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4957
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
(1803? -1870)
BY ANDREW LANG
O AUTHOR is less capable of being illustrated by extracts than
Alexandre Dumas. Writers like Prosper Mérimée or Mr.
Robert Louis Stevenson can be not inadequately represented
by a short story or a brief scene. Even from Scott's work we can
detach "Wandering Willie's Tale,' or 'The Tapestried Chamber,' or
the study of Effie Deans in prison, or of Jeanie Deans before the
Queen. But Dumas is invariably diffuse; though, unlike other dif-
fuse talkers and writers, he is seldom tedious. He is long without
longueurs. A single example will explain this better than a page of
disquisition. The present selector had meant to extract Dumas's first
meeting with Charles Nodier at the theatre. In memory, that amus-
ing scene appeared to occupy some six pages. In fact, it covers
nearly a hundred and thirty pages of the Brussels edition of the
(Memoirs) of Dumas. One reads it with such pleasure that looked
back upon, it seems short, while it is infinitely too long to be
extracted. In dialogue Dumas is both excellent and copious, so that
he cannot well be abbreviated. He is the Porthos of novelists, gigan-
tic, yet (at his best) muscular and not overgrown. For these reasons,
extracts out of his romances do no justice to Dumas. To read one of
his novels, say The Three Musketeers,' even in a slovenly transla-
tion, is to know more of him than a world of critics and essayists
can teach. It is also to forget the world, and to dwell in a careless
Paradise. Our object therefore is not to give an essence of Dumas,»
but to make readers peruse him in his own books, and to save them
trouble by indicating, among these books, the best.
It is notorious that Dumas was at the head of a «Company” like
that which Scott laughingly proposed to form for writing and pub-
lishing the class of books called Waverley Novels. ” In legal phrase,
Dumas (deviled his work; he had assistants, researchers, collabo-
rators. He would briefly sketch a plot, indicate the authorities to
be consulted, hand his notes to Maquet or Fiorentino, receive their
draught, and expand that into a romance. Work thus executed cannot
be equal to itself. Many books signed by Dumas may be neglected
without loss. Even to his best works, one or other of his assistants
was apt to assert a claim. The answer is convincing. Not one of


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4958
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
these ingenious men ever produced, by himself, anything that could
be mistaken for the work of the master. All his good things have
the same stamp and the same spirit, which we find nowhere else.
Again, nobody contests his authorship of his own Memoirs,' or of
his book about his dogs, birds, and other beasts — 'The Story of My
Pets. Now, the merit of these productions is, in kind, identical with
many of the merits of his best novels. There is the same good-
humor, gayety, and fullness of life. We may therefore read Dumas's
central romances without much fear of being grateful to the wrong
person. Against the modern theory that the Iliad and Odyssey are
the work of many hands in many ages, we can urge that these sup-
posed “hands” never did anything nearly so good for themselves;
and the same argument applies in the case of Alexandre Dumas.
A brief sketch of his life must now be given. "No man has had
so many of his possessions disputed as myself,” says Dumas. Not
only his right to his novels, but his right to his name and to legiti-
mate birth, was contested. Here we shall follow his own account of
himself in his Memoirs,' which do not cover nearly the whole of his
life. Alexandre Dumas was born at Villers-Cotterets-sur-Aisne, on
July 24th, 1803(? ). He lived to almost exactly the threescore and ten
years of the Psalmist.
He saw the fall of Napoleon, the restoration
of the rightful king, the expulsion of the Legitimate monarch in
1830, the Orleans rule, its overthrow in 1848, the Republic, the
Empire, and the Terrible. Year, 1870-1871. Then he died, in the
hour of the sorrow of his
«Immortal and indomitable France. ”
Dumas's full name was noble: he was Alexandre Dumas-Davy de
la Pailleterie. His family estate, La Pailleterie, was made a mar-
quisate by Louis XIV. in 1707. About 1760 the grandfather of
Dumas sold his lands in France, and went to Hayti. There in 1762
was born his father, son of Louise Cossette Dumas and of the Mar-
quis de la Pailleterie. The mother must have been a woman of
color; Dumas talks of his father's “ mulatto hue,” and he himself had
undoubted traces of African blood. Yet it appears that the grand-
parents were duly married. In 1772, his wife having died, the old
marquis returned to France. The Revolution broke out, and the
father of Alexandre Dumas fought in the armies of the Republic.
