Young Dumas, like most men of
literary
genius, taught himself to
read.
read.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v09 - Dra to Eme
Then, throwing a last look around
the apartment where he had long lived, invoking the memory
of the great Biblical destructions familiar to him in Holy Writ,
## p. 4953 (#115) ###########################################
MAXIME DU CAMP
4953
weak and trembling with emotion, he descended the staircase
from his home.
There was indescribable tumult in the street, dominated by
the cry of women; a shrill wordless involuntary cry of terror,
vibrating above the uproar like a desperate appeal to which no
supernatural power replied. Pastor Rouville stopped. The house
next his own was in fames. They were setting fire to the one
opposite. The houses between the Rue de Beaune and the Rue
du Bac, red from cellar to garret, were vomiting flame from all
the broken windows.
The pastor's family were not at Paris. He was alone with a
faithful maid, who did not leave him for a moment. This doubt.
less determined his resolution, and gave him courage to brave all
to save his house. If he had felt his wife and daughter near, he
would have thought only of their safety, and would have hastened
to get them away from the place, where, he said, “One could
die of horror. ”
Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps
him young and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong
race of Southern Protestants, which has resisted everything to
guard its faith. I should not be surprised if he has had some
nimble Cévennole, companion of Jean Cavalier, among his an-
cestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the Seine, accustomed to
sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts some intact
fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in faith, elo-
quent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult,
knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound
that light cannot be made to penetrate it,- he had remained on
duty at his post during the Commune; for the prisoners had
more need of spiritual aid, now that the regular administration no
longer watched over them. He had been indignant at the incar-
ceration of Catholic priests, and had signed the fine protest
demanding the liberty of the archbishop, which the ininisters
had carried to the Hôtel de Ville.
Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened
him, he commended his spirit to God, remembering that the
little stone of David had killed the giant Philistine, and he de-
cided to fight for his home. He encamped energetically before
the door, to forbid access; and using the weapons bestowed upon
him by Providence and study, he spoke. The federates stopped
before this man, whose simplicity rendered him heroic. One may
guess what he said to them:
## p. 4954 (#116) ###########################################
4954
MAXIME DU CAMP
(
Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execra-
ble? Why be enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose
religion, founded on the dogma of free examination, is naturally
allied to republican ideas? The faith he teaches is that promul-
gated by Christ: Christ said to Peter, (Sheathe thy sword;'
he said to men, Love one another! ' No, the people of Paris,
this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose unfortunates
have been succored during the siege; this people, so good when
not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the
house of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in
the exercise of charity. ”
The pastor must have been eloquent and have spoken with
profound conviction, for the federates who were listening to him
began to weep, then seized and embraced him. Meantime the
tenants of the shops in his house had lowered the iron curtains,
which at least was an obstacle against the first throwing of pe-
troleum. This lasted an hour. The federates, evidently softened
and touched by the pastor's despair, remained near him and had
pity upon him. An old sergeant of the National Guard stayed
beside him, as if to bring him help in case of need, and to main-
tain a little order among his subordinates. Some hope revived
in M. Rouville's heart, and he was saying to himself that per-
haps his house would be spared, when some young men, wearing
the braided caps of officers, arrived as if to inspect the fires.
Seeing one house intact, emerging like a little island from an
ocean of flames, they exclaimed. The pastor sprang forward and
wanted to argue with them. It was trouble wasted. One of these
young scamps said to him, “You are an old reactionist: you bore
us with your talking. If you don't like it, we will pin you to
the wall. " Then, turning toward the federates and pointing
to the houses on the Rue de Lille, he cried, "All that belongs
to the people. The people have the right to burn everything. ”
This had perhaps decided the fate of the pastor's house, when
the sergeant of federates interfered, and addressing the officer
said to him, "I have received orders to stop the fire just here. ”
“Show me your order," answered the officer. The sergeant re-
plied, "It is a verbal order. ” Then there was a lively quarrel
between the two men. The sergeant was firm. The officer in-
sisted, and according to the custom of the moment, threatened to
have the rebel shot.
The situation was becoming grave, when an incident resolved
it. A mounted officer galloped up and ordered all the federates
## p. 4955 (#117) ###########################################
MAXIME DU CAMP
4955
to retreat, because they were about to be surrounded by the
troops from Versailles.
Nearly all the National Guards hurried away. The sergeant
who had remained near the pastor said, "Get away, scurry,
father! You will get yourself killed, and that will not save your
camp. "
The other officers passed, commanded everything to be
burned, and when the sergeant resisted, compelled him to leave.
For half an hour the unhappy pastor remained alone, holding
back the incendiaries, passing from supplications to threats, and
gaining time by every possible artifice, The sergeant returned
with tearful eyes, and showed the dismayed pastor a written
order to burn the house, sent by his chiefs. Not yet discouraged,
the pastor roused the compassion of the old sergeant, and so
moved him that the rebel cried, “Ah, well! so much the worse!
I'll disobey. No, I won't let your house be burned. They'll
shoot me.
