengers was Prince Troubetzkoi who, won over by
the bubbling gusto of the writer, suggested that Dumas come to hunt
wolves with him on his estate, and Dumas, protesting that chasing
bears would be more fun, accepted the invitation. The towers of
St. Petersburg rose before the party and Dumas was taken to the
Villa Bezborodko, the splendid residence of the Comte Kouchelcf
which was at some distance from the city but from which a magnifi-
cent view of the wide sweep of the Neva might be seen. Days passed

386 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

in exploration of St. Petersburg with the Russian novelist, Gregoro-
vitch, as guide. It was all admirable, the strange architecture, the
monuments, the bridges, the churches, the clear moon of June above
the city, and the soft air; yet something in the Russian mode of living
disturbed Dumas. Perhaps it was occasioned by his visit to the great
prison where the exiles for Siberia were herded.

The marriage of Home and the sister of the Comtesse Kouchelef
took place in an elaborate setting glittering with uniforms, and Dumas,
expansive and impressive with half a dozen decorations draped across
his wide bosom, acted as best man. It was one of the few times that
he took the second lead in any of the dramas of his life. But even
here, though he was but a subsidiary in an episode that was of prime
importance to Home, the adulation that greeted him on all sides
pleased his vanity. Six weeks among the Slav nobility passed and
Dumas bethought himself of his determination to see the rest of the
strange country, as much of it as he could see within the time at his
disposal. He was curious and he needed impressions for his causeries.
He bade farewell to the hospitable Comte Kouchelef and departed on
a boat along the Neva to Schlusselberg. He would see Finland. Lake
Ladoga delighted him, but a trip to the Island of Konivetz, where
an ancient religious establishment was situated, irritated him because
all that he could get for dinner was tea, bread and salted fish. He
explored the islands in Lake Ladoga and then returned to St. Peters-
burg where he took a final farewell of Comte Kouchelef and com-
mended Home to the spirits. Moscow called to him, for Jenny Falcon
was there. So, too, was the Comte Narychkine, one of the great boyars
of the Russian Empire. Dumas remained for a month as a welcome
guest in the Comte's residence in Petrovsky Park. He saw the Kremlin
by moonlight, made a pilgrimage to the battlefields of Moskova,
bowed his head before the monument in the foreign cemetery which
bore the inscription: "Francois marts— pendant ct aprh V occupation?
and then departed for Nijni-Novgorod to revel in the famous fair.
Accompanied by a guide attached to him by the rector of the Uni-
versity of Moscow he sailed down the sad and uniform river of the
Volga, stopping at night in strange towns and reaching Nijni-Nov-
gorod on the third day. Here he was pleasantly surprised to meet
the Comte and Comtesse Aunenkof who were the Alexis and Pauline

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 387

of that Le Maitre d'Armes which Dumas had written some years
before from the notes of Grisier. It was amusing, too, to discover on
sale in the streets of the town handkerchiefs printed in colors with
scenes from the book. The brightly colored fair with its shouting
hucksters, its strange music and its wild dances held him for three
days and then Dumas started forth again on the Volga. At Kasan
he mingled with the Tartars and was embarrassed by the gifts show-
ered upon him. When he left for Astrakhan he took with him six
extra bags of presents which he had found it impossible to refuse.
Two days were agreeably passed in Saratov and on the twenty-sixth
of October he sailed into the port of Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea
was before him.

Astrakhan was like an Arabian Nights dream. Strange foods and
bizarre people and Kalmuck madness were apparent on all sides.
Dumas was entertained by Prince Toumaine, rubbed noses with him
in greeting, saw a vast herd of ten thousand wild horses driven into
the Volga and swimming across that river, their eyes burning, their
unkempt manes flung back. He wrote verses in the album of the
Princess and witnessed a camel race. He even wrestled with the
Prince and threw him after a five-minute struggle, but it is to be
suspected that the courtesy of the Kalmuck had something to do
with this easy victory. While he was in Astrakhan the traveler ton-
ceived the idea of pushing on to the frontiers of Russia and Asia. He
would go to Kislar but to do that he would have to cross an enormous
and solitary steppe, a desert of sand at least a hundred leagues long.
There were perils attached to such a journey, for the wilderness
swarmed with Kalmuck vagabonds and Tartar nomads; but once
having set his heart on the venture Dumas disregarded the danger.
He started oft in a tarantasse, a peculiar Kalmuck conveyance, armed
with a falcon presented to him by Prince Toumaine and with his
Spanish decoration flaming on the bosom of his Russian military coat.
The armed Cossacks who encountered him saw the gleaming medals
and mistook him for a French general. Dumas accepted the mis-
conception with a smile, returned the sharp salutes with military
precision, and proceeded safely to Kislar, a town which did not appeal
to him greatly, and from there to Tiflis, the capital of Georgia. Tiflis
charmed him. It smacked of the dear, dirty East. He ate

388 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

mutton prepared in a local fashion, and liked it enormously. He was
entertained by Baron Finot, by Prince Bariatinski, by the viceroy of
Caucasia, all of whom treated him as a great celebrity. The result
was that he remained six weeks in the Georgian capital and wrote
two short books, Sultanetta and La Boule dc Neige, as well as a
number of postponed causcries for Monte Cristo. Then he was ofj
for Poti where he unluckily missed the boat for Trebizond and was
forced to stay for several days in a dirty and outrageously expensive
inn. He met Vasili during his residence here. Vasili was an intelli-
gent Georgian boy, so intelligent that Dumas immediately took him
into his service. It was cold in Poti and the writer's fingers grew
numb as he sat in his chilly room at the small inn and strove to set
down his impressions of the Caucasus for the impatient Parisian
readers of his neglected periodical. And in the yard beneath his
room a nocturnal saturnalia of squealing pigs disturbed him. Dumas
could see them through the uneven flooring, skinny, irascible, amorous
swine. He finally drove them away "by pouring boiling water through
the cracks in the floor. When the steamer Grand Due Constantin
which was to carry him to Trebizond finally arrived it was an in-
tensely relieved author who hurried on board. At Trebizond — name
redolent of Eastern tales — he boarded the packet-boat Sully which
brought him to Marseilles by way of Constantinople. The minarets
above the Golden Horn flashed briefly before him; the familiar blue
waters of the Mediterranean charmed him; and the bustle along the
Cannebiere in Marseilles delighted him. He would eat bouillebaisse,
exchange tales with Mery and then plunge once again into the gay
life of Paris.

Sdvator, the long continuation of Lcs Mohicans dc Paris, had been
halted abruptly when Dumas departed so suddenly for Russia; now
upon his return to Paris he picked up the loose threads of this huge,
shapeless fcuitteton and proceeded with it to the gratification of his
readers who disapproved of these suspensions. Once again he was
striding along the beloved boulevards, breathing the clear air of the
city by the Seine and listening to the trumpets on the Champs de
Mars. Doors seemed to open of their own accord when his step
approached; hands were extended and voices vibrated with welcome.

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 389

It was always this way. Paris never fully appreciated her playboy
until he returned from foreign lands after a prolonged absence. She
experienced anew the charm of Dumas and paid willing tribute to
it until the charmer exasperated her by some ridiculous divagation,
some notorious affair with an actress or some law suit over contract
defalcations. This time Dumas enjoyed a renewal of the popularity
he had in the middle forties. He was Dumas ptrc now, for the many
successes of his son had given a double significance to the name. At
this time Alexandre fils seemed to be following in the footsteps of
his father; he was deeply engulfed in a liaison with Madame Naris-
chkine whom he had met at Baden, a liason that resulted the next
year, 1860, in the birth of a daughter, Colette. Unlike his father,
however, he married the mother of this illegitimate child. At the
same time Alexandre fils was putting the finishing touches to a new
play, Un P£rc Prodigue, in which the principal character would seem
to be modeled after his creator. Therefore he saw little of Dumas
and would continue to see little of him until the last few years of
his father's life. Parent and child had reached a division of ways,
and while the parent continued his disorderly, amoral, Bohemian
existence, the son tended more and more toward a regulated and
respectable observance of life. Dumas at this time exhibited his dis-
regard of morals by bringing his affair with Isabel Constant to a
friendly termination and embarking at once upon another with a
slim, boyish girl named fimilie Cordier. During this year Ida Ferrier
Dumas, sometimes known as La Comtesse Davy de la Pailleterie, died
at Pisa. She had faded with such finality from the life of Dumas that
he could not summon a single regret.

On April 16, 1859, the first issue of Lc Caucase appeared, a daily
journal established by Dumas as a catch-all for his Russian stories,
travel sketches and notes. It did not last long, however, for the un-
businesslike author ran out of material and the publisher calmly
stole several chapters from Edouard Merlieux's Lcs Souvenirs d'unc
Franfaise, Captive de Schamyl, and filled up the columns of the
fourteenth, twentieth and twenty-first issues of the periodical with
them. Merlieux waxed indignant at this pilfering and resorted to
the Tribunal Correctionnel of the Seine for justice. He received it
Dumas was ordered to pay the author one hundred francs d* amende

390 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

and to be conjointly responsible with the publisher, Charlieu, for
five hundred francs damages. Lc Caucase incontinently disappeared.
But this was no more than an unfortunate episode in a busy spring
and early summer. His industrious pen did not falter for Monte
Cristo continually required material and the publishers insisted that
their contracts be observed. Five titles appeared during this year:
Ammdat Beg and Le Caucase, both memorials of the Russian trip;
Le Chasseur de Sauvagine, written from a story supplied by the inven-
tive Comte de Cherville; Charles le Temtraire, an historical sketch
of Charles the Bold of Burgundy; and Les Louves de Machccoul, a
full length novel which ran serially in Le Journal pour tous and
which dealt with the Royalist uprising in La Vendee in 1832 in favor
of the Duchesse de Berry. It is probable that Dumas was assisted by
some unnamed author in the writing of this book. So much work
meant long and fatiguing hours bowed over a desk, but the vigor
of Dumas remained undiminished and there was always time to ap-
pear in theater foyers or salons or the studios of his friends. Wher-
ever he went he brought or created new tales, marvelous narratives
even if they were not true. What did it matter whether Dumas told
the truth or not? There were even skeptical listeners and readers
who, remembering Quinze Jours au Sinai, were convinced that Dumas
had never been near Russia but had secreted himself in a room and
concocted the whole thing. Nevertheless, the tales and travel sketches
in themselves were compact with a gaiety and color that were irre-
sistible. Who cared whether Dumas had really killed lions or wrestled
with a Kalmuck prince or been bitten by a ferocious vulture? Who
cared whether Baron Munchausen really existed or not?

Dumas, after the months of absence in Russia, would seem to be
settled for some time in Paris, but in reality he was already meditating
another flight. The cafes bored him, the boulevards soon wearied him.
His entangled finances aggravated him. The , studios reeked too
strongly of tobacco smoke. Memories of the minarets above the
Golden Horn haunted him and he thought of all the eastern lands
he had never seen. More than once in Monte Cristo he had broached
the plan of an extended journey dear to his heart, meditated upon
often, even fully planned out. What could be finer than to equip
a small boat, recruit a few friends as fellow passengers, preferably

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 391

men who did not smoke, and sail into the Eastern wonders of the
Mediterranean ? He would put in at all the ports of Sicily and dream
beneath the warm sun while Vesuvius blew thin spirals into the
cloudless sky. He would lounge along the coast of Egypt where
once the ships of the Carthaginians had passed, and wave a hand to
the Alexandrian pharos. He would see Sparta that had produced
strong men and Athens where the Acropolis crowned the violet-hued
hill and Corinth where the noble ruins stood. He would sail through
the Ionian Isles and pause at forgotten pagan shrines. He would
pass through the Golden Horn and walk through the streets of Con-
stantinople and meditate upon Byzantium. He would traverse the
blue waves of the Bosphorus and muse upon Lord Byron at Abydos.
He would even explore the ancient cities of Asia Minor and walk
across the fields of Troy. He was aging and it was time to complete
his explorations of the world. In another few years he would be too
old to travel. There would be time enough then to settle down to
a sedentary existence in Paris and fill the twilight end of Time with
books and still more books. Late in the summer he went to Marseilles,
laughed again with Mery over the southern chasseurs who sat in
their shooting boxes waiting for birds that never came, inquired
about ship-builders and ordered the construction of a small boat at
Syra to be ready for him early in the new year. His friends threw up
their hands in amazement. That great mad Dumas! He was about
to set off again on some unreasonable exploit that would plunge him
farther than ever in debt. But Dumas gave no heed to the amused
expostulations of his friends.

The construction of the boat under way, Dumas returned to a
fury of writing in Paris. It would be necessary to raise as much
money as possible if his prospective journey was to be at all the
triumph he planned. Alexandra fils entered his father's study one
day and found him surrounded by reams of paper and laboring with
a ferocity that was awe-inspiring. "How are you?" he inquired.
Dumas raised an exhausted face down which perspiration trickled.
"Very tired. Very tired." "Then why don't you rest?" asked the
son. "I cannot." "Why not?" Dumas flung down his pen and
pulled open the drawer of his desk. There were two louis there.
"See," he said, "when I came to Paris in 1823 I had fifty-three francs.

392 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

You observe that I have no more than forty now. If I mean to recover
those thirteen francs that I have lost it is necessary that I labor." A
roar of laughter and Dumas was immersed in his copy again. By
January, 1860, he was in Marseilles overseeing the furnishings and
equipment for the newly finished boat which he christened the
Emma, undoubtedly in memory of that fair and frail Lady Hamilton
who loved Nelson. Marseilles was lovely. The weather was warm
whereas it was freezing in Paris, and there were great tureens of
bouillebaisse to devour in the company of Mery, Emilie Cordier, who
accompanied her huge idol everywhere now, Jadin and some of the
actors and actresses from the Marseilles theaters, Dumas heard that
Garibaldi, the fierce champion of Victor Emmanuele, was at Turin,
so he traveled to the Italian city to pay his respects to the man who
was fighting for freedom. Garibaldi, tall and red-bearded, with his
long hair brushing the collar of his shirt and flowing upon his shoul-
ders, greeted Dumas with affability. The Frenchman explained his
profound love for freedom and his abysmal hatred of the wretched
Bourbon, Francis II, who ruled at Naples. Had not that infamous
King's still more infamous uncle attempted to poison General Alex-
andre Dumas in the prisons of Brindisi? Garibaldi enjoyed the wit
and oratorical flourishes of this impetuous nomad and confided to
him the memoirs of his adventurous days as a revolutionist in South
America. Dumas might put them into a book and publish them in
Paris. The writer shook the patriot's hand and exclaimed: "God
knows when we shall meet again, but give me some little scrap of
paper by which I shall be able to get to you." Garibaldi, wondering
if he ever should see Dumas again, scribbled on a sheet of paper: "I
commend to all my friends my illustrious friend, Alexandre Dumas. —
Garibaldi."

By the end of January Dumas was back in Paris, covering more
sheets of paper than ever with his swift, legible scrawl, and slapping
together some hasty plays that might be expected to fill his depleted
coffers. On February 4th, Lc Roman d'Elvirc, a comic opera written
with his old friend Adolphe de Leuven, and set to music by Ambroise
Thomas, was produced at the Op6ra-Comique; and in the hands of
managers were either the scripts or scenarios of three more potential
productions. Time was moving rapidly and Dumas darted back and

Al.KXANDRK Dl'MAS Till-; GIANT,'
I'UOM A CAKICATUHK BY H.

The Goncourt brothers spoke of Dumas's face as resembling that
of the Man in the Moon

DELACROIX

The famous painter was always a jriend to Dumas

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 393

forth with celerity. He must select friends for his cruise, friends
who would appreciate the blue waves of the Bosphorus and the noble
lines of the Acropolis. Finally he invited Paul Parfait and Edouard
Lockroy, and both men accepted with alacrity an invitation to enjoy
a long vacation at no expense to themselves. It was settled then.
There were still a few books to give to the publishers and Dumas
volleyed them from his study as though he were a quick-firing liter-
ary cannon. La Maison dc Glace, a translation from the Russian;
Monsieur Coumbs, a short romance of Marseilles; Le Pere Gigogne,
a volume of fairy tales for children, translated from foreign authors
for the most part; Le Ptrc la Ruine, a revised version of a story by
the industrious Comte de Cherville; La Route de Varenncs, an his-
torical study of the flight of Louis XVI; two volumes of selected
Causeries from Monte Cristo\ Let Mtmoires d'Horace, a fantasia on
ancient Rome written as a feuilleton for Le Sticle; Les Drames
Gcdants: La Marquise d'Escoman, a bit of hack biography scandaleuse.
There! It was done. He had fifty thousand francs and he was ready
to bid farewell to Paris, to tuck little Emilie Cordier under one arm,
grasp Parfait and Lockroy by the coat collars and dash off to the
lands and seas of history and myth. The boat was swinging at the
quai, the hold was stuffed with supplies, the sea was fair, romance
lay ahead. But one last gesture. He seized the ink-well into which
he had dipped his pen as he dashed off his last fifteen or twenty
books and despatched it to Madame Victor Hugo on the island of
Guernsey. The Sun-God, uncertain whether it was a Pandora's Box
with the lid off from which might fly half a dozen winged mousque-
taires or a dried-up well, put it on his desk beside his own and ot>
served it with some trepidation. Where was that fellow off to now?
He was off to Marseilles to climb aboard the Emma and set sail for
the Isles of Greece where burning Sappho loved and sung. And
standing on the deck beside him was Emilie Cordier, dressed in a
tight little midshipman's uniform which did not as yet reveal the
fact that she was enceinte. It was late in April when the fifty-eight-
year-old adventurer moved out of the port of Marseilles and watched
the gloomy bulk of the Chateau dlf, where Edmond Dantes had
suffered, fade behind him. The wind ruffled through the upstanding
mass of crinkly hair, his large neck lifted proudly from the open

394 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

shirt collar and his small sparkling eyes shifted ahead beyond Toulon,
beyond Port-Cros and Porquerolles and Hyeres and Nice — where
that splendid red-bearded fellow, Garibaldi had been born — to the
shores of Italy. His destination was Genoa.

II

The waves slapped merrily against the brightly painted sides of
the Emma as she lounged by Mentone and rode parallel with the
Italian coast. Parfait and Lockroy, acting as secretaries for Dumas,
viewed the excursion with varying emotions. Parfait was content,
but Lockroy had learned that Ernest Renan was engaged in archae-
ological exploration somewhere and desired to join him. Both of
these men disappeared from the Emma before the cruise was over
and little Emilie Cordier then became acting secretary to Dumas. On
May i6th the low gray sea walls of the ancient city of Genoa rose
before the travelers and Dumas gazed affectionately on the city to
which he had come so happily several times before. As the Emma
proceeded to her place of anchor she created a sensation, so much
of a sensation that the French Admiral, Le Barbier de Tinan, on his
man-of-war nearly burst with envy. Here was that fellow Dumas
arriving just in time to seize all the glory for himself! He loved to
rush in where neither angels nor devils dared to tiptoe and always,
always he became the center of admiration, attention and laughter.
The French Admiral stalked down to his cabin and poured himself
a generous glass of brandy. How long would that fellow stay in the
bay with his painted boat, his little midshipman of the curiously
feminine appearance, his uproarious laughter, his elaborate dinner
parties both on ship and on land, and his naively peremptory requests
for all sorts of favors? No sooner had Dumas anchored in the bay
than information was transmitted to him that his new friend Gari-
baldi had sailed from there on May fifth with a thousand men for
the chaotic island of Sicily. The Italian patriot and his adventurous
but tiny army of Red Shirts had landed at Marsala on the eleventh
of the month. Dumas waited in a fever of unrest, dividing his time
between his boat and the H6tel de France, for news from this reck-
less attempt to snatch Sicily from tyrannic power. Garibaldi sud-

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 395

dcnly represented to him the apotheosis of liberty, the inspired con-
dottiere who would unify this dismembered land of Italy so domi-
nated by Bourbons and Papal tricksters. That unification was already
taking place in the north, where Lombardy by the peace of Zurich had
come under the crown of Victor Emmanuele, King of Sardinia and
head of the House of Savoy. The excitable political propensities of
Dumas suddenly conquered his dream of sailing through the Ionian
Isles and the Bosphorus. Why should he moon about among the
ruins when he might assist in the building of a kingdom ? Had not
Garibaldi left a welcoming letter for him at Genoa? News was
brought to him that the battle of Calatifimi had taken place on the
fifteenth and that Garibaldi was marching on Palermo. The Emma
seemed to tug impatiently at her anchor as though the spirit of her
stout master had been communicated to her. On the twenty-seventh
of May Garibaldi and his Thousand entered the ancient city of
Palermo to the cheers of the Sicilians who had been so aroused by
the words of Mazzini. Against the will of the captain, an old French
sailor named Beaugrand, the anchor of the Emma was hauled up,
the blue waves of the Bosphorus were consigned to the devil and
Dumas was off for Palermo where history was being made. In his
pocket was the precious note that Garibaldi had given him in Turin.
There was a mountainous sea and a fierce gale blowing as the Emma
ran out of the bay of Genoa. After a week's tossing on the stormy
waters the eighty-ton boat rode into the quiet Sicilian harbor. The
detonations of seven mysterious cannon shots hastened the landing
of Dumas. Did they mean combat or triumph ?

The Italian liberator flung his arms about Dumas's neck and led
him to the Palais-Royal Little fimilie Cordier skipped along behind
her protector. At the Palais-Royal Dumas was installed in the best
apartments, those of the ex-Governor, Castelcicala, and he settled
himself to watch the progress of the campaign and to write, to finish
the memoirs of Garibaldi, to indite vivid letters to the Parisian press
and to act as unofficial advisor to Garibaldi. The recklessness of
Dumas in throwing himself unasked into positions of great responsi-
bility was never more apparent than in this attachment to Garibaldi.
At first the dictator seemed to accept Dumas at his own valuation
and there were many consultations between the two men. There

396 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

was a simplicity about Garibaldi that was touching. Once he pointed
to the Emma which could be seen riding proudly at anchor through
the palace window and remarked: "If I were rich I would do like
you, I would have a yacht." He had just signed a check for half a
million francs of public funds, but he had no money of his own. Out
of the official cash he took ten francs a day for his expenses and once
when he burned a hole in his clothes he was hard put to it for a
change. Dumas could not understand his wish. What was a yacht
compared to a country? The intoxication of a cause had carried him
away completely. He listened to the Red Shirts singing in the streets:

Addio, mia bclY addio
L'armata sc ne va;
Se non fartissi anch' io
Sarebbc un vilta.

It was beautiful. The clang of musket-butts on the broken cobbles,
the heavy tread of soldiers, the quivering excitement in the streets,
the despatches, the councils of war, the conversations with Garibaldi
and his officers, with Nino Bixio and Manin and Tiirr, the thought
of Francis II shuddering with fright in Naples, all these martial mani-
festations intoxicated him to such an extent that the long planned
pleasure trip seemed like the slightest of dreams. This was better.
This was action. Once when Garibaldi returned from some expedi-
tion out of Palermo the populace poured into the streets to greet him
and Dumas appeared on his balcony waving a huge banner. He was
recognized and enthusiastically applauded. "Blessed be my thirty
years of struggle and toil after all!" he wrote immediately to a Paris
newspaper. "If France has nothing for her poets but a crown of
misery and the scepter of exile, the foreigner at least offers them the
crown of laurel and the car o£ triumph! O, if you had been with me
here on this balcony, you two whom I cherish in my heart, dear
Lamartine, dear Victor Hugo, the triumph would have been for
you!"

