Une Visite de Noces' (A Wedding Call) and 'La Princesse
Georges' followed rather closely on Madame Aubray's Ideas.
Georges' followed rather closely on Madame Aubray's Ideas.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v09 - Dra to Eme
”
The King's hands shook as he clasped them, and Chicot went
up to him.
“Well, murmured Henri, “are you convinced now? ”
“Wait a bit,” answered Chicot.
“What do you want more ? ”
“ Hush! listen to me. Creep softly out of bed, and let me
take your place.
“Why? ”
"Because then the anger of the Lord will fall first upon me. ”
And do you think I shall escape ? ”
“We will try, anyway;” and with affectionate persistence he
pushed the King out of bed, and took his place.
"Now, Henri,” he said, "go and lie on my sofa, and leave all
to me. ”
Henri obeyed; he began to understand Chicot's plan.
“You are silent, continued the voice, “which proves that
your heart is hardened. ”
"Oh, pardon, pardon, Lord! ” exclaimed Chicot, imitating the
King's nasal twang. Then, stretching himself out of bed, ne
whispered to the King, "It is very odd, but the heavenly voice
does not seem to know that it is Chicot who is speaking. ”
“Oh! ” replied Henri, “what do you suppose is the meaning
of that? »
“Don't be in a hurry; plenty of strange things will happen
((
yet! ”
"Miserable creature that you are! ” went on the voice.
“Yes, Lord, yes! ” answered Chicot. “I am a horrible sinner,
hardened in crime. ”
« Then confess your sins, and repent. ”
## p. 4999 (#167) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4999
“I acknowledge,” said Chicot, "that I dealt wickedly by my
cousin Condé, whose wife I betrayed; and I repent bitterly. ”
“What is that you are saying? ” cried the King. « There
is no good in mentioning that. It has all been forgotten long
ago. ”
« Oh, has it ? ” replied Chicot; "then we will pass on to some-
thing else. ”
Answer,” said the voice.
"I acknowledge,” said the false Henri, that I behaved like a
thief toward the Poles, who had elected me their king, in steal-
ing away to France one fine night, carrying with me all the
crown jewels; and I repent bitterly. ”
“Idiot! ” exclaimed Henri, “what are you talking about now?
Nobody remembers anything about that. ”
“Let me alone,” answered Chicot, “I must go on pretending
to be the King. ”
“Speak,” said the voice.
“I acknowledge, continued Chicot, «that I snatched the
throne from my brother D'Alençon, who was the rightful heir,
since I had formally renounced my claims when I was elected
King of Poland; I repent bitterly. ”
« Rascal! » cried the King.
“There is yet something more,” said the voice.
"I acknowledge to have plotted with my excellent mother,
Catherine de' Medicis, to hunt from France my brother-in-law
the King of Navarre, after first destroying all his friends, and
my sister Queen Marguerite, after first destroying all her lovers;
and I repent bitterly. ”
"Scoundrel! Cease! ” muttered the King, his teeth clenched
in anger.
“Sire, it is no use trying to hide what Providence knows as
well as we do. ”
« There is a crime unconfessed that has nothing to do with
politics,” said the voice.
“Ah, now we are getting to it,” observed Chicot dolefully; «it
is about my conduct, I suppose ? ”
"It is,” answered the voice.
"I cannot deny,” continued Chicot, always speaking in the
name of the King, “that I am very effeminate, very lazy; a
hopeless trifler, an incorrigible hypocrite. ”
“It is true," said the voice.
## p. 5000 (#168) ###########################################
5000
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
“I have behaved ill to all women, to my own wife in par-
ticular; and such a good wife too. "
"A man should love his wife as himself, and above all the
world,” cried the voice angrily.
"Oh dear! ” wailed Chicot in despairing tones; "then I cer-
tainly have sinned terribly. ”
"And by your example you have caused others to sin. ”
« That is true, sadly true. ”
«You very nearly sent that poor Saint-Luc to perdition. ”
“Bah! ” said Chicot, "are you sure I did not send him there
quite ? »
«No; but such a fate may befall both of you if you do not
let him go back to his family at break of day. ”
“Dear me! ” said Chicot to the King, “the voice seems to
take a great interest in the house of Cossé. ”
"If you disobey me, you will suffer the same torments as
Sardanapalus, Nabuchodnosor, and the Marshal De Retz. ”
Henry III. gave a loud groan; at this threat he became more
frightened than ever.
"I am lost,” he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice
from on high will be my death-warrant. ”
## p. 5001 (#169) ###########################################
5001
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
(1824-1895)
BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY
MS
E SHALL not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the
younger. The history of a great writer is the history of his
works. He was born in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name
on the register of births appears as “Alexandre, son of Marie Cath-
erine Lebay, seamstress. ” He was not acknowledged by his father
until he had reached his sixth year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize
this particular because it had great influence on the bent of his
genius. During all his life Dumas was haunted by a desire of re-
habilitating illegitimate children, of creating a reaction against their
treatment by the Civil Code and the prejudice which makes of them
something little better than outcasts in society.
«When seven years old,” he himself says, “I entered as a boarder
the school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Geneviève.
Thence I passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School;
the principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with
whom he collaborated under the nom de plume of Dinaux. This
school, which numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and
with the rather strange habits which I tried to depict in (The Clém-
enceau Case,' occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino
de Paris and the Pôle-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left
the Saint-Victor School for Monsieur Hénon's school, which was situ-
ated in the Rue de Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the
Collège Bourbon (now the Lycée Condorcet) that I received all my
instruction, as the pupils of the two schools where I lived attended
the college classes. I never belonged to any of the higher State
schools,- I have not even the degree of bachelor. ”
At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He
did not stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life
which he saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled
with serious yearnings.
“You have debts, his father said to him. « Do as I do: work,
and you will pay them. ”
Such was indeed the young man's intention. His first work was a
one-act play in verse, "The Queen's Jewel,' which no one, assuredly,
## p. 5002 (#170) ###########################################
5002
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
would mention to-day but for his signature. The date was 1845, and
the author was then twenty-one. Other works by him were published
at various times in the Journal des Demoiselles.
“I was,” he has said, “the careless, lazy, and spoilt child of all
my father's friends. I believed in the eternity of youth, of strength,
of joy. I spent the whole day laughing, the whole night sleeping,
unless I had some reason for writing verses. ”
About 1846 he set resolutely to work. He turned to novel-writing,
which seemed to him to offer greater facilities for reaching the
public and greater chances of immediate income than dramatic com-
position. Only two of his novels have survived: La Dame aux
Camélias' (Camille: 1848), because from this book came the immor-
tal drama by the same title; and (The Clémenceau Case,' because the
author wrote it when he was in complete possession of his talent,
and because moreover it is a first-rate work.
It was in 1852 that the Vaudeville Theatre gave the first perform-
ance of Camille,' the fortune of which was to be so extraordinary.
For two or three years the play had been tossed from theatre to
theatre. Nobody wanted it. To the ideas of the time it seemed
simply shocking, and the play was still forbidden in London after its
performances in France were numbered by the hundreds.
There is this special trait in Camille '- it was a work all instinct
with the spirit of youth. Dumas twenty years later sadly said:
“I might perhaps make another Demi-Monde'; I could not make
another Camille. ) » There existed, indeed, other works which have
all the fire and charm of the twentieth year. Polyeucte) is Cor-
neille's masterpiece; his Cid breathes the spirit of youth : Corneille
at forty could not have written the Cid. ' Racine's first play is
(Andromaque': Beaumarchais's is the Barber of Seville'; Rossini,
when young, enlivened it with his light and sparkling airs. Fifteen
years later he himself wrote his William Tell,' a higher work, but a
work which was not young.
If the theatrical managers had recoiled from Camille ' in spite of
the great names that recommended it, it is because it was cut after
a pattern to which neither they nor the public were accustomed; it
is because it contained the germ. of a whole dramatic revolution.
Now, the author was not a theatrical revolutionist. He had not said
to himself, “I am going to throw down the old fabric of the drama,
and erect a new one on its ruins. ” To tell the truth, he had no
idea of what he was doing. He had witnessed a love drama. He
had thrown it still throbbing upon the stage, without any regard for
the dramatic conventions which were then imposed upon playwrights,
and which were almost accepted as laws. He had simply depicted
what he had seen. All the managers, attached as they were to the
## p. 5003 (#171) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5003
old customs, and respectful of the traditions, had trembled with hor-
ror when they saw moving around Camille the ignoble Prudence, the
idiotic Duc de Varville, the silly Saint-Gaudens. But the public —
though the fact was suspected neither by them nor by the public
itself-yearned for more truth upon the boards. When Camille )
was presented to them, the play-goers uttered a cry of astonishment
and joy: that was the thing! that was just what they wanted !