The cruel mob called him by way of mockery, Monsieur Humanity,"
because he endeavored to rescue the victims of their ferocity. He
was a man of great courage and enormous physical strength. Napo-
leon, in honor of one of his feats of arms, called him in a dispatch
«The Horatius Cocles of the Republic. ” He was with Napoleon in
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ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4959
Egypt, where a quarrel arose, as he suspected and opposed the ambi-
tion of the future emperor. Though Dumas found a treasure in a
bey's house, he honorably presented it to his government. He died
in France, a poor man, in 1806.
Dumas was not at home when his father died. He was staying, a
child of four, with his cousin Marianne.
At midnight I was awakened, or rather my cousin and I were awakened,
by a great blow struck on the door of our room. By the light of a night
lamp I saw my cousin start up, much alarmed. No mortal could have
knocked at our chamber door, for the outer doors were locked. (He gives a
plan of the house. ] I got out of bed to open the door. Where are you
going, Alexandre ? ) cried my cousin.
«« To let in papa, who is coming to say adieu. ?
“The girl dragged me back to bed; I cried, Adieu, papa, adieu! ) Some-
thing like a sighing breath passed over my face.
My father had died
at the hour when we heard the knock! »
.
This anecdote may remind the reader of what occurred at Abbots-
ford on the night when Mr. Bullock died in London. Dumas tells
another tale of the same kind (Memoirs, Vol. xi. , page 255: Brus-
sels, 1852). On the night of his mother's death he in vain sought a
similar experience. These things come not by observation”; but
Dumas, like Scott, had a mind not untuned to such themes, though
not superstitious.
Young Dumas, like most men of literary genius, taught himself to
read. A Buffon with plates was the treasure of the child, already a
lover of animals. To know more about the beasts he learned to read
for his own pleasure. Of mythology he was as fond as Keats. His
intellectual life began (like the imaginative life of our race) in legends
of beasts and gods. For Dumas was born' un primitif, as the French
say; his taste was the old immortal human taste for romance, for
tales of adventure, love, and war. This predilection is now of course
often scouted by critics who are over-civilized and under-educated.
Superior persons will never share the love of Dumas which was com-
mon to Thackeray and Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson. From Buffon he
went on to the Letters to Émil' (letters on mythology), and to the
Arabian Nights. An imaginative child, he knew the pains of
sleep” as Coleridge did, and the terrors of vain imagination. Many
children whose manhood is not marked by genius are visionaries. A
visionary too was little Dumas, like Scott, Coleridge, and George
Sand in childhood. To the material world he ever showed a bold
face. «I have never known doubt or despair,” he says; his faith in
God was always unshaken; the doctrine of immortality he regarded
rather with hope than absolute belief. Yet surely it is a corollary to
the main article of his creed.


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4960
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
At ten, Dumas went to a private school kept by an Abbé Grégoire.
At the Restoration, a boy of twelve, he made and he adhered to an
important resolution. He chose to keep his grandmaternal name of
Dumas, like his father, and to drop the name and arms of De la
Pailleterie, with all the hopes of boons from the restored Royalists.
Dumas remained a man of the popular party, though he had certain
relations of friendship with the house of Orléans. But he entertained
no posthumous hatred of the old monarchy and the old times. His
kings are nearly as good, in his romances, as Sir Walter's own, and
his Henri III. and Henri IV. may be named with Scott's Gentle King
Jamie and Louis XI.