On June 20 Tiirr's command was ordered by Garibaldi to pro-
ceed to the center of the island by way of Caltanisetta to Catania on
the eastern sea. There were about five hundred men of the original

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 397

Thousand in this detachment besides some Bourbon deserters and a
dozen Sicilian gentlemen. Two obsolete cannon composed the battery.
There was no ammunition, but this could be secured from the sulphur
district of Caltanisetta. Dumas, who had heard of these preparations
with great interest, suddenly decided to accompany the expedition.
Practically all of the famous war correspondents had attached them-
selves to it and Dumas, who was contributing reports to the Parisian
press, regarded it as imperative that he join the company. He was
faced by one problem, however, the proper disposition of little fimilie
Cordier. He could not leave her behind either on the Emma or in
the Palais-Royal of Palermo for there were too many handsome
young Italians wandering about and £milie sometimes had a thought-
less acquiescent way with her. He solved the problem by taking her
with him. Still dressed in her midshipman outfit she made a charm-
ing figure as she trotted along beside Dumas. The insouciant writer
was admired by some of the men in the expedition and detested by
others. His endless advice about every subject under the sun from the
proper way of loading a gun to the wisest method of governing a
province grew irksome. Such colossal vanity delighted a few, amazed
more and irritated the majority. Yet he could always arouse laughter
from friend and foe alike with his unending badinage. The expe-
dition passed through uninteresting and difficult country and its
progress was uneventful. There were no battles, no thrilling rescues,
nothing resembling the Bastion St. Gervaise at La Rochelle, for ex-
ample, and before half the island had been crossed Dumas was bored.
The sullen peasants whose faces lightened when they learned that
Garibaldi was not going to enforce conscription were uninteresting;
the war correspondents were dull and antagonistic fellows; and the
commandant paid no attention at all to the elaborately conceived
campaign plans of Dumas. When one is fifty-eight years old one
requires the stimulation of excitement, and steady marching is far
from exciting; also a fine bed in a palace is much to be preferred to
a camp couch. Dumas decided that he had seen enough of the march
across Sicily. After all, fimilie was pregnant and such hardship tired
her. So one fine morning Dumas bade farewell to the detachment
and he and his midshipman turned back to Palermo. Perhaps Gari-
baldi was in need of advice.

398 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

He was not.

Dumas boarded the Emma and prepared to resume his interrupted
journey to the isles of Greece, Abydos and all those other colorful
places that had seemed so charming a few months before. But some-
how the roseate hues had been dissipated from this vision. Reluctantly
he turned the Emma toward Malta where he planned to stop before
going on to Corfu, but he was tormented by scruples. Why did he
not remain and see the culmination of this -daring enterprise? It
was true that active campaigning had fatigued him and that he was
not so good a trooper as he might have been twenty years before;
still were there not other ways in which he might assist the liberator?
There was the question of guns and ammunitions, for instance. With
a sudden determination he dismissed the dimming vision of Asia
and put into a small port in Sicily, Alicata, from whence he dispatched
a letter to Garibaldi. Should he not go to France and procure arms
for the brave patriots of Italy? "Say yes, and I will postpone my
Asian journey and make the campaign with you." In reality he had
already dismissed the Asian journey from his mind. The Orient
would always be there. Garibaldi's reply was gracious. He expected
Dumas in person to outline his plan for procuring guns. He was
"yours devotedly." The note reached Dumas at Catania to which
port he had sailed after stopping at Malta for money and mail. For
three days he had enjoyed the fetes there, danced, listened to music
and applauded the illuminations. Now duty beckoned and bidding
farewell to the citizens of the little Sicilian town who had given him
the freedom of the city ("the fourth time that I had been made a
citizen of Sicily") he set sail for the oriental gulf of Milazzo and
arrived in time to witness the battle of Milazzo on July 20tL Gari-
baldi welcomed him as fondly as ever, talked over the possibilities
of gun-running and gave him a draft on the municipality of Palermo
for the purchase of arms. "When you come back, Dumas," he re-
marked, "you ought to establish a newspaper at Palermo " "What
shall I call it?" asked Dumas, Garibaldi picked up his pen and wrote,
"The newspaper which my friend Dumas means to establish in
Palermo is to have the good name of The Independent, a tide that
it will deserve the more as he intends not to spare me should I ever

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 399

desert my principles as a child of the people." Good simple Gari-
baldi!

At Palermo Dumas ran into difficulties for the authorities would
not recognize the requisition for money. Garibaldi, it seemed, had
neglected to add the ominous word "dictator" below his signature.
After some excited gesticulations and manoeuverings on the part of
Dumas the matter was straightened out by the creation of a credit
account, and on the twenty-ninth of July the distinguished filibusterer
departed on the Messageries steamer, Lc Pausilippe, for Marseilles,
On the way out the French boat was nearly run down by a Neapolitan
vessel A brief halt was made in the Bay of Naples where Dumas
shook his fist at the palace of Francis II and uttered dark remarks
concerning the imminent arrival of Garibaldi. At last the Bourbons
were going to pay for attempting to murder General Alexandre
Dumas. The run from Naples to Marseilles was uneventful and there
Dumas passed six pleasant days in his role of Garibaldi's confrere.
He bristled with importance, ordered guns and ammunitions, breathed
fire and fury against the King of Naples to the evident distress of the
French officials, and then disappeared as abruptly as he had arrived.
By the thirteenth of August he was back before the sea-wall of Naples,
still a passenger on Lc Pausilippc, with his mission accomplished.
Two days later he was at Messina boarding the Emma. The anchor
was weighed and off hastened the Emma to Salerno where it was to
be hoped the now invisible Garibaldi might be located. But there
was no Dictator at Salerno* He had vanished, and a thousand rumors
accounted for him in a thousand places. Dumas shot off fire-works
from the deck of the Emma, dispatched secretaries right and left on
mysterious errands, furnished cakes and ices and champagne of the
Folliet-Louis and Greno brands in honor of the invisible but approach-
ing Liberator, and otherwise disturbed the tepid Bourbon adherents.
One morning he awoke to find four thousand Bavarians and Croats,
mercenaries in the pay of Francis II, drawn up on the shore and
twelve cannon pointed directly at the Emma. This upset him some-
what but he was so excited that it was a simple matter to imagine him-
self in the r&Ie of a commander of a man-of-war. "These men,'* he
declared with a gesture toward the troopers, "were sent here to crush
the insumetioib but I shall take good care that they shall stay here

400 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

as long as I do, that is, until our men have received notice." Happily,
the Bavarians and Croats were there to desert the Bourbon cause. All
they wanted was five ducats a man. Nevertheless Dumas departed
for Naples during the day and by the twenty-third of August he was
back in the beautiful bay, much to the disgust of Admiral Le Barbier
de Tinan,

The day before Garibaldi had crossed the Straits of Messina and
seized Reggio di Calabria. The Red Shirts were on the mainland with
their faces turned toward Naples and before this irresistible advance
the Bourbon armies dissipated like rising mists. Dumas, in the bay
of Naples, became an unofficial and unauthorized plenipotentiary for
the Dictator. He received agents, passed out food and drink, issued
proclamations, defied the disturbed French Admiral and anchored
within half a pistol shot of the forts. From the deck of the Emma
he could see the balcony of the royal palace and occasionally he could
see Francis II, worried and waiting helplessly on events, come to the
window and gaze across the bay. On the night of the twenty-third,
Liborio Romano, the most important of the King's ministers and a
man who was wavering toward Garibaldi, opened negotiations for
a meeting with Dumas. The meeting took place on a British war-
ship and the next day Dumas dispatched a letter to Garibaldi which
read in part: "Romano is at your disposition, together with at least
two of his fellow-Ministers, at the first attempt at reaction on the
King's part. At this first attempt, which will set him free from his
oath of fidelity, Liborio Romano offers to leave Naples with two of
his colleagues, to present himself to you, to proclaim the deposition
of the King and to recognize you as Dictator." Garibaldi read this
letter in one of the dirty streets of Soveria and lifted a worried face.
What was this fire-eating fellow Dumas about? Garibaldi was eager
that any uprising in Naples be retarded until he himself was at the
gates of the city ready to assume direction. He feared a resultant
anarchy if he were not there and he also feared that Cavour and
Victor Emmanuelc might seize the power and so bring to an end
his Dictatorship and his ambition to invade the Papal States. He
sent a message to Liborio Romano with a hint of all this in it.

In the meantime Dumas continued his martial propaganda, wel-
coming deserters from the Bourbon cause to the Emma and other-

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 401

wise acting the thorn in the flesh of monarchy. At last Francis II
could stand it no longer. He went to the French Ambassador and
complained that M. Dumas had hindered General Scotti from bring-
ing supplies to the soldiers, that he had brought about the revolution
in Salerno and that he had then come to the port of Naples where
he was sowing proclamations through the town, distributing arms
and red shirts and making himself generally irritating to the as yet
established government He insisted that M. Dumas be protected no
longer by the French flag — was not France neutral in this revolu-
tion?—and that he be ordered to leave Naples. The French Am-
bassador acquiesced and an order was transmitted at once to Dumas
declaring that if the Emma were not out of the bay in half an hour
the forts would open fire on it, Dumas thereupon had his anchor
hauled up and proceeded to Castellamarc where there were no cannon
staring him in the face. There he resumed his propagandist activities,
welcomed a committee of action that came aboard to ask his advice
as to the propriety of a provisional government and continued to send
despatches to the approaching Garibaldi. "Would you wish that all
the newspapers, the artists, painters, sculptors and architects should
give a shout of joy? Then issue a decree to this effect: *In the name
of the artist community. The explorations at Pompeii shall be resumed
and continued if I reach Naples. (Signed) G. Garibaldi, Dictator.' "
Dumas had something up his sleeve for himself here. Being driven
still further from Naples the Emma put in at Picciotta where more
red shirts were distributed and an attempt was made to revolutionize
the place. Then the vessel proceeded toward Capri and was off that
corner of the earth sacred to sirens when a passing steamer hailed
Dumas, explaining that Garibaldi had entered Naples to the multi-
tudinous shouts of the populace and that the Dictator desired his
unofficial ally by his side. The Emma turned her prow toward the
city. Garibaldi had entered Naples on September 7th by which date
Francis II had fled to Gaeta. The campaign was over.

The question as to exactly what measure of aid Dumas gave to
Garibaldi is unanswerable. It is certain that he spent most of his
money and gave all of his time over a period of several months and
that Garibaldi cntcrtaiaal, for a time at least, a sincere affection for
his reckless admirer. Dumas was congenially incapable of diplomacy

402 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

and it is obvious that sometimes he did not comprehend the larger
issues in the balance; but he was tireless in action, unselfish (in spite
of the ridiculing animadversions in the Paris papers) and inflamed by
a real love of liberty. He was inconsistent, but forgivably so; he was
vain, but we can smile at his conviction that he had driven Francis II
from his throne. His reward from Garibaldi — and it was all that he
desired except permission to hunt in the park of Capo di Monte-
came on the fourteenth of September when he received a note reading:

Naples, 14 September, 1860.

M. Dumas est autoris£ a occuper, d'ici £ un an, le petit palais
Chiatamone, en sa qualite de directeur des fouilles et musses.

G. GARIBALDI.

Splendid! A new career! He would have all the savants of Paris
down to assist him in digging out the lava-buried treasures of
Pompeii. As the story-teller had become revolutionist so would the
revolutionist become archaeologist.

Naples, learning that Dumas had been appointed Director of Exca-
vations and Museums, expressed violent disapproval. Canards were
spread abroad that he was wasting the State money in orgies and that
he was supported at the cost of the town. He was grotesque and
theatrical, a fantassin who had been placed in the seats of the mighty
through favoritism. Worst of all, he was a foreigner, and what was
the purpose of a revolution if not to conserve Italy for the Italians ?
Dumas was too immersed in his plans for archaeological discovery to
pay heed to or understand the mounting antagonism of the Neapoli-
tans. Maximc du Camp, who had followed Garibaldi in his march
across Sicily, found the newly appointed Director in the Palais Chiata-
mone one day bowed over the plans of Pompeii which were spread
out on a long table. Dumas was bubbling with enthusiastic discussion.
"You will see what we will discover! At every stroke of the pick we
will bring antiquity to light!" He would write to Paris for savants,
for archaeologists, for artists to aid in the labors, for scholars to classify
and number the treasures which would be torn from the jealous earth.
He thought only of Pompeii, of the house of Diomcdes, of the barrack

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 403

of the Veterans. "Hie jacct jdmtasl" he said to du Camp, repeating
the inscription on one of the houses in the buried city. Dumas hoped
that Victor Emmanuele would place at his disposition a company of
sapeurs so that the engaging task might be hastened.

One evening while Dumas was seated at table in the Palais
Chiatamone surrounded by his friends, among them Maxime du
Camp, a rumor of angry sound, the noise of shouting men, percolated
through the windows. Dumas, who had been laughing at one of his
own witticisms, paused, lifted his head and listened. "Is there a
manifestation this evening? Against what? Against whom? What
do they want now? Have they not their Italia una?" His friends, who
had been forewarned and knew very well what the demonstration was
against, moved uneasily in their chairs. The shouting mob came
nearer and through the clamor stentorian voices could be heard:
"Away with Dumas! To the sea with Dumas!" Maxime du Camp
and two colonels who were present hurried to the door of the Palais
where they posted themselves. Next door at Castelnuovo a Hungarian
company of troopers massed in the first court. The sentinels had been
doubled and the captain of this company, actually a general of brigade,
waited nonchalantly, his arms crossed, his back against the wall. The
undisciplined mob straggled down the road led by a huge fellow in a
Chinese hat who waved the Italian flag above his head. There were
about three hundred brawlers in this demonstration, all of them
shouting "Away with Duma$l Fuori stranicro! To the sea with
Dumas !" The captain advanced slowly. There were a few sharp
words from him. The Hungarian troopers fondled the glittering
blades of their bayonets. The mob broke into straggling elements
that disappeared down side streets. The captain turned to Maxime du
Camp, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. It had not taken five
minutes to quell the antagonistic manifestation. Maxime du Camp
turned back into the Palais Chiatamone with a heavy heart.

Dumas sat bowed by the table with his head between his hands, all
the sparkle vanished from his great childish body. When du Camp
tapped him lightly on the shoulder he lifted his head and revealed
two eyes brimming with tears* He said: "I was accustomed to the
ingratitude of France but I did not expect that of Italy." Instead of
smiling at the naive vanity of the speech Maxime du Camp was

404 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

profoundly touched. One of the colonels, who had sheathed his sword
and returned to the dining room, remarked: "It is the same rabble that
existed in the time of Masaniello." Dumas shook his shoulders as if
flinging an incubus from him and answered: "The people of Naples
are like all other people. To expect a nation not to be ungrateful is
the same as expecting wolves to be herbivorous. It is we who arc the
fools— we Wh0 weary ourselves for such creatures." The incident
made a painful impression on the mind of Dumas and the efforts of
his friends to efface it, a grand dinner, an organized hunt in the park
of Capo di Monte, and an excursion to Pompeii, failed to lift his
sadness. When Victor Emmanucle made his triumphant entry into
Naples Dumas pointed out to Maxime du Camp that the Garibaldians
were not represented in the line of parade. Life was like that. He
spoke of boarding the Emma and going to Tripoli. Then, little by
little, his insouciance reassumcd its ascendancy and the memory of his
misadventure seemed to vanish.

Ill

Dumas remained in Naples for four years. In spite of various
antagonisms, a thankless populace and financial difficulties, he found
the warm life in the south far more charming than an existence in
Paris might prove to be. There was his Mtmoires dc Garibaldi to
finish, the Histoirc dcs Bourbons dc Naples to write, and his newly
founded journal, the Independent, to conduct. Back in Paris there
were still material manifestations of his existence to recall him to that
fickle public. Two plays had been produced there during the June
that he had been following the fortunes of Garibaldi. L'Envcrs d'unc
Conspiration, a comedy in five acts, had opened at the Vaudeville on
June fourth and on June twelfth Lc Gcntilhommc dc la Montagnc,
dramatized from El Salvador, had been played at the Porte Saint-
Martin. Neither production was of any importance. Two episodes
marked November, 1860. On the nineteenth a dramatization of La
Dame dc Monsoreau, made with Maquet before the split between the
two collaborators, was presented at the Ambigu-Comujiie with the
excellent M£linguc in the r61c of Chicot. It scored a success. And
toward the last of the month little Emilic Cordier was hurried back

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 4<>5

to Paris for her accouchement. That also was successful for it resulted
in Micaclle-Clelic-Cccilia, for whom Garibaldi consented to assume
the duties of godfather. Dumas, on the first of January, 1861, wrote
a letter to the little mother.

Joy and happiness to thee, my dear love of a child, who, for my
New Year's gift, has given me the good news that my little Micaelle
has come into the world and that her mother is getting on so well.

You know, my dear baby, that I preferred a girl. I will tell you
why. I love Alcxandre better than Marie. I see Marie only once a
year and I can see Alcxandre whenever I please. So all the love
that I might have had for Marie now falls to the share of my dear
little Micaelle, whom I see couched beside her tiny mother whom
I forbid to get up and go out before I arrive. I hope to arrange
everything so that I may be in Paris by the twelfth— it will be
impossible for me to get there sooner in spite of my desire.

If I tell you this, my dear love, believe the truth of it: In an hour
my heart has grown big enough to make room for this new love.

It is necessary that I leave behind me, as you know, a certain
number of articles.

We have founded a committee of elections which I am obliged
to attend twice a week from two until five o'clock. I will charge
two or three of my colleagues with the care of the journal during
my absence. . . .

If, during the next few months, you will not be separated from
your child, we will take a little house at Ischia, in the best air and
on the prettiest island in all Naples, and then I will come to pass
two or three days with you each week all through the spring. In
short, rely on me to love both mother and child.

Au rcvoir, ma petite chtric; embrace well for me Donna Micaelle
— who is no larger than a thumb, according to Madame de C. . . .
I will answer her letter by the next post as well as your mother's,
whom I embrace.

Atoia* infant.

To think tfoat I received your letter only today, January first, and
that you will not get this, perhaps, before the sixteenth I
Je

406 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

It is possible that Dumas was back in Paris for a brief visit later in
the month— he made several flying trips to the French capital during
*hi$ four years' absence — and it is equally possible that it was upon this
trip that he attempted to interest some friends in the establishment of
a restaurant in Naples. From Director of Excavations and Museums,
a post which seems to have suffered a quiet demise, to the position of
host in an eating house was not such a vast jump for a man who
regarded food and its preparation as one of the arts. The restaurant,
however, never opened and Dumas confined himself, instead, to
'creating rare dishes in his own kitchen and advising Garibaldi how
to conduct his diplomacy. He was a familiar figure in the streets of
Naples now and the active hatred against him seems to have mellowed
into a contemptuous forbearance on the part of the Neapolitans. They
read the views expressed in the Independent and agreed or disagreed
according to the color of the political cloaks they wore. Garibaldi
grew a little impatient of the flood of suggestions that poured from
'the willing lips of Dumas, and the intimacy that had been so well
established during the period from May to September, 1860, gradually
cooled. Dumas continued to labor industriously with his pen, to out-
line new books for his Paris market, books that were often mere
rewritings, translations, or old notes flung together, and Time, once
so swift with martial promises, slowed down to a sedentary period.
Jsmilie Cordier, still in her little midshipman outfit, returned to her
huge lover and life settled down to an interim that was interrupted
by only one incident, an incident as painful to the pride of Dumas as
it was amusing to the jealous and malicious observers of his stormy
career.

One morning in October, 1862, Dumas noticed in his mail a fat
envelope with a London postmark. Opening the sealed coverture and
drawing forth the crinkly paper he read the introductory lines: La
Junte grtco-dbanaise, sous la prtsidencc dc S. A, Ic prince Georges
Castriotc Sfyndcrbcg, au trts illustre tcrivain, Alexandrc Dumas.
Skanderbeg! Come, this was of moment He read further. "The
Greco-Albanian Junta believes that you could do for Athens and
Constantinople what you have accomplished for Palermo and Naples/'
The round face of Dumas beamed as he perused the flattering, ora-

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 407

torical letter, an epistle calculated with a sly dexterity to catch the vain
imagination and melodramatic megalomania of the Frenchman. A
cause was being thrust before him, no less than the liberation of Al-
bania and Greece and the destruction of Moslem power in Europe.
"Can you remain indifferent to the appeal of the Albanians, to that
of Skanderbeg?" Dumas began to see himself as a great liberator, a
Garibaldi in his own right, a George Washington* In the back of his
own mind he had always been a hero, a militant antagonist of tyranny,
a leader of enslaved men, and now the very opportunity to tread nobly
across the vast stage of the world was being placed before him. The
letter pointed out what the liberation of Albania would mean: the
triumph of Christianity in Asia, the union of the Greek and Latin
churches, and half a dozen other miraculous changes conducive to the
general peace of Europe. It was sublime. This Georges Castriote
Skanderbeg, direct descendant of the noble sixteenth century hero
whose name was a part of the glories of history, honored the name of
his great family. Dumas, flattered into the unreasonableness of mat
ing no inquiries as to the source of this call to action, responded with
a memorandum outlining a plan of martial and diplomatic develop-
ment for the Junta. This memorandum— one of those flowery schemes
Dumas loved to create — was answered by another letter from London
authorizing the friend of Garibaldi to open negotiations with the
Italian government, to begin a campaign of publicity and propaganda
for the new cause (at his own expense, of course) and to secure per-
mission for the Junta to establish a base of war supplies at Naples.
Twice in the letter did the courteous and clever Prince Skanderbcg
refer to Dumas as "cher marquis." That was the final touch and
Dumas surrendered himself to a cause of which he knew neither the
purpose, except vaguely, nor the conspirators. Was there an actual
Albanian cause? Was there even a remote possibility of achieving
such a cause if it existed? Was there a true Prince Skanderbeg living?
Dumas lost his poor sentimental ambitious head and offered the
Emma and his Italian newspaper to the cause.

Somewhere in London a rascal laughed as he saw what a gullible
fish his enticing and romantic bait had caught The interchange of
correspondence continued. "Our secretary** G. Cyprc was to be sent
to Dumas, Skanderbeg did uot want the throne of Grcecej let the

4o8 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

King of Italy, Victor Emmanuele, place his own dynasty on the
throne. Dumas suggested Prince Napoleon but the idea of a Bona-
parte was hastily brushed aside by the canny Albanian Prince, The
Junta offered Dumas the post of "general surintendant des depots
militaires" in the potential revolutionary forces, and when Dumas
modestly put the offer aside, the Junta insisted, saying: "You are a
poet. In all times the greatest poets have been the greatest warriors."
Byron, the great Lord Byron, who died at Missolonghi, was put for-
ward as a model and the flattered old Frenchman, sitting in his
disorderly palace in Naples, finally consented to his unexpected honor.
One day the official notification arrived. It read:

Scutari d'Albanie, le 2 Janvier, 1863
Armec Chretienne d'Orient
Etat-major general

No. 103

Objet — Nomination au grade de general
Monsieur,

J'ai Thonneur de vous informer que par lettre patente de ce jour
S. A. R. monseigneur Skanderbeg vous a nomm£ au grade de
General Surintendant des depots militakes dans TArm^e chretienne
d'orient.

S. E. le Secretaire au departement de la guerre est charge dc
1'expedition de votre brevet ainsi que dc r£glcments et ordonnanccs
militaires.
Recevez, Gen&al, Pexpression de mon estime.