From that day, which will remain as a date in the history of the
French stage, the part of Camille has been performed by all the
celebrated actresses. The part has two sides: one may see in it a
degraded woman who has fallen profoundly in love, rather late in
life; one may also see in it a woman, already poetical in her own
nature, suddenly carried away by a great passion into the sacred
regions of the Ideal.
Almost any young man in Dumas's place would have lost his head
after so astounding a success, and might not have resisted the temp-
tation of at once working out the vein. For on coming out of the
theatre after the first performance, the author had all the managers
at his feet, and the smallest trifle was sure to be accepted if it only
had his signature. But he had learned, by the side of “a prodigal
father,” the art of husbanding his talent. He declined to front the
footlights again, save with a work upon which he had been able to
bestow all the care and labor it deserved: he waited a year before
he gave, at the Gymnase theatre, Diane de Lys. ?
Diane de Lys' undoubtedly pleased the public, but its success was
not exactly brilliant. It is full of great qualities, it is strongly con-
ceived, constructed with rare power and logic, but it added nothing
to his reputation. The play as a whole seemed long and melancholy.
It is a curious subject for critical study, as one of the stages in which
the genius of the author stopped awhile, on its way to higher works.
It will leave no great trace in his career.
Two years later he gave at the Gymnase theatre – I do not dare
to say his masterpiece, but certainly the best constructed and most
enjoyable play he ever wrote, “Le Demi-Monde) (The Other Half-
World). In this play he discovered and defined the very peculiar
world of those women who live on the margin of regular “society,”
and try to preserve its tone and demeanor. What scientific and
strong construction are here! What an admirable disposition of the
scenes, both fexible and logical! And through the action, which
moves on with wonderful straightforwardness and breadth, how many
portraits, drawn with a steady hand, each one bearing such distinctive
features that you would know them if you met them on the street!
Olivier de Jalin, the refined Parisian, the dialectician of the play,
who is no other than Dumas himself; Raymond de Nanjac, handsome
## p. 5004 (#172) ###########################################
5004
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
and honest, but not keen or Parisian; and that giddy Valentine de
Sanctis, whose head turns with the wind, whose tongue cannot rest
one moment; and especially Suzanne d'Ange, so witty, so complex, so
devious in her motions, so roublarde, as a Parisian of to-day would say.
Between The Demi-Monde,' and La Question d'Argent' (The
Money Question), which followed, Dumas spent two years at work.
La Question d'Argent' is a favorite play with the connoisseurs; but
its reception by the public was of the coldest. It is a noteworthy
fact that plays turning upon money have never been successful.
Le Sage's (Turcaret' is a dramatic masterpiece: it never had the
luck to please the crowd. Dumas's Jean Giraud is, however, a very
curiously studied character. The author has represented in him the
commonest type of the shady money-man, the unconscious rascal.
And very skillfully he made an individual out of that general type,
by giving to Jean Giraud a certain rough good-nature; the appear-
ance of a good fellow, with a certain degree of fineness; a mixture
of humility and self-conceit, of awkwardness and impudence, and
even some ideas as to the power of money that do not lack dig-
nity, and some real liberality of sentiment and act,— for wealth alone,
though acquired by ignominious means, suggests and dictates to the
great robbers, some advantageous movements which the small rascal
cannot indulge in: and around this Turcaret of the Second Empire
how many pictures of honest people, every one of whom, in his or
her way, is good and fine!
One year later Dumas carried to the Gymnase, his favorite theatre,
(Le Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son); and the next year Un Père
Prodigue' (A Prodigal Father; known also in English through a free
adaptation as My Awful Dad').
In “Le Fils Naturel’ Dumas for the first time wrote a theme-play,
a kind of work in which he was to become a master. Hitherto we
have seen him drawing pictures of manners. To be sure, philosoph-
ical considerations on the period depicted are not wanting, but the
play has not the form and does not assume the movement of a thesis.
It does not take up one special trait of our social order, one of our
worldly prejudices, in order to show its strong and weak sides. Le
Fils Naturel’ is the work of a moralist as well as of a playwright; or
rather, it is the work of a playwright who was a born moralist.
l'n Père Prodigue' originally excited great curiosity. It escaped
no one that in his Count Fernand de la Rivonnière, Dumas had shown
us some traits of his illustrious father, who had been a prodigal father;
and that he had depicted himself in Viscount André. Every one made
comparisons; some, of course, accused the author of filial disrespect.
The accusation was ridiculous, and he did not even answer it. He
had so well disguised the persons, he had transported them into such
## p. 5005 (#173) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5005
different surroundings, that no one could recognize in them their
true prototypes. Then - and this is no small praise — if Count de la
Rivonnière is guilty of one fault, that of throwing to the wind his
fortune, he is a most amiable nobleman, full of broad ideas and gen-
erous sentiments, has a warm heart. The fourth act, in which the
father sacrifices himself in order to save his son's life, is pathetic in
the extreme. But nothing equals the first act, which is a model of
animated and picturesque composition. No one ever painted in more
vivid colors the pillage of a household, and a family without so much
as a shadow of discipline. It is an accumulation of small details, not
one of which is of an indifferent nature, and which, taken together,
drive into our minds the idea that this nobleman, so well-mannered,
so charming in conversation, so sober for himself, is running to ruin
as gayly as he can.
For four years after the production of 'Un Père Prodigue' Dumas
wrote nothing. But in 1864 he reappeared at the Gymnase with a
strange play, “L'Ami des Femmes) (A Friend of the Sex), which
completely failed. After L'Ami des Femmes there was another
interruption, not of Dumas's labors but of his dramatic production.
Perhaps he was sick of an art which had caused him a cruel disap-
pointment. He turned again to novel-writing, and published (1866)
L'Affaire Clémenceau' (The Clémenceau Case), the success of which
was not as great as he had hoped. In France, when a man is supe-
rior in one specialty people will not let him leave it. He is not al-
lowed to be at once an unequaled novelist and a first-rate dramatist.
At that time Dumas hesitated which road to follow. An incident
which created a great deal of comment threw him back towards the
stage, and towards a new form of comedy.
M. Émile de Girardin, one of the best known publicists of the Sec-
ond Empire, had bethought himself, when over fifty years of age, and
knowing nothing of this kind of work, to write a play. He had been
a great friend of Dumas père, and had kept up the most affectionate
intercourse with his son. He had asked him to fit his play for the
stage. It possessed one really dramatic idea. Dumas, in order to
oblige his father's friend, made out of it (Le Supplice d'une Femme)
(A Woman's Torture). Émile de Girardin, who was self-conceited and
somewhat despotic, refused to recognize his offspring in the bear that
Dumas had licked. He declined to sign the play: “Neither shall I,”
Dumas retorted.
A Woman's Torture) was acted at the Comédie Française with
extraordinary success. This success was for Dumas a warning and a
lesson. A Woman's Torture) was a three-act play, short, concise,
panting, which hurried to the coup de théâtre of the second act, upon
which the drama revolved, and rushed to its conclusion. The time
## p. 5006 (#174) ###########################################
5006
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
of five-act comedies, with ample expositions, copious developments,
philosophical disquisitions, curious and fanciful episodes, was gone.
Henceforth the dramatist had to deal with a hurried and blasé public,
which, taking dinner at eight, could give to the theatre but a short
time, and an attention disturbed by the labor of digestion. A Wo-
man's Torture,' which lasted only an hour and a half, and proceeded
only by rapid strokes, was exactly what that public wanted. After
that time Dumas wrote only three-act and one-act plays; using four
acts only for (Les Idées de Madame Aubray) (Madame Aubray's
Ideas); and these four acts are very short. In 1867 this play an-
nounced Dumas's return to the stage; and Dumas is here more para-
doxical than he had ever been. His theme looked like a wager not
simply against bourgeois prejudices, but even against good sense, and,
I dare to say, against justice. This wager was won by Dumas, thanks
to an incredible display of skill. He took up the thesis a second
time in 'Denise,' and won his wager again, but with less difficulty.
In Denise) the lover struggles only against social prejudices, and
allows himself to be carried away by one of those emotional fits
which disturb and confound human reason. In Madame Aubray's
Ideas) the triumph is one of pure logic.