Madame Dumas, marquise as she was by marriage, kept a tobac-
conist's shop; and in education, Dumas was mainly noted for his
calligraphy. Poaching was now the boy's favorite amusement; all
through his life he was very fond of sport. Napoleon returned from
Elba; Dumas saw him drive through Villers-Cotterets on his way to
Waterloo. Soon afterwards came in stragglers; the English, they
said, had been defeated at five o'clock on June 18th, but the Prus-
sians arrived at six o'clock and won the battle. What the English
were doing between five and six does not appear; it hardly seems
that they quitted the field. The theory of that British defeat at
Waterloo was never abandoned by Dumas. He saw Napoleon re-
turn through Villers-Cotterets. “Wellington, Bülow, Blücher, were
but masks of men; really they were spirits sent by the Most High to
defeat Napoleon. ” It is a pious opinion!
At the age of fifteen Dumas, like Scott, became a notary's clerk.
About this time he saw Hamlet' played, in the version of Ducis.
Corneille and Racine had always been disliked by this born romanti-
cist. Hamlet) carried him off his feet. Soon afterwards he read
Bürger's Lenore,' the ballad which Scott translated at the very
beginning of his career as an author.
« Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee. "
This German ballad, says Scott, “struck him as the kind of thing
he could do himself. ” And Dumas found that the refrain
«Hurrah, fantôme, les morts vont vite,"
was more to his taste than the French poetry of the eighteenth cen-
tury. He tried to translate Lenore. ) Scott finished it in a night;
Dumas gave up in despair. But this, he says, was the beginning of
his authorship. He had not yet opened a volume of Scott or Cooper,
«ces deux grands romanciers. ” With a friend named Leuven he


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ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4961
began to try to write plays (1820–1821). He now poached his way to
Paris, defraying his expenses with the game he shot on the road.
Shakespeare too was a poacher; let us excuse the eccentricities of
genius. He made Talma's acquaintance; he went to the play; he
resigned his clerkship: Paris was my future. ” Thither he went; his
father's name served him with General Foy, and he obtained a little
post in the household of the Duc D'Orléans a supernumerary secre-
taryship at £60 a year. At the play he met Charles Nodier, reading
the rarest of Elzevirs, and at intervals (like Charles Lamb) hissing
his own piece! This delightful scene, with its consequences, occu-
pies one hundred and thirty pages!
Dumas now made the acquaintance of Frederic Soulié, and became
a pillar of theatres. He began to read with a purpose: first he read
Scott; «The clouds lifted, and I beheld new horizons. ” Then he
turned to Cooper; then to Byron. One day he entered his office, cry-
ing aloud, “Byron is dead! “Who is Byron ? ” said one of his chiefs.
Here Dumas breaks off in his 'Memoirs) to give a life of Byron! He
fought his first duel in the snow, and won an easy, almost a blood-
less victory. For years he and Leuven wrote plays together,- plays
which were never accepted.
At last he, Rousseau (not Jean Jacques! ), and Leuven composed a
piece together. Refused at one house, it was accepted at another:
'La Chasse et l'Amour ) (The Chase and Love) was presented on
September 22d, 1823. It succeeded. A volume of three short stories
sold to the extent of four copies. Dumas saw that he must make a
name » before he could make a livelihood. “I do not believe in neg-
lected talent and unappreciated genius,” says he. Like Mr. Arthur
Pendennis, he wrote verses “up to” pictures. Thackeray did the
same. "Lady Blessington once sent him an album print of a boy and
girl fishing, with a request that he would make some verses for it.
(And," he said, I liked the idea, and set about it at once.
I was
two entire days at it, -- was so occupied with it, so engrossed by it,
that I did not shave during the whole time. ) » So says Mr. Locker-
Lampson.
We cannot all be Dumas or Thackeray. But if any literary begin-
ner reads these lines, let him take Dumas's advice; let him disbelieve
in neglected genius, and do the work that comes in his way, as best
he can.
Dumas had a little anonymous success in 1826, a vaudeville
at the Porte-Saint-Martin. At last he achieved a serious tragedy, or
melodrama, in verse, Christine. He wrote to Nodier, reminding him
of their meeting at the play. The author of Trilby' introduced him
to Taylor; Taylor took him to the Théâtre Français; Christine) was
read and accepted unanimously.