Lc chef dc I'fitat-Major g6i£ral,

HUGH FORBES,
Licutenant-g6n6raL

"General" Dumas strutted about his study like a big bear that has
been fed several handfuls of sugar. He who had been no more than a
story-teller laughed at in his own country or a filibusterer scorned by
the Neapolitan people was now a Liberator in his own right, a gene-
ralissimo in the forces that were about to sweep the hated Turk from
the civilized world. He possessed no dtp&u militaircs over which to
function and neither did he perceive any army mobilizing to destroy

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 409

the Sublime Porte, but all that, no doubt, would materialize in time.
Surely a hundred thousand patriots were biding their time, waiting for
just such leaders as Prince Skanderbeg and himself. The negotiations
continued. Prince Skanderbeg accepted the boat so generously offered
by "General" Dumas and forwarded a list of names, men he thought
would prove trustworthy in developing the cause. On February eighth
the newly appointed "General Surintcndant dcs depdts militaires"
communicated the information that the situation in Italy was dubious,
that the antagonistic parties of Bourbon adherents and Massini patriots
were the Scylla and Charybdis between which the Junta would have
to steer a careful course, and that not a pistol should be sent into Italy
without the authorization of the established government. At the same
time he gave the prices of the arms that he had purchased at Marseilles
for Garibaldi: revolvers Lefaucheux ou Devesme prem&re qualiti,
quatrc-vingt francs, avcc Icurs bcdonncttcs; les carabines ray£cs, avec
leurs sabres, quatre-vingt francs. He also inquired naively whether he
should arm the Emma. Just what port he thought of storming with
this eighty-ton vessel is a question; perhaps he intended an onslaught
on Constantinople. It is amusing to picture Dumas dashing to and fro
in Naples interviewing his friends among the officials about the Greco-
Albanian Junta, hurrying to Turin to secure protection privileges for
the landing of arms, planning out campaigns on paper, securing the
lowest prices for arms and ammunitions, meditating the placing of
cannon on the Emma (two good-sized guns would have sunk it) and
whispering prophecies of earth-shaking battles on the Golden Horn,
in Albania and in Greece. One is gratified that no crack-brained
inventor ever suggested that he attempt a trip to the moon.

The termination of all this was the appearance of Signor Silvio
Spaventa. Signor Silvio Spaventa was the chief of police in Naples,
and one of his special duties, apparently, was to keep an eye on this
mad Frenchman from whom anything might be expected. He ap-
peared in the residence of "General" Dumas one morning as the bearer
of sad information. The Prince of Skanderbeg was a swindler, a
mystificateur, and the Greco-Albanian Junta was a fake, Dtunas, like
a great gossc, had been taken in by fine language and an impossible
proposition. The "General" listened in humiliated dismay to this
wrecking of his day-dream and Signer Silvio Spaventa tripped away

4io THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

with a mocking smile on his lips. It was some time before Dumas
recovered from this blow and he was careful to keep the affair as
secret as possible from his malevolent and laughing critics in Paris.
He rented the Emma to an explorer and was glad enough to see it
sail out of sight. He returned with a sigh to his reams of paper and
quill pens. It was necessary to write if he was to live. Perhaps that
was all he was good for, the eternal setting down of word after word
on endless sheets of paper for scurrilous publications that postponed
payment as long as they could. Goodbye to his dream of a General's
career in Greece and Albania and Turkey. He would never ride a
caracoling charger through the narrow streets of the city of Constan-
tine. After all, he was sixty-one and that was a rash age at which to
consider revolutionizing the world. Skanderbeg! The wretch! He
had taken him in with his romantic name. Later he learned that the
pseudo Prince was a low intriguer, an "irnbroglione dc$ Pouillcs? who
had been born in Cerignola or Canossa. He never discovered who
Lieutenant-General Hugh Forbes was. Perhaps he was some inebriate
whose military headquarters were one of the public houses of Soho.
Somewhat abashed, Dumas discouraged all conversation about this
unfortunate affair and turned to other matters of more immediate
interest. There was still the Independent to conduct, plenty of edi-
torials to write outlining the diplomatic policies of Italy, and a new
recipe for ravioli to be run down. Life was not as black as it might
be even if the secret agents of the government were observing him
with an unpleasant fixity and wondering when, if ever, he would
remove himself from the fair city of Naples.

Henry Labouch£rc had an amusing meeting with Dumas during
this period. He strolled into a Genoese restaurant for breakfast one
morning and the first person he saw was Dumas bowed over a huge
omelette. Seated beside the story-teller was a pretty young girl dressed
as a Circassian boy, who, of course, turned out to be fimilie Cordier.
Dumas welcomed Labouch£re expansively and explained that he and
fimilie had just landed from a yacht and were spending the day in
Genoa. The morning passed to a stream of agreeable conversation
and after luncheon Dumas suggested that Labouch^re (who was a
young and presentable man) accompany them to a show villa ia the

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 4"

neighborhood. Laboucherc, as interested in the sparkling eyes of
fimilie as he was in the thousand and one talcs of Dumas, instantly
agreed and they set out for the villa. When they reached the imposing
dwelling they were informed that it was not open to the public that
day. "Inform your master," said Dumas to the servant, "that Alex-
andre Dumas is at his door." This speech had the same effect as Ali
Baba's "Open, Sesame." A moment later Dumas, £milie Cordier and
Labouchere were in the dining room, a typically Italian domestic
scene revealing itself before them. The father and mother of the
family were present as well as several well-grown children. Dumas
was somewhat taken aback for a minute and then, recovering his
aplomb, introduced fimilie Cordier and Henry Labouchere rather
vaguely as "me$ cnfants" The three visitors were invited to sit down
and partake of coffee and after this refreshment the lovely gardens
were exhibited. The Italian owner of the villa and Dumas walked
first and behind them wandered Labouchere and fimilie sweetly hold-
ing hands to denote their brotherly and sisterly affection, fimilie, who
was in a playful mood, whispered to Labouchere that Dumas was very
jealous of her, and Labouchere instantly doubled his attentions to his
slim little sister. Dumas stumbled about the garden with one wrathful
eye turned back on "mes enfants" and the other absently taking in
the flaming beds of flowers. "What on earth arc you doing?" he
inquired hollowly when "brother and sister" disappeared behind a
rose-bush. Labouchere innocently replied that he was embracing his
sister. Dumas restrained a growl of rage and continued to follow his
Italian host. Behind him skipped his affectionate children.

The stream of books continued to flow from the pen of Dumas
during this residence in Naples. In 1861 there appeared Bric-b-Brac,
a series of cauteries rescued from various journals; Lcs Garibaldiens:
Revolution dc Sidle et dc Naples, a compilation of the despatches for-
warded to Paris; and Les Morts vont vite, memorial articles on old
friends. In 1862 La Boule dc Neige appeared, a Russian talc written
in the Caucasus; Itdiens et FlammdeS, a number of historical and
biographical sketches; Trots Hdttrcs, a small book containing essays
on Michael Angelo, Titian and Raphael; and Sultanetta, another
Slavic story. In 1863 appeared Jane, a volume containing ScveraJ

412 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

sketches besides the title story which seem to come from Russian
sources; Madame dc Chamblay, a novel purportedly based on the
career of a vanished friend; La Princcsse Flora, a translation from
Marlinsky; and La Dame dc Voluptt, a work based on the Memoires
de Mile, de Luynes. It will be observed that none of this work was
important. It was hastily conceived material in the form of transla-
tions, paraphrases and journalistic cauteries calculated to fill the
columns of periodicals. In other words, it was bread-and-butter work
requiring little thought and no revision. Most of it is still readable,
and that is the best that can be said of it. The creative vein of Dumas
seemed to have spent itself. The great days were over. Dumas was
more than sixty years old, and although his large body still retained
a perceptible vigor, the brain was slackening.

Time passed and vague thoughts of Paris, that joyous Paris of the
Second Empire which had now endured for more than a decade,
flitted across his mind like nostalgic birds. On the day before Christ-
mas, 1863, he wrote to Micaelle-Clelie-C£cilia.

My dear baby,

As thy good grandmother, whom thou must love dearly, as well
as thy little mother, writes me that you have need of money, I send
thee 150 francs for thy New Year's gift

I shall try to send thee also a little hamper of good things.

There will be nothing to pay to the messenger who brings it.

I embrace thee very tenderly.— Thy father who loves thee,

ALEX. DUMAS.

Shortly afterward the "dear little mother," fimilie Cordier, vanished
from the life of Dumas. She had proved too acquiescent to some
Parisian admirer during one of her visits to the French capital, and
Dumas, hearing of this sad fall from grace, decided that it would be
best to place fimilic among his memories. He would have to do with-
out his little midshipman. The days began to crawl slowly. Garibaldi,
tired of unsolicited advice, withdrew from his old filibustered After
the rift between the Dictator and Victor Emmanuele the Indcpettdant
continued for some time as an organ of Garibaldian thought, but few
people read it. Dumas was wearying of his enterprise. He began to

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 413

read about Lord Nelson, Lady Hamilton, and the strange series of
events which occurred in Naples in 1798 and 1799, when the Bourbon
Ferdinand was overthrown by the French in the former year and
was restored to the throne by Cardinal Ruffo in the next. This was a
natural thing for Dumas to do for he had already written a history
of the Bourbons in Naples for the Independant The result of this
assiduous reading was the beginning of a long fcuillcton novel called
La San Felice which he sold to VAvenir national in Paris. One day
the officials of Victor Emmanuele came to him with protests about his
editorials in the Independant and, disgusted with the whole business
and out of sorts with Naples, Dumas threw the periodical to the
winds. Let it go. He was tired and depressed. There was nothing
left for him in Naples. His militant activities in behalf of Italian
unification were forgotten and he was greeted with ridicule wherever
he turned. He was just a stout old man with grey hair and a great
laugh. But he was still Ulysses in his own mind. It was not too late
to seek another and fairer haven, and the sea upon which he would
set sail to find that haven would be the sea of Louis-Napoleon, the
gay city of Paris. Early in April, 1864, the Parisian journals published
a notice reading: "Nous apprenons quc notrc illustrc romancier, Alex-
andre Dumas, vicnt dc quitter Naples ct sera & Paris dans quelques
jours!' Gargantua was returning home.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE CHANGED WORLD

THE Paris to which Dumas returned was an accelerated city charged
with the electric verve of the Second Empire. The pale-faced Emperor
with the dead eyes passed in his rumbling coach on his way to Com-
piegne, with the beautiful young Spanish woman by his side. In the
court of the Tuileries the Prince Imperial rode his pony, Bouton d'Or.
The recently completed boulevards flashed with life, and extravagant
equipages drawn by prancing horses carried their lovely freight to
the Boi, La Comtesse dc Castiglionc. La Comtesse de Pourtales.
Madame Rimski-Korsakoflf. The mysterious Marquise de Paiva, It
was the era of bds and tableaux vivants and private theatricals. Optra-
Bouffe reigned and the melodies of Offenbach and Herv<£ sounded in
the salons and ateliers. It was in vain that Jules Janin thundered in
the Journal dcs Dibats: "ce perfide Meilhac, ce traitre Hal£vy, ce
miserable Offenbach qui profanent tous les chefs-d'oeuvre et tous les
souvenirs"; the engaging strains of "La Belle H<9£ne" drowned his
carping voice. The cabarets and bastringucs echoed to the intoxicating
measures of Pars four la Crlte and Bu qui Javance, while the insid-
ious hips of Hortcnse Schneidfer were the despair of the young dandies
at Chez Mabillc or the Closcric dc LUas. Everywhere there was
dancing. The masked ball at the Op&a was an institution about which
fluttered the gay doniinos like moths. Then there was the Casino
Cadet and the Prado, the Chateau dcs Flcurs and the Grande Chau-
miere, the Salle Valentino and the Bal Bourdon, DCS Acacias and the
Pr£-Catalan> the Alcazar and a dozen and one others, all public
dancing places, where a melange of diverse classes gathered nightly to
dance the waltz and the polka and the mazurka and sometimes the

414

THE CHANGED WORLD 415

devilish can-can. Plump calves covered with white silk stockings shot
into the air above rouged mouths and smiling eyes. There was a
mingled scent of musk and violet perfume as the legion of Cythcra
pushed their way by the tables where champagne corks popped, and
the violins squeaked the Invocation a Venus.

Far away in barbarous Mexico Maximilien turned his face toward
the death that he should meet at Qucretaro, and in the stone city of
Berlin a stout man with a walrus mustache counted up the cannon
of Prussia; but still the dancing went on in Paris, still the carriages
slurred their way along the Champs £lys£es carrying the laughing
courtesans, and still the heavy-lidded Emperor with the waxed im-
perial drove forth from the Tuilerics surrounded by the glittering
helmets of his royal guard. In certain quarters there were premoni-
tions of impending political cataclysm. Men met and talked in the
charming salon of Madame Adam. Lcgouv£, Bixio, Garnier-Pag£s,
Jules Ferry, Pelletan. And sitting in the Cafe Procope was a warm-
blooded Southerner named Leon Gambetta. There were infrequent
pauses when the bright sun that shone above Paris in the sixties was
chilled by a curious wind from the Rhine and there were ominous
twilights when the nocturnal builders of barricades stirred uneasily
in their slumbers in the dark alleys and secret cellars. But for the
moment all was surface sparkle and unconstrained gaiety, a jovial,
licentious whirl of living wherein the bars of morality were let down
and which abetted the growth of such personalities as Hortense
Schneider, Cora Pearl, Blanche d'Antigny (the original of fimile
Zola's Nana), Ad£le Courtois (who called herself the Baronne dc
Steinberg), Constance Resuchc, Juliette dc la Canbiire, Juliette
ritalicnnc (called La Barucci)> Anna Dcslion, La Bcrta, Alice La-
bruyfrc, Adilc R&ny, L&>nide Leblanc, Caroline Hassc, Marguerite
Bellangcr, and Esther Duparc. It is pertinent to set these names down
for through their dominance of the social scene they indicated a
decadence that was unmistakable. Even in high society an extreme
freedom of deportment had manifested itself, a freedom that sanc-
tioned the appearance of the Comtcssc dc Castiglionc at a bal costumed
scantily as die Queen of Hearts and the still more daring appearance
of Madame Rimsky-Korsakoflf at the Tuilerics disguised (or ratter,
undisguised) as Salammbo in a transparent dress slit up both sides.

416 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

It was back to this effervescent capital of pleasure that Dumas, pachy-
dermous in appearance and with slowly failing faculties, returned in
the early spring of 1864, a spring that developed into a painfully hot
May, so oppressive in fact, that exhausted pedestrians suffered severely
from it.

Dumas, who possessed no plcd-b-tcrrc in Paris now, went to the
rue de Richelieu, 112, where the editor, Polydore Millaud, had con-
centered his various publications, including the Petit Journal and the
Journal lllustre. Here he was provisionally housed in quarters on the
fifth floor facing the boulevard, and here he insouciantly installed a
temperamental cantatricc who called herself Fanny Gordoza and who
aspired to the Theatre-Italien. Fanny possessed a terrifically squalling
voice of the coloratura variety, and it was her purpose to provide
herself with singing teachers at the expense of Dumas. Alexandre
fils, who had met his father upon his arrival, gazed at the potential
opera diva (she was "unc brune asscz appfoissante qui avdt doubU
Ic cap de la trentainc") and sighed. His father would never change,
Dumas was all ebulliency. He wanted to promenade the boulevards,
to greet old acquaintances, to familiarize himself at once with this
new Paris. They would peregrinate the city and discuss life and love
and Italian sauces with old friends. La causcrie, that was what made
life worth living. Where was Gauticr, the good Th£o? In Neuilly?
Very well, to Neuilly they would go. Alexandre fils protested that it
was late, that it would be midnight before they arrived there, that
Gauticr was aging. Dumas waved him aside. No matter. A gesture
conceived was a gesture executed. The Romantics were ageless. To
Neuilly they traveled, and Gauticr, tucked away in his bed, was
awakened out of a deep slumber by the sound of an insistent voice
bellowing outside his door. The astonished household was galvanized
into immediate activity by this gargantuan apparition who had ap-
peared so unexpectedly in the quiet suburb. He was admitted and
until four o'clock in the morning he kept them roaring with laughter
at his badinages, talcs, and inventions. When the elephantine form
barged out of Gautier's door the author of Mademoiselle de Maupin
stood with aching ribs and exhausted mind and watched him go.

Dumas adjusted himself at once to this new Paris. He traversed
the streets and was greeted cordially by acquaintances. **I am never

THE CHANGED WORLD 417

more popular on the boulevards than when I return from a far-away
journey," he announced with a broad smile. There were editors to
see, both new and old. There was his romance La San Felice to finish
for L'Avenir National. There were articles for Polydore Millaud's
string of journals, and there were theater managers to sound out about
prospective plays. If he noticed a lack of enthusiasm in some quarters
he gave no sign of it but bolstered up his courage all the more with
his own boisterousness. But Paris proved too hot and the exhausted
writer bethought himself of the joys of the country. It was all very
well to stroll about in the evening when the air was filled with music
and the women kicked their heels above their heads in the public bdls,
but to sit in a dusty office all day and write while the perspiration
ran down one's bowed back was another matter, fimile de Girardin
owned a beautiful little house near Enghien-les-Bains and to that
neighborhood Dumas would go. He inquired and within a few days
had secured for the summer the Villa Catinat on the Avenue du Lac
at Saint-Gratien. Within another few days he was installed there with
the warbling Fanny Gordoza, two secretaries and a fresh supply
of pens.

Life at the Villa Catinat bore some resemblance to a mad-house.
The usual string of parasites fastened upon Dumas and existence was
further complicated by the caterwauling of Fanny, the squeakings of
numerous musicians and the occasional rows that took place. It was
the old tale of Monte Cristo over again but on a decidedly reduced
scale. Downstairs the noisy guests wasted the substance of Dumas,
and upstairs in a huge billiard room the old writer labored. For his
desk he took the billiard table and strewed the green baize with a mis-
cellaneous litter of papers, books and brochures. La San Felice swept
toward its conclusion and a dramatization of Les Mohicans de Paris
followed, since the manager of the Th&tre de la Gait6 had demanded
a play. From his window Dumas could gaze over the lovely country-
side and see the gothic architecture of fimile de Girardin's villa* Near
at hand was the handsome residence of the Princesse Mathilde. It was
to these two places that Dmmas would escape when the stridencks of
Fanny and her teachers became unbearable. Fanny was obsessed! with
an ijKxmsisteJit lust f or unreal kiKwledgc, aiad am iiBCiidii^ proees-

418 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

sion of profcsscurs dc piano, maitrcs dc chants and accompagnatcurs
pounded, yowled and scraped their way through the Villa Catinat
Dumas bore all this with fortitude. As each intruder made his appear-
ance he asked to see the great man. With that liberality that was his
ruin the great man promptly invited the unheard-of musician to
dinner. Once gazing about the dinner table at an assembly of pro-
fcsscurs whose names he did not know he cried: "I am the prey of
music r They were devouring him. Others were devouring him as
well. Grisier, his old fencing teacher, sent an exceedingly small ham
tvith a note that he would follow it for dinner. Dumas forgot the
date (perhaps conveniently) and went to hunt at Argenteuil. When
Grisier arrived, accompanied by several friends, and found no host
to greet him he lost his temper and demanded his ham. His friends
penetrated the billiard-room and calmly purloined several books and
small objects as souvenirs of the master.

There was, of course, no semblance of order at the Villa Catinat.
Fanny was useless as the director of a household and the untidiness of
Dumas had increased with the years. Everything was at sixes and
sevens, and the frightened domestics ran to and fro like chickens
under the loud rages of Fanny. Once she discharged the entire corps-
there were three servants— the day before Dumas intended to give a
large dinner. With that sanguinity with which he attacked all things
the old writer turned himself into a cook, ferreted about the empty
cupboards and discovering some rice, some tomatoes and a little butter,
concocted a mountainous riz aux tomatcs which he stuffed with the
sliced saucisson and ham that one guest had brought For days after
the dozen invitts talked of nothing but the succulent dish. It is
astonishing that Dumas could accomplish any work at all in this
eternal hub-bub, yet labor he did and La San Felice drew to its con-
clusion in I'Avenir National and the script of Lcs Mohicans dc Pans
w^ forwarded to the Gait*. It was a tired old man who appeared
before the assembled cast but his eyes still sparkled and his vigor,
viewed superficially, seemed unimpaired. It was the Dumas of the
thirties and forties, too, who responded directly to the Emperor when

L 7, CCnsor arrCStcd Ac Production of L*s Mohicans dc Pans.

5irc, he wrote, "there were in 1830, and there still arc today, three

men at the head of French literature. These three men arc 'Victor

THE CHANGED WORLD 419

Hugo, Lamartine, and myself. Victor Hugo is exiled; Lamartine is
ruined. I cannot be exiled like Hugo; nothing in my writings, in my
life or in my words lends itself to proscription. But I can be ruined
like Lamartine, and, in effect, I am being ruined. I do not know what
malevolence animates the censor against me. I have written and
published twelve hundred volumes. It is not for me to appreciate
their literary value. Translated into all languages they have gone as
far as steam can carry them. Though I am the least worthy of the
three, these works have made me the most popular in the five parts
of the world, perhaps because the first is a thinker, the second is a
dreamer, while I am, myself, only a vulgarizcr. Of these twelve
hundred volumes there is not one that might not be safely placed in
the hands of the most republican workman of the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine or read by a young girl of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the
most modest of our faubourgs.

"And yet, Sire, to the eyes of the censor I am the most immoral man
who ever existed. During the last twelve years the censor has suc-
cessively halted:

"Isaac Laqucdcm, sold for eighty thousand francs to the Consti*
tutionncL

"La Tour dc Ncslc, after eight hundred performances (the veto has
lasted seven years).

"Anglic, after three hundred performances (the veto has lasted sh
years).

"Antony, after three hundred and fifty performances (the veto has
lasted six years).

"La Jcuncssc dc Louis XIV, which has been played only to foreign-
ers and which was to be played at the Th^atre-Franfais.

"La Jcuncssc dc Louis XV, received at the same theater.

'Today the censor has arrested Lcs Mohicans dc Paris, which was to
have been played next Saturday. He will probably halt also, under
pretexts more or less specious, Olympc dc Cltvcs and Edsamo, which
I am writing at this moment I do not complain any more for Lcs
Mohicans dc Paris than I do for the other dramas; only I would call
Your Majesty's attention to the fact that during the six years of the
reign of Charles X and during the eighteen years of the reign erf
Louis-Philippe I have never had a play interdicted or suspended, and

420 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

I add, always to Your Majesty alone, that it appears to me unjust to
make a single dramatic author lose half a million francs while encour-
agement and support are extended to so many who do not merit
this name.

"I appeal, then, for the first time and probably for the last, to the
Prince whose hand I had the honor to shake at Arenenberg, at Ham,
and at the Elysee, and who, having found me a devoted adherent on
the road to exile and prison, has never found me a place-seeker on that
of the Empire."

