The Life and Writings of Alexandre Dumas/Birth
From Birth to Manhood and Fame (1802-30)
If, like Defoe, we were about to offer fiction in the guise of biography, instead of biography in a more or less romantic form, we should be tempted to preface the story of Dumas with one of those elaborate sub-titles in which the author of "Robinson Crusoe" delighted. It would probably run somewhat in this fashion, if we allowed ourselves to prepare one, which of course we do not:—
"The life and adventures of Alexandre Dumas of the World, who was both a black and a white man; a Royalist and a Republican, an aristocrat and a sans-culotte; who took part in three revolutions, and made three different reputations; who wrote more books than any other man living or dead, who erected two "Monte Cristos," one of which made his fortune and the other of which unmade it; who enriched the world and was poor all his life; together with an account of his exploits as dramatist, romancer, traveller, politician, wit, journalist, diplomatist, soldier, lecturer, cook, historian, poet, etc."
Before this Alexander entered the world he was about to conquer, much was already his own by inheritance. He was born into the atmosphere of fiery light and fierce heat which the Revolution had left behind it. He was destined to possess a good share of blue and of black blood, for his grandfather was no other than the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, self-exiled to San Domingo, and his grandmother was a negro-woman, Louise-Cessette Dumas. It was a romantically ill-assorted match, full of interesting possibilities. The son of this marriage threw over parentage and aristocracy, enlisted in the French army as a private under his mother's name, and at thirty-one years of age had risen to the rank of general. Times and circumstances were both fruitful and portentous—for they were leading up to the birth of our hero.
In 1790 the swarthy young Republican Hercules, being stationed at Villers-Cotterets, a little town on the high road from Paris to Laon, fell in love with an innkeeper's daughter there, and duly married her on the 28th of November, 1792. Thus when Alexandre was born, ten years later (on the 24th July, 1802, to be exact), he was a quadroon, and dowered at birth with many of the characteristics, good and bad, of the African race—the ardent, imaginative temperament, the levity of nature, the impulsive soul—a host of qualities which were strange to the comprehension of both friends and enemies in after-life; because side by side with them were all the native characteristics of the Frenchman, existent in full vigour.
All his life Dumas was taunted with his negro descent; the caricaturists and lampooners, with execrable taste, made the crisp hair and lean calves of the quadroon the subject of innumerable gibes. "Blackwood" tells us that a person more remarkable for inquisitiveness than for correct breeding once took the liberty to question the romancer rather closely concerning his genealogical tree.
"You are a quadroon, M. Dumas?" he began.
"I am, sir," replied the author, who had sense enough not to be ashamed of a descent he could not conceal.
"And your father?..."
"Was a mulatto."
"And you grandfather?"
"A negro," hastily answered Dumas, whose patience was waning fast—too fast for him to trouble about accuracy.
"And may I enquire what your great-grandfather was?"
"An ape, sir!" thundered the great man—"an ape, sir. My pedigree commences where yours terminates!"
Dumas's title of Marquis was another favourite topic for the malice of his enemies. It was asserted that he was not truly "De la Pailleterie," because his grandparents were not married. Mr. Fitzgerald repeated this assertion; but M. Parigot[1] refutes it. "Son grandpère paternel... avait épousé une négresse Marie-Cessette (sic) Dumas, décédée en Amerique, à la Guinodée, en 1772." Although the legitimate holder of the title after his father's death, Dumas never but once in his life alluded publicly to it; that indiscretion was absurdly magnified, and the truth of the statement was doubted. Yet (says Janin) when M. Theodore Anne, in his researches concerning the cross of St. Louis, discovered the origin of the La Pailleteries, and proved them to be indisputably noble, Dumas said simply, "I knew it." His son for his part said, "I did not know it." Such was the pride of the father and the son. But to return.
