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DUMAS 307 His first pieces were mostly anonymous vaude- villes; tragedy engaged his attention for a while, but he soon abandoned it. His genius was awakened by the performances of an Eng- lish company, which in 1827 presented some of Shakespeare's plays in Paris; in common with several of his contemporaries, he felt that the French stage needed reform, and he re- solved to be one of the apostles of the new dramatic creed. He brought out on Feb. 11, 1829, a historical play, Henri III. et sa cour, constructed with utter disregard of the ordi- nary rules. It created a sensation, and though assailed by the critics was applauded by the public. Dumas realized from it 30,000 francs in a few months. Christine, ou Stockholm, Fontainebleau et Rome, another historical dra- ma in verse, was also well received ; and new pieces from him appeared in rapid succession, which, while elicting severe criticism, drew crowded houses. Antony (produced in 1831), if not the best, is the most characteristic pro- duction of its author. Richard $ Arlington and Teresa followed. Le mari de la veuve ap- peared in April, 1832 ; and the Tour de Nesle, first represented in the following month, ran more than 200 successive nights; the germ of this piece had been furnished by Frederic Gaillardet, but its details, character, and pa- thos belonged to Dumas. Angele came out in 1833, Catherine Howard in 1834, and Don Juan de Marana, a fantastic drama, and Kean in 1836; the last was written expressly for Frederic Lemaitre. A Roman tragedy, Cali- gula, and Mile, de Belle-Isle followed. Dumas had meanwhile entered the field as a novelist, beginning in 1835 with Isabelle de Bamere, a romantic picture of France in the 15th cen- tury. His intention was to give, under the title of Chroniques de France, a series of novels treating of the most interesting inci- dents of French history. These, and his Im- pressions de voyage, narrating his travels through Switzerland and Italy, were eagerly read. Les trois mousquetaires and Le eomte de Monte Cristo, both of which appeared in 1844, gave a new character to his reputation. The success of these and similar books was only equalled by the wonderful rapidity with which they were produced. In 1846 he made a contract to furnish two newspapers with an amount of manuscript equal to 60 volumes a year ; and this exclusive of his plays and other occasional productions. Such fecundity raised the question whether he was really the author of the books bearing his name. A lawsuit in which he was involved in 1847 with the directors of the Presse and Constitutional brought to light the fact that he had engaged to furnish those journals with more volumes than a rapid penman could even copy; but though he made liberal use of the talents of assistants, he claimed sufficient share in the plan and execution of every work to make it truly his own. A judicial decision finally supported his claim. His daily work aver- aged 32 pages of an ordinary octavo volume. Among his novels are Les memoires d*un medecin, or rather Joseph Balsamo, Le collier de la reine, Ange Pitou, and La comtesse de Charny, a romantic review of the latter part of the 18th century. Novel writing did not withdraw Dumas from the drama; besides adapting for the stage some of his most suc- cessful romances, he wrote original pieces, such as Un mariage sous Louis XV., Les de- moiselles de St. Cyr, Le comte Hermann, La jeunesse de Louis XIV., and La conscience. He also published historical books : Louis XIV. et son siecle, Le drame de 93, Le regent et Louis XV., Florence et les Medicis. In 1852 he began the publication of his Memoires, a curious autobiography, which also presents interesting sketches of literary life during the restoration. Though a republican, Dumas was on terms of friendship with the royal family of Orleans, used his influence to elicit from them acts of benevolence, and when they were exiled from France he was bold enough to praise the young princes in several public meetings. He tried now to acquire political importance through the publication of a daily newspaper, La Liberte, and afterward a monthly review, Le Mois ; but failing in this attempt, he published for two or three years the brilliant Mousquetaire, which he revived in 1857 under the title of Monte Cristo, and in which he continued his romances, translations, Memoires, &c. Previous to 1848 his pen pro- cured him a very large income, and he had undertaken, near St. Germain, the building of a country seat, which became celebrated under the name of chateau de Monte Cristo. The revolution cutting short his means, the cha- teau, upon which he had expended 450,000 francs, was sold in 1854 at auction for less than a tenth of its original cost. Dumas mar- ried in 1842 Ida Ferrier, an actress of the Porte St. Martin. Three years afterward she went to Florence, and died there in 1859. In 1852 he went for a time to Belgium; in 1858 he travelled in Russia, the Caucasus, Greece, and Turkey, and returned to Paris in the spring of 1859. Among his works published in 1858 were Le capitaine Richard (3 vols.), L 1 Horoscope (3 vols.), Les louves de Machecoul (10 vols.), and Lhonneur est satisfait, a prose comedy in one act. In 1859 appeared De Paris a Astralcan, a sketch of his recent travels. In 1860 he was attached to the expedition of Garibaldi, and published Memoires de Garibaldi and Memoires d" 1 Horace. In the spring of 1870 he went to Madrid to collect materials for a work on Spanish history. A few weeks gave him all the information he cared for, and he returned to Paris. But the war having begun, his MS. could not be profitably used, and he left Paris for Dieppe, was there taken ill, and died on the day when the Prus- sians entered the city. His remains were re- moved from the cemetery at Puy, April 15, 1872, to a grave beside his mother's in his na-