It was a good letter in spite of the bombast and it had an immediate
effect. Les Mohicans dc Paris was released and produced at the Gaite
on August 20, 1864, where it had a fair run and earned thirty thousand
francs for the theater. At the placid reception of this hastily carpen-
tered play Dumas must have thought of the uproarious triumphs of
Henri III et sa Cour, Antony, La Tour dc Nesle, Richard Darlington,
Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, and all those happy victories of the past.
Back he went to the green-covered billiard table, the noisy musicians
and parasites that made up his miniature court. There was still work
to be done. None of this work brought in enough money, however.
What could an author do who was promiscuous in hospitality and so
maltreated by his guests that they, arriving at the station in Enghien
from the Villa Catinat, would send back their cockers to collect fares
from the host? One day Dumas found twenty-five of these cockers
gathered outside his house, impatiently waiting for their money.
Black Gargantua paid and sighed. The saucer of five-franc pieces that
he left on a table in the hall for the benefit of borrowing guests (the
adjective "borrowing" being purely euphemistic) was empty more
often than it was cluttered with coins. The larder grew more and
more like the cupboard of Mother Hubbard. The tradesmen grew
more vociferous in their demands that unpaid bills be met at once.
Now and then a windfall semi-recouped the disordered household
For instance, M. Martinet (was he the M. Martinet of Le Mousque*
taire?)> an impresario who conducted the fortunes of the Fantaisies-
Parisiennes on the Boulevard des Italiens, conceived the idea of bring*
ing together an exposition of the paintings of Delacroix, who had died
some time before the return of Dumas from Italy, and having the old
writer deliver a lecture on the life and works of the artot Dumas

THE CHANGED WORLD 421

after some expostulation agreed. He made his appearance before an
audience that greeted him with a triple salvo of applause. The femi-
nine element was especially enthusiastic. Talking in that vein of
bonhomie peculiar to him and interlarding his discussion with all
sorts of agreeable anecdotes Dumas discovered himself such a success
that he willingly repeated the experiment. These exploits merely tided
over an impoverished condition that required some great coup to lift
it to a plane of security. Besides Fanny and her singing teachers and
the domestics there were two secretaries for whom Dumas must pro-
vide. One of them was a prospective author and the other was a
parasite who represented himself as a native of Villers-Cotterets. Both
had their talons in the helpless author and both kept them there as
long as they could with profit to themselves.

The summer drew to an end and with the coming of winter Dumas
removed from the Villa Catinat and returned to Paris where he took
a furnished apartment at seventy, rue Saint-Lazare. The need of
money turned his thoughts to the theater. At the same time he con-
tinued his work for the daily press, writing among other things a
pendant to La San Felice which he called Lcs Souvenirs d'unc Favorite
and which appeared in I'Avenir National. Fanny Gordoza grew more
difficult than ever and assumed the role of a jealous tigress whenever
a woman arrived at the door. With her strong Italian accent she
would indicate only too vulgarly the object of the visit — which after
all was not always the case — and send her away. Her own manners
were curious. She would receive visitors, particularly young musicians,
while she was in bed or frankly perched upon her chamber-pot.
Dumas, himself, became, if possible, more Bohemian than ever. His
looseness of living, the unsightly looseness of an old man striving to
the last to live like a young buck, increased, and his intimates became
more and more questionable. His superstition increased and he experi-
mented with mesmerism and consulted "wise women" about lost
articles. Fatter than ever he plodded from caf £ to caf 6 and from salon
to salon. The salons of this period were many and varied, and first
among them was that of the Princesse Mathilde who had been the
neighbor of Dtunas at Saint-Gratien and who also owned a charming
h6td in the rue de Caurcelles. Dumas went often to this gathmng-
pkcc of the leaders in art and letters and rubbed shoulders with

422 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Nicuwerkcrkc, Theophile Gautier, Arsenc Houssayc, Gavarni, Meri-
mec, Coppec, Gerome, Maximc du Camp and Amedee Pichot.
Through these meetings passed Edmond and Jules de Goncourt,
watching, analyzing and taking notes. There was the salon of "la
bonne Mme. Ancelot" to which, it is to be suspected, Dumas did not
go. Another salon — to which, also, we may be sure, Dumas did not
go — was that of Melanie Waldor. She was a phantom out of a for-
gotten past. Other centers of brilliant assemblages were the homes
of the Comtesse Chodsko, Madame La Messine and Madame Adam.
The world of journalism was crowded with old and new friends.
There were fimile de Girardin, Louis Veuillot, Prevost-Paradol,
Roqueplan, Aur£lien Scholl, Philibert Audebrand, Villemessant and
Henri Rochefort, to name only a few. Most of these men observed
Dumas with a sigh. He was old, childlike, vain, disorderly and
rapidly succumbing to an obsessive satyriasis. The Goncourt brothers,
who saw him at the Princesse Mathilde's, on the first of February,
1865, described him as "a sort of giant, with the hair of a negro turned
pepper and salt in color, with the little eye of a hippopotamus, clear
and sly; and, in an enormous face, those vague hemispherical traits
which the caricaturists give to their drawings of the Man in the Moon.
There is about him, I know not what, something of a showman of
prodigies and commercial traveler for the Thousand and One Nights.
His speech is voluble but always without great brilliancy, mordancy
or color; it is only facts, curious facts, paradoxical facts, astounding
facts, that he draws up in a hoarse voice from the depths of an
immense memory. And always, always, always he talks of himself—
but with the vanity of a great child. ... He drinks no wine, takes
no coffee, and does not smoke. He is the sober athlete of the fcuille-
ton. . . ." It was this figure, then, this dinosaur from the Romantic
era, that strove, with a confidence that must have been shaken at
bottom, to adjust himself to the Paris of the last years of the Empire,
a city full of new voices and figures far removed from the phenomena
of Louis-Philippe's day. A new literature was in the ascendant
Madame Bovary, written as long before as 1857, was an earnest of it.
Dumas had read that book and said, "If this is literature then every-
thing written since 1830 is worthless.** Even then the Time Spirit

THE CHANGED WORLD 423

had moved beyond him, although he was not conscious of the fact*
Nor was he conscious of his isolation in 1865, although doubt was
already knocking at the door.

II

One day a friend came to Dumas and told him of a great empty
barn of a theater in the rue de Lyons, far away from the concentrated
entertainment district where of6ra bouffe reigned supreme. It
rejoiced in the ambitious name of the Grand-Theatre Parisien, and
while it suffered such drawbacks as the rumble of the railway to
Vincennes, it would nevertheless seem to be an excellent site for the
exploitation of popular drama. The crowded quarter about it was
full of ouvricrs. Why should drama not be brought to their doors?
The plan appealed to Dumas but he was so deeply in debt that he
did not venture to lease the theater in his own name. He took it in
the name of one of his secretaries. A company of actors and actresses
was hastily assembled and Dumas selected his Lcs Gardes Forcstiers,
a dramatization of Catherine Blum, which had been produced in
Marseilles in 1858, for the inauguration of the new venture. It was
a pathetic f alling-off from the premieres of the great comedies at the
Th£atre-Fran$ais and it was doomed from the start. The actors were
poor; the drama was not calculated to arouse any excitement; the
expected audiences never materialized. Over the arches thundered
the trains and the walls of the Grand-Theatre Parisien shook. The
summer was extremely hot and the workmen enjoyed the quais along
the Seine and the parks, those green lungs of Paris, much more than
they did the stifling interior of a dusty playhouse. So, except for the
few opening performances when the vast salle was fairly well filled,
Les Gardes Forestiers was played to practically empty benches. A fur-
ther complication was the secretary in whose name the theater had
been leased. He juggled the books and appropriated what few profits
there were. In fact he developed into such a prestidigitator that Dumas
himself became indebted to him. One day— the circumstances are in
doubt— Dumas entrusted him with a fine watch ornamented with
rubies which had been given the writer years before by the young
Due d'Qrl&n$. Tbrce or four days passed without the secretary saying

424 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

a word about this loan and at length Dumas requested the return of
this jeweled time-piece. "Mon cher" he said, "I wish you would return
my watch. I need it." "Your watch!" impudently answered the sec-
retary, "You know very well that you gave me that watch as a payment
on the debts you owe me!" With a roar of anger Dumas drove the
secretary from his presence, and at about the same time the Grand-
Theatre Parisien died a lamentable death. The company, however,
hung together for some time and played in several provincial towns,
among them Villers-Cotterets and Laon, and Dumas, as an additional
advertisement, appeared in the lobby of the theater, much like a silent
ballyhoo, in order to draw trade.

It was during this period that the second secretary of the old writer
made a sudden and ignominious exit from the rue Saint-Lazare.
Benjamin Pifteau— that was the ambitious youth's name— had been
seen too often in the boudoir of Fanny Gordoza to suit either Dumas
or the young man's suspicious mistress. Benjamin explained that
Fanny merely dictated letters to him. Fanny, herself, was becoming
unbearable. She stood like a dragon between Dumas and the pleasures
that his amoral disposition required. She had even reached the point
where she would spy on the old gallant and once, when she opened
a door and discovered a young actress perched prettily on the fat
knee of Dumas, her rage proved her undoing. Dumas, unable to
endure the bickering any longer, went into a heaving fury which
was only quieted after he had broken a charming crystal decanter on
Fanny's shoulders. He accused her of "playing duets" with her varie-
gated string of musicians. That was the end. Within a few days,
Fanny, trunks, bags, coloratura voice and all were on their way to
that sunny land of Italy where temperament is appreciated. After her
departure a delicious silence settled down on the rue Saint-Lazare.

Toward the beginning of 1866 Dumas removed from the rue Saint-
Lazare, the scene of so many pitched battles with Fanny, to the Boule-
vard Malesherbes, 107, near the Pare Monceau, Here he settled, fol-
lowed, of course, by his train of women, adventurers and parasites,
and arranged about him the various bits of furniture and bric-a-brac
that he had stored with his friends in times past It was to be his
last residence in Paris. The flat was on the fourth floor, and the
visitor entering the antechamber saw first erf all a large canvas by

THE CHANGED WORLD 425

Delacroix representing a king seated on horseback, counting the dead
on a battlefield, a picture that the painter had completed for the
famous bed costum6 of 1832. Dumas would indicate this picture as
an allegory of his own life. About a thousand volumes, including
inscribed books from George Sand, Hugo and others, composed the
modest library. In the dining room was a heterogenous array of
Bohemian glass and foreign pottery; and here, too, in a black velvet
casket was kept the blood-stained serviette that once had covered the
face of the due d'Orleans. The household, generally unpaid, con-
sisted of Vasili, a faithful servant who had followed the fortunes of
Dumas before, a cook, a house-maid and an Italian valet who always
referred to his master as "Mozieu Doumaze." Dumas continued to
lead his disorderly life, hiding his women in closets when Alexandra
fits made one of his infrequent visits, and striving with less and less
vigor to recoup his dissipated fortunes. The old ability for concen-
trated work was gone, for the pleasures of the flesh had made serious
inroads on the vitality of Dumas. The tableau that Mathilde Shaw
surprised was not an unusual occurrence at the Boulevard Malesherbes,
107. She had knocked at his library door one day and at Dumas's
gay "Entrez, entrez" had flung it open. There she saw the author of
Monte Cristo, clad in a red shirt and slouched in a huge chair. Half
on his shoulder and half on the back of the chair was a young woman
seen from the rear. Another, equally young, reposed on an arm of
the chair. And, at his feet, crouched still a third. All of them, as
Madame Shaw modestly put it, were "habilltes comme notre nitre
Eve, avant le p£ch£ originel!" The visitor closed the door quickly , . .
"ct je me sauvcu"

To the Boulevard Malesherbes one day came Jules Noriac, editor-
in-chief of a small periodical called Les Nouvelles, with the suggestion
that Dumas might aid both himself and the paper by writiag an
historical feuitteton along the lines of those earlier successes which
had conquered Paris in the 18405. Dumas listened and approved.
Although he had no Auguste Maquet by his side to be his faithful
Man Friday, he, P&re Dumas, was still a creative world in himself.
He cast about for a subject and lighted upon the tale of the Comte de
Moret, that bastard son of Henri IV who disappeared so mysteriously

426 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

in the midst of the battle of Castelnaudary, and set to work upon it
As fast as an instalment was finished he would send it to Noriac,
and for a few weeks it seemed as though Dumas had recovered his
old ability. But the spurt of inspiration did not last. He could not
keep the thread of the narrative; he lazily injected copious extracts
from memoirs and historical documents; the readers of Les Nouvelles
complained; Le Comte de Uorct came to a disastrous and untimely
end. No, he could not work as he had once worked when he sat all
day at his desk and wrote page after page of living prose. It was all
gone. But he still persisted in his endeavors. There was the idea
for a play dredged from Joseph Bdsamo. He planned a scenario but
could go no further. He returned to a scenario for a drama brought
to him by Amedee de Jallais, and managed, in collaboration, of course,
to turn out Gabriel Lambert, which de Jallais succeeded in selling to
the Theatre de 1'Ambigu. On the opening night, March 16, 1866,
Dumas strutted about the corridors of the playhouse, announcing,
"I am sure of my piece. This evening I will mock the critics." But
the critics were antagonistic and Gabriel Lambert ran only twenty-
three performances. He began to realize that life was treating him
shabbily. If he could write nothing except such hack work as Les
Grands Hommes en Robe de Chambre: Henri IV, Louis XIII et
Richelieu, which appeared in this year, he might as well cease alto-
gether. But the will toward exertion and his vanity would not permit
this surrender to life. He would fight against this conspiracy of time
to destroy him, and as a first blow he issued a prospectus for a new
Theatre-Historique to be raised by subscription. He called to his
friends, known and unknown, in France and abroad. Only a few
students answered with a few francs. Then he turned to the Emperor
for a subsidy. He would take the Th&tre du Prince Imperial, which
had failed as a circus, and convert it into a popular theater for the
people of the faubourgs. The Emperor preserved a discreet silence.
Michel Levy frZres were about to reduce his credit with them from
ten thousand francs a year to four thousand. He could not even meet
the daily expenses of his flat. One day a Dominican priest whom he
had known in Naples called upon him (happily there were no women
present at the time) and suggested that the writer make a donation
tp hi$ CQjivejqit, Pumas lifted his eyes to heaven. The cup in which

THE CHANGED WORLD 427

he placed his daily earnings from hack-work for the periodicals was
quite empty. Then he thought, Lc Grand Journal owed him for a
causcric on UArt d'accomoder la sdade. He wrote out an order for
the small amount, gave it to the priest and requested him to call at
the office of the periodical to collect the money.

Dumas was like this always. Desirous of money, he let it leak
through his fingers. The most mountainous sums vanished like drifts
of snow beneath a burning sun. All of this was very well when one's
capacity for production was unimpaired, but it was a different situa-
tion when the springs of creation had dried up and composition had
changed from a furious pleasure to a painful labor. Suddenly the
perplexed author fled to Naples. From there he wrote to his daughter,
Madame Olinde Petel, who had separated from her husband and now
lived in Paris: "Health excellent. Perfectly happy except that I miss
you. Tomorrow I go to Florence. I will be in Paris by the fifteenth.
Everything goes well. A thousand caresses." When he came back the
unpaid bills still cluttered his desk.

It was about this time his daughter came to live with him.

The short campaign of Prussia against Austria which had termi-
nated in the battle of Sadowa during this year aroused all France and
particularly Paris to excited comment. The consequences of this war
which placed Prussia so prominently before the world were discussed
in the cafes and salons with increasing presentiments. Louis-Napoleon,
according to certain prophetic voices, should have flung a hundred
thousand men across the Rhine for the relief of Austria and so sub-
dued the Prussian Terror. Four years later, after Sedan, the Emperor
admitted the justice of these prophetic voices. His non-intervention
had opened the way to his own destruction. Dumas, returned from
Italy and still struggling with his debts, welcomed this opportunity
to leave Paris once more. There was certainly a book in the Prussian
situation. In July he departed from the boulevards and traveled to
Frankfort, the city he had visited so long before with Gerard de
NervaL Eleven years had passed since "le bon Gtrard" had shown
Th£ophile Gautier and Maxime du Camp an old apron-stringy insisted
it was the girdle of Madame de Maintenon, disappeared into the
wintry night and been discovered a few days later hanging by his

428 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

neck to a window-bar in the filthy alley of the Vieille-Lanterne. The
hangman's rope, re-christened by Gerard "the garter of the Queen of
Sheba" had been the apron-string. Dumas must have shuddered a
little at recalling the suicide of his mad friend. But Frankfort soon
shook these melancholy thoughts from him. The city was animated
by a martial spirit and over it hovered the formidable personality of
Bismarck* Dumas remained for some time studying the secret hos-
tility of the gentler folk of Frankfort toward the aggressive Prussians
and gathering information, anecdotes and facts about the campaign.
Then he went to Gotha, to Hanover, to Berlin. He visited the battle-
fields of Langensalza and Sadowa and saw the fatal spots where
Austria had crashed to defeat. He was an old man observing the
Time-Spirit and meditating upon a new barbarism. When he returned
to Paris he brought with him enough material and unpublished docu-
ments to form the basis of a romance of contemporary history. This
book, which he called La terreur frussicnne, appeared in the journal,
La Situation, during 1867. The instinct of prophecy in future political
events that he had revealed more than once during his life animated
this book. Together with Lamartine, now old, ailing and forgotten
by France, and Thiers, already envisaging the d£b£cle of the Empire,
he foresaw the Mailed Fist that was to dominate Europe for forty
years to come.

With his return from the Austrian battlefields the larger activities
of Dumas ceased altogether. He still promenaded the boulevards and
played a part, modest enough, in the journalistic life of the city. In
November he founded a small periodical, Les Nouvelhs, to which he
contributed all sorts of cauteries, including the chapters that made up
the Histoire de mes Bfres, but its circulation was limited and it did
not pay for itself. His audiences had dwindled quite away. In Decem-
ber he could not meet two bills that aggregated two hundred and
twenty francs, and for some months he had failed to furnish the
pension he made his sister, Aim6e-Alexandrine, now the widow of
Victor Letellier and settled in Neuilly. Yet his ardour remained
undiminished during this short period before he retired from the
world, and he might be seen at the premieres of his son's plays, tears
streaming down his face while he applauded so loudly that he dis-

THE CHANGED WORLD 429

concerted the actors. On these occasions he would indicate his son
and announce, "He is my best work." Alexandre fih, like all reformed
routs 9 heartily disapproved of his father living his private life in public
and saw as little of Pere Dumas as possible. The father realized this
and sighed. "We meet only at funerals/' he remarked. His former
delight in cooking returned and he wrote many cauteries about fine
dishes, hurried to home after home to prepare astonishing flats, and
indeed, used this talent to open doors that otherwise would be closed
to him.

Two of his oldest friends, Mery and that disciple of the Comte
d'Orsay, Roger de Beauvoir, had died while he was in Germany, and
the rest of the Romantics were either dead or scattered. Alfred de
Vigny and Delacroix had died in 1863, and Victor Hugo was an exile
on the Isle of Guernsey. Charles Nodier had passed away long before
and Maquet continued estranged. One door did open to him about
this time and as he passed through it he must have experienced a
sudden sweet scent of the past. It was the door of that brave and silent
woman, Marie-Catherine Lebay, the mother of Alexandre fits. She
felt no rancor toward the father of her famous child. The long years
had but increased her gentle forbearance and mellowed her instinctive
knowledge of man's vagaries. "Age has taught him nothing," she
would remark when some new escapade of Dumas would be brought
to her notice. Beside her chair she kept the table upon which Dumas
had written Henri III et sa cour, and in a closet was the torn coat that
the playwright had worn on the opening night of Antony.

The Paris of 1867, that annus mirabilis of the Empire, was the center
•of civilization. It was the year of the great Exposition and from all
parts of the world came kings and rulers, aesthetes and barbarians,
dreamers and materialists. It was the last bright flame of the Napo-
leonic dynasty in France, and Dumas, who had been born beneath
the suns of Austerlkz and was to perish with the demolition of the
Empire, experienced in himself a last bright flame of life. The Expo-
sition opened on the first of April— a trifle prematurely so far as prepa-
rations were concerned — and the old writer must have witnessed that
inaugural procession where the Emperor in his redingote and Ac
Spanish queen, the friend of MArimfe, in her toilette de mile rode

430 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

through the Porte d'lena, followed by the Princesse Mathilde, the
Prince of Orange, the Prince of Leuchtembourg, the Prince Murat
and a hundred other notabilities of the Third Empire. He must have
wandered through the vast Exposition grounds, traversed the Galerie
des Machines, the Galerie des Matieres Premieres, the Galerie du
Vetement, the Galerie du Mobilier, the Galerie du Materiel des Arts
Liberaux, the Galerie des Beaux Arts, and the Galerie de 1'Histoire du
Travail. And then there were the cafes and restaurants where he
might sample all of the foods of the globe, dining h la mode anglaisc,
devouring caviar and smoked salmon brought to him by Russian
waiters in red or blue silk tunics, stuffing himself with macaroni
ntafolitain or ravioli pitmontais or mortadelle bolonaise and washing
it down with a frugal glass of the wine of Asti or Orvieto or Marsala,
or eating the rich pates from Strasbourg and succulent birds baked
in flaky crusts. The amusements must have enticed him. He may
be imagined pushing his way into the Theatre International or the
Chinese Theater, or listening to the Tziganes playing their czardas
or the Rakoczy March, or watching the Algerian Aissaouas swallow
live scorpions, or beaming upon the lithe bayaderes and remarking
upon their long eyes streaked with kohl, or wandering through the
Inca palace by the Porte d'Anvers or the Hindoo pagoda or the Rus-
sian izba or pausing before the Chinese giant and the Tartar dwarfs.
Though Ingres died during this mounting flame of life, and a strange
madman who had lived with a negress and who was named Charles
Baudelaire perished during the height of the excitement, Dumas's
intoxication in the contemporary scene did not lessen. On June 20th
the Th^atre-Fran^ais revived Hcrnani with Mademoiselle Favart as
Dona Sol and Maubant as Ruy Gomez, and Dumas might be seen in
a prominent box applauding noisily* Dense crowds circled about the
theater and stray voices raised the daring cry, "Vive Hugo!" A group
of young intellectuals (they were Sully Prudhommc, Armand Sil-
vestre, Francois Copp&, Georges Lafenestrc, Lfon Valade, Lfon
Dierx, Jean Aicard, Paul Verlaine, Albert M6rat, Andre Theuriet,
Arman Renaud, Louis-Xavier de Ricard, H. Cazalis and Ernest d'Her-
villy) despatched an enthusiastic letter to the old exile, who, like
Voltaire at Femey, ruled from Hautcville House on the isle of Guern-
sey, Dumas* outdoing their gesture, sent an epistle addressed to

THE CHANGED WORLD 431

"Monsieur Victor Hugo.— Ocean." On the first of July there was a
fete at the Palais de 1'Industrie, and the perturbed rulers concealed
the newly acquired information that Maximilien had been shot down
at Queretaro. There were processions and elaborate evolutions in
honor of visiting royalties. All summer and fall these foreign rulers
came and Dumas must have seen more than one of them and thought
of la terreur prussicnnc. George I of Greece. The King and the Queen
of the Belgians. The Crown Prince of Prussia. The King of Spain.
The Czar of Russia. The Sultan Abdul-Aziz. Charles I of Wurtem-
bourg. Ismail Pasha, vice-roy of Egypt. The King and the Queen of
Portugal Charles XV of Sweden. The Emperor of Austria, Queen
Sophie of Holland. The trumpets blew on the boulevards; the hel-
meted guards of Louis-Napoleon deployed; Eug&iie lifted her white
hand and smiled.

For a time the triumph of this year seemed to lift Dumas once more
to the heights of his ancient glory. Various theater-managers ransack-
ing Paris for new dramatic fare to feed the enormous crowds remem-
bered his name and the stout victories he had consolidated at the
Th6atre-Fran$ais, the Odeon and the Porte-Saint-Martin. Why not
revive one of those Romantic triumphs? It would, at least, be a
contrast to the reigning optra-bouffe and the monstrous F&rics with
their legions of spindly legged jernrnes suspcnducs. To the store-house
with trash like Bichc aux Bois and Ccndrillon. There were visiting
kings in Paris. It was time for masterpieces. So early in October,
1867, the Theatre Cluny presented Antony to the enthusiasm of large
audiences and the bewilderment of Dumas. It recalled old days to
him too poignantly as he sat in his box and listened to the familiar
speeches. Melanie Waldor. The little DorvaL The handsome Bocage.
Alfred de Musset's "]'6toufle!" He turned to the companion beside
him and murmured that it sounded to him like, "Lazarc, live-toil"
A world of dead people surrounded him, and as he walked out of
the theater and found four or five hundred people waiting to escort
him to his carriage he almost thought that he himself was Lazarus
newly arisen from the dead and striding forth again into the land of
the living. There were fireworks at the Exposition and he could see
the green and golden showers of sparks as the rockets exploded above

432 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

the Seine. There was music in the air and for a moment he was
young once more. He was going to the Palais-Royal to dine with
Marie-Catherine. He would meet the grave face of Alfred de Vigny
just around the corner. The Sun-God must be waiting to read his
new tragedy. Such verses! But no; he was climbing into the carriage
and being driven through Baron Haussmann's Paris. There was
Blanche d'Antigny in the closed coach that slurred by. And there
was the bald forehead of de Morny, the bastard brother of the
Emperor, disappearing into that mysterious house. It was Offenbach
they were playing; Berlioz and Rossini were old and dying. And here
was the Boulevard Malesherbes, and Vasili waiting to remove his coat
and bring the red carpet-slippers.