The first of three Alexanders—Mr. A. B. Walkley has dubbed him "Alexandre the greatest"—was a true Frenchman, an ardent Republican, a brilliant soldier, and an honest man. The son, who was apt, at times, to decorate his facts with a gorgeous edge of appropriate fiction, seems to have done no more than justice to his father, in the proud appreciations contained in his "Mémoires." Those who are incredulous respecting the wildly heroic deeds of the four Musketeers should read General Dermoncourt's account of how Dumas kept the bridge of Clausen single-handed, against the Austrians—an act which gained that hero the name of "the Horatius of the Tyrol"; or the story of that terrible night assault of the fort at Mont Cenis, when the General led three hundred soldiers up an ice-wall. "Every man who falls," said Dumas curtly, "must understand beforehand that he is a dead man,—that nothing can save him. It will be useless then to cry out—and by so doing he may give the alarm, and ruin our chances." Three men, so the son tells us, did fall; and their bodies dropped into the darkness, bounding from crag to crag. But not a cry was heard—not a moan—not a sigh!
When General Dumas's Republicanism brought him into conflict with Bonaparte's ever-increasing ambition, he turned his back on the Egyptian campaign, and set sail for France. Unhappily, the ship was obliged to put into Tarentum, and the Frenchmen were thrown into prison. The General's account of his struggle against the insidious manœuvres of his jailers, who tried to poison him with food and with medicine, is a terribly enthralling one, and inclines one to believe in heredity, for it is told with all that artless art of which the son, in after years, became such a master.
Our readers may think that we are as unconscionably tedious in getting our hero born, as Charles II. could possibly have been in accomplishing the opposite process; and we will therefore hasten to quote the following historic document—a letter written by General Dumas to his brother General, Brune:—
"I am glad to tell you that wife gave yesterday morning to a fine boy, who weighs nine pounds, and is eighteen inches long. You can guess that if he continues to grow in the outer world in the same proportion as he has done in the inner, he promises to be a good size!"
But a sad, brief fatherhood was in store for the proud parent. The effects of his two years' struggle in a Neapolitan prison, against poison and persecution, began to show themselves in the soldier's constitution. He took a journey to Paris to consult a specialist, and learning his fate, set to work to secure the good-will of his comrades there on behalf of the future widow. The little three-year-old went too, rode cock-horse with the sword of Marshal Brude, whilst wearing the hat of Murat, King of Naples. At last even the boy became conscious 
House where Dumas was born, Villers-Cotterets. of the shadow that had fallen on the household. "My father," he wrote in after years, "grew very weak, went out less often, more rarely mounted his horse, kept his room for longer periods, took me more sadly on his knees."
Then the broken-hearted General, refused all redress by his old colleague the Emperor, died, suffering, and in poverty, and greatly troubling for those he left behind. The widow, in spite of her prayers and tears, in spite of her husband's brilliant services to France, in spite of the intercession of soldiers as brilliant—Dumas's own friends and colleagues—failed to obtain a pension from the Emperor. Not a sou would Napoleon grant, to keep from starvation the widow of the man who had once dared to foresee and condemn the ambitious Emperor, in the "patriot," General Bonaparte.
And now there began for both widow and son a life of cruel poverty, a time of humiliation sweetened only by the affection of the mother for the son, and the son for the mother.
The widow went back to her father's house with her children, and Alexandre began his life-education. Of these early days he has gossipped very pleasantly, telling us of the three houses which he visited, that of Madame Darcourt, where he rejoiced his heart with an illustrated copy of "Buffon," and of M. Collard, who owned two treasures, a big Bible and a little park, both of which the youthful Alexandre learnt almost by heart. For mythology, too, the boy had a childish passion; and "Robinson Crusoe" (!) gave him his geography. "And so," he writes, "when five or six years of age, I possessed these two accomplishments (reading and writing) in a superior degree, a fact which made me wondrously conceited. I can still see myself, about the height of a jack-boot, and in a little cotton jacket, taking part, with the utmost precocity, in the conversation of grown-up people, and contributing thereto my store of knowledge, profane and sacred."