Dumas now struck the vein of his fortune. By chance he opened
a volume of Anquetil, and read an anecdote of the court of Henri III.
IX-311


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4962
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
This led him to study the history of Saint Megrin, in the Memoirs
of L'Estoile, where he met Quelus, and Maugiron, and Bussy d'Am-
boise, with the stirring tale of his last fight against twelve men.
Out of these facts he made his play Henri III. ,' and the same
studies inspired that trilogy of romances La Reine Margot' (Queen
Margot), La Dame de Monsoreau' (The Lady of Monsoreau), and
Les Quarante-Cinq' (The Forty-Five). These are, with the trilogy
of the Mousquetaires,' his central works as a romancer, and he was
twenty-five when he began to deal with the romance of history. His
habit was to narrate his play or novel, to his friends, to invent as he
talked, and so to arrive at his general plan. The mere writing gave
him no trouble. We shall later show his method in the composition
of The Three Musketeers. '
Christine) had been wrecked among the cross-currents of theat-
rical life. (Henri III. ' was
more fortunate. Dumas was indeed
obliged to choose between his little office and the stage; he aban-
doned his secretaryship. In 1829 occurred this «duel between his
past and his future. ” Just before the first night of the drama,
Dumas's mother, whom he tenderly loved, was stricken down by
paralysis. He tended her, he watched over his piece, he almost
dragged the Duc d'Orléans to the theatre. On that night he made
the acquaintance of Hugo and Alfred de Vigny. Dumas passed the
evening between the theatre and his mother's bedside. When the
curtain fell, he was called on”; the audience stood up uncovered,
the Duc d'Orléans and all!
Next morning Dumas, like Byron, “woke to find himself famous. ”
He had “made his name in the only legitimate way,- by his work.
Troubles followed, difficulties with the Censorship, duels and rumors
of duels, and the whole romantic upheaval which accompanied the
Revolution of 1830. Dumas was attached again to the Orléans house-
hold. He dabbled in animal magnetism, which had been called mes-
merism, and now is known as hypnotism. The phenomena are the
same; only the explanations vary. About 1830 there was a mania for
animal magnetism in Paris; Lady Louisa Stuart recounted some of
the marvels to Sir Walter Scott, who treated the reports with disdain.
When writing his romance Joseph Balsamo' (a tale of the French
Revolution), Dumas made studies of animal magnetism, and was, or
believed himself to be, an adept.
The orthodox party of modern
hypnotists merely hold that by certain physical means, a state of
somnambulism can be produced in certain people. Once in that
state, the patients are subject to suggestion,” » and are obedient to
the will of the hypnotizer. He for his part exerts no magnetic cur-
rent,” no novel unexplained force or fluid. Some recent French and
English experiments are not easily to be reconciled with this hypoth-
esis. Dumas himself believed that he exerted a magnetic force, and
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ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4963
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without any “passes” or other mechanical means, could hypnotize
persons who did not know what he was about, and so were not in-
fluenced by “suggestion. ” In a few cases he held that his patients
became clairvoyant; one of them made many political prophecies, -
all unfulfilled. Another, in trance, improved vastly as a singer; her
normal voice stopped at contre-si. I bade her rise to contre-re, which
she did; though incapable of it when awake. ” So far, this justifies
the plot of Mr. Du Maurier's novel “Trilby. Dumas offers no theory;
he states facts, as he says, including post-hypnotic suggestion. ”
These experiments were made by Dumas merely as part of his
studies for Joseph Balsamo' (Cagliostro); his conclusion was that
hypnotism is not yet reduced to a scientific formula. In fiction it is
already overworked. Dumas got his Christine' acted at last. Then
broke out the Revolution of 1830. Dumas's description of his activity
is “as good as a novel, but too long and varied for condensation.
It seems better to give this extract about his life of poverty before
his mother died, before fame visited him. (I quote Miss Cheape's
translation of the passage included in her (Stories of Beasts,' pub-
lished by Longmans, Green and Company. )
He had, in later years, named a cat Mysouff II.