Une Visite de Noces' (A Wedding Call) and 'La Princesse
Georges' followed rather closely on Madame Aubray's Ideas. ' (A
Wedding Call’! — what a thunderbolt then! It was of but one act,
but one act the effect of which was prodigious, the echo of which is
still heard. Time and familiarity have now softened for us the too
sharp outlines of this bitter play. It has been acknowledged a
masterpiece. It is certainly one of the boldest works of this extraor-
dinary magician, who, thanks to his unerring skill and to the daz-
zling wit of his dialogue, brought the public to listen to whatever he
chose to put upon the stage. It seemed that, like a lion tamer in
the arena, Dumas took pleasure in belaboring and exasperating this
many-headed monster, in order to prove to his own satisfaction that
he could subdue its revolts.
'La Princesse Georges) is a work of violent and furious passion.
We find in it Madame de Terremonde, the good woman who adores
her husband, but who adores him with fury, who wants him all to
herself, and who, when sure that she is betrayed, passes from the
most exasperated rage to tears and despair. There is in the first
act a scene of exposition which has become celebrated. No one ever
so rapidly mastered the public; no one ever from the first stroke so
painfully twisted the heart of the spectators.
Let us pass rapidly over La Femme de Claude (Claude's Wife:
1873). Of all his plays it is the one Dumas said he liked best, the
one he most passionately defended with all sorts of commentaries,
## p. 5007 (#175) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5007
letters, prefaces, etc. ; the one which he insisted on having revived, a
long time after it had failed. To my mind that play was a mistake:
and the public, in spite of Dumas's arguments, in spite of the pro-
tests of the critics, who are often very glad to distinguish themselves
by not yielding to the common voice,– the public insisted on agree-
ing with me.
Only a few months later, Dumas brilliantly retrieved himself with
(Monsieur Alphonse. His Madame Guichard is the most cheerfully
vulgar type of the parvenue which any one ever dared to put upon
the stage. She can hardly read and write; she is no longer young,
and she is “to boot” very proud of her money; she has no tact and
no taste; but at heart she is a good sort of woman. Her morality is
as primitive as her education. But deceit disgusts her; she hates but
one thing, she says, - lying. She is not troubled by conventionalities,
and her speech has all the color and energy of popular speech. But
see! Dumas in depicting this woman preserved exquisite measure.
Madame Guichard says many pert and droll things; she never utters
a coarse word. Her language is picturesque; it is free from slang.
Hers is a vulgar nature, but she does not offend delicate ears by the
grossness of her utterance. Dumas never drew a more living picture;
she is the joy of this rather sad play.
All that remain to be reviewed are “L'Étrangère,' 'La Princesse
de Bagdad,' and 'Françillon’; all of which were given at the Comédie
Française. L'Étrangère' is indeed a melodrama, with an admixture
of comedy. Had he gone further in that direction, Dumas might have
made a new sort of play, which would perhaps have reigned a long
time on the stage. But after this trial, successful though it was, he
stopped. "La Princesse de Bagdad' entirely failed. Françillon
was Dumas's last success at the Comédie Française.
After 1887 Dumas gave nothing to the stage. He had completed
a great five-act play, (The Road to Thebes,' which the manager of
the Comédie Française hoped every year to put on the boards.
Dumas kept promising it; but either from distrust of himself or of
the public, or from fatigue, or fear of meeting with failure, he asked
for new delays, until the day when he declared that not only the
play would not be acted during his life, but that he would not even
allow it to be acted after his death.
This death he saw coming, with sad but calm eyes. It was
sorrow for us to see this man, whom we had known so quick and
alert, grow weaker every day, showing the progress of disease in his
shriveled features and body. The complexion had lost all color, the
cheeks had become flaccid, the eye had no life left.
On October ist, 1895, he wrote to his friend Jules Claretie :-
“Do not depend upon me any more; I am vanquished. There are
a
## p. 5008 (#176) ###########################################
5008
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
moments when I mourn my loss, as Madame D'Houdetot said when
dying. ” He was at Puys, by the seaside, when he wrote that de-
spairing letter. He returned to Marly, there to die, surrounded by his
family, on November 28th, 1895. , in a house which he loved and
which had been bequeathed to him years before by an intimate
friend.
His loss threw into mourning the world of letters, and the whole
of Paris. People discovered then – for death loosens every tongue
and every pen
– how kind and generous in reality was Dumas, who
had often been accused of avarice by those who contrasted him with
his father; how many services he had discreetly rendered, how open
his hand always was. His constant cheerfulness and good-nature
had finally caused him to be forgiven for his wit, which was sarcastic
and cutting, and for his success, which had thrown so many rivals
into the shade. This witty man, who was always obliging and even
tender-hearted, had no envy, and gave his applause without a shadow
of reserve to the successes of others. Every young author found in
him advice and support; he did not expect gratitude, and therefore
was soured by no disappointment. He was a good man, partly from
nature, partly from determination; for he deemed that, after all, the
best way to live happy in this world is to make happy as many
people as possible.
If in this long essay I have not spoken of Dumas as a moralist, it
is because, in my opinion, in spite of all that has been said, Dumas
was a dramatist a great deal more than a philosopher. In his com-
edies he discussed a great many moral and social questions, without
giving a solution for any; or rather, the solutions that he gave were
due not to any set of fixed principles, but to the conclusion which he
was preparing for this play or that. He said, indifferently, “Kill her >>
or «Forgive her,” according to the requirements of the subject which
he had selected; and he would afterwards write a sensational preface
with a view to demonstrate that the solution this time given by him
was the only legitimate one. These prefaces are very amusing read-
ing; for he wrote them with all the fire of his nature, and he had
the gift of movement. But they were a strange medley of incongru-
ous and contradictory statements. Every idea that he expresses can
be grasped and understood; but it is impossible to see how it agrees
with those that precede and follow. It is a chaos of clear ideas.
Dumas was not a philosopher, but an agitator. He stirred up a
great many questions; he drew upon them our distracted attention;
he compelled us to think of them. Therein he did his duty as a
dramatist.
He gave much thought to the fate of woman in our civilization.
We may say, however, that though loving her much, he still more
## p. 5009 (#177) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5009
feared her, and I shall even add, despised her. All his characters
who have the mission of defending morality and good sense are very
attentive to her, but keep her at arın’s-length. They are affectionate
counselors, not lovers. They hold her to be a frail being, who must
be controlled and guided. Some one has said that there was in
Dumas something of the Catholic priest. It is true. He was to
women a lay director of conscience.
He was a great connoisseur of pictures and a great art lover.
Music, I think, is the only art that did not affect him much. He was
a dazzling talker; his plays teem with bright sayings; his conversa-
tion sparkled with them. I did not know him in his prime, when he
delighted his friends and companions by his unceasing flow of spirits.
I became intimate with him only later. If you knew how to start
him, he simply coruscated. I never knew any one, save Edmond
About, who was as witty, and who, like About, always paid you back
in good sounding coin.
Dumas was a member of the French Academy. He had not
wished for that honor, because it had been denied to his father. He
desired, in his reception speech, to call up the great spirit of this
illustrious father and make it share his academician's chair. He had
this joy; the two Dumas were received on the same day. Their two
names will never perish.
Trommiga larry
[The editors have been compelled, for lack of space, to leave out
that part of M. Sarcey's valuable essay which is a professional anal-
ysis of several of Dumas's plays, and which would be of interest,
chiefly, to special students of the French drama and stage. ]
THE PLAYWRIGHT IS BORN – AND MADE
From the Preface to (A Prodigal Father)
O"
F All the various forms of thought, the stage is that which
nearest approaches the plastic arts — inasmuch as we can.
not work in it unless we know its material processes; but
with this difference: that in the other arts one learns these pro-
cesses, while in play-writing one guesses them; or to speak more
accurately, they are in us to begin with.
One can become a painter, a sculptor, a musician, by sheer
study: one does not become a dramatic author in this fashion. A
IX-314
## p. 5010 (#178) ###########################################
5010
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
the pen.
caprice of nature makes your eye in such a way that you can
see a thing after a particular manner, not absolutely correct, but
which must nevertheless appear, to any other persons that you
wish to have so think, the only correct point of view. The man
really called to write for the stage reveals what is an extremely
rare faculty, in his very first attempts, - say in a farce in school,
or a drawing-room charade. There is a sort of science of optics
and of perspective that enables one to draw a personage, a char-
acter, a passion, an impulse of the soul, with a single stroke of
Dramatic cheating of the eye is so complete that often
the spectator, when he is a mere reader of the play, desiring to
give himself once more the same emotion that he has felt as one
of the audience, not only cannot recapture that emotion in the
written words before him, but often cannot even distinguish the
passage where the emotion lies hid. It was a word, a look, a
silence, a gesture, a purely atmospheric combination, that held
him spellbound. So comes in the genius of the playwright's
trade, if those two words can be associated. One may compare
writing for the stage in relation to other phases of literature, as
we compare ceiling painters with [painters of] pictures for the
wall or the easel. Woe to the painter if he forget that his com-
position is to be looked at from a distance, with a light below it!