The experiment of the reprise of Antony encouraged other theaters
to venture revivals of the early plays of Dumas. Arrangements were
completed for productions early in the new year, and the old play-
wright swaggered about Paris with a renewed fervor. To the young
actress playing the leading role in Antony at the Cluny theater he
wrote, "With my past and your future all will be restored." And
then, in the midst of all this Exposition year splendor and recrudes-
cence of his past self Dumas presented an unannounced and unpro-
grammed divertissement of his own, a comedy that made him the
laughing stock of the boulevards. He fell in love again.

At the Chatelet a spectacular melodrama called Les Pirates de la
Savanc was being played. The high point of the performance was a
scene wherein a horse dashed across a scaffolding with a woman
lashed to its back. The adventurous Amazon who essayed this dan-
gerous role was Ada Isaacs Menken, already .a well-known figure in
Paris. Robust, generously endowed with seductive curves, large-eyed
and more than usually intelligent, Ada's career had been a series of
defeats and triumph^ marriages, presumable divorces and hectic love-
affairs. She was the uninhibited woman of her day, an instinctive
courtesan with a sensitive and poetically endowed mind. To know
and understand her is to acquire more than the ordinary knowledge
of the passionate vicissitudes incurred by the too-regardless acceptance
of life, £ or Ada was the victim of two pciikms monsters,~Iier beauty
and l*er luxuriant imagination. It is worth while to indicate her
curious career. She was probably of Jewish origin though she was

THE CHANGED WORLD 433

born in Chartrain (now Milneburg) near New Orleans in Louisiana
about 1835, the daughter of one James McCord. Although, in after
times, she was wont to assert that her true name was Dolores Adios
Fuertes it is to be suspected that these romantic cognomens were a
figment of her fancy. She was probably plain Adelaide McCord.
While no more than a child she appeared in the ballet of the French
Opera at New Orleans. Immediately thereafter she became a legend;
truth, her own self-dramatization, and, possibly, the dubious concoc-
tions of theatrical managers mingle so bewilderingly as to render it
extremely difficult to arrive at the unvarnished facts about her.
Threading her astonishing career was that unflagging and undisci-
plined literary pretentiousness that culminated in the book of verse
called Infdicia, a pretentiousness that abetted from the mysterious
beginning the legend that Ada was an exceptional and precocious
linguist, that by the age of twelve she could speak Spanish and French
fluently and read Latin and Greek, and that— at about the same age-
she had completely translated the Iliad into English. There is nothing
unusual in a bright child speaking Spanish and French in a city
essentially Spanish and French, If she had been brought up in Bangor,
Maine, there would have been something to marvel at, even, possibly,
her ability to speak respectable English. Neither is it too remarkable
that a studious girl of twelve (which, apparently, she was) should be
able to read Latin and Greek, or, at least, stumble through it. The
complete translation of the Iliad may be taken as an overstatement;
she probably paraphrased Achilles's speech to Agamemnon. What is
astonishing and what, perhaps, is inexplicable is the curious juxta-
position of the adolescent scholar and litterateur and the passionate
beauty and amoral actress. Was the divine afflatus expressing itself
in fleshly terms? Her youth was an inconsistent mingling of these
antagonistic urges. In Havana she appeared before the dark-eyed
Cubans in the Tacon Theater where tie precipitate dandies immo-
diately toasted her as the "Qu£en of die Plazan in long glasses of
golden rum. A little later she made her appearance in Liberty, Texas,
as the editor of a small transient newspaper and the bdarded and
booted Texans must have sighed about her over their burning draughts
of whiskey. The husband she acquired at the age of seventeen or

434 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

twenty (if she did acquire one, then; most facts are semi-legendary
about her) conveniently disappeared and shortly thereafter she became
the bride of a Jewish musician named Alexander Isaacs Menken.
Alexander lasted long enough to implant in her a militant love of
Sion and then faded into the shadows, leaving behind him his here-
tofore respectable name to achieve an unsavoury notoriety. Ada was
much perturbed about the state of the children of Israel during this
period of her growth and some of her writings upon the subject won
from Lord Rothschild the statement that she was the Deborah of the
West. She was but on the threshold of a journalistic career when
the stage called to her again and she returned to it, playing in Mil-
man's Fazio in New Orleans. She was talentless but so overwhelming
was her pulchritude that all her ungainlinesses were forgiven her.
New York welcomed her in the Old Bowery Theater. In 1859 she
married John C. Heenan, the pugilist popularly known as "the Benicia
Boy," but this did not interrupt her dramatic career. Not even John
C. Heenan, and he was an excellent fighter, could subvert her ambi-
tion. A husband was no more than an episode in her busy life, the
whim of a moment, perhaps a weakness of the intellect, that was to
be forgiven and forgotten as speedily as possible. There are women
like that, who cannot desist from marrying when the day is dreary
or the weather is unfavorable. It is a silly habit like ringing some-
body else's doorbell and running to achieve a tiny thrill. It was a
production of Macbeth that fractured Ada's dramatic career. Not even
her beauty could save her from the wholesale damning she received.
James E. Murdoch, that excellent old actor, viewed her inexpert
fumbling of Shakespeare's lines with some trepidation (after all, he
loved the Bard of Avon) and urged her toward more sensational
efforts. He did not suggest tight-rope walking or lion-taming but
put it more tactfully. "Let the audience gaze at you in a dangerous
predicament but don't open your mouth except to smile." That
was the gist of his advice. Ada understood what he meant She was
a passionate pattern in flesh, a living hieroglyph of Aphrodite. View
her, therefore, in Albany where she made her first appearance in that
elegant thriller, Mazcppa, or the Wild Horse of Tartary, a melodrama

THE CHANGED WORLD 435

based upon Byron's poem. The climax of this melodrama revealed
the wild horse let loose on the steppes with the naked heroine bound
to its back. What did the staid Dutch-American families of Albany
think of Ada Isaacs Menken as they observed her aggravatingly
shapely body clothed (like a snake in its skin) in flesh-colored tights
(the dernier cri of recklessness in those days) and lashed to a horse
that galloped down a rather steep incline? They probably did not
attend the play but if they did they slunk into the theater vainly
attempting to avoid one another. One Schuyler knocked his head
against another Schuyler and both glared. Ada was a complete
triumph in Mazeppa. But America was rough, its corners were
untrimmed, and it was ill-adapted to culture, even the culture of a
sensational and practically nude actress; and Ada began to yearn for
the more sophisticated cities of Europe. London! Paris! To desire
with her was to do and in 1864 (the year that Dumas returned to the
French capital) she appeared at Astley's in London and scored a
tremendous success. The English city gasped, clapped hands, and
vociferated against "the naked drama." Doggerels were printed in
the various comical journals.

Lady Godivas jar outdone,
And Peeping Tom's an arrant duffer,
Menken outstrips them both in one
At Astley's now the Opera Buffer.

•
Ada's apartments in the Westminster Hotel became a Mecca for all

the ambitious young bucks in the British capital. Flowers. Jewels.
Dinner invitations. Discreet intimations not of immortality but of
secret intimacies. Ada insouciantly dispossessed herself of a fourth
husband (it may have been Orpheus C. Kcrr, who had, for once, lost
his sense of humor), absent-mindedly acquired a fifth, promptly for-
got him, and turned two large and limpid eyes on the London literati.
John Brougham brought her a play called The Children of the Sun.
Every afternoon she drove in a handsome carriage through Regent
Street The literati haunted her doors. Charles Dickens. Charles
Ileadc. Watts Phillips. John Oxenford. Young Algernon Charles

436 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Swinburne. What a feverish and inspired young man he was! He
wrote in her album:

Combien dc temps, dis, la belle,
Dis, vcuxJu, m'etre fiddle? —
Pour une nuit, four un jour,
Mon amour.

L'amour nous flatte et nous louche
Du doigt, dc I'oeil, de la bouchc,
four un jour, pour une nuit,
Et s'en fuit . . .

Not even Swinburne, nor Swinburne's amorous-minded secretary,
Thompson, who was mad about the actress, could hold Ada in Lon-
don, however, when Paris, the bright Paris of Offenbach and Herve
and Meilhac and Halevy and Hortense Schneider and Cora Pearl,
called; and it was not long before the French capital was as captivated
with La Menken as London had been. She was the exact ripe fruit
for the carefree boulevardiers of the Second Empire. In her apartment
at the Hotel de Suez,. Boulevard de Strasbourg, she held her daily
levee and to it crowded all the dandies and voluptuaries of Paris,
including the ever-ambitious Thfophile Gautier, But one man among
all the French haunted her mind, — Alexandre Dumas, the King of
Romance. She had often boasted: "When I go to France I will
become the mistress of that extraordinary man." The time was now
ripe; she was at her zenith; the music of the Exposition was in the
air; the soft winds of summer rippled the foliage in the Bois de
Boulogne; Paris was a glittering carnival; the sixty-five year old
Dumas, still agitated by the leaping flame of the season, was ready
and willing.

Ada observed her hero, very much like a good-natured dressed-up
hippopotamus in his stiff white piqu£ vest and high collar, standing
in the coulisses one evening and benignantly watching the progress
of Les Pirates de la Savanc. One glance was enough* The young
actress, still in her flesh-colored tights, marched tip to Dumas, flung
her beautiful arms about his plump neck, and violently embraced him.
The pleased old man beamed, waxed intimate, and followed up die

LA MENKEN AND THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Ada leaning lovingly on Ms shoulder and Dumas

beaming like a satisfied old satyr

DUMAS IN THE SIXTIES
//tj greu> excessively stout in his Litter years

THE CHANGED WORLD 437

frank advance as he always followed up such advances, with a late
supper and a more or less discreet disappearance h deux. That night
the dandies and voluptuaries waiting at the Hotel de Suez with care-
fully culled bouquets lingered in vain. The affair between Ada and
Dumas progressed rapidly. They were eternally in one another's
company. He installed her in a new apartment on the proceeds of
his revivals. Later he took her to Bougival, a summer-resort on the
Seine, and wrote back to his son, the indignant and shocked Alex-
andre fils, that "in his old age he had a Marguerite and was playing
Armand Duval." The reference to La Dame aux CamSlias did not
make the younger Dumas feel any better. It was the swan-song of
the old man in the role of Romeo, but it was a careless and shameless
swan-song. He forgot what little reticence he possessed (and that
was practically none at all) and permitted photographs of Ada and
himself to be taken, Ada leaning lovingly on his shoulder and Dumas
beaming like a satisfied old satyr. These pictures must have been
Ada's idea for had she not been photographed with young Algernon
Charles Swinburne holding her hand? The consequences of these
pictures were disastrous. The conscienceless photographer anticipated
the era of tabloid publications by distributing the idyllic scene right
and left, and it was not many days before the show-cases along the
boulevards blossomed with them. The laughing Paris of 1867 imme-
diately responded. Eddying groups gathered and giggled. Squibs
appeared in the lighter periodicals. A young man named Paul Verlaine
was inspired to the following triolet:

VOncle Tom avec Miss Ada,
C'est un spectacle dont on rive.
Quel photographe fou souda
UOncle Tom avec Miss Ada?
Ada pcut rester & dada,
Mais Tom chcvauchcJ-il sans trivc?
VOncle Tom avec Miss Ada
Cest un spectacle dont on r£vel

All Paris roared with laughter and when Paris roars with laughter
the delightful peals may be heard throughout Europe. The old rascall

438 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

Imagine it at his age! That old negro of a Dumas has done it again!
The victim of all this ridicule grew furious, parted angrily once and
forever with the surprised and slightly offended Ada, and then insti-
tuted suit against the rascally photographer, Liebert; but it is to be
suspected (knowing Dumas as well as we do) that his fury was light-
ened by a certain licentious vanity. After all he was sixty-five years
old, a respectable if not slightly amazing age for a persistently gay
Lothario.

But this was the end. No more affaires de coeur now. Time to take
in sail, to be an old man at last. He was finished. But what of the
beautiful Ada who had been the heroine of his swan-song, who had
travelled from the dark delta of the Mississippi to the yellow waters
of the Seine? What became of her? What becomes of all beautiful
and passionate and unreckoning women who insatiably burn the
candle of life at both ends? Illness and death. The shadow of them
was hovering over her when she met Dumas. One moment, during
the febrile triumphs of the Exposition, the world of Paris, a world
of light and laughter and song and showers of gold, was at her feet;
and the next moment she was dying in the attic of a cheap lodging
house in the rue de Bondy opposite the stage-door of the Theatre
Porte-Saint-Martin. This was in August, 1868, less than a year since
she had wandered along the little curving paths beside the Seine at
Bougival with Dumas. She had contracted a fatal illness that pre-
vented her appearance upon the stage and with her withdrawal from
that artificial public life went her subsistence. There was no money,
no dandies with costly bouquets, no high-hatted voluptuaries waiting
to pay for her dinners, nothing but four grey walls and a bluff
concierge. The great heart of Paris beat on as it had beat for a thou-
sand years but her own heart faltered. Her beautiful body dwindled
and for days she lay upon a narrow bed in a small room and heard
the trumpets of Louis-Napoleon and the laughter of young actresses
across the street from her. She, herself, was but thirty-three. She
died on August 10, 1868, and her body, straight and cold in death,
was interred in the strangers* section among the curious tombs of
P&re la Chaise. Later it was removed to Montparnassc cemetery and
there she lies today, her beautiful body crumbled beneath a slab of
grey stone with an urn bearing the words, "Thou Knowe$t "

THE CHANGED WORLD 439

For Dumas, the tired old man, there were no more laughing
amantes. The flesh was exhausted from the feverish task of too much
living. He would have to feed upon the past now, relishing those
departed moments when his unconquerable hunger for women had
been triumphantly satisfied. There were many of them. Once he had
indecently boasted that he probably possessed five hundred children,
but that was undoubtedly the exaggeration of an old man. Still,
there had been a multitude of frail and acquiescent women, and as
he remembered them at this twilight end of Time, several must have
loomed large and beautiful in his thoughts. The fresh girl's body of
Adele Dalvin. The blonde charm of Marie-Catherine Lebay. The
thin dark nervous flesh of Melanie Waldor. The kittenish freedom
of the little DorvaL The exquisite generosity of Bell Krebsamer. The
tantalizing curves of Ida Ferrier. The boyish abandon of fimilie
Cordier. If he associated himself with Baudelaire's Don Juan descend-
ing toward the ondc souterrainc he could be very sure that he left no
"grand troupeau dc victimcs offertes" who "derrfere lui trainaient un
long mugissement" No, there were but two who had really suffered
from his amorous infidelities, Marie-Catherine Lebay and Melanie
Waldor, and both of them had forgotten the pain and forgiven the
inconstant lover. So musing and putting behind him forever the
feverish interludes of passion, he realized that his life was over, that
the swaggering boulevardier had been transformed into an unwieldy
old man with dropsical symptoms, and that his last excesses had but
hurried his progress toward extinction. There was nothing to do now
but expend the fag end of living in an attempt to achieve some
measure of material comfort.

Ill

The struggle became increasingly difficult. Even the blare and excite-
ment of 1867 an<^ &c revival of Antony and other plays did not cause a
wave of sufficient enthusiasm to carry P£re Dumas on its crest to
some modest triumph. The exhilaration of Paris had brought him
back to life within himself but that was all. No public turned to the
aged Romantic and hailed him as a prophet (to whom had he said
that years before? a King?) and Le Mousquctairc failed, the small

440 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

periodical which had succeeded the defunct Let Nouvclles and which
served him as a mouth-piece for his causeries* True to their word
various managers produced plays by Dumas early in the new year;
Kean at the Odeon, La Jcunesse des Mousquetaires at the Porte-Saint-
Martin, Le Reine Mar got at the Gait£, and Le Manage sous Louis XV
at the Theatre-Francis with the exquisite Bressant as de Candale.
Although some few students gathered about the doors of the Odeon
to bellow "Vive Ruy Bias!" and "Vive Dumas!" they were only
adolescent mimics of the defenders of a cause that long ago had per-
ished. The early plays of Dumas were out of tune with the times;
they were like champagne that had been uncorked too long. All the
audiences that had wept and shuddered over Antony and Kean were
in, the Past. The sophisticated folk of 1868 would have to be thrilled
by more contemporary excitations. It is true that the revival of
Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle at the Theitre-Franjais was favorably
received but this comedy was independent of the changes of public
taste. Mademoiselle Mars had appeared in it and the dark Rachel
and the charming Plessy. It stood alone among Dumas's three score
of plays. Times had changed and the works of Dumas were d&modt.
Could he guess that Leconte de Lisle would replace Victor Hugo,
the Sun-God of 1830, in the Academy? He could do nothing but
return sadly to the Boulevard Malesherbes and continue as best he
could his feeble struggle against a Time Spirit that was stronger than
men. After 1867 and the spring of 1868 he lapsed into a relative
obscurity. From being the idol of a nation he dwindled to the old
lion of a city quarter. But yes, but yes! M'sieu Dumas lived there . . .
at 107 ... a great laughing man with crinkly grey hair that stood
up on his head and flashing eyes above sagging pouches . . „ un gros
garfon!

Certain friends still came to see him, for he remained amusing and
boisterous. Nestor Roqueplan, he in whose room— and what impov-
erished rooms they were!— Dumas had first read Henri HI et sa Cow;
Noel Parfait; Charles Yriarte; "'Cham/1 the caricaturist, and Desba-
rolles; these men came, and a few others, youngsters who had been
in their cradles when Dumas had married Although there was little
money at the Boulevard Maleshcifces there was still the old generosity.
Madame diode Pctel^ tall, uaplcasaatly pious at times aad darkly

THE CHANGED WORLD 441

esoteric, watched over the undisciplined household and struggled with
importunate tradesmen who insisted that three-year-old bills ought
to be paid, Alexandre fils, a trifle magistral in manner, appeared but
seldom. At public functions and private dinners he apologized for
his huge parent. "My father is a great baby of mine— born when I
was quite a little child," he would remark, repeating a mot he had
made many times before. Or, when some one would sympathize with
him on the trial of such an unconventional father: "Well, if he does
not supply me with a good example, he gives me a good excuse," At
one dinner a droll story about a debtor and creditor was related to
the enjoyment of all and at its termination some one whispered to
the son that Dumas ptrc was the hero of the tale. "Monsieur,"
returned Alexandre fils, "He would have put it in his memoirs." He
was worried about his father because he loved him and enraged at
him because he disapproved of his lack of morals* The Menken
episode, for example, was too glaring. Alexandre ftls had his two
daughters, Colette and Jeannine, to think of. Therefore he gave the
Boulevard Malesherbes, 107, a wide berth.

Dumas, in shirt-sleeves and carpet-slippers, shuffled to his desk every
day and labored painfully. He could still write cauteries and he
indited many of them, cauteries about all sort of things, from Made-
moiselle Mars to the preparation of rare foods. He launched a peri-
odical called D'Artagnan. The first issue appearpd on February 4,
1868, and it was headed by the picture of a lanky Gascon knight
mounted on a skinny steed. It ran for only six months and during
that period he reprinted a portion of the Hisioire de mes Sites and
gave to the world for the first time some tales and articles by his
daughter, Madame Olinde PeteL Her first book had been Au Lit de
Mart, which one critic had described as *'un m&langc de mysticisme
et de sensuditi* 11 dernontrc les dangers du vice et I'howcwr de fadtd-
tire, de fafon h donner ewie d'en essayer? Marie-Alcicamlre was
evidently the daughter of her father. Dumas could stfll write plays,
and in the late spring of 1868 he transformed his romance, Moiame
de Chamblay, into a drama. At the end of die script the wise old
man inscribed this sentence: "lei finit le flaw* et commence la feint?
He could still write romances. He composed a sequel to Les Compag-
now de Jehu which he called Let Blmc* et ks Slew, He could

442 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

speak in public and hold the interest of an audience. He appeared at
the Exposition in Havre in 1868 and lectured on his Russian travels,
and from that seaport he went to Caen, Dieppe and Rouen where he
repeated his conferences. But all of these manifestations were the
unavailing gestures of a defeated man. It was too late to retrieve his
fallen fortunes and the best he could do was to keep a step or two
ahead of the bailiff.

Madame de Chamblay opened his eyes too widely to his unfortunate
predicament for him to entertain high hopes for the future. He had
written this play with the Theatre-Fran^ais in mind — had they not
revived several of his plays? — but after it was complete he recalled
the enmity of Edouard Thierry, the director, and the antagonism of
the new school of players there. No, it would never do to risk a flat
refusal at the national house of drama. The humiliation would be
too great. There was the Gymnase theater, of course, but that was
the playhouse where the plays of Alexandre fils were produced, and
Dumas did not dare to venture into direct competition with his son.
Perhaps he knew that his romantic type of play would never stand
up beside the "problems" of Alexandre fils. That stage-door, then,
was closed. There was the Vaudeville Theater but the director of this
successful house was the same individual who had directed the Gait6
in 1864 when Les Mohicans de Paris was played, and who, since that
time, had alienated himself from Dumas. The other theaters pre-
sented a modern type of drama that was beyond the skill and the will
of the old man, or they resounded to the mellifluous airs of Offenbach
and Herve. Were all doors closed to him, then? How many mana-
gers had beseeched him for plays twenty years ago? What had become
of the golden seasons when there were four or five of his productions
in a single year? Dumas was about to relinquish the struggle when
the Porte-Saint-Martin theater, the scene of so many of his ancient
triumphs, failed and set at bewildered liberty a group of actors and
actresses who promptly formed an independent company. They
engaged the Theatre Ventadour for their activities and came to Dumas
(how could the mimes of the Porte-Saint-Martin ever forget their
P£re Dumasf ) for a play. Madame de Chamblay was placed Some
hours after the decision was made, two members of the Theatre-
Franjais committee, Bressant and Lafontainc, appeared at the flat ia

THE CHANGED WORLD 443

the Boulevard Malesherbes and announced that the House of Racine
would grant an audition to Madame dc Chamblay. Dumas merely
shook his tousled grey head. Madame dc Chamblay was presented
at the Theatre Ventadour on June 4, 1868, and closed after eleven
performances because of the intense heat in Paris. The city was like
a Sahara. It was a severe blow to Dumas and for the first time he
openly despaired. What should he do? How would he live? It was
at this time that he went to Havre where he commenced his lectures.
All that summer he kept away from the city of his defeat. Let them
dance to Olivier Metra's valses or watch the dancing girls kick above
their heads or drain their tiny glasses of absinthe or cheer the wax-
faced Emperor as he drove through the Bois or stare at Cora Pearl's
prancing white horses or applaud the helmeted dragoons on the
Champs de Mars. Beyond the Rhine the Prussian tiger crouched and
an era was coming to a disorderly and flamboyant end. Had he not
prophesied it?