“If you won't think me impertinent, sir,” said Madame Lamarque, “I should
so like to know what Mysouff means. ”
«Mysouff just means Mysouff, Madame Lamarque. »
«It is a cat's name, then ? »
«Certainly, since Mysouff the First was so-called. It is true, Madame La-
marque, you never knew Mysouff. ” And I became so thoughtful that Madame
Lamarque was kind enough to withdraw quietly, without asking any questions
about Mysouff the First.
That name had taken me back to fifteen years ago, when my mother was
still living. I had then the great happiness of having a mother to scold me
sometimes. At the time I speak of, I held a situation in the service of the
Duc d'Orléans, with a salary of 1500 francs. My work occupied me from
ten in the morning until five in the afternoon. We had a cat in those days,
whose name was Mysouff. This cat had missed his vocation; he ought to
have been a dog. Every morning I started for my office at half-past nine,
and came back every evening at half-past five. Every morning Mysouff fol-
lowed me to the corner of a particular street, and every evening I found him
in the same street, at the same corner, waiting for me. Now the curious
thing was that on the days when I had found some amusement elsewhere,
and was not coming home to dinner, it was of no use to open the door for
Mysouff to go and meet me. Mysouff, in the attitude of the serpent with its
tail in its mouth, refused to stir from his cushion. On the other hand, on
the days I did come, Mysouff would scratch at the door until some one opened
it for him. My mother was very fond of Mysouff; she used to call him her
barometer.


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4964
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
«Mysouff marks my good and my bad weather," my dear mother would
say: “the days you come in are my days of sunshine; my rainy days are
when you stay away. ”
When I came home I used to see Mysouff at the street corner, sitting
quite still and gazing into the distance. As soon as he caught sight of me,
he began to move his tail; then as I drew nearer, he rose and walked back-
ward and forward across the pavement with his back arched and his tail in
the air. When I reached him, he jumped up upon me as a dog would have
done, and bounded and played round me as I walked towards the house;
but when I was close to it he dashed in at full speed. Two seconds after, I
used to see my mother at the door.
Never again in this world, but perhaps in the next, I shall see her stand-
ing waiting for me at the door.
That is what I was thinking of, dear readers, when the name of Mysouff
brought back all these recollections; so you understand why I did not answer
Madame Lamarque's question.
The life of Dumas after 1830 need not be followed step by step;
indeed, for lack of memoirs, to follow it is by no means easy.
Dumas, by dint of successful plays, and later of successful novels,
earned large sums of money - £40,000 in one year, it is said. He
traveled far and wide, and compiled books of travel. In the forties,
before the Revolution of 1848, he built a kind of Abbotsford of his
own, named “Monte Cristo,” near St. Germains, and joyously ruined
himself. "Monte Cristo,” like Abbotsford, has been described as a
palace. Now, Abbotsford is so far from being a palace that Mr.
Hope Scott, when his wife, Scott's granddaughter, inherited the place,
was obliged to build an additional wing.
At Monte Cristo Dumas kept but one man-servant, Michel (his
« Tom Purdie ”), who was groom, keeper, porter, gardener, and every-
thing. Nor did Dumas ruin himself by paying exorbitant prices for
poor lands, as Scott did. His collection of books and curios was no
rival for that of Abbotsford. But like Scott, he gave away money to
right and left, and he kept open house. He was eaten up by para-
sites,- beggars, poor greedy hangers-on of letters, secretaries, above
all by tribes of musical people. On every side money flowed from
him; hard as he worked, largely as he earned, he spent more. His
very dog brought in thirteen other dogs to bed and board.
He kept
monkeys, cats, eagles, a vulture, a perfect menagerie. His own ac-
count of these guests may be read in My Pets'; perhaps the most
humorous, good-humored, and amusing of all his works.
The Revolution of 1848 impoverished him and drove him from
Monte Cristo; not out of debt to his neighbors. Dumas was a cheer-
ful giver, but did not love to “fritter away his money in paying
bills. ” He started newspapers, such as The Musketeer, and rather
lost than gained by a careless editorship. A successful play would


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ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4965
enrich him, and he would throw away his gains. He went with
Garibaldi on his expedition against the King of Naples, and was
received with ingratitude by the Neapolitans.