A man without merit as a thinker, a moralist, a philosopher,
an author, may turn out to be a dramatic author of the first
class; that is to say, in the work of setting in motion before you
the purely external movements of mankind; and on the other
hand, to become in the theatre the thinker, the moralist, the
philosopher, or the author to whom one listens, one must indis-
pensably be furnished with the particular and natural qualities of
a man of much lower grade. In short, to be a master in the art
of writing for the stage, you must be a poor hand in the superior
art.
That dramatic author who shall know mankind like Balzac,
and who shall know the theatre like Scribe, will be the greatest
dramatic author that has ever existed.
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature,) by E. Irenæus
Stevenson
## p. 5011 (#179) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5011
AN ARMED TRUCE
From (A Friend of the Sex)
[The following conversation in the first act of the play takes place in the
pleasant morning-room of a country-house near Paris, the home of M. and
Madame Leverdet. M. Leverdet is asleep in his chair. The speakers are
Madame Leverdet, a coquettish, sprightly lady approaching middle age, and
young M. De Ryons, a friend and neighbor. Madame Leverdet is determined
to marry off De Ryons advantageously, and as soon as possible. Unfortunately
he is a confirmed bachelor, not to say woman-hater, whose cynicism is the
result of severely disappointing experiences. Under that cynicism there is
however genuine respect and even chivalry as to the right sort of woman,-
the superior and sincere type, which he does not happen often to encounter. )
M
ADAME LEVERDET Let us come to serious topics while we
are alone, my friend.
De Ryons — And apropos of them ?
Madame Leverdet — Are you willing to be married off yet ?
De Ryons [with a start of terror]— Pardon me, my dear lady!
At what hour can I take the first train for Paris ?
Madame Lever det Now listen to me, at least.
De Ryons - What! Here it is two years since I have called
on you; I come to make you a little visit of a morning, in all
good friendship, with the thermometer forty, centigrade; I am
totally unsuspecting; all I ask is to have a little lively chat with
a clever woman — and see how you receive me.
Madame Leverdet [continuing]— A simple, charming young
girl -
De Ryons [interrupting her, and in the same tone] – - musi-
cal, speaks English, draws nicely, sings agreeably, a society
woman, a domestic woman,-all at the choice of the applicant.
Madame Leverdet [laughing] — Yes, and pretty and graceful
and rich; and, by-the-by, one who finds you a charming fellow.
De Ryons — She is quite right there. I shall make a charm.
ing husband - I shall; I know it. Only thirty-two years old;
all my teeth, all my hair (no such very common detail, the way
young men are nowadays); lively, sixty thousand livres income
as a landed proprietor -oh, I am an excellent match: only un-
fortunately I am not a marrying man.
Madame Leverdet - And why not, if you please ?
De Ryons (smiling] – It would interfere severely with my
studies.
## p. 5012 (#180) ###########################################
5012
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
Madame Leverdet What sort of studies ?
De Ryons — My studies of woman.
Madame Lever det — Really! I don't understand you.
De Ryons — What! Do you not know that I am making
women my particular, my incessant study, and that I am reckon-
ing on leaving some new and very interesting documents dealing
with that branch of natural history ? - a branch very little under
stood just at present, in spite of all that has been written on
the topic. My friend, I cannot sacrifice the species to the indi-
vidual; I belong to science. It is quite impossible for me to
give myself wholly and completely - as one certainly should do
when he marries — to one of those charming and terrible little
carnivora for whose sake men dishonor themselves, ruin them-
selves, kill themselves; whose sole preoccupation, in the midst
of the universal carnage that they make, is to dress themselves
now like umbrellas and now like table bells.
Madame Leverdet (scornfully) - So you really think you under-
stand women, do you ?
De Ryons — I rather think I do. Why, just as you see me this
instant, at the end of five minutes' study or conversation I can
tell you to what class a woman belongs,— whether to the middle
class, to women of rank, artists, or whatever you please; what
are her tastes, her characteristics, her antecedents, the state of her
heart, — in a word, everything that concerns my special science.
Madame Leverdet - Really! Will you have a glass of water?
De Ryons — Not yet, thank you.
Madame Leverdet - I suppose, then, you are under the impres-
sion that you know me too.
De Ryons - As if I did not!
Madame Lever det - Well, and I am -- what?
De Ryons — Oh, you are a clever woman. It is for that rea-
son that I call on you [aside: every two years).
Madame Lever det – Will you kindly give me the sum of your
observations in general ? You can tell me so much, since I am
a clever woman.
De Ryons — The true, the true, the true sum ?
Madame Leverdet - Yes.
De Ryons - Simply that woman of our day is an illogical, sub-
ordinate, and mischief-making creature. [In saying this De Ryons
draws back and crouches down as if expecting to be struck. )
Madame Leverdet - So then, you detest women ?
## p. 5013 (#181) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5013
De Ryons-I? I detest women? On the contrary, I adore
them; but I hold myself in such a position toward them that
they cannot bite me. I keep on the outside of the cage.
Madame Leverdet - Meaning by that — what?
De Ryons — Meaning by that, that I am a friend of the sex;
for I have long perceived that just as truly as women are dan-
gerous in love, just so much are they adorable in friendship,
with men; - that is to say, with no obligations, and therefore
no treasons; no rights, and in consequence no tyrannies. One
assists, too, as a spectator, often as a collaborator, in the com-
edy of love. A man under such conditions sees before his nose
the stage tricks, the machinery, the changes of scenes, all that
stage mounting so dazzling at a distance and so simple when
one is near by. As a friend of the sex and on a basis of friend-
ship, one estimates the causes, the contradictions, the incoher-
ences, of that phantasmagoric changeableness that belongs to the
heart of a woman. So you have something that is interesting
and instructive. Under such circumstances a man is the con-
soler, and gives his advice; he wipes away tears; he brings quar-
relsome lovers together; he asks for the letters that must be
returned; he hands back the photographs (for you know that in
love affairs photographs are taken only in order to be returned,
and it is nearly always the same photograph that serves as many
times as may be necessary. I know one photograph that I have
had handed back by three different men, and it ended its useful-
ness by being given for good and all to a fourth one, who was —
not single). . . . In short, you see, my dear madam, I am above
all the friend of those women who have known what it is to
be in love. And moreover inasmuch, just as Rochefoucauld says,
as women do not think a great deal of their first experience,-
why, one fine day or another --
Madame Leverdet — You prove to be the second one.
De Ryons — No, no; I have no number, I! A well-brought-up
woman never goes from one experience of the heart to another
one, without a decent interval of time, more or less long. Two
railroad accidents never come together on the same railway.
During the intervals a woman really needs a friend, a good con-
fidant; and it is then that I turn up. I let her tell me all the
melancholy affairs in question; I see the unhappy victim in tears
after the traitor has called; I lament with her, I weep with
her, I make her laugh with me: and little by little I replace the
delinquent without her seeing that I am doing so. But then I
## p. 5014 (#182) ###########################################
5014
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
1
know very well that I am without importance, that I am a mere
politician of the moment, a cabinet minister without a portfolio,
a sentimental distraction without any consequences; and some fine
day, after having been the confidential friend as to past events,
I become the confidential friend as to future ones,— for the lady
falls in love for the second time with somebody who knows noth-
ing of the first experience, who will never know anything about
it, and who of course must be made to suppose he represents the
first one.
Then I go away for a little time and leave them to
themselves, and then I come back like a new friend to the fam-
ily. By-and-by, when the dear creature is reckoning up the
balance-sheet of her past, when her conscience pours into her
ear the names that she would rather not remember, and
my
name comes with the others, she reflects an instant,- and then
she says resolutely and sincerely to herself, “Oh, he does not
count! ” My friend, I am always the one that does not count,
and I like it extremely.
Madame Leverdet [indignantly] — You are simply a monster!
De Ryons — Oh no, oh no, oh no, I am not !
Madame Leverdet - According to your own account, you have
no faith in women.
Wretch! Ungrateful creature! And
yet it is woman who inspires all the great things in this life.
» De Ryons — But somehow forbids us to accomplish them.
Madame Leverdet — Go out from here, my dear De Ryons, and
never let me see you again.
De Ryons [rising promptly and making a mocking bow] - My
dear lady —
Madame Leverdet — No, I will not shake hands with you.
De Ryons - Then I shall die of chagrin — that's all about it.
Madame Lever det -- Do you know how you will end, you in-
corrigible creature? When you are fifty years old you will have
rheumatism.
De Ryons — Yes, or sciatica. But I shall find some one who
will embroider me warm slippers.