The memory of these early days was always dear to our Dumas, and he loved to dwell upon them, and introduce them and reintroduce them into his books. He tell us that the places, surroundings, people and events of these days all had their influence on his writings and character, and those who care to pursue the subject will find traces of these times in "Ange Pitou," "Catherine Blum," "Conscience l'Enfant," and other books.
The descriptions of these early days, as given in the "Mémoires," are full of delicate humour and charm. Dumas tells us of the old chateau, and its park, in which he revelled, and draws a lifelike portrait of his august relative M. Deviolaine, a man who had indeed "a stern look but a gentle heart." That gentleman's daughter, Cecilia, was one of the boy's favourite playmates. Dumas, then as always, had a great tendency to vertigo, and the mischievous girl delighted in trapping him into some such peril. Once during their rompings the youthful Alexandre fell into a pond, and ran the risk of drowning: the occasion prompted his first mot, which if it was not very witty, at least showed the lad's coolness and gaiety. He tells an amusing story of an adventure which befell him about this time. He and a companion were fighting outside a grocer's shop, and Dumas was unluckily pushed into a tub of honey. The grocer, who was busy at work inside, with a knife in his hand, ran after the terrified boy, who imagined that something worse than the fate of the blind mice was about to happen to him. The grocer overtook his victim, threw him down, raised his knife... and carefully scraped the honey off the trembling youngster's trousers.
Alexandre's first day at school was an eventful one. According to the brutal custom of the times he was subject to a series of practical jokes of a rough and painful nature. The schoolmaster found the new boy crying, and guessing the truth, punished the boys for such cruelty to a newcomer. Alexandre foresaw a warm reception outside when school was over, and his heart sank at the prospect. He determined to face the situation, since there was no help for it, and assuming a boldness which he certainly did not feel, he accosted the first boy he met and challenged him to fight. Young Dumas's impetuosity soon carried all before it; his opponent was thoroughly beaten, and ever after that little Alexandre was respected and let alone.
In due course the boy was prepared to receive his first communion, and there naturally followed for him a period of religious exaltation. He tells us that when the time came he swooned from excess of emotion. But Dumas was never one on whom religion in the narrow sense obtained any hold, and he soon recovered from this morbid state of ultra-piety. More lasting was the love of sport which he acquired in his boyhood. He was friendly with all the keepers and poachers, and—when at last he possessed a gun of his own—did a little sly shooting on his own account. His adventures at the boar-hunts and other sporting expeditions in which he was allowed to take part are told by Dumas with much gaiety and relish, and his character-sketches of his companions are drawn to the life.
Alexandre was not by any means a studious boy, and he watched with anxiety the various vain efforts made to get him into colleges set apart for the sons of officers. When a vacancy occurred in the Seminary of Soissons, he saw himself in imagination "un prêtre malgré lui" and the raillery of the fair Cecilia prompted him to hide away from his mother for three days, in a bird-catcher's hut. He was forgiven, of course, and obtained some sort of teaching at the hands of two Abbés of very opposite types, the gentle, pious Grégoire, and the bluff, worldly Fortier. Three masters struggled hopelessly to instil some notion of mathematics into the boy's head. He did not possess that kind of brain at all.
These peaceful lessons were interrupted by "alarums and excursions" such as Dumas's idol Shakespeare has described. It was now 1814, and the Allies were approaching Paris. Madame Dumas fled thither out of hearing of that terrible bogey-cry, "The Cossacks!" and as a consequence her son got a sight of the young king of Rome, who, on the abdication of the Emperor, was acclaimed as his father's successor by fickle and enthusiastic Paris. The skirmishes in the streets of Villers-Cotterets are vividly described by Dumas. It was at this period, according to our author himself, that his mother laid before him the choice of being a Davy de la Pailleterie, a "Marquis," and an aristocrat, like his grandfather, or a Republican, a simple "Dumas," as his father had been. The lad did not hesitate, although the advantages of the former career, under the new monarchy of Louis XVIII., were frankly pointed out to him.
Other indications of the nature of "the child," who was to be "father of the man," were not wanting. A certain M. Oblet, one of those who strove vainly to teach the volatile Alexandre mathematics, gave his