It was not until October that Dumas, somewhat invigorated by the
warm receptions accorded him by the provincials, returned to the
Boulevard Malesherbes and the dreary round of hack work. He was
more rotund than ever as he painfully climbed the stairs to his quar-
ters and stopped to gaze at Delacroix's picture of King Roderick
counting the dead on the field of battle. He shook his head, greeted
the faithful Vasili with a laugh, kissed Madame Petel, took off his
coat and gilet and went into the study and sat down before his desk.
During the month Madame de Chamblay was produced again, this
time at the Porte-Saint-Martin theater, which had recovered from its
recent failure, and, as the weather was cooler and the audiences less
difficult to please, scored enough of a success to raise Dumas's spirits.
Perhaps, after all, he was not too old to write another play. He would
dramatize Les Blancs et les Bleus. But if the reprise of Madame de
Chamblay revitalized him during this warm month of October,
another occurrence cast him down mightily. Marie-Catherine Lebay
died. It was unbelievable! Dumas began to realize that he was out-
living himself.

One evening Mathilde Shaw (she who had seen the three naked
Eves clustered about the rcd-shirted Gargantua) called at the Boule-

444 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

vard Malesherbes, and receiving no answer to her ring, passed up the
stairs to Dumas's study. It had been converted into a bedroom and
the old man, suffering from some indisposition that had caused his
face to break out in swollen and shiny patches, was lying in the bed.
He was peevish and querulous. The servants had deserted him. He
did not know where Madame Petel was. He wanted some barley
water. Madame Shaw went down to the fireless kitchen and prepared
the drink. He went on to inform her that he had received an invita-
tion to attend a reception at some Ambassador's house that evening
and meant to go. Would she reach him a shirt from the chest of
drawers? The visitor ransacked the chest of drawers and discovered
two night-shirts, a pair of flannel drawers and a red tie. It was obvious
that Dumas could not go to the Ambassador's function in a night-
shirt; neither could he attend dressed in a pair of flannel drawers
and a red tie. The days of Romanticism were over. The old man
shook his head. "It is monstrous the way they neglect me when I
am ill," he murmured. Then he asked Madame Shaw to peer in his
writing desk and see if, by any chance, there was any money there.
There was not. "Will you loan me just enough to get a dress shirt?"
timidly requested the former owner of Monte Cristo and the Theatre-
Historique. Madame Shaw acquiesced and Dumas despatched her to
the nearest establishment for the precious garment. But it was after
eight o'clock in the evening and most of the shops were closed. It was
with some difficulty and after much time had been wasted that the
generous woman found a shop where they sold "the Hercules shirt."
This garment had its drawbacks for evening wear as it was gaudy,
the design being a group of bright red devils leaping about in violently
yellow flames. But it was the best Madame Shaw could do and she
purchased it and carried it to the Boulevard Malesherbes. Dumas
burst into a passion when he saw the shirt. "Can I wear that at the
Ambassador's reception?" he roared. His rage collapsed as speedily
as it had arisen, however, and with a sigh he said, "Well, it will have
to do " Taking the shirt from Madame Shaw he proceeded to his
dressing room and draped himself in it When he returned clad in
full evening dress his broad bosom glowed with the prancing devils.
Madamt Shaw had forgotten to purchase a tie, and Dumas, after
wiothtr display of vain rage^ adjusted the red tic about his throat

THE CHANGED WORLD 445

Sulky and silent, the ridiculous old man departed for the Ambas-
sador's reception, leaving an exhausted woman behind him. A few
days later he gaily announced to Madame Shaw: "You would hardly
believe it but my costume was an immense success. Everyone thought
it was an original idea of my own! They all clustered about me and
made much of me. I really think I have started a fashion." "What
about the red necktie ?" inquired Madame Shaw. "O, that was another
success/' declared Dumas, "they thought I was wearing it in memory
of Garibaldi,"

This episode occurred in 1868 and it was one of the last public
appearances of Dumas. Feverish attacks visited him with increasing
violence and he would lie for days with his face to the wall in a
dreamy stupor. An unhealthy corpulence became perceptible and
whenever he sat down his huge paunch rolled out over his weakening
legs. A lethargy crept slowly upon him, and he would forget what
he was saying while discussing business. The dramatization of Les
Blancs et les Bleus was completed after great labor, and placed in
rehearsal at the Chatelet Theater, Dumas would fall asleep during
the hubbub of the rehearsal. When the drama was produced on
March 10, 1869, it was only a quasi-success. The critics, almost to a
man antagonistic to Dumas, scored it severely, but the audiences
seemed to enjoy it. This was the last production of Dumas, the ending
of a dramatic career begun so auspiciously forty years before with
Henri III ct sa Cour. Shortly before the premiere of Les Blancs ct les
Bleus Lamartine died, and Dumas recovered enough vitality to indite
a moving essay on the dead genius who, like himself, had suffered
from the forgetfulness of the short-minded public* Sainte-Beuve died
in this year, too, but Dumas preserved a discreet silence on the death
of the two-faced Senator. During this same year the weary giant
managed to write two additional volumes to Les Blancs et les Bleus.
That was all The pen fell from his hand and the long labors of
Dumas were at an end. During the summer of 1869 Madame Pelel
became so alarmed at the increasing lethargy of her father that she
called in a doctor, and the medical man, Piorry, prescribed what treat-
ment he could. Little could be done, for an incurable senescence was
devouring the huge body. When the weather became too hot in Pari$
Pumas was takes to Roscoff in Brittany and there he seemed to

446 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

recover some measure of esprit. But back in his quarters in the Boule-
vard Maleshcrbes in September, he relapsed into the slow torpor of
a broken old man.

The winter passed, grey, windy and icy, and Dumas remained in
his room, smashed by illness and misfortune. He neither knew nor
cared what was transpiring on the long boulevards. As he could no
longer write there was no money for even the barest necessities, and,
much against his will, Dumas was compelled at intervals to send his
daughter to Alexandre fls for a little money. The son, who did not
call upon his father and certainly did not realize to what a low estate
his father had fallen, would send the money but not without some
grumbling. The old man detested calling upon his son for help, and
more often than not he would send the porter or the faithful secretary,
Victor Leclerc, who worked for no hire, to the pawnbrokers with
some trinket, some bit of Bohemian glass, some memento of the past
that had been treasured for years. So conditions went from bad to
worse until Dumas could no longer conceal from his son the fact
that he was practically destitute. Alexandre fils, amazed and remorse-
ful, hurried to the Boulevard Malesherbes, saw the mountainous
wreck reposing half-asleep before the desk upon which the white
sheets of paper were covered by a thin film of dust, and burst into
tears. Thereafter there was no lack of food in the apartment. Alex-
andre fils came often and talked much with his father and rejoiced
during those occasions, which grew more and more rare, when Dumas
would recover a semblance of his old sparkle and discourse of the
past. The small study, bereft of so many bright bits of bric~b-brac
that now adorned various pawnshops, would take on a rosy glow as
Dumas recalled the variegated fortunes of his strenuous days. But
the weariness that beset him, that had taken the strength out of his
legs and the creative spark out of his dying brain, set these moments
of happy recollection farther and farther apart. The silences, those
harbingers of death, stretched their noiseless and invisible wings in
the Boulevard Malesherbes.

His son came in one day and discovered him reading a book.
"What are you reading?" he inquired. The old man, lifting his
dimmed eyes, replied, "Lcs Trois Mousquetmrcsl I always promised

THE CHANGED WORLD 447

myself that I would read it when I grew old and discover if it was
worth anything." "Well, what do you think of it?" Dumas raised his
head and answered, "It is good." His son left him bowed over the
volumes, and when, a few days later, he visited the ailing Gargantua
again, he found him still bowed above the slim tomes published by
Michel Levy. "What is it this time ?" he asked as he sat down oppo-
site his father. "Monte Cristo" explained Dumas. "Is it good?"
"Pooh," replied the father, "it is not so good as Les Trois Mousque-
taires" He was troubled about his ended labors, and as he pored
through volume after volume of his novels, a doubt of their perma-
nence assailed him. It seemed to him that he had builded his high
tower on treacherous sand, and, timidly enough, he sought encourage-
ment from his son who was so brilliant, so profound, so full of the
zest of living and so frank in his judgments. Alexandre fils reassured
him. "Be at peace," he said. "The pillar is well built and the founda-
tions will stand firm." With a child-like naivete the old man accepted
his son's judgment implicitly. If Alexandre said so. ... He turned
back again to the table heaped with books and stretched his lethargic
arm toward another novel. The days passed in this twilight state of
being, and the air about the exhausted shell of Pere Dumas filled with
martial specters whose phantom swords gleamed in the poverty-
stricken room. Half-dreaming, half-awake, he saw them pass; they
lifted hands in iron gauntlets; they laughed the ancient booming
Gascon laughter; they rode upon smoking horses; they whispered in
the King's cabinet; their red heels pressed the grass at Versailles and
Fontainebleau and Blois. He saw them all and recognized them:
Captain Roquefinette flourishing his glittering blade and swearing
great oaths; d'Artagnan riding the long road to Calais where the
Cardinal's spies strove to beat him down; Athos gazing for the last
time on Milady's face while the masked executioner tested his axe;
Aramis pinching his car and whispering to Madame de Chevreuse;
Porthos sinking beneath the rock at Belle-Isle-en-Mer; Bragclonne
mounting the little stairs at Blois and guided by the white hands of
Montalais; Mazarin scheming in his study while the, young King
bites his nails; Louise dc la Valliire weeping over the grave of Raoul;
the Masque de Fer gazing out of the barred window at the Isle-Saintc-
Margucrite; Charles I of England crying "Remember!" as he bowed

448 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

his head on the scaffold by Whitehall; the Comte de Monte Cristo
dreaming of his revenge in his extravagant mansion in Paris: La
Mole kneeling at the feet of Queen Margot while the Queen Mother
creeps through the corridors of the Louvre; Henri the Bearnais smil-
ing into the malicious little eyes of Charles IX; Chicot sardonically
plying the fat monk, Gorenflot, with wine; the brave Bussy d'Amboise
dying for the great eyes of Diane de Monsoreau; Agenor de Mauleon
riding forth to battle; Dubois scratching his ape-like face as he prowls
about the midnight streets; Cagliostro engineering the affair of the
diamond necklace; Marat lifting his yellow face in the club of the
Jacobins; Ange Pitou, fresh from Villers-Cotterets, storming the
Bastille with the ensanguined proletariat; Philippe de Taverney strug-
gling against his helpless love for Marie Antoinette and, as the Cheva-
lier dc Maison-Rougc, flinging himself to death beneath her scaffold;
Du Barry riding in the tumbril to the red square while the women
hurl insults at her; Van Baerle dividing his affections between Rosa
and the black tulips; Isaac Laquedem wandering the highways of the
world; the young Jesuit following Olympe de Cloves to Paris; Salvator
assuming the kingship of the underworld of the vast city; and Georges
Cadoudal struggling against the Directory in the miry roads about
Lyons. And these were but a moiety of the host that followed, kings,
queens, ministers, soldiers, adventurers, jesters, peasants, revolutionists
and Napoleonic marechaux. Long into the night they passed, and
P£re Dumas, his great form sprawled upon his bed, heard them go
and remembered what Alexandrc fits had said and was comforted.
"The pillar is well built and the foundation will stand firm."

Early in the spring of 1870 a persistent abscess in the mouth troubled
Dumas and he was attended by Doctor Dcelat. Both the doctor and
Alexandrc fUs feared the effect of Paris upon him, and agreed that a
trip to Southern France, his beloved Midi, might improve his condi-
tion* So to the south of France he was taken, but the pilgrimage
in search of health was futile, and toward the end of July, shortly after
tfce declaration of war with Prussia, he was returned to the bare
quarters in the Boulevard Maleshcrbes. It was plain his case was
bopekss. He was beginning to suffer from softening of the brain;
dropsical symptoms manifested themselves; and the possibility of an

THE CHANGED WORLD 449

apoplectic attack was obvious. He read no more; he spoke seldom;
a twilight of the mind settled down upon him; he was passing out of
existence with a Napoleonic empire just as he had come into existence
with one. In the streets and boulevards excited crowds were shouting,
"A Berlin! A Berlin!" but the ears of Dumas were deafened to it.
Marechal NiePs plan to divide the French forces into three armies
under MacMahon, Bazaine and Canrobert was scrapped and the
Army of the Rhine (bombastic title!) was organized under the direct
command of the Emperor. On the twenty-eighth of July Louis-
Napoleon left Saint-Cloud for the front, left his palace filled with a
sanguine hope. The short and fatal campaign followed. Weissenberg.
Worth. Retreat of the French toward Metz. The Spanish woman
sitting as firm as a rock on her throne, according to the dying M£ri-
m£e. Vionville. Mars-le-Tour. The indecision of Bazaine. The charg-
ing cavalry at Rezonville. Favre crying for arms in the faubourgs.
Sedan. The cadaverous Merimee at the door of Thiers's study, beg-
ging the statesman to maintain the dynasty. By the third of September
the astounded populace of Paris learned that Sedan had been fought
and lost and that the German hordes were on their way toward the
capital The Emperor was captured and the Empire was smashed to
bits. All the fair and frivolous society dancing to the airs of Offenbach
and watching the white horses of Cora Pearl prance along the Champs
filys&s was swept away in a moment. Paris became a vast drill-
ground. All the theaters were closed; the new Opera was turned
into a barracks and muddy boots scraped across the plush carpets;
the Cirques Napoleon and de PEmperatrice overflowed with excited
Gardes Mobiles. Bewilderment. Rage. Republican furies. The dust
of a crumbled throne blown on the winds of passion. In the H6tel de
Ville a temporary Government of the National Defence was estab-
lished. Along the yellow roads of France the bronzed Uhlans of
Bismarck advanced toward the Seine. In the Boulevard Malesherbes
an old man, oblivious to the turmoil without, smiled at the wall and
murmured about the Romantic triumphs of the 1830$. Were they
crying in the streets about Antony or Hernani? It was a merciful
blessing that the dtbdclc of the Second Empire was kept secret to
Dumas, Why should they let him know that an era was dying in
bloody agony and that he was dying with it and that the last sad

450 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

left-overs of the Romantic movement were about to die so soon,
Merimee, for instance, in this same fatal year and Gautier in 1872?
Only the Sun-God was left. On the fifth of September Hugo, pale
and excited, had purchased his railroad ticket for Paris in the dark
Brussels station. There were fifteen years of apotheosis on French soil
before him. It was just as well that Dumas was ignorant of all this.
The gun-caissons clattered along the boulevards and the fortifications
of Paris were garrisoned with anxious troops. Alexandre fils decided
that it would be unwise to let his father remain in Paris during the
imminent siege; so, about the middle of September, the old man, still
blissfully unconscious of the falling world about him, was removed
to the peaceful town of Puys, near Dieppe, where the younger Dumas,
following the enthusiastic recommendation of George Sand, had built
a house for himself.

It was quiet at Puys. There were no loud rumors nor distant rumble
of cannon nor sharply-barked commands of square-faced officers. The
old era was yet to be hustled out of existence there. Dumas was in-
stalled in a large room with windows overlooking the sea in his son's
house and through the clear panes of glass he could observe the coil-
ing, white-crested ocean that he had gasped to see so many years before
when his mind was filled with the rolling couplets of Christine* The
salubrious air, fresh with stinging salt and brisk winds, aroused him
briefly from his torpor; but the elephantine body, gross with flesh and
veined with disease, was too far gone on the road to death for any-
thing, even boisterous winds from the grey Atlantic and the cool tang
of salt on the dry lips, to matter. The great world turned on its orbit
and the mountainous waves rode in toward the white shore with their
long murmurs of mystery but Dumas played childish games with his
grandchildren, Colette and Jeannine. Sometimes, when the weather
was particularly agreeable, he was carried out to that white beach and
placed in a large chair where he would remain for several hours.
There he would sleep for his spirit was vague and his brain slumbered
as deeply as his body. He did not suffer any physical pain but reposed
like a great image, a senseless giant. The grey, cold, rainy days of
October whirled like a flock of icy harpies over Puys and the enervated
bulk of Dumas could no longer be carried down the steps and across
the flying sands. From that time on he no longer left his room. He

THE CHANGED WORLD 451

was shut away from the world and the world was shut away from
him. Both had ceased to exist for the other, Alexandre fils and
Madame Petel became prisoners with their father; they exhausted
themselves in caring for him, in dressing and undressing him, in feed-
ing him as one would feed a Gargantuan child, in conversing with
him although it was seldom that he said anything or particularly
followed what they said; their reward was those moments, infrequent
enough, when he aroused himself from his cataleptic condition long
enough to speak weakly to them, to beg that the last rites of religion
be administered him before it was too late, to weakly press their hands
in his great flabby fingers. On the mantel in his room he had placed
a twenty-franc piece when he first arrived in Puys and occasionally
his blank eyes would fall upon it. Once a faint sparkle came into those
eyes; he pointed to the solitary coin and murmured weakly: "It has
been fifty years since I came to Paris with a single louis. Why have
they accused me of prodigality? I have always kept it, that louis. See,
it is there." That was his last ban mot. He turned back into the
twilight and emerged from it no more. Flurries of snow. Bleak winds.
Toward the end of November the intense cold of the northern winter
settled down on Puys and the somber landscape outside, bare and
leafless, was reflected in the sick-room. Dumas remained in his bed,
the heavy blankets huddled about him. He slept day and night. Did
he think? Did he dream? Probably not. He was the physiognomy
of diseased inertia, the relaxed surrender of organic life and agitated
dreams to the cool engulfing wave of nothingness. In the cold dark-
ness between the fourth and the fifth of December an apoplectic
seizure destroyed the remnant of his consciousness and his brain be-
came congestiecL The Abbe Andrieu of the parish of Saint-Jacques at
Dieppe was hurriedly summoned and the last sacraments were
administered tJh$ dying man, who, by the trembling of his eyelids,
seemed to acknowledge the sacred ointment. The priest, his hands
shaking, his lips muttering the Miscreatur and the Indulgcntitm, gave
the extreme unction, sweet oil upon the eyes that had gloried te lie
splendors of the visile world, upon the nostrils that had knouro tiie
savory odors of npre foods and subtle perfumes of many bcpslfel
women, upon the full lij$ that had laughed so boisterously, upon Ac
hands that had been restless and fluttering with vanities and furious

452 THE INCREDIBLE MARQUIS

in labor, and upon the feet that had traveled through many countries
and mounted the lofty stairs of palaces. The drone of Latin filled the
death-chamber of the old pagan and no one heard the clatter of the
Prussian cavalry in the near distance; for that day a detachment of
Bismarck's conquering army had entered Dieppe, their bayonets fixed,
their heads upheld and haughty, and their trumpets blowing shrilly.
The unconsciousness of Dumas remained undisturbed. He slept.
Toward ten o'clock his son bent over him and placed his ear close
to the full-lipped mouth. Nothing. Nothing at all

The sword of d'Artagnan was broken at last; the shoulders of
Porthos had been crushed by a weight greater than that of the rock
on Belle -Isie-en-Mer*

London-? aris-Canncs, 1928— N<w Yor^, 1929.

FINIS

INDEX

Abbot, The, 114

Abbott, actor, 112

Abd-el-Kader, 330

Abdul-Aziz, Sultan, 431

Abencerages, Lesf 50, 52

Academy, The, 94, 186

Adam, Madame, 240, 415, 422

Adelaide, Mademoiselle, 36

Ader, journalist, 188

Adolescent Malade, U, 105

Africa, travels in, 328 et seq.

Agamemnon, Lemercier, 55

Aicord, Jean, 430

Aigle Blesse, L', 105

Albania, attempted liberation, 407 et seq.

Alboni, Mademoiselle, 340

Alchimiste, U, 291

Alchimiste au dix-neuvieme siecle, Unt

311

Alexandri, boyar, 364
Alexandria, defense of, 12
Algeria, French invasion, 183

travels in, 330 et seq.
Alhoy, Maurice, 307
Aligre, M. d', 326

Allied Coalition, invasion of France^ by, 34
Amaury, 88

Ambigre-Comique Theatre, 52, 101, 404
Ames du Purgatoire, Les, Merime"e, 275
Ammalot Beg, 390
Amours Francoises, Soulie, 87
Ancelot, Jacques Arsene, 74, 83
Andrieu, Abbe*, 451
Andrieux, M., 163
Ange Gardieu, B6r anger, 151
Angele, Bourgeois and Dumas, 261 et seq.,

419

Ange Pitou, 361
Angers, David d', 161
Anglemont, Privat d', 366
Angoulemc, Duchesse d', 94, 206
Anna,, 276

Annee, Theodore, 1$5, 188
Annuaire, 258
Anquctil, novelist, 144

Antony, 173, 178, 181, 223, 228, 238, 248,

257, 261, 263, 265 et seq., 279, 419,

429 et seq.
Arago, Etienne, 103, 184, 186, 194, 206,

232, 249, 278

Arago, Francois, 186, 251
Aramitz, Henri d', 315
Archbishop of Paris, 108
Argout, d', 294
Aristophanes, 84
Armand, actor, 152
Arnault, Lucien, 46, 49, 55, 56, 67, 74, 83,

86, 93, 99, 129, 136, 163, 177, 178
Arras, Madame d', 277
Arsenal, 140, 252

library, 143
Artagnan, D', 441
Artaxerce, Delrieu, 55
Art d'accomoder la Salade, U, 427
Athos, Armand de Sillegue d', 315
Artiste, L', 160

Ascanio, Dumas and Meurice, 311
Asseline, Alfred, 364, 367
Audebrand, Philibert, 364, 422
Augereau, Mar^chal, 26
Au Lit de Mort, 441
Aumale, Due d', 306
Aunenkof, Comte, 386
Austria, travels in, 428
Austro-Prussian War, 427
Avenel, journalist, 188
Avenir National, U, 413, 417, 418, 421
Aventures du Chevalier Faublas, 42
Aventures d'un Cornelia et d'un Volu~

bilis, Les, Badere, 368

Balfour, John, 113

Balzac, Honor£ de, 75, 165, 176, 242, 299,

373

Banville, Theodore de, 366
Baour-Lomrian, Pierre, 73, 83, 178
Bar, General de, 330
Barante, Claude, 242, 302
Barbaroux, Charles, 188
Barbier, Auguste, 75

453

454

INDEX

Bard, painter, 208, 210, 211, 240

Bariatinski, Prince, 388

Barriers de CUchy, La, 355

Barrot, Odilon, 206, 240, 248

Barthelemy, poet, 164

Barye, Antoine-Louis, 141, 239, 240

Basquet, Alfred, 367

Bastide, Jean, 206, 249

BaMlde, Marquet, 290

Batz, Bertrand de, 315

Batz-Castelmore, Charles de, 315

Baude, journalist, 188, 189, 206

Baudelaire, Charles, 366, 430, 439

Bazaine, Marechal, 449

Beauchene, Atala, 240, 260, 340

Beauchesne, Alcid de, 165, 240, 260

Beau d' Augennes, Le, Maquet, 296

Beaulieu, Blanche de, 103

Beauvoir, Roger de, 292, 294, 366, 429

Becquet, journalist, 162

Bedeau, Marie-Alphonse, 354

Belgium, travels in, 286

Belisaire, Jouy, 108

Bell, Georges, 367

Belle Gabrielle, La, Marquet, 296, 381

Bellini, Vincenzo, 113

Bellu, architect, 339

Bellune, Marechal de, 71

Beranger, Pierre-Jean, 74, 86, 149, 151,

161, 164, 199

Berard, Captain, 328, 330
Berlioz, Hector, 298
Bernard, Pierre, 367
Bernis, C., 367

Berry, Duchesse de, 206, 255, 259, 260
Bert, journalist, 188
Berthier, Alexandre, 23
Berlin, Armand, 165
Beudin, banker, 233
"Bibliophile Jacob," 319 et seg.
Biche aux Boisf 431
Bichet, record clerk, 118
Bignon, actor, 340
Billard, journalist, 188
Biographie Hnwerselk, 114, 144
Bixio, Alexandre, 141, 195, 252, 269
Bixio, Nino, 396, 415
Black, 382

Blancs et les Blew, Lts, 441, 443, 445
Blonde!, painter, 256
Blondclet, musician, 260
Blucher, General, 5, 287
Bocage, Paul, 238, 240, 248, 264, 367, 372
Bochcr, librarian, 306

Bodere, Clemence, 367

Bohain, journalist, 189

Boileau, Nicolas, 110

Bonaparte, Hortense, 256

Bonaparte, Jerome, 4, 303

Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon {see Napo-
leon III)

Bonaparte, Pauline, 22, 98

Bonaparte et les Bourbons, Chateau-
briand, 34

Bonhomme Bwvat, Maquet, 295, 297

Bon jour, Casimir, 107

Bon Vieillard, 93

Bonvilliers, engineer, 212

Bonvin, writer, 310

Borel, Petrus, 176, 240

Borghese, Princesse, 22

Bouchardy, Joseph, 177

Boudorex, birdcatcher, 32

Bouilly, Jean Nicolas, 50, 100

Boulanger, Clement, 239

Boulanger, Louis, 110, 141, 155, 165, 168,
176, 180, 239, 245, 326

Boule de Neige, Lat 388, 411

Bourbier, Virginie, 151, 152, 164, 173,
181, 311

Bourgeois, Anicet, 238, 245, 264, 273, 341

Bourgogne, Marguerite de, 20, 246

Bourgoin, Mademoiselle, 132

Bourse, The, 187

Boutin, actor, 340

Brault, prefect, 138

Brayer, Doctor, 374

Bryant, singer, 307

Brennus, Pichat, 49

Bressant, actress, 440, 442

Bric-a~Bracf 411

Briffaut, writer, 171, 172

Brissot, journalist, 185

Brohan, Augustine, 300, 380

Broval, Baron de, 81, 118, 151, 155, 159,
185

Brune, Marechal, 7, 20, 21, 26, 271

Bugeaud, Marechal, 32 et seq*

Bulos, theater manager, 240, 242, 258, 2$%
279, 291, 339

Burffravffs, Lesr Hugo, 309, 357

Busoni, journalist, 188

Byron, Lord, 85, 111

Cabarrus, Doctor, 335
Cahtn-Caha, Lemerckr, 55
Cailieux, writer, 141
Calderon, Pedro, 122

INDEX

455

Caligula, Nerval and Dumas, 273, 278

et seq.