Madame Leverdet - Indeed you will not! You will marry your
cook.
De Ryons - That depends on how well she cooks.
The King's hands shook as he clasped them, and Chicot went
up to him.
“Well, murmured Henri, “are you convinced now? ”
“Wait a bit,” answered Chicot.
“What do you want more ? ”
“ Hush! listen to me. Creep softly out of bed, and let me
take your place.
“Why? ”
"Because then the anger of the Lord will fall first upon me. ”
And do you think I shall escape ? ”
“We will try, anyway;” and with affectionate persistence he
pushed the King out of bed, and took his place.
"Now, Henri,” he said, "go and lie on my sofa, and leave all
to me. ”
Henri obeyed; he began to understand Chicot's plan.
“You are silent, continued the voice, “which proves that
your heart is hardened. ”
"Oh, pardon, pardon, Lord! ” exclaimed Chicot, imitating the
King's nasal twang. Then, stretching himself out of bed, ne
whispered to the King, "It is very odd, but the heavenly voice
does not seem to know that it is Chicot who is speaking. ”
“Oh! ” replied Henri, “what do you suppose is the meaning
of that? »
“Don't be in a hurry; plenty of strange things will happen
((
yet! ”
"Miserable creature that you are! ” went on the voice.
“Yes, Lord, yes! ” answered Chicot. “I am a horrible sinner,
hardened in crime. ”
« Then confess your sins, and repent. ”
## p. 4999 (#167) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4999
“I acknowledge,” said Chicot, "that I dealt wickedly by my
cousin Condé, whose wife I betrayed; and I repent bitterly. ”
“What is that you are saying? ” cried the King. « There
is no good in mentioning that. It has all been forgotten long
ago. ”
« Oh, has it ? ” replied Chicot; "then we will pass on to some-
thing else. ”
Answer,” said the voice.
"I acknowledge,” said the false Henri, that I behaved like a
thief toward the Poles, who had elected me their king, in steal-
ing away to France one fine night, carrying with me all the
crown jewels; and I repent bitterly. ”
“Idiot! ” exclaimed Henri, “what are you talking about now?
Nobody remembers anything about that. ”
“Let me alone,” answered Chicot, “I must go on pretending
to be the King. ”
“Speak,” said the voice.
“I acknowledge, continued Chicot, «that I snatched the
throne from my brother D'Alençon, who was the rightful heir,
since I had formally renounced my claims when I was elected
King of Poland; I repent bitterly. ”
« Rascal! » cried the King.
“There is yet something more,” said the voice.
"I acknowledge to have plotted with my excellent mother,
Catherine de' Medicis, to hunt from France my brother-in-law
the King of Navarre, after first destroying all his friends, and
my sister Queen Marguerite, after first destroying all her lovers;
and I repent bitterly. ”
"Scoundrel! Cease! ” muttered the King, his teeth clenched
in anger.
“Sire, it is no use trying to hide what Providence knows as
well as we do. ”
« There is a crime unconfessed that has nothing to do with
politics,” said the voice.
“Ah, now we are getting to it,” observed Chicot dolefully; «it
is about my conduct, I suppose ? ”
"It is,” answered the voice.
"I cannot deny,” continued Chicot, always speaking in the
name of the King, “that I am very effeminate, very lazy; a
hopeless trifler, an incorrigible hypocrite. ”
“It is true," said the voice.
## p. 5000 (#168) ###########################################
5000
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
“I have behaved ill to all women, to my own wife in par-
ticular; and such a good wife too. "
"A man should love his wife as himself, and above all the
world,” cried the voice angrily.
"Oh dear! ” wailed Chicot in despairing tones; "then I cer-
tainly have sinned terribly. ”
"And by your example you have caused others to sin. ”
« That is true, sadly true. ”
«You very nearly sent that poor Saint-Luc to perdition. ”
“Bah! ” said Chicot, "are you sure I did not send him there
quite ? »
«No; but such a fate may befall both of you if you do not
let him go back to his family at break of day. ”
“Dear me! ” said Chicot to the King, “the voice seems to
take a great interest in the house of Cossé. ”
"If you disobey me, you will suffer the same torments as
Sardanapalus, Nabuchodnosor, and the Marshal De Retz. ”
Henry III. gave a loud groan; at this threat he became more
frightened than ever.
"I am lost,” he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice
from on high will be my death-warrant. ”
## p. 5001 (#169) ###########################################
5001
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
(1824-1895)
BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY
MS
E SHALL not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the
younger. The history of a great writer is the history of his
works. He was born in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name
on the register of births appears as “Alexandre, son of Marie Cath-
erine Lebay, seamstress. ” He was not acknowledged by his father
until he had reached his sixth year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize
this particular because it had great influence on the bent of his
genius. During all his life Dumas was haunted by a desire of re-
habilitating illegitimate children, of creating a reaction against their
treatment by the Civil Code and the prejudice which makes of them
something little better than outcasts in society.
«When seven years old,” he himself says, “I entered as a boarder
the school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Geneviève.
Thence I passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School;
the principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with
whom he collaborated under the nom de plume of Dinaux. This
school, which numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and
with the rather strange habits which I tried to depict in (The Clém-
enceau Case,' occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino
de Paris and the Pôle-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left
the Saint-Victor School for Monsieur Hénon's school, which was situ-
ated in the Rue de Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the
Collège Bourbon (now the Lycée Condorcet) that I received all my
instruction, as the pupils of the two schools where I lived attended
the college classes. I never belonged to any of the higher State
schools,- I have not even the degree of bachelor. ”
At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He
did not stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life
which he saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled
with serious yearnings.
“You have debts, his father said to him. « Do as I do: work,
and you will pay them. ”
Such was indeed the young man's intention. His first work was a
one-act play in verse, "The Queen's Jewel,' which no one, assuredly,
## p. 5002 (#170) ###########################################
5002
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
would mention to-day but for his signature. The date was 1845, and
the author was then twenty-one. Other works by him were published
at various times in the Journal des Demoiselles.
“I was,” he has said, “the careless, lazy, and spoilt child of all
my father's friends. I believed in the eternity of youth, of strength,
of joy. I spent the whole day laughing, the whole night sleeping,
unless I had some reason for writing verses. ”
About 1846 he set resolutely to work. He turned to novel-writing,
which seemed to him to offer greater facilities for reaching the
public and greater chances of immediate income than dramatic com-
position. Only two of his novels have survived: La Dame aux
Camélias' (Camille: 1848), because from this book came the immor-
tal drama by the same title; and (The Clémenceau Case,' because the
author wrote it when he was in complete possession of his talent,
and because moreover it is a first-rate work.
It was in 1852 that the Vaudeville Theatre gave the first perform-
ance of Camille,' the fortune of which was to be so extraordinary.
For two or three years the play had been tossed from theatre to
theatre. Nobody wanted it. To the ideas of the time it seemed
simply shocking, and the play was still forbidden in London after its
performances in France were numbered by the hundreds.
There is this special trait in Camille '- it was a work all instinct
with the spirit of youth. Dumas twenty years later sadly said:
“I might perhaps make another Demi-Monde'; I could not make
another Camille. ) » There existed, indeed, other works which have
all the fire and charm of the twentieth year. Polyeucte) is Cor-
neille's masterpiece; his Cid breathes the spirit of youth : Corneille
at forty could not have written the Cid. ' Racine's first play is
(Andromaque': Beaumarchais's is the Barber of Seville'; Rossini,
when young, enlivened it with his light and sparkling airs. Fifteen
years later he himself wrote his William Tell,' a higher work, but a
work which was not young.
If the theatrical managers had recoiled from Camille ' in spite of
the great names that recommended it, it is because it was cut after
a pattern to which neither they nor the public were accustomed; it
is because it contained the germ. of a whole dramatic revolution.
Now, the author was not a theatrical revolutionist. He had not said
to himself, “I am going to throw down the old fabric of the drama,
and erect a new one on its ruins. ” To tell the truth, he had no
idea of what he was doing. He had witnessed a love drama. He
had thrown it still throbbing upon the stage, without any regard for
the dramatic conventions which were then imposed upon playwrights,
and which were almost accepted as laws. He had simply depicted
what he had seen. All the managers, attached as they were to the
## p. 5003 (#171) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5003
old customs, and respectful of the traditions, had trembled with hor-
ror when they saw moving around Camille the ignoble Prudence, the
idiotic Duc de Varville, the silly Saint-Gaudens. But the public —
though the fact was suspected neither by them nor by the public
itself-yearned for more truth upon the boards. When Camille )
was presented to them, the play-goers uttered a cry of astonishment
and joy: that was the thing! that was just what they wanted !