It's all the same. I deserve to be. ” Then raising
his hand toward the sky, where the stars shone like sparks
through the veil of wind-driven smoke, he cried “O my father, I
believe in God! Fear nothing; I will stay here. They shan't
touch your house. I shall know how to keep off plunderers! ”
O strange deceiving people; ready for all crimes, ready for all
good actions, according to the voice which speaks to thee and
the emotion which carries thee away! This sergeant was indeed
thy likeness, and one need not despair of thee, although thou
dishearten those who love thee best!
The brandy at the wine merchants’; the ether at the drug-
gists'; the powder and shot forgotten in stations, or secreted in
cellars, burst with terrible explosions and scattered flaming coals.
The pastor looked at his house, still miraculously intact. He
gave it a last look, and departed sobbing. It was eleven o'clock.
For three hours in the midst of this furnace he had resisted the
incendiaries. His strength was exhausted. The faithful servant,
who went back again and again to rescue one thing more from
the burning, dragged him away. In the Rue des Saints-Pères
they plunged into darkness, all the deeper for the brazier of
sparkling lights behind them. They groped their way over the
barricades through a shower of bullets. More than once they
fell down. Finally, safe and sound despite the dangers braved,
they reached the Rue de Seine, near the Rue de Bucy, where
they found refuge in a lodging-house.
## p. 4956 (#118) ###########################################
4956
MAXIME DU CAMP
Next day Pastor Rouville ran towards the Rue de Lille. His
house was standing intact. The old sergeant had kept his word.
What became of this brave man, who at the risk of his life
saved the property of a man whose speech had touched him ?
Perhaps he perished. Perhaps he received his due reward. Per-
haps he drags out a wretched life in some workshop of a peni-
tentiary. I know not his fate, nor even his name.
## p. 4956 (#119) ###########################################
## p. 4956 (#120) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
## p. 4956 (#121) ###########################################
4957
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
(1803? -1870)
BY ANDREW LANG
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
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
(C
((
» like
## p. 4956 (#122) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
## p. 4956 (#123) ###########################################
1
1
+
1
1
1
## p. 4956 (#124) ###########################################
1
1
1
1
## p. 4957 (#125) ###########################################
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
## p. 4958 (#126) ###########################################
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
1
1
## p. 4959 (#127) ###########################################
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.
## p. 4960 (#128) ###########################################
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
## p. 4961 (#129) ###########################################
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
## p. 4962 (#130) ###########################################
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
+
## p. 4963 (#131) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4963
1
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.
## p. 4964 (#132) ###########################################
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
## p. 4965 (#133) ###########################################
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.
the apartment where he had long lived, invoking the memory
of the great Biblical destructions familiar to him in Holy Writ,
## p. 4953 (#115) ###########################################
MAXIME DU CAMP
4953
weak and trembling with emotion, he descended the staircase
from his home.
There was indescribable tumult in the street, dominated by
the cry of women; a shrill wordless involuntary cry of terror,
vibrating above the uproar like a desperate appeal to which no
supernatural power replied. Pastor Rouville stopped. The house
next his own was in fames. They were setting fire to the one
opposite. The houses between the Rue de Beaune and the Rue
du Bac, red from cellar to garret, were vomiting flame from all
the broken windows.
The pastor's family were not at Paris. He was alone with a
faithful maid, who did not leave him for a moment. This doubt.
less determined his resolution, and gave him courage to brave all
to save his house. If he had felt his wife and daughter near, he
would have thought only of their safety, and would have hastened
to get them away from the place, where, he said, “One could
die of horror. ”
Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps
him young and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong
race of Southern Protestants, which has resisted everything to
guard its faith. I should not be surprised if he has had some
nimble Cévennole, companion of Jean Cavalier, among his an-
cestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the Seine, accustomed to
sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts some intact
fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in faith, elo-
quent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult,
knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound
that light cannot be made to penetrate it,- he had remained on
duty at his post during the Commune; for the prisoners had
more need of spiritual aid, now that the regular administration no
longer watched over them. He had been indignant at the incar-
ceration of Catholic priests, and had signed the fine protest
demanding the liberty of the archbishop, which the ininisters
had carried to the Hôtel de Ville.
Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened
him, he commended his spirit to God, remembering that the
little stone of David had killed the giant Philistine, and he de-
cided to fight for his home. He encamped energetically before
the door, to forbid access; and using the weapons bestowed upon
him by Providence and study, he spoke. The federates stopped
before this man, whose simplicity rendered him heroic. One may
guess what he said to them:
## p. 4954 (#116) ###########################################
4954
MAXIME DU CAMP
(
Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execra-
ble? Why be enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose
religion, founded on the dogma of free examination, is naturally
allied to republican ideas? The faith he teaches is that promul-
gated by Christ: Christ said to Peter, (Sheathe thy sword;'
he said to men, Love one another! ' No, the people of Paris,
this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose unfortunates
have been succored during the siege; this people, so good when
not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the
house of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in
the exercise of charity. ”
The pastor must have been eloquent and have spoken with
profound conviction, for the federates who were listening to him
began to weep, then seized and embraced him. Meantime the
tenants of the shops in his house had lowered the iron curtains,
which at least was an obstacle against the first throwing of pe-
troleum. This lasted an hour. The federates, evidently softened
and touched by the pastor's despair, remained near him and had
pity upon him. An old sergeant of the National Guard stayed
beside him, as if to bring him help in case of need, and to main-
tain a little order among his subordinates. Some hope revived
in M. Rouville's heart, and he was saying to himself that per-
haps his house would be spared, when some young men, wearing
the braided caps of officers, arrived as if to inspect the fires.