A friend of Daniel Dunglas Home, the medium,” he accompanied
him to Russia, where Home married a lady of a noble and wealthy
family. Returned to France, Dumas found his popularity waning.
His plays often failed; he had outlived his success and his genera-
tion; he had saved nothing; he had to turn in need to his son
Alexandre, the famous dramatist. Finally he died, doubting the
security of his own fame, in the year of the sorrows of France.
Dumas is described by Michelet as “a force of nature. ” Never
was there in modern literature a force more puissant, more capri-
cious, or more genial. His quantity of mind was out of all propor-
tion to its quality. He could learn everything with ease; he was a
skilled cook, a fencer; he knew almost as if by intuition the tech-
nique and terminology of all arts and crafts. Ignorant of Greek, he
criticized and appreciated Homer with an unmatched zest and appre-
ciation. Into the dry bones of history he breathed life, mere names
becoming full-blooded fellow-creatures under his spell. His inspira-
tion was derived from Scott, a man far more learned than he, but
scarcely better gifted with creative energy. Like Scott he is long,
perhaps prolix; like him he is indifferent to niceties of style, does
not linger over the choice of words, but serves himself with the first
that comes to hand. Scott's wide science of human nature is not his;
but his heroes, often rather ruffianly, are seldom mere exemplary
young men of no particular mark. More brilliantly and rapidly than
Scott, he indicates action in dialogue. He does not aim at the con-
struction of rounded plots; his novels are chronicles which need never
stop while his heroes are alive. His plan is to take a canvas of fact,
in memoir or history, and to embroider his fantasies on that. Occa-
sionally the canvas (as Mr. Saintsbury says) shows through, and we
have blocks of actual history. His Joan of Arc' begins as a ro-
mance, and ends with a comparatively plain statement of facts too
great for any art but Shakespeare's. But as a rule it is not histori-
cal facts, it is the fictitious adventures of characters living in an
historical atmosphere, that entertain us in Dumas.
The minute inquirer may now compare the sixteenth-century
Memoirs of Monsieur D'Artagnan' (fictitious memoirs, no doubt) with
the use made of them by Dumas in The Three Musketeers) and
“Twenty Years After. ' The Memoirs) (reprinted by the Librairie
Illustrée, Paris) gave Dumas his opening scenes; gave him young
D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, Aramis, Rosnay, De Treville, Milady, the
whole complicated intrigue of Milady, D'Artagnan, and De Vardes.
They gave him several incidents, duels, and local color. ” By


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4966
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
making Milady the wife of Athos, Dumas knotted his plot; he added
the journey to England, after the Queen's diamonds; from a subordi-
nate character he borrowed the clerical character of Aramis; a mere
hint in the Memoirs) suggested the Bastion Saint-Gervais. The dis-
crimination of character, the dialogue, and many adventures, are
Dumas's own; he was aided by Maquet in the actual writing. In a
similar way, Brantôme and L'Estoile, in their Memoirs,' supply the
canvas of the tales of the Valois cycle.
The beginner in Dumas will assuredly find the following his best
works. For the Valois period, (The Horoscope) (a good deal neg-
lected), Queen Margot,' The Lady of Monsoreau,' (The Forty-Five.
Isabeau of Bavière,' an early novel, deals with the anarchy and
misery before the coming of Jeanne d'Arc. For Henri II. , The Two
Dianas' is indicated. For the times of Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis
XIV. , we have (The Three Musketeers,' (Twenty Years After,' and
(The Viscount of Bragelonne. ' These deal with the youth, middle
age, old age, and death of D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis.