From that day, which will remain as a date in the history of the
French stage, the part of Camille has been performed by all the
celebrated actresses. The part has two sides: one may see in it a
degraded woman who has fallen profoundly in love, rather late in
life; one may also see in it a woman, already poetical in her own
nature, suddenly carried away by a great passion into the sacred
regions of the Ideal.
Almost any young man in Dumas's place would have lost his head
after so astounding a success, and might not have resisted the temp-
tation of at once working out the vein. For on coming out of the
theatre after the first performance, the author had all the managers
at his feet, and the smallest trifle was sure to be accepted if it only
had his signature. But he had learned, by the side of “a prodigal
father,” the art of husbanding his talent. He declined to front the
footlights again, save with a work upon which he had been able to
bestow all the care and labor it deserved: he waited a year before
he gave, at the Gymnase theatre, Diane de Lys. ?
Diane de Lys' undoubtedly pleased the public, but its success was
not exactly brilliant. It is full of great qualities, it is strongly con-
ceived, constructed with rare power and logic, but it added nothing
to his reputation. The play as a whole seemed long and melancholy.
It is a curious subject for critical study, as one of the stages in which
the genius of the author stopped awhile, on its way to higher works.
It will leave no great trace in his career.
Two years later he gave at the Gymnase theatre – I do not dare
to say his masterpiece, but certainly the best constructed and most
enjoyable play he ever wrote, “Le Demi-Monde) (The Other Half-
World). In this play he discovered and defined the very peculiar
world of those women who live on the margin of regular “society,”
and try to preserve its tone and demeanor. What scientific and
strong construction are here! What an admirable disposition of the
scenes, both fexible and logical! And through the action, which
moves on with wonderful straightforwardness and breadth, how many
portraits, drawn with a steady hand, each one bearing such distinctive
features that you would know them if you met them on the street!
Olivier de Jalin, the refined Parisian, the dialectician of the play,
who is no other than Dumas himself; Raymond de Nanjac, handsome
## p. 5004 (#172) ###########################################
5004
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
and honest, but not keen or Parisian; and that giddy Valentine de
Sanctis, whose head turns with the wind, whose tongue cannot rest
one moment; and especially Suzanne d'Ange, so witty, so complex, so
devious in her motions, so roublarde, as a Parisian of to-day would say.
Between The Demi-Monde,' and La Question d'Argent' (The
Money Question), which followed, Dumas spent two years at work.
La Question d'Argent' is a favorite play with the connoisseurs; but
its reception by the public was of the coldest. It is a noteworthy
fact that plays turning upon money have never been successful.
Le Sage's (Turcaret' is a dramatic masterpiece: it never had the
luck to please the crowd. Dumas's Jean Giraud is, however, a very
curiously studied character. The author has represented in him the
commonest type of the shady money-man, the unconscious rascal.
And very skillfully he made an individual out of that general type,
by giving to Jean Giraud a certain rough good-nature; the appear-
ance of a good fellow, with a certain degree of fineness; a mixture
of humility and self-conceit, of awkwardness and impudence, and
even some ideas as to the power of money that do not lack dig-
nity, and some real liberality of sentiment and act,— for wealth alone,
though acquired by ignominious means, suggests and dictates to the
great robbers, some advantageous movements which the small rascal
cannot indulge in: and around this Turcaret of the Second Empire
how many pictures of honest people, every one of whom, in his or
her way, is good and fine!
One year later Dumas carried to the Gymnase, his favorite theatre,
(Le Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son); and the next year Un Père
Prodigue' (A Prodigal Father; known also in English through a free
adaptation as My Awful Dad').
In “Le Fils Naturel’ Dumas for the first time wrote a theme-play,
a kind of work in which he was to become a master. Hitherto we
have seen him drawing pictures of manners. To be sure, philosoph-
ical considerations on the period depicted are not wanting, but the
play has not the form and does not assume the movement of a thesis.
It does not take up one special trait of our social order, one of our
worldly prejudices, in order to show its strong and weak sides. Le
Fils Naturel’ is the work of a moralist as well as of a playwright; or
rather, it is the work of a playwright who was a born moralist.
l'n Père Prodigue' originally excited great curiosity. It escaped
no one that in his Count Fernand de la Rivonnière, Dumas had shown
us some traits of his illustrious father, who had been a prodigal father;
and that he had depicted himself in Viscount André. Every one made
comparisons; some, of course, accused the author of filial disrespect.
The accusation was ridiculous, and he did not even answer it. He
had so well disguised the persons, he had transported them into such
## p. 5005 (#173) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5005
different surroundings, that no one could recognize in them their
true prototypes. Then - and this is no small praise — if Count de la
Rivonnière is guilty of one fault, that of throwing to the wind his
fortune, he is a most amiable nobleman, full of broad ideas and gen-
erous sentiments, has a warm heart. The fourth act, in which the
father sacrifices himself in order to save his son's life, is pathetic in
the extreme. But nothing equals the first act, which is a model of
animated and picturesque composition. No one ever painted in more
vivid colors the pillage of a household, and a family without so much
as a shadow of discipline. It is an accumulation of small details, not
one of which is of an indifferent nature, and which, taken together,
drive into our minds the idea that this nobleman, so well-mannered,
so charming in conversation, so sober for himself, is running to ruin
as gayly as he can.
For four years after the production of 'Un Père Prodigue' Dumas
wrote nothing. But in 1864 he reappeared at the Gymnase with a
strange play, “L'Ami des Femmes) (A Friend of the Sex), which
completely failed. After L'Ami des Femmes there was another
interruption, not of Dumas's labors but of his dramatic production.
Perhaps he was sick of an art which had caused him a cruel disap-
pointment. He turned again to novel-writing, and published (1866)
L'Affaire Clémenceau' (The Clémenceau Case), the success of which
was not as great as he had hoped. In France, when a man is supe-
rior in one specialty people will not let him leave it. He is not al-
lowed to be at once an unequaled novelist and a first-rate dramatist.
At that time Dumas hesitated which road to follow. An incident
which created a great deal of comment threw him back towards the
stage, and towards a new form of comedy.
M. Émile de Girardin, one of the best known publicists of the Sec-
ond Empire, had bethought himself, when over fifty years of age, and
knowing nothing of this kind of work, to write a play. He had been
a great friend of Dumas père, and had kept up the most affectionate
intercourse with his son. He had asked him to fit his play for the
stage. It possessed one really dramatic idea. Dumas, in order to
oblige his father's friend, made out of it (Le Supplice d'une Femme)
(A Woman's Torture). Émile de Girardin, who was self-conceited and
somewhat despotic, refused to recognize his offspring in the bear that
Dumas had licked. He declined to sign the play: “Neither shall I,”
Dumas retorted.
A Woman's Torture) was acted at the Comédie Française with
extraordinary success. This success was for Dumas a warning and a
lesson. A Woman's Torture) was a three-act play, short, concise,
panting, which hurried to the coup de théâtre of the second act, upon
which the drama revolved, and rushed to its conclusion. The time
## p. 5006 (#174) ###########################################
5006
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
of five-act comedies, with ample expositions, copious developments,
philosophical disquisitions, curious and fanciful episodes, was gone.
Henceforth the dramatist had to deal with a hurried and blasé public,
which, taking dinner at eight, could give to the theatre but a short
time, and an attention disturbed by the labor of digestion. A Wo-
man's Torture,' which lasted only an hour and a half, and proceeded
only by rapid strokes, was exactly what that public wanted. After
that time Dumas wrote only three-act and one-act plays; using four
acts only for (Les Idées de Madame Aubray) (Madame Aubray's
Ideas); and these four acts are very short. In 1867 this play an-
nounced Dumas's return to the stage; and Dumas is here more para-
doxical than he had ever been. His theme looked like a wager not
simply against bourgeois prejudices, but even against good sense, and,
I dare to say, against justice. This wager was won by Dumas, thanks
to an incredible display of skill. He took up the thesis a second
time in 'Denise,' and won his wager again, but with less difficulty.
In Denise) the lover struggles only against social prejudices, and
allows himself to be carried away by one of those emotional fits
which disturb and confound human reason. In Madame Aubray's
Ideas) the triumph is one of pure logic.
Une Visite de Noces' (A Wedding Call) and 'La Princesse
Georges' followed rather closely on Madame Aubray's Ideas. ' (A
Wedding Call’! — what a thunderbolt then! It was of but one act,
but one act the effect of which was prodigious, the echo of which is
still heard. Time and familiarity have now softened for us the too
sharp outlines of this bitter play. It has been acknowledged a
masterpiece. It is certainly one of the boldest works of this extraor-
dinary magician, who, thanks to his unerring skill and to the daz-
zling wit of his dialogue, brought the public to listen to whatever he
chose to put upon the stage. It seemed that, like a lion tamer in
the arena, Dumas took pleasure in belaboring and exasperating this
many-headed monster, in order to prove to his own satisfaction that
he could subdue its revolts.