Camberousse, M., 108
Camp, Maxime du, 402, 422, 427
Camp des Croises, Adolphe Dumas, 294
Canrobert, Marechal, 449
Capitaine Pamphile, Le, 298
Capitaine Paul, Le, 281, 285
Capitaine Richard, Lef 359, 361, 382
Capronne, Carlo, 300
Caprice, Un, Alfred de Musset, 340
Captive de Schamyl, 389
Carrel, Armand, 188, 260, 367
Carrier, Jean-Baptiste, 125
Cartier, innkeeper, 76
Cassagnac, Granier de, 261, 262, 320
Castel, Rene Richard Louis, 74
Castelcicala, Governor, 395
Castellane, deputy, 335
Castiglione, Comtesse de, 414
Catherine Blum, 359, 361, 423
Catherine Howard, 241, 263 et seq., 267

et seq., 275
Catilina, 349
Caucase, Le, 389, 390
Cauchois-Lemaire, journalist, 188
Causeries, 393
Cavaignac, Eugene, 193
Cavaignac, Godefroy, 184, 193, 206, 249,

354

Cave", political writer, 74
Cavour, politician, 400
Cayla, Madame du, 167, 175
Cazalis, H., 430
Cendrillon, 431
Cesar, 375

Chalas, journalist, 188
Chambolle, journalist, 188
Qiampfleury, 310
Changarnier, General, 354
Char lard, chemist, 116
Charles I of Wurtembourg, 431
Charles X, King, 75, 94, 98, 151, 155, 163

et seq., 171, 174, 183, 184, 205 et seq.,

217, 366, 372
Charles VII chex ses grands vassaux, 233,

234,261

Charks-AIbert, King, 272
Charles le Temtrairt, 390
Charlieu, publisher, 389
Charras, Jean Baptist*, 196, 206, 354
Chartres, Due d', 1?2, 185
Chaste a» Chastrt, La, 272, 351

Chasse et YAmowr, La, 100 et seq., 115,

151

Chasseriau, Madame, 181, 187, 204
Chasseur de Sauvagine, Le, 390
Chateau, Dumas's, 343 et seq.
Chateaubriand, Frangois-Auguste, 73, 74,

77, 94, 109, 254, 293, 362
Chateau de Kenilivorth, Lef Soulie, 86,

93, 112.

Chatelain, journalist, 188
Chatelet Theatre, 445
Chatillon, Auguste de, 176, 240, 245
Chdtiments, Les, 373
Chenier, Andre, 85
Cherville, Comte de, 375, 390, 393
Chevalier d'Harmental, Le, 297, 309, 350
Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, Le, 334, 341,

350
Chevaux du Carrousel, ou le Dernier jour

de Venise, Foucher, 293
Chinese Theatre, 430
Chintreuil, journalist, 310
Chodsko, Comtesse, 422
Choiseul, Due de, 199
Chouans, Les, Balzac, 242
Christine, 120, 124, 129, 133, 164, 169,
171, 175, 178 et seq., 206, 228, 262,
279

Christine, Soulie, 129, 139, 169
Christine of Sweden, 114
Chronicle du Regne de Charles IX, Meri-

mee, 242

Chronicles of the Canongate, Scott, 233
Chute d'un <mgef La, 276
Ciceri, painter, 239

Cid d'Andalousie, Le, Lebrun, 108, 152
Cinq Mars, de Vigny, 239
Cirque-Olympique Theatre, 310
CUopatre, 366

Qermont-Tounerre, Marquis de, 71
Clothilde, Soulie, 87
Coigniet, playwright, 110
Colburn, actor, 340
Collard, Caroline, 45
Collard, 27, 45
College Chaptal, 302
Collier de la Reme, Le, 351
Commie Hwnaine, Balzac, 299
Commerce, Le, 332
Compagnons de Jehu, Les, 375, 441
Comte, Achille, 180, 184, 193
Comte Julien, Guiraud, 107
Comte de Leverme, Le, Maquet, 381
Comte de Monte Cristo, Le, 316, 334, 355

456

INDEX

Comte de Morcerf, Le, 355

Comte de Moret, Le, 426

Comte Hermann, Le, 350

Comtesse de Charny, Le, 359, 361

Confession de Saucy, 146

Conscience, Hendrik, 361, 364

Conscience, La, 359, 362, 371

Conscience I' Innocent, 359

Consent, Le, Hendrik Conscience, 361

Conseil, Abbe, 19

Conspiration de Cellamare, Valont, 162

Constant, Benjamin, 149, 206

Constant, Isabel, 355, 373, 380, 389

Conies a ma file, Bouilly, 50

Conies d'Espagne et d'ltalie, de Musset,

142, 237
Constitutional, Le, 74, 138, 147, 188, 257,

265, 332, 347

Cooper, James Fenimore, 84, 296
Coppee, Francois, 422, 430
Cordelier-Delanoue, 180
Cordier, Emilie, 389, 393, 395, 439
Corneille, Pierre, 108, 122, 154, 163, 169,

265

Corricolo, Le, 311
Corsaire, Le, 164, 259, 260
Cosima, George Sand, 298
Cossacks, 35
Coste, 74, 188
Courbet, Gustave, 310
Courcy, Frederic de, 275
Couronne, Alexandre Weill, 367
Courrier des Electeurs, 188
Courrier Frangais, 74, 147, 187, 188
Cousin, Victor, 74
Cretet, M., 36
Crimean War, 372 et seq.
Crimes Celebres, Les, 293
Cromwell, Hugo, 110, 156, 166, 309
Crosnier, 167
Cubieres, Comte de, 71
Cypre, d, 407

Dalvin, Adele, 52, 115, 439

Dame aux Camelias, La, Alexandre jfik,

91, 123, 437

Dame de Carouge, La, de Nenral, 233
Dame de Monsoreau, La, 243, 333, 404
Dame de Voluptt, La, 412
Dante, 85

Dantes, Edmond, 393
Danton, Georges, 10, 86
Darcourt, Antoine, 27
Darcourt, El&nore, 27, 76

Dash, Comtesse, 366

Daumas, Casimir, 367

Daunay, architect, 339

Dauzats, Adrien, 141, 252

Dead Souls, Gogol, 367

Decazes, Due de, 138

Declat, Doctor, 448

Dejazet, Virginia, 240, 293

Dejean, journalist, 188

Delacroix, Eugene, 110, 165, 239, 240, 371

420, 425, 429, 443
Delafosse, actor, 132, 234, 248
Delanoue, M., 242 et seq,
Delaroche, Paul, 256, 307
Delavigne, Casimir, 55, 74, 83, 118, 161,

163, 299, 308
Delaunay, Marie-Thomas e-Amelie, 148

181 et seq., 264, 279, 281, 439
Delrieu, Eugene, 55, 245, 341
Demerson, Mademoiselle, 132
Demi Monde, Le, Dumas fits, 91, 373
Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr, Les, Dumas,
De Leuven and Brunswick, 301, 309,
375

Demoustier, Charles, 50
Denniee, General, 162
Dermoncourt, General, 264, 365
Demiere Annee de Marie Dorval, La,

375

Dernieres Lettres de Jacopo Ortis, 46
Desaix, Louis-Charles, 15
Desaugiers, Marc-Antome, 74, 98
Desbarolles, palmist, 327, 367
Desbordes-Valmore, Madame, 75
Deschamps, Antony, 165
Deschamps, Emile, 165, 176, 366, 372
Deschanel, fimile, 362
Desmoulins, Camille, 10, 86, 156
Desnoyers, Louis, 147, 148, 156, 159
Despr&wx, Louise, 150, 152, 173, 181
Deux Cadavrts, Lesf Soulie, 87
Deux Diames, Les, Meurice, 361
Deux fTrahisons, Les, Maqtiet, 296
Deux Frcres, Les, 276
D^veria, Achille, 160, 165, 176
DeVeria, Eugetie, 165
Deviolaine, M,, 27, 28, 46, 81, 122, 125,

134, ISO, 151, 153, 155, 159, 160
Diamont et k y*ngtancef Le, Pencfoet,

316

Dickem, Charles, 435
Dferham, Due de, 268
Dierx, Uon, 430

INDEX

457

Diner d*Amis, Le, Leuven and Dumas,

50, 52

Djema-r'-Azonat, 330
Donizetti, Gaetano, 310
Don Juan de Marana, 275
Dorval, Madame (see Delaunay, Marie-

Thomase-Ameiie)
Drames Galants, Lest 393
Drapeau Blanc, Ley 74, 185
Drouet, Juliette, 353
Droz, Frangois, 94
Dubochet, journalist, 188
Ducauge, Victor, 233
Due de Reichstadt, Le, 303
Duchatel, Comte, 323
Duchesnois, Mademoiselle, 49, 107, 163
Ducoudray, M., 35

Duel sous Richelieu, Un, Hugo, 165, 167
Dufougerais, editor, 259
Dumas, Adolphe, 294, 341
Dumas, Aimee- Alexandrine (Madame

Letellier), 12, 19, 51, 153, 155, 428
Dumas, Alexandre fils, 91, 123, 232, 258,

264, 281, 293, 302, 326, 328, 367, 373,

437, 441, 445

Dumas, Alexandre pere, passim
Dumas, Colette, 389, 441, 450
Dumas, Jeannine, 441, 450
Dumas, Madame (mother of Alexandre

pere), 26, 35, 118, 149, 156, 281
Dumas, Marie-Alexandre, 228, 232, 258,

373, 441 /
Dumas, Marie-Cessette (grandmother of

Alexandre p^fe), 7, 8
Dumas, Micaelft-Clelie-Cecilia, 405
Dumas, Thomas- Alexandre (father of

Alexanjkt pere), 7-25, 128
Dumilatre, actor, 132
Dumont, publisher, 271, 277, 281 -*

Dumoulin, Evariste, 138, 188
Dupeuty, Adolphe, 366
Dupont, Pierre, 188, 310
Dupr£, Madame, 76
Dupuis, General, 15
Dupuis, Madame, 76
Dupuis, Rose, 240
Dussart, journalist, 188
Duval, Amaury, 270, 283, 284
Duverger, Eugfcne, 240
Dttvernois, publisher, 102

£cole des FamiUes, If, Adolphe Dumas,

341
Jkob d<s vmards> V> 55, Jt8

jficole Polytechnique, 196

£cole Vauthier, 232

£cuyer Daubernont U, Melanie Waldor,
128

Edith aux longs cheveux, Vernet, 241, 267

Education ou les Deux Cousines, U9 Bon-
jour, 107

Eimann, journalist, 367

Elba, visit to, 304

£legie sur la wort du general Foy, par
Alex. Dumas, 103

£llgie antique, 105

Elisabeth d'Angleterre, Ancelot, 162

Elzevir, Daniel, 79

Elzevir, Louis, 79

Emmaf 392, 394, 407

Ennery, D', 308

Envers d'une Conspirationt U, 404

Esprit de la Lique, 144

Esprit Public, L'f 332

Esquiros, Adele, 367

Essler, Fanny, 285

Est-Ange, Chaix d', 294

Esterhazy, Prince, 98

fitienne, Charles, 74

Eugenie, Empress, 431

Eulalie Pontois, Soulie, 87

Exposition Universelle, 374, 430

Fabre, Auguste, 188

\tpabrique de Romans: Mais on Alexandra
Dumas et Cie, 320 et seq.

Falcon, Jenny, 256, 386

Fauveau, Mademoiselle de, 114

Favart, Mademoiselle, 98, 430

Favre, Jules, 449

Fay, L6ontine, 240

Fasio, Milman, 291

Fazy, journalist, 188

Ferdinand, King, 182, 272

Ferrier, Ida (see Pailleterie,

Ferry, Jules, 415

Feuillet, Octave, 366

Figaro, Le, 103, 147, 189, 294, 367, 380

FUle du Regent, Une, 323

Fittes, Lorettes et Courtisanes, 311

FUs de I'Emigre, Le, Dumas and Bour-
geois, 252, 256, 261

FUs de rhomme, Barthd&ny, 164

FUs de Milady, Le, 334

FUs Naturel, Le, Dumas fits, 235

Fmot, Baron, 388

Fiorentino, Dumaa's aide, 322

458

INDEX

Firmin, actor, 132, 134, 148, 149, 150, 174,

182, 240, 301
Fizeliere, A. de la, 367
Flaubert, Auguste, 377
Fleury, Robert, 240
Florian, playwright, 100
Fontan, journalist, 164, 269
Fontaney, Auguste, 141
Fonteney, poet, 168
Forbes, Hugh, 408, 410
Fortier, Marianne, 24
Fouche, Paul, 240
Foudre, 74, 185
Fouinet, Ernest, 168
Foulgues, journalist, 367
Fourcade, artist, 245
Foy, General, 67, 69, 81, 103
Francais Theatre, 54, 67, 108, 112, 129,

150 et seq., 168, 175, 223, 245, 264,

279, 285, 297 et seq., 430
Franco-Austrian War, 13
Francois, King of Naples, 182
Francois If King, 27
Francois II, King, 401
Franco- Prussian War, 449 et seq,
Frederick-William II, King, 10
Fresnel, Augustin, 187
Funertilles de Lows XVIII, Les, 94

Gabriel Lambert, 426

Gailkrdet, Frederic, 246, 247, 263, 268

et seq,

Gailleux, museum director, 141
Gaite, Theatre de la, 417, 442
Gambetta, Leon, 415
Gardes Forestiers, Les, 359, 361, 382, 423
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 392, 395 et seq,
Garibaldiens, Les, 411
Garnier-Pages, 415
Gatayes, Leon, 367
Gauja, journalist, 188, 194, 206
Gaule et France, 245, 258, 259, 261
Gauthier, Abbe, 242
Gautier, Tteophile, 75, 164, 177, 178, 228,

260, 279, 285, 292, 302, 318, 340, 366,

373, 416, 422, 427, 436
Gavarni (Paul Chevalier), 422
Gay, Delphine, 75, 176, 1$1, 366, 372
Genie du Christiamsme, Chateaubriand,

255, 294

Genlis, Madame de, 29
Genoa, visit to, 394

Gentilhomme de la Montag**, L*f 404
George I of Greece, Ktoff, 431

Georges, Dumas and Mallefille, 311
Georges, Mademoiselle, 139, 169, 175, 181

182, 240, 248

Gerard, General, 199, 208
Gerard, lion-killer, 331
Gericault, writer, 110
Germanicus, Arnault, 46, 83, 86
Germany, travels in, 428
Gerome, Jean, 422
Gerontocratie, Beranger, 151
Girardin, fimile de, 161, 307, 332, 335 et

seq., 347, 351, 372, 373, 417
Girardin, Madame de, 181, 300
Giraud, artist, 327
Globe, 188

Goethe, 84, 122, 261, 275, 286
Goncourt Brothers, 376, 422
Gonsalve de Cordova, Florian, 50
Gordoza, Fanny, 417
Goritz, Comte Max de, 367
Goubaux, Prosper-Parfait, 233, 265
Gouffe, Armand, 98
Gozlan, Leon, 345
Gram de Sable, 276
Grand Due Constantin, 388
Grand Journal, Le, 427
Grandniaison, Parseval de, 120
Grands Homines en Robe de Chambre.

Les, 375, 426
Grand Theatre, 382, 424
Grandville, 239
Granier de Cassagnac, 310
GrSgoire, Abbe, 33, 38, 60
Gregorovitch, writer, 386
Gregory XVI, Poye, 273
Grisier, fencing master, 297, 418
Guepes, Les, 301

Guerre des Femmes, La, 334, 350
uichard, artist, 339

hem, deputy, 306
jiraud, Pierre, 83, 107

e, Duchesse de, 149
Gufeard, journalist, 188
Guirot, Francois Pierre, 74, 206, 312 et

feq., 326

Gustavus HI, King, 45
Gtrttinguer, Ulric, 168
Gtryer, journalist, 188
Gynmase Theitre, 52; 375

Hal£vy» Jacques, 414
Halifax, Dianas and D*Ennery, 308
t, Shakespeare, 47, 112, 342

INDEX

459

Harel, theatre director, 167, 174, 218, 245,

248, 251, 253, 268
Harley, M., 24, 58
Haussman, Baron, 188
He-cube, 130

Heine, Heinrich, 370, 373
Helene, of Mecklenbourg-Schwerin,

Princess, 277

Henri III et sa Cour, 137, 146, 154 et
seq., 168, 178, 182, 228, 257, 261, 268
et seq. 301, 420
Henri IV et sa Courf 426, 429
Henri V, King, 255
Hernani, Hugo, 85, 137, 148, 155, 168,

175, 178 et seq., 228, 262, 430
Herold, composer, 259
Herve, Aime-Marie, 414
Hervilly, Ernest d', 430
Hiraux, M., 30, 78, 196
Hirschler, Dumas's manager, 356, 359,

362

Histoire de France, Gauthier, 242
Histoire de la Bastille, Maquet, Alboize,

Arnould, 296

Histoire de la Conquete de I'Angleterre
par les Normandes, Augustine
Thierry, 242

Histoire de la fille dfun Roi-Vatoutt 162
Histoire de la Peinture, U, 334
Histoire de la Peninsule, Foy, 67
Histoire de mes Betes, 428
Histoire des Bourbons de Naples, 404
Histoire des dues de Bourgogne, Barante,

242

Historique, Theatre, 323, 338
Hoffmann, Ernst, 275
Holbein, Hans, 126
Home, Daniel Douglas, 384 et seq.
Homer, 85

Honour est satisfatt, L', 382
Horace, 285
Hostein, Hippolyte, 339
Horoscope, L', 382
Houssaye, Arsene, 422
Hugo, Victor, 75, 83, 85, 108 et seq., 137,
148, 155, 159, 163 et seq., 177, 180,
224, 242, 263, 277, 284, 298, 299, 353,
357, 362, 372, 380, 425, 429
Hugo, Madame Victor, 393
Huguenots, Lts, Raoui, 172
Hutin, 210, 211

tte dtt Hermaphrodites, 146
Imperial du Cirque, Theatre, 375

Impressions de Voyage, vii, 260, 350
Independent, The, 398, 404, 406, 413
Infelicia, 433
Ingenue, 359, 361
Institute, The, 197, 256
International, Theatre, 430
Intrigue et Amour, 341
Invitation a la Valse, U> 376, 378
Invocation d Venus, 415
Isaac Laquedem, 359, 361, 419
Isabel de Baviere, 275, 276, 290
Isle-de-Monte-Cristo, 304
Ismail Pasha, 431
Italiens et Flamandes, 411
Italien, Theatre, 416
Italy, revolution, 399 et seq.
travels in, 273, 302

Jacquot, attack on Dumas, 319, 336

Jadin, Godefroy, 240, 270, 274, 280, 284

Jal, journalist, 74

Jallais, Amedee de, 426

"Jamais Content," 358

Jane, 411

Jane Shore, Lemercier, 152

Janin, Jules, 168, 322, 414

Jay, fitienne, 163, 256, 266

Jerusalem, Verdi, 340

J'etouffe, Musset, 431

Jeunesse de Louis XIV, La, 359, 371, 419

Jeunesse des Mousquetaires, La, 350, 440

Johannot, Alfred, 141, 239, 240

Johannot, Tony, 141, 239, 240

Joanny, 107, 132, 240, 300

Jolivard, painter, 353

Joseph Balsamo, 419, 429, 325, 333

Josephine, Empress, 12

Joubert, General, 13, 206

Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste, 26, 64

Journal de Paris, 147, 189

Journal des Dtbots> 74, 147, 162, 261, 262,

275, 306, 310

Journal du Commerce, 188
Journal Illustre, 416
Journal Pour tous, Le, 375, 390
Journet, Jean, 310
Jouy, Victor de, 49, 55, 74, S3, 108, 163,

178

Judith, Camberousse, 108
Jullicn, director of orchestra, 285
Jussien, Afexis de, 188

Karr, Alphonse, 75, 147, 148, 156, l$9> 301
Keo», 263, 275 * * *q» 440

INDEX

Kemble, Charles, 112
Klagmann, scenic designer, 339
Kouchelef, Comte, 384 et seq.
Kouchelef, Comtesse, 386
Krebsamer, Bell, 182, 227, 281, 439

Labouchere, Henry, 411

Labouret, Claude, 10, 24

Labouret, Marie Elizabeth, 10, 282

Lacroix, Paul, 180, 240, 322

Ladvocat, M., 240

Lafarge, Auguste, 39 "

Lafarge, Madame, 76

La Fayette, Marquis de, 94, 193, 199, 207,
217, 240, 300

Laf enestre, Georges, 430

Laferriere, actor, 340

Laffitte, Jacques, 60, 150, 160, 187, 193,
199, 206, 251

Lafond, actress, 107

Lafontaine, Auguste, 241, 442

Laird de Dumbicky, Le, 311

Lamarque, General, 249

Lamartine, Alphonse de, 74, 83, 85, 94, 108,
168, 362, 370, 445

La Messine, Madame, 422

Lamoriciere, Christopher de, 354

Lancival, Luce de, 73

Langle, Ferdinand, 49

Lannes, General, 26

Laponne, Caroline, 300

Larreguy, journalist, 188

Lassagne, lawyer's clerk, 81, 83, 118, 148,
155, 159, 242

Launay, de, 203

Laurette, 103

Lauriston, de, 71

Lavagua, Fiesco di, 113

Lavasseur, journalist, 188

Lebay, Marie-Catherine, 91, 123, 156, 181,

232, 281, 293, 324, 429, 432, 439, 443
Le Barbier de Tinan, Admiral, 394, 400
Lebrun, Pierre, 73, 108, 152
Leclerc, Victor, 446
Lefevre, M., 52
Le Flo, General, 354
Legouve, M., 415

Lemaitre, Frederic, 223, 237, 240, 264, 291
Lemercier, Nepomucene, 55, 73 et sea
83, 108, 136, 152, 163, 177, 178, 299
Lenore, Burger, 49

Leo Burckart, Dumas and Nerval, 291
Leonidas, Pichat, 49
Leopold I, King, 10, 287

Leroux, journalist, 188

Leroy, Ferdinand, 306

Leroy, Onesime, 163

Letellier, Victor, 51, 53, 428

Lettres & Emilie sur la Mythologie De-

moustier, 29, 53
Leuchtembourg, Prince of, 430
Leuferna, Marquis de, 212
Leuven, Adolphe de, 45, 54, 63, 98, 124

156, 259, 297, 392 ' ^

Leuven, Madame de, 187
Leverd, actress, 132, 149, 156, 240
Levy, Michel, 426, 447
Liberalism, 206 et seq.
Liberalism vs. Royalism, 207 et seq.
Lievre de mon Grand-Pere, Le, 375
Ligier, actor, 139, 175, 280
Liston, actor, 112
Liszt, Franz, 245
Literary collaboration, attack upon, 320

et seq.