The Revolutionary novels, Joseph Balsamo,' The Queen's Necklace,'
and others, are much less excellent. The Regency is not ill done in
(The Regent's Daughter'; and “The Chevalier of Harmenthal,' with
(Olympe of Cleves,' has many admirers. Quite apart from these is
the immense modern fantasy of The Count of Monte Cristo'; the
opening part alone is worthy of the master. “The Black Tulip,' so
warmly praised by Thackeray, is an innocent little romance of the
days of Dutch William. Les jeunes filles may read The Black Tulip':
indeed, Dumas does not sacrifice at all to “the Goddess of Lubricity,”
even when he describes very lax moralities.
With a knowledge of these books, and of My Pets) and the
Memoirs,' any student will find himself at home in Dumas, and can
make wider ranges in that great wilderness of fancy. Some autobio-
graphical details will be found in the novel called 'Ange Pithou. '
(Isaac Laquedem' was meant to be a romance of the Wandering
Jew; only two volumes are published. Philosophy a reader will not
find, nor delicate analysis, nor chiseled style ); but he will be in
touch with a great sunny life, rejoicing in all the accidents of exist-
ence.
Alany


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ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4967
THE CURE FOR DORMICE THAT EAT PEACHES
From (The Count of Monte Cristo)
N°
or on the same night he had intended, but the next morn-
ing, the Count of Monte Cristo went out on the road to
Orléans. Leaving the village of Linas, without stopping
at the telegraph, which at the moment the count passed threw
out its long bony arms, he reached the tower of Montlhéry, sit-
uated, as every one knows, upon the highest point of the plain
of that name. At the foot of the hill the count dismounted, and
began to ascend the mountain by a little winding path about
eighteen inches wide; when he reached the summit he found
himself stopped by a hedge, upon which green fruit had suc-
ceeded to red and white flowers.
Monte Cristo looked for the door of the inclosure, and was
not long in finding it. It was a little wooden gate, working on
willow hinges, and fastened with a nail and string. The count
soon understood its mechanism, and the door opened. He then
found himself in a little marvelously well-kept garden, about
twenty feet long by twelve wide, bounded on one side by part
of the hedge, in which was formed the ingenious machine we
have named a door; and on the other by the old tower, covered
with ivy and studded with wild flowers. Monte Cristo stopped,
after having closed the door and fastened the string to the nail,
and cast a look around.
“The man at the telegraph,” said he, “must either keep a gar-
dener or devote himself passionately to horticulture. ” Suddenly
he struck himself against something crouching behind a wheel-
barrow filled with leaves; the something rose, uttered an excla-
mation of astonishment, and Monte Cristo found himself facing a
man about fifty years old, who was plucking strawberries, which
he was placing upon vine-leaves. He had twelve leaves and
about as many strawberries, which, on rising suddenly, he let
fall from his hand. "You are gathering your crop, sir? ” said
Monte Cristo, smiling.
"Excuse me, sir," replied the man, raising his hand to his
cap; “I am not up there, I know, but I have only just come
down. ”
« Do not let me interfere with you in anything, my friend,"
said the count; "gather your strawberries, if indeed there are
any left. »


## p. 4968 (#136) ###########################################

4968
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
"I have ten left," said the man, "for here are eleven, and I
had twenty-one, five more than last year. But I am not sur-
prised; the spring has been warm this year, and strawberries re-
quire heat, sir. This is the reason that, instead of the sixteen I
had last year, I have this year, you see, eleven already plucked
- twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
Ah, I rniss three! they were here last night, sir-I am
sure
they were here - I counted them. It must be the son of Mother
Simon who has stolen them; I saw him strolling about here this
morning. Ah! the young rascal! stealing in a garden; he does
not know where that may lead him to. ”
"Certainly, it is wrong,” said Monte Cristo, “but you should
take into consideration the youth and greediness of the delin-
quent. ”
“Of course,” said the gardener, “but that does not make it
the less unpleasant. But, sir, once more I beg pardon; perhaps
you are an official that I am detaining here? ” And he glanced
timidly at the count's blue coat.