'La Princesse Georges) is a work of violent and furious passion.
We find in it Madame de Terremonde, the good woman who adores
her husband, but who adores him with fury, who wants him all to
herself, and who, when sure that she is betrayed, passes from the
most exasperated rage to tears and despair. There is in the first
act a scene of exposition which has become celebrated. No one ever
so rapidly mastered the public; no one ever from the first stroke so
painfully twisted the heart of the spectators.
Let us pass rapidly over La Femme de Claude (Claude's Wife:
1873). Of all his plays it is the one Dumas said he liked best, the
one he most passionately defended with all sorts of commentaries,
## p. 5007 (#175) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5007
letters, prefaces, etc. ; the one which he insisted on having revived, a
long time after it had failed. To my mind that play was a mistake:
and the public, in spite of Dumas's arguments, in spite of the pro-
tests of the critics, who are often very glad to distinguish themselves
by not yielding to the common voice,– the public insisted on agree-
ing with me.
Only a few months later, Dumas brilliantly retrieved himself with
(Monsieur Alphonse. His Madame Guichard is the most cheerfully
vulgar type of the parvenue which any one ever dared to put upon
the stage. She can hardly read and write; she is no longer young,
and she is “to boot” very proud of her money; she has no tact and
no taste; but at heart she is a good sort of woman. Her morality is
as primitive as her education. But deceit disgusts her; she hates but
one thing, she says, - lying. She is not troubled by conventionalities,
and her speech has all the color and energy of popular speech. But
see! Dumas in depicting this woman preserved exquisite measure.
Madame Guichard says many pert and droll things; she never utters
a coarse word. Her language is picturesque; it is free from slang.
Hers is a vulgar nature, but she does not offend delicate ears by the
grossness of her utterance. Dumas never drew a more living picture;
she is the joy of this rather sad play.
All that remain to be reviewed are “L'Étrangère,' 'La Princesse
de Bagdad,' and 'Françillon’; all of which were given at the Comédie
Française. L'Étrangère' is indeed a melodrama, with an admixture
of comedy. Had he gone further in that direction, Dumas might have
made a new sort of play, which would perhaps have reigned a long
time on the stage. But after this trial, successful though it was, he
stopped. "La Princesse de Bagdad' entirely failed. Françillon
was Dumas's last success at the Comédie Française.
After 1887 Dumas gave nothing to the stage. He had completed
a great five-act play, (The Road to Thebes,' which the manager of
the Comédie Française hoped every year to put on the boards.
Dumas kept promising it; but either from distrust of himself or of
the public, or from fatigue, or fear of meeting with failure, he asked
for new delays, until the day when he declared that not only the
play would not be acted during his life, but that he would not even
allow it to be acted after his death.
This death he saw coming, with sad but calm eyes. It was
sorrow for us to see this man, whom we had known so quick and
alert, grow weaker every day, showing the progress of disease in his
shriveled features and body. The complexion had lost all color, the
cheeks had become flaccid, the eye had no life left.
On October ist, 1895, he wrote to his friend Jules Claretie :-
“Do not depend upon me any more; I am vanquished. There are
a
## p. 5008 (#176) ###########################################
5008
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
moments when I mourn my loss, as Madame D'Houdetot said when
dying. ” He was at Puys, by the seaside, when he wrote that de-
spairing letter. He returned to Marly, there to die, surrounded by his
family, on November 28th, 1895. , in a house which he loved and
which had been bequeathed to him years before by an intimate
friend.
His loss threw into mourning the world of letters, and the whole
of Paris. People discovered then – for death loosens every tongue
and every pen
– how kind and generous in reality was Dumas, who
had often been accused of avarice by those who contrasted him with
his father; how many services he had discreetly rendered, how open
his hand always was. His constant cheerfulness and good-nature
had finally caused him to be forgiven for his wit, which was sarcastic
and cutting, and for his success, which had thrown so many rivals
into the shade. This witty man, who was always obliging and even
tender-hearted, had no envy, and gave his applause without a shadow
of reserve to the successes of others. Every young author found in
him advice and support; he did not expect gratitude, and therefore
was soured by no disappointment. He was a good man, partly from
nature, partly from determination; for he deemed that, after all, the
best way to live happy in this world is to make happy as many
people as possible.
If in this long essay I have not spoken of Dumas as a moralist, it
is because, in my opinion, in spite of all that has been said, Dumas
was a dramatist a great deal more than a philosopher. In his com-
edies he discussed a great many moral and social questions, without
giving a solution for any; or rather, the solutions that he gave were
due not to any set of fixed principles, but to the conclusion which he
was preparing for this play or that. He said, indifferently, “Kill her >>
or «Forgive her,” according to the requirements of the subject which
he had selected; and he would afterwards write a sensational preface
with a view to demonstrate that the solution this time given by him
was the only legitimate one. These prefaces are very amusing read-
ing; for he wrote them with all the fire of his nature, and he had
the gift of movement. But they were a strange medley of incongru-
ous and contradictory statements. Every idea that he expresses can
be grasped and understood; but it is impossible to see how it agrees
with those that precede and follow. It is a chaos of clear ideas.
Dumas was not a philosopher, but an agitator. He stirred up a
great many questions; he drew upon them our distracted attention;
he compelled us to think of them. Therein he did his duty as a
dramatist.
He gave much thought to the fate of woman in our civilization.
We may say, however, that though loving her much, he still more
## p. 5009 (#177) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5009
feared her, and I shall even add, despised her. All his characters
who have the mission of defending morality and good sense are very
attentive to her, but keep her at arın’s-length. They are affectionate
counselors, not lovers. They hold her to be a frail being, who must
be controlled and guided. Some one has said that there was in
Dumas something of the Catholic priest. It is true. He was to
women a lay director of conscience.
He was a great connoisseur of pictures and a great art lover.
Music, I think, is the only art that did not affect him much. He was
a dazzling talker; his plays teem with bright sayings; his conversa-
tion sparkled with them. I did not know him in his prime, when he
delighted his friends and companions by his unceasing flow of spirits.
I became intimate with him only later. If you knew how to start
him, he simply coruscated. I never knew any one, save Edmond
About, who was as witty, and who, like About, always paid you back
in good sounding coin.
Dumas was a member of the French Academy. He had not
wished for that honor, because it had been denied to his father. He
desired, in his reception speech, to call up the great spirit of this
illustrious father and make it share his academician's chair. He had
this joy; the two Dumas were received on the same day. Their two
names will never perish.
Trommiga larry
[The editors have been compelled, for lack of space, to leave out
that part of M. Sarcey's valuable essay which is a professional anal-
ysis of several of Dumas's plays, and which would be of interest,
chiefly, to special students of the French drama and stage. ]
THE PLAYWRIGHT IS BORN – AND MADE
From the Preface to (A Prodigal Father)
O"
F All the various forms of thought, the stage is that which
nearest approaches the plastic arts — inasmuch as we can.
not work in it unless we know its material processes; but
with this difference: that in the other arts one learns these pro-
cesses, while in play-writing one guesses them; or to speak more
accurately, they are in us to begin with.
One can become a painter, a sculptor, a musician, by sheer
study: one does not become a dramatic author in this fashion. A
IX-314
## p. 5010 (#178) ###########################################
5010
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
the pen.
caprice of nature makes your eye in such a way that you can
see a thing after a particular manner, not absolutely correct, but
which must nevertheless appear, to any other persons that you
wish to have so think, the only correct point of view. The man
really called to write for the stage reveals what is an extremely
rare faculty, in his very first attempts, - say in a farce in school,
or a drawing-room charade. There is a sort of science of optics
and of perspective that enables one to draw a personage, a char-
acter, a passion, an impulse of the soul, with a single stroke of
Dramatic cheating of the eye is so complete that often
the spectator, when he is a mere reader of the play, desiring to
give himself once more the same emotion that he has felt as one
of the audience, not only cannot recapture that emotion in the
written words before him, but often cannot even distinguish the
passage where the emotion lies hid. It was a word, a look, a
silence, a gesture, a purely atmospheric combination, that held
him spellbound. So comes in the genius of the playwright's
trade, if those two words can be associated. One may compare
writing for the stage in relation to other phases of literature, as
we compare ceiling painters with [painters of] pictures for the
wall or the easel. Woe to the painter if he forget that his com-
position is to be looked at from a distance, with a light below it!