Dumas 's aides, 322
Loban, 199

Lockroy, Edouard, 175, 248, 268, 393, 394
Locuste faisant sur un esclave I'essai de

ses poisons, 110
London, visit to, 379 et seq.
LongprS, actor, 269
Louis XI d Peronne, 152
Louis XIII, King, 167
Louis XIII et Richelieu, 426
Louis XIV, King, 8
Louis XVI, King, 10, 172

Louis-Philippe, 20, 94, 161, 218 et seq.

227, 250 et seq., 277, 312 et seq.t 303,

323,340,342,347,372,374
Louise Bernard, 311
Lourdoueix, editor, 172, 174
Louves de Machecoul, Les, 390
Love, Law and Physic, 112
Lucchesi-Palli, Comte Hector de, 260
Luchet, Auguste, 307
Lucrece, Arnault, 86
Lucrece Borgia, Hugo, 239, 261, 263
Lysistrata, 266

Mabire, Lucie, 340
MacKeat, Augustus, 177
MacMahon, Mare"chal, 329, 449
Madame Bovary, Flaubert, 376, 422
Madame de CkamMay, 412, 441, 442, 443
Madame du Deffand, 375

INDEX

461

Madelene, Henri de la, 367
Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, 290 et seq.f

420, 440

Magnetiseur, Le, SouKe, 87
Magnin, Charles, 165
Maillan, actor, 269
Maintenon, Madame de, 298, 427
Maison, Marechal, 218
Maison de Baigneur, La, Maquet, 381
Maison de Glace, La, 393
Maitre d'Armes, Le, 297, 387
Major de Strassbourg, Le, 50, 52
Malibran, Madame, 159
Mallefille, Dumas's aide, 311, 322
Malleville, de, 335
Manin, officer, 396
Maquet, Auguste, 177, 290, 295, 307 et

seq., 340, 355, 381, 425, 429
Marat, Jean Paul, 10
Mar brier, Le, 371
Manage sous Louis XV, Un, 297, 300, 301

et seq., 440
Mori de la Veuve, Le, Delrieu, 245, 279,

341

Marie, 103

Marie Tudor, Hugo, 262
Marion Delorme, Hugo, 85, 165 et seq.,

171, 175, 224, 234

Marino Faliero, Casimir Delavigne, 163
Marius, M., 132
Marius a Mintumes, Arnault, 46, 83, 86,

100

Marlinsky, author, 412
Marmont, Marechal, 186, 191
Marquis de Brunoy, Le, 275
Marquise d'Escoman, La, 393
Mars, Mademoiselle, 77, 107, 132, 149, 152,

162, 173, 174, 177, 181, 240, 271, 290,

300, 339

Marteau, Am£dee, 367
Martignac, de, 161, 167
Martinet, editor, 369, 420
Massacre des Innocents, Les, 110
Massacre de $do, 110
Masson, academician, 319
Mathilde, Princesse, 373, 417, 421, 430
Maubout, actor, 430
Mauguin, Francois, 199
Maxime, actress, 300
Maximilien, Emperor, 431
Mazeres, dramatist, 259
Medusc, La, 110
Menu, actor, 20
Melanle S. (see Krebsamer Bell)

Melingue, fitienne, 322, 340, 342
Mely-Janin, 152
Memoires de Garibaldi, 404
Memoires de I'Estoile, 144
Memoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan, San-
dray, 315

Memoires d'Horace, 393
Memoires du Diable, Les, 87
Menjaud, actress, 152, 240, 301
Menken, Ada Isaacs, 432 et seq.
Mennesson, Maitre, 41, 60
Merat, Albert, 430
Mercure, Le, 49
Mere et la Fille, La, 221
Merimee, Prosper, 74, 165, 242, 294, 309,

422, 429, 449
Merlieux, Edouard, 389

Mery, Joseph, 120, 124, 260, 272, 366, 388,
391, 429

Mes Memoires, vii, 359, 370 ***»»~-

Messeniennes, Les, 309

Metra, Olivier, 443

Meurice, Paul, 311, 322, 342, 361

Mexico, invasion by Maximilien, 415

Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 366

Michel, Francisque, 141, 240

Michelet, Jules, 74, 242, 372

Michelot, Pierre, 132, 149, 152

Mignet, journalist, 74, 188

Millaud, Polydore, 370, 416, 417

Milton, John, 85

Mirabeau, Comte de, 10

Mirecourt, Eugene de, 319, 337

Miroir, Le, 74

Mode, La, 259

Mohicans de 'Paris, Les, Jean Robert, 30,
375, 417, 418, 442

M ois, Le, 348

Mole-Gentilhomme, academician, 302, 319

Molfere, 84, 122, 265, 275

Mowteur, Le, 40, 184, 187, 221, 265

Monsieur Coumbs, 393

Monsieur Nicolas, 361

Montalivet, Comte de, 308, 317

Montcorbier, Francois, 246

Monte Cristo, 67, 88, 380, 388

Montesson, Marquise de, 20

Montmorency, Vicomte de, 71

Montpensier, Due de, 91, 323 et seq., 339,
348

Montpensier, Theatre, 323

Moreau, Eugene, 74, 367

More de Venise, Lef de Vigny, 168, 175

Moret, Comte de, 425

462

INDEX

Morny, Comte, 162

Mort de Cast on de Foix, Scheffer, 110

Morts vont vite, Les, 411

Mouchoir bleu, Becquet, 162

Mourner, fencing master, 31

Mounter, Henri, 260

Mourir pour la patrie, 341

Mousquetaire, La, 106, 363, 367, 420, 440

Mousquetaires, Lest Dumas and Maquet,

322

Mousette, journalist, 188
Mouton enrage, Fontan, 164
Murat, Marechal, 7, 20 et seq., 34, 159, 430
Murger, Henri, 310
Musee des Families, La, 268
Musset, Alfred de, 8, 75, 142, 156, 165, 237,

240, 275, 302, 340, 372, 431
Mysteres de Paris, Eugene Sue, 316
Mythologie de la Jeunesse, Demoustier, 29

Nanteuil, Celestin, 176, 239, 309

Naples, residence in, 404 et seq.

Napoleon I, 3, 12, 15, 37, 40

Napoleon III, 161, 303, 305, 308, 340, 348
et seq.} 372, 374, 414, 431, 438, 449

Napoleon, 223, 228, 268

Napoleonic Wars, 5 et seq.

Narischkine, Madame, 389

Narychkine, Comte, 386

National, La, 188, 190, 199, 260

Nereide, La, 105

Nerval, Gerard de, 176, 233, 260, 278, 286
et seq., 366, 372

Nevire, E., 367

Nevire, J., 367

Newspapers, 74 et seq., 332 et seq., 347

et seq.

Ney, Marechal, 7
Nezel, Theodore, 289
Nicholas, Czar, 372
Niel, Marechal, 449
Nieumerkerke, 422
Ninus II, Briffant, 171
Noblet, Mademoiselle, 175, 240
Noce et I'Enterrement, La, 104, 115, 116,

Nodier, Charles, 74, 80, 130, 136, 140, 176,

252, 293, 299, 302, 356; 362, 429
Nodier, Marie, 141, 181
Noriac, Jules, 425
Northumberland, Duke of, 98
Notre Dam* de Pans, Hugo, 166, 242
Nouvellts Contempormres, 103, 425, 428

Odeon Th<£atre, 137, 167, 180, 235, 311,

o/l

Odes et Ballades, Hugo, 156
Offenbach, Jacques, 414
Old Mortality, 113
Olympe de Cleve, 419
O'Neddy, Philotee, 177
Opera-Comique, Theatre de I1, 20 238

259, 340, 392 ' *'

Opera period, 414 et seq.
Opinion (see Miroir)
Orange, Prince of, 430
Orestie, U, 375
Orleans, Due d', 94, 98, 134, 154 et sea

161, 182 et seq., 207, 212, 217, 277, 282

298 et seq., 324, 349
Orleans, Duchesse d', 161, 299, 306, 347
Orsay, Comte Alfred d', 360, 429
Oscar, 86

Oseraie, Madame, 232
Othello, de Vigny, 112, 148, 165, 168, 180
Oudard, M., 70, 81, 93, 103, 117, 151, 155

185
Oxenford, John, 436

Page du Due de Savoie, Le, 359, 361, 375

Paillet, law clerk, 53, 57

Pailleterie, Alexandre-Antoine Daw de
la, 7, 8, 349

Pailleterie, Ida, Marquise de, 238 258
264, 279, 285, 286, 291, 293, 324, 389

Paiva, Marquise de, 414

Palais-Royal, Theatre du, 88, 163, 270
289, 293

Pandore (see Miroir)

Paradol, Madame, 132, 240

Parfait, Noel, 358, 362, 394, 440

Parfait, Paul, 393

Paris, Dumas takes up residence in, 61

trip to, 55 et seq.
Pascal Bruno, 281
Pasquier, Doctor, 277, 307
Pasteur d'Ashbount, Le, 359, 361
Pastissier Fran$aist Le, 79, 130
Patrie, La, 332
Paul et Virginie, 20
Pauline, 281
Paul Jones , 289
Pauvre Fille, 63, 93
Pearl, Cora, 443
Pelouze, de la, 188
Pelletan, M., 415
Pire Gigogne, Lef 393
Pert la Rwne, U, 393

INDEX

463

Pere Prodigue, Un, 389

Perier, Casimir, 193, 199, 206

Perinet Leclerc, 258

Perrier-Lacressionniere, Madame, 340

Person, actress, 340

Petel, Olande, 427, 441

Petit Journal, 416

Petits souliers, ou la Prison de Saint-

Crepin, Lest Pennery and Granger,

289

Peysse, journalists, 188
Peyronnet, Comte de, 71
Phillips, Watts, 435
Picard, M., 134, 136
Pichot, Amedee, 49, 240, 422
Picot, M., 23
Pieyre, writer, 120
Pifteau, Benjamin, 424
Pigault-Lebrun, Charles, 50
Fillet, Leon, 188, 219, 300
Pilot, The, Cooper, 281
Piorry, Doctor, 445
Piquet, Doctor, 353
Piranesi, Giambattista, 58
Pirates de la Savanc, Les, 432, 436
Piron, poet, 119
Plagnol, journalist, 188
Planche, M., 180
Plante, architect, 343
Plantus, 84
Plessy, Mile., 301
Poete, Le, 106
Poirson, M., 101

Police Devoilee, La, Peuchet, 316
Polignac, M. de, 171
Pommier, Amedee, 176
Pompeii, excavations, 402
Pompier et rEcaillere, Le, Paul de Kock,

289

Ponce, Amedee de la, 46
Porcher, M., 102, 103, 124, 285, 289
Portau, Isaac de, 315
Porte-Saint-Martin, Theatre, 52, 78, 112,

164, 167, 181, 227, 250, 251, 263, 438
Postilion de Longjuneau, Le, de Leuven,

67

Pourtates, Comtesse de, 414
Pray, Francois de, 8
PrS-aux~Clercsf Le, Herold, 259
Premieres armes de Richelieu, Lest 293
Presse, La, 332, 347, 370, 377
PrSvost-Paradol, 422
Prince Imperial, Theatre duf 426
Prmcesse Flora. La, 412

Prisons de FEurope, Lesf Maqtiet and

Alboize, 296
Prose narrative, development of, 242 et

seq.
Provence, Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Comte

de,7

Psyche, 105
Puritains d'£cosse, 113
Pyat, Felix, 307, 319

Quarante-Cinq, Les, 350
Quatre-Vingt-Treise, Victor Hugo, 219
Quentin Durward, Scott, 112
Quinse Jours au Sinai, 390
Quotidienne, 185

Rachel, Elisabeth, 300

Racine, Jean, 108, 154, 163, 169, 265

Raguse, Due de, 186, 191

Ravier, Celina, 367

Reade, Charles, 435

Recamier, Madame, 256

Reformation, 347 et seq.

Reformistes, 343 et seq.

Regnier, Mathurin, 85

Regulus, Arnault, 49, 55, 67, 109

Reine Margot, La, 338, 440

Relation des noyades de cent trente-dewe

Nantais, 125
Remusat, de, 188, 294
Renaissance, Theatre de la, 290, 300
Renan, Ernest, 377, 394
Renaud, Armandr 430
Restoration period, 38, 109 et seq.
Retou, Marie-Fransoise, 9
Revenant, 260
Revival of old plays, 113
Revolution, 10, 207 et seq.
Revolution, 188

Revolution de Sicile et de Naples, 411
Revue Britannique, La, 337
Revue de Paris, La, 257
Revue des Deux Mondesf 242, 258, 259,

264,275

Ricard, Louis-Xavier de, 430
Richard Darlmgton, Dumas, Bendin, Gou-

baux, 233, 235, 248, 257, 261, 263, 268,

420

Richelieu, Due de, 8, 20
Richelieu, 375
Ricourt, editor, 16Q
Rigodie, Vice-Admiral de, 331
Rimtki-Korsakoff, Madame, 414

464

INDEX

Rion, Charlotte- Jeanne Beraud de Hale

de, 20

Rivals, The, 112
Rive Gauche, 191
Robert le Diable, 256
Robespierre, Maximilien, 10
Rochefort, Henri, 185, 367, 422
Rochefoucauld, Sosthene de la, 162
Roi d'Yvetot, Le, Beranger, 86
Rot est Mort! Five le Roi! Chateau-
briand, 94

Roi sf Amuse, Le, Hugo, 259
Rolle, journalist, 188
Romance, 106
Roman d'Elvire, Le, Dumas and Leuven,

392 ^ t

Romano, Liborio, 4(K)
Romanticism, ^ et seq., 110 et seq., 148

et seq., 159, 312-356 ^

growth of, 19 et seq.
invasion of stage, 162
Romanticists vs. Royalists, 117 et seq.
Romeo et Juliette, Soulie, 114, 137
Romieu, journalist, 162
Romulus, 371
Ronsard, poet, 85, 168
Roqueplan, Nestor, 147, 148, 155, 189,

240, 259, 373, 422, 440
Rossini, Gioachino, 240
Rousseau, collaborator of Dumas, 49, 98,

129, 156, 157

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 109
Route de Varennes, La, 393
Rouviere, actor, 342
Rowe, Nicholas, 111
Royal Box, The, 276
Royalist Government, 71 et seq,, 164 et

seq.

Royalist vs. Press, 192 et seq.
Royer, AJphonse, 147, 148, 156, 157, 240
Ruolz, Henri de, 311
Rusconi, Dumas's secretary, 264, 365
Russia, travels in, 385 et seq.
Ruy Bias, Hugo, 300
Sacre de Charles U Simple, Beranger, 151
Saint- Aubin, Madame de, 20
Saint-Aulaire, Comte de, 156, 300
Sainte-Beuve, Charles, 75, 165, 168, 322
Saint-Felix, Jules de, 366
Saint-Mars, Vicomtesse de, 366
Saintsbury, George, 298
Saint-Simonians, 256
Saint* Va&ry, Gaston de, 141, 367

Salle, Jonslin de la, 267
Salle, Vivienne, 298
Salle d'Armes, La, 281
Salteador, Le, 359, 362, 404
Salvandy, de, political writer, 74, 324
Salvator, 375, 388
Samson, actor, 149
Sand, George, 425, 450
Sand, Maurice, 367
Sandraz, Courtilz de, 315
San Felice, La, 413, 417, 418, 421
Saqui, Theatre, 300
Sarrans fits, journalist, 188
Saul, Soumet, 55
Sa?ce-Coburg, Ernest de, 176
Scenes Historiques, 146
Scheffer, Ary, 110

Schiller, Johann von, 84, 122, 261, 286
Schnetz, 110

Scholl, Aur&ien, 364, 367, 422
Scott, Walter, 84, 111, 261
Scotti, General, 400
Scribe, Augustin, 74
Scrivanek, Madame, 346
Sebastiani, General, 64, 206
Sechan, artist, 339
Seigneur, Jehan du, 176
Senty, journalist, 188
Setier, publisher, 103
Sicily, travels in, 274
Stick, Lef 297, 309, 332, 361, 370, 393
Siecle de Louis XIV, Le, 334
Sigalon, playwright, 110
Silvestre, Armand, 430
Sire de Giac, 239
Situation, La, 428
Skanderbeg, Prince, 407
Shaw, Mathilde, 425, 443
She Stoops to Conquer, Goldsmith, 112
Shakespeare, 84, 111, 122, 275
Smithson, Harriet, 112
SodM des Gens de Lettres, La, 319
Sotr de Carnaval, Un, Maquct, 290
Soldat laboureur, Le, 52
Soleil, Le, 332

Soleil Alexandra Dumas, Le, 369
Sophie, Queen of Holland, 431
Sottise des deu# parts, Vremiot, 164
Soulte, Fr&J€nc, 49, 75, 86, 87, 106, 112,
114, 124, 165, 169, 178, 179, 269, 307
Soumet, Alexandre, 55, 74, 83> 165
Souvenirs, 106

TS d'une

, 421

INDEX

465

wvenirs d'une Fran^aise, Les, Merlieux,

389

>ain, travels in, 326 et seq.
>aventa, Silvio, 409

*ectacle dans un fauteuil, de Musset, 302
ael, Madame de, 73, 109, 254
apfer, journalist, 188
urm und Drang, 113
ie, Eugene, 240, 307, 316
tlly, 388

illy-Prudhomme, Rene, 430
dtanetta, 388, 411

oppression of the Press, 188 et seq.
tfinburne, Algernon Charles, 436
ylla, de Jouy, 49, 54, 67
ylphe, 189
ylphide, 295
ylvandire, 298, 309

aglioni, La, dancer, 285

aine, Hippolyte, 377

alleyrand, Charles-Maurice de, 29

alma, Frangois, 55, 67, 107, 163

aschereau, Jules, 199

aster, Amable, 75, 165, 168

'aylor, Baron, 110, 129 et seq., 141, 149,

163, 165, 252, 302
'emps, Le, 188, 189
'erence, 84
*eresa, Dumas and Anicet Bourgeois,

238, 241, 268

*erreur Prussienne, La, 428
'este, Charles, 199
'hackeray, William M., 337
'heaters, Dumas's, 323, 338, 351, 355, 431
"hedtre Dumas, Lef 337
"h£aulon, Marie-Emmanuel, 49, 55, 74,

150, 185, 275
?heuriet, Andre, 430
Thibaut, Doctor, 87, 88, 191
Thierry, Augustin, 74, 261, 278
Thierry, Edouard, 176, 442
rHersrtoulS-Adolphe, 74, 188, 256, 259,

264, 266

rfiomas, Ambroise, 392
rhrte Musketeers, The (see Trots Mous-

quetawes, Les)
Times, London, 377
rissot, Pierre, 240
Poomaine, Prince, 387
V<mr de Babtl, La, 264
Tow <fc N*sle> Lat 239, 243 tt seq., 257,

261, 262, 26% 419

To.ur Saint-Jacques la Boucherie, La, 375

Transition Period, 83 et seq.

Trente Ans, ou la Vie d'un Joueur, 174,

233

Tribune, La, 259
Tribune des departments, 188
Trois M wires, 411
Trots Mousquetaires, Les, 67, 243, 314 et

seq.

Troubetzkoi, Prince, 385
Tiirr, officer, 396
Tyrol, defense of, 14

Uhland, Johann, 85
Urbain Grandier, 351

Vacquerie, M., 309

Vaillant, Marechal, 148, 156, 159, 189

Valade, Leon, 430

Valeria, Maquet and Jules Lacroix, 296

Valmonzey, Madame, 132, 138

Valse de Rosita, 285

Vampire, Le, Dumas and Maquet, 78, 130,

355
Varietes, Theatre des, 52, 264, 275, 276,

308

Vatout, Jean, 162
Vaudeville, Theatre du, 186, 371
Vega, Lope de, 261
Veloce, Le, 328 et seq.
Vtwtienne, La, 264
Venitiens, Les, Asnault, 86
Ventadour, Theatre, 442
Verdier, General, 65, 67
Verdier, restaurateur, 364
Verlaine, Paul, 430
Vernet, Horace, 241
V6ron, Doctor, 240, 257, 259, 332, 335

et seq.

Verron de la Reine, Le, 375
Verschworung des Fiesko jsu Genua, Die,

Schiller, 113
Verteuil, secretary, 247
Vertpr6, Jenny, 254
Vert-Vert, de Leuven, 67
Veuillot, Louis, 422
Viard, Jules, 367

Vicomte de Bragelonne, Le, 334, 350
Victor Emmanuel, King, 392; 395, 400

et seq., 408, 413
Victoria, Queen, 374
Vie tfArfote, Une, 359, 361
Vie de Mon Pere, La, 361

466

INDEX

Vicnnet, Jean, 55, 74, 151, 152, 163, 178,

266, 319
Vigny, Alfred de, 75, 141, 148, 155, 159,

163, 164, 165, 168, 175, 180, 181, 242,

263, 372, 429, 432
Villa Palmieri, La, 311
Villef ort, Madame de, 88
VMefort, 355

Villc-Hermosa, Due de, 98
Villete, Comte de, 71
Villemain, Abel, 74, 165, 293
Villemessant, Jean, 294, 306, 370, 422
Villenave, Theodore, 92, 125, 126, 144, 180
Villers-Cotterets, 1, 10
Villon, actor, 98, 176
Vingt ans Apr&s, 322
Virgil, 85

Vitet, political writer, 74, 242
Volew, Le, 161
Volkonski, Prince, 98

Voltaire, 50, 265
Vremiot, editor, 164

Waldor, Captain, 127, 173

Waldor, Melanie, 126 et seq.f 181, 232, 281

422, 431, 439
Walker, Mile., 126
Wall, General, 195
Waretz, M., 101
Woestyn, Eugene, 367
Wellington, Duke of, 287
Werther, Goethe, 288
Wey, Francis, 141
Wladimir, Le, 385
Woestyn, Eugene, 367

Yriarte, Charles, 440

Zastrow, General de, 98
Zimmermann, M., 240
Zola, fimile, 377

CD <

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