“Calm yourself, my friend,” said the count, with that smile
which at his will became so terrible or benevolent, and which
this time beamed only with the latter expression; "I am not an
inspector, but a traveler, conducted here by curiosity he half re-
pents of, since he causes you to lose your time. ”
“Ah! my time is not valuable," replied the man, with a
melancholy smile. “ Still, it belongs to the government, and
I ought not to waste it; but having received the signal that I
might rest for an hour” (here he glanced at a sun-dial, for
there was everything in the inclosure of Montlhéry, even a sun-
dial), "and having ten minutes before me, and my strawberries
being ripe, when a day longer — by-the-by, sir, do you think
dormice eat them ? »
“Indeed, I should think not,” replied Monte Cristo: dormice
are bad neighbors for us who do not eat them preserved, as the
Romans did. ”
“What! did the Romans eat them ? ” said the gardener; "eat
dormice ? »
"I have read so,” said the count.
Really! They can't be nice, though they do say (as fat as
a dormouse. It is not a wonder they are fat, sleeping all day,
and only waking to eat all night. Listen: last year I had four
apricots— they stole one; I had one nectarine, only one — well,
(


## p. 4969 (#137) ###########################################

ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4969
>
sir, they ate half of it on the wall; a splendid nectarine - I
never ate a better. ”
«You ate it ? »
« That is to say, the half that was left — you understand; it
was exquisite, sir. Ah, those gentlemen never choose the worst
morsels; like Mother Simon's son, who has not chosen the worst
strawberries. But this year,” continued the horticulturist, “I'll
take care it shall not happen, even if I should be forced to sit
up the whole night to watch when the strawberries are ripe. ”
Monte Cristo had seen enough. Every man has a devouring pas-
sion in his heart, as every fruit has its worm; that of the man
at the telegraph was horticulture. He began gathering the vine.
leaves which screened the sun from the grapes, and won the
heart of the gardener. “Did you come here, sir, to see the tele-
graph ? ” he said.
“Yes, if not contrary to the rules. ”
"Oh no,” said the gardener; "there are no orders against
doing so, providing there is nothing dangerous, and that no one
knows what we are saying. "
“I have been told,” said the count, that you do not always
yourselves understand the signals you repeat. ”
"Certainly, sir; and that is what I like best,” said the man,
smiling.
“Why do you like that best ? »
« Because then I have no responsibility. I am
a machine
then, and nothing else; and so long as I work, nothing more is
required of me. ”
“Is it possible,” said Monte Cristo to himself, «that I can
have met with a man that has no ambition ? That would spoil
my plans. ”
« Sir,” said the gardener, glancing at the sun-dial, “the ten
minutes are nearly expired; I must return to my post.
go up with me ? »
"I follow you. ” Monte Cristo entered the tower, which was
divided into three stages. The lowest contained gardening im-
plements, such as spades, rakes, watering-pots, hung against the
wall; this was all the furniture. The second was the usual
dwelling or rather sleeping-place of the man; it contained a few
poor articles of household furniture, a bed, a table, two chairs,
a stone pitcher, and some dry herbs hung up to the ceiling,
which the count recognized as sweet-peas, and of which the good
Will you


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4970
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
man
« Yes.
was preserving the seeds, having labeled them with as
much care as if he had been a botanist.
“Does it require much study to learn the art of telegraphing,
sir ? ” asked Monte Cristo.
« The study does not take long; it was acting as a supernu-
merary that was so tedious. ”
« And what is the pay ? ”
“A thousand francs, sir. ”
"It is nothing. "
“No; but then we are lodged, as you perceive. ”
Monte Cristo looked at the room. They passed on to the
third stage; it was the room of the telegraph. Monte Cristo
looked in turns at the two iron handles by which the machine
was worked. "It is very interesting,” he said; but it must be
very tedious for a lifetime. ”
At first my neck was cramped with looking at it, but
at the end of a year I became used to it; and then we have our
hours of recreation, and our holidays when we have a fog. "
"Ah, to be sure. ”
“Those are indeed holidays to me; I go into the garden, I
plant, prune, trim, and kill the insects all day long. ”
“How long have you been here ? ”
“ Ten years, and five as a supernumerary make fifteen. ”
« You are”
“Fifty-five years old.