A man without merit as a thinker, a moralist, a philosopher,
an author, may turn out to be a dramatic author of the first
class; that is to say, in the work of setting in motion before you
the purely external movements of mankind; and on the other
hand, to become in the theatre the thinker, the moralist, the
philosopher, or the author to whom one listens, one must indis-
pensably be furnished with the particular and natural qualities of
a man of much lower grade. In short, to be a master in the art
of writing for the stage, you must be a poor hand in the superior
art.
That dramatic author who shall know mankind like Balzac,
and who shall know the theatre like Scribe, will be the greatest
dramatic author that has ever existed.
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature,) by E. Irenæus
Stevenson
## p. 5011 (#179) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5011
AN ARMED TRUCE
From (A Friend of the Sex)
[The following conversation in the first act of the play takes place in the
pleasant morning-room of a country-house near Paris, the home of M. and
Madame Leverdet. M. Leverdet is asleep in his chair. The speakers are
Madame Leverdet, a coquettish, sprightly lady approaching middle age, and
young M. De Ryons, a friend and neighbor. Madame Leverdet is determined
to marry off De Ryons advantageously, and as soon as possible. Unfortunately
he is a confirmed bachelor, not to say woman-hater, whose cynicism is the
result of severely disappointing experiences. Under that cynicism there is
however genuine respect and even chivalry as to the right sort of woman,-
the superior and sincere type, which he does not happen often to encounter. )
M
ADAME LEVERDET Let us come to serious topics while we
are alone, my friend.
De Ryons — And apropos of them ?
Madame Leverdet — Are you willing to be married off yet ?
De Ryons [with a start of terror]— Pardon me, my dear lady!
At what hour can I take the first train for Paris ?
Madame Lever det Now listen to me, at least.
De Ryons - What! Here it is two years since I have called
on you; I come to make you a little visit of a morning, in all
good friendship, with the thermometer forty, centigrade; I am
totally unsuspecting; all I ask is to have a little lively chat with
a clever woman — and see how you receive me.
Madame Leverdet [continuing]— A simple, charming young
girl -
De Ryons [interrupting her, and in the same tone] – - musi-
cal, speaks English, draws nicely, sings agreeably, a society
woman, a domestic woman,-all at the choice of the applicant.
Madame Leverdet [laughing] — Yes, and pretty and graceful
and rich; and, by-the-by, one who finds you a charming fellow.
De Ryons — She is quite right there. I shall make a charm.
ing husband - I shall; I know it. Only thirty-two years old;
all my teeth, all my hair (no such very common detail, the way
young men are nowadays); lively, sixty thousand livres income
as a landed proprietor -oh, I am an excellent match: only un-
fortunately I am not a marrying man.
Madame Leverdet - And why not, if you please ?
De Ryons (smiling] – It would interfere severely with my
studies.
## p. 5012 (#180) ###########################################
5012
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
Madame Leverdet What sort of studies ?
De Ryons — My studies of woman.
Madame Lever det — Really! I don't understand you.
De Ryons — What! Do you not know that I am making
women my particular, my incessant study, and that I am reckon-
ing on leaving some new and very interesting documents dealing
with that branch of natural history ? - a branch very little under
stood just at present, in spite of all that has been written on
the topic. My friend, I cannot sacrifice the species to the indi-
vidual; I belong to science. It is quite impossible for me to
give myself wholly and completely - as one certainly should do
when he marries — to one of those charming and terrible little
carnivora for whose sake men dishonor themselves, ruin them-
selves, kill themselves; whose sole preoccupation, in the midst
of the universal carnage that they make, is to dress themselves
now like umbrellas and now like table bells.
Madame Leverdet (scornfully) - So you really think you under-
stand women, do you ?
De Ryons — I rather think I do. Why, just as you see me this
instant, at the end of five minutes' study or conversation I can
tell you to what class a woman belongs,— whether to the middle
class, to women of rank, artists, or whatever you please; what
are her tastes, her characteristics, her antecedents, the state of her
heart, — in a word, everything that concerns my special science.
Madame Leverdet - Really! Will you have a glass of water?
De Ryons — Not yet, thank you.
Madame Leverdet - I suppose, then, you are under the impres-
sion that you know me too.
De Ryons - As if I did not!
Madame Lever det - Well, and I am -- what?
De Ryons — Oh, you are a clever woman. It is for that rea-
son that I call on you [aside: every two years).
Madame Lever det – Will you kindly give me the sum of your
observations in general ? You can tell me so much, since I am
a clever woman.
De Ryons — The true, the true, the true sum ?
Madame Leverdet - Yes.
De Ryons - Simply that woman of our day is an illogical, sub-
ordinate, and mischief-making creature. [In saying this De Ryons
draws back and crouches down as if expecting to be struck. )
Madame Leverdet - So then, you detest women ?
## p. 5013 (#181) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
5013
De Ryons-I? I detest women? On the contrary, I adore
them; but I hold myself in such a position toward them that
they cannot bite me. I keep on the outside of the cage.
Madame Leverdet - Meaning by that — what?
De Ryons — Meaning by that, that I am a friend of the sex;
for I have long perceived that just as truly as women are dan-
gerous in love, just so much are they adorable in friendship,
with men; - that is to say, with no obligations, and therefore
no treasons; no rights, and in consequence no tyrannies. One
assists, too, as a spectator, often as a collaborator, in the com-
edy of love. A man under such conditions sees before his nose
the stage tricks, the machinery, the changes of scenes, all that
stage mounting so dazzling at a distance and so simple when
one is near by. As a friend of the sex and on a basis of friend-
ship, one estimates the causes, the contradictions, the incoher-
ences, of that phantasmagoric changeableness that belongs to the
heart of a woman. So you have something that is interesting
and instructive. Under such circumstances a man is the con-
soler, and gives his advice; he wipes away tears; he brings quar-
relsome lovers together; he asks for the letters that must be
returned; he hands back the photographs (for you know that in
love affairs photographs are taken only in order to be returned,
and it is nearly always the same photograph that serves as many
times as may be necessary. I know one photograph that I have
had handed back by three different men, and it ended its useful-
ness by being given for good and all to a fourth one, who was —
not single). . . . In short, you see, my dear madam, I am above
all the friend of those women who have known what it is to
be in love. And moreover inasmuch, just as Rochefoucauld says,
as women do not think a great deal of their first experience,-
why, one fine day or another --
Madame Leverdet — You prove to be the second one.
De Ryons — No, no; I have no number, I! A well-brought-up
woman never goes from one experience of the heart to another
one, without a decent interval of time, more or less long. Two
railroad accidents never come together on the same railway.
During the intervals a woman really needs a friend, a good con-
fidant; and it is then that I turn up. I let her tell me all the
melancholy affairs in question; I see the unhappy victim in tears
after the traitor has called; I lament with her, I weep with
her, I make her laugh with me: and little by little I replace the
delinquent without her seeing that I am doing so. But then I
## p. 5014 (#182) ###########################################
5014
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
1
know very well that I am without importance, that I am a mere
politician of the moment, a cabinet minister without a portfolio,
a sentimental distraction without any consequences; and some fine
day, after having been the confidential friend as to past events,
I become the confidential friend as to future ones,— for the lady
falls in love for the second time with somebody who knows noth-
ing of the first experience, who will never know anything about
it, and who of course must be made to suppose he represents the
first one.
Then I go away for a little time and leave them to
themselves, and then I come back like a new friend to the fam-
ily. By-and-by, when the dear creature is reckoning up the
balance-sheet of her past, when her conscience pours into her
ear the names that she would rather not remember, and
my
name comes with the others, she reflects an instant,- and then
she says resolutely and sincerely to herself, “Oh, he does not
count! ” My friend, I am always the one that does not count,
and I like it extremely.
Madame Leverdet [indignantly] — You are simply a monster!
De Ryons — Oh no, oh no, oh no, I am not !
Madame Leverdet - According to your own account, you have
no faith in women.
Wretch! Ungrateful creature! And
yet it is woman who inspires all the great things in this life.
» De Ryons — But somehow forbids us to accomplish them.
Madame Leverdet — Go out from here, my dear De Ryons, and
never let me see you again.
De Ryons [rising promptly and making a mocking bow] - My
dear lady —
Madame Leverdet — No, I will not shake hands with you.
De Ryons - Then I shall die of chagrin — that's all about it.
Madame Lever det -- Do you know how you will end, you in-
corrigible creature? When you are fifty years old you will have
rheumatism.
De Ryons — Yes, or sciatica. But I shall find some one who
will embroider me warm slippers.
Madame Leverdet - Indeed you will not! You will marry your
cook.
De Ryons - That depends on how well she cooks.