Seeing one house intact, emerging like a little island from an
ocean of flames, they exclaimed. The pastor sprang forward and
wanted to argue with them. It was trouble wasted. One of these
young scamps said to him, “You are an old reactionist: you bore
us with your talking. If you don't like it, we will pin you to
the wall. " Then, turning toward the federates and pointing
to the houses on the Rue de Lille, he cried, "All that belongs
to the people. The people have the right to burn everything. ”
This had perhaps decided the fate of the pastor's house, when
the sergeant of federates interfered, and addressing the officer
said to him, "I have received orders to stop the fire just here. ”
“Show me your order," answered the officer. The sergeant re-
plied, "It is a verbal order. ” Then there was a lively quarrel
between the two men. The sergeant was firm. The officer in-
sisted, and according to the custom of the moment, threatened to
have the rebel shot.
The situation was becoming grave, when an incident resolved
it. A mounted officer galloped up and ordered all the federates
## p. 4955 (#117) ###########################################
MAXIME DU CAMP
4955
to retreat, because they were about to be surrounded by the
troops from Versailles.
Nearly all the National Guards hurried away. The sergeant
who had remained near the pastor said, "Get away, scurry,
father! You will get yourself killed, and that will not save your
camp. "
The other officers passed, commanded everything to be
burned, and when the sergeant resisted, compelled him to leave.
For half an hour the unhappy pastor remained alone, holding
back the incendiaries, passing from supplications to threats, and
gaining time by every possible artifice, The sergeant returned
with tearful eyes, and showed the dismayed pastor a written
order to burn the house, sent by his chiefs. Not yet discouraged,
the pastor roused the compassion of the old sergeant, and so
moved him that the rebel cried, “Ah, well! so much the worse!
I'll disobey. No, I won't let your house be burned. They'll
shoot me.
It's all the same. I deserve to be. ” Then raising
his hand toward the sky, where the stars shone like sparks
through the veil of wind-driven smoke, he cried “O my father, I
believe in God! Fear nothing; I will stay here. They shan't
touch your house. I shall know how to keep off plunderers! ”
O strange deceiving people; ready for all crimes, ready for all
good actions, according to the voice which speaks to thee and
the emotion which carries thee away! This sergeant was indeed
thy likeness, and one need not despair of thee, although thou
dishearten those who love thee best!
The brandy at the wine merchants’; the ether at the drug-
gists'; the powder and shot forgotten in stations, or secreted in
cellars, burst with terrible explosions and scattered flaming coals.
The pastor looked at his house, still miraculously intact. He
gave it a last look, and departed sobbing. It was eleven o'clock.
For three hours in the midst of this furnace he had resisted the
incendiaries. His strength was exhausted. The faithful servant,
who went back again and again to rescue one thing more from
the burning, dragged him away. In the Rue des Saints-Pères
they plunged into darkness, all the deeper for the brazier of
sparkling lights behind them. They groped their way over the
barricades through a shower of bullets. More than once they
fell down. Finally, safe and sound despite the dangers braved,
they reached the Rue de Seine, near the Rue de Bucy, where
they found refuge in a lodging-house.
## p. 4956 (#118) ###########################################
4956
MAXIME DU CAMP
Next day Pastor Rouville ran towards the Rue de Lille. His
house was standing intact. The old sergeant had kept his word.
What became of this brave man, who at the risk of his life
saved the property of a man whose speech had touched him ?
Perhaps he perished. Perhaps he received his due reward. Per-
haps he drags out a wretched life in some workshop of a peni-
tentiary. I know not his fate, nor even his name.
## p. 4956 (#119) ###########################################
## p. 4956 (#120) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
## p. 4956 (#121) ###########################################
4957
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
(1803? -1870)
BY ANDREW LANG
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
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
(C
((
» like
## p. 4956 (#122) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
## p. 4956 (#123) ###########################################
1
1
+
1
1
1
## p. 4956 (#124) ###########################################
1
1
1
1
## p. 4957 (#125) ###########################################
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
## p. 4958 (#126) ###########################################
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
1
1
## p. 4959 (#127) ###########################################
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.
## p. 4960 (#128) ###########################################
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
## p. 4961 (#129) ###########################################
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
## p. 4962 (#130) ###########################################
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
+
## p. 4963 (#131) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4963
1
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.
## p. 4964 (#132) ###########################################
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
## p. 4965 (#133) ###########################################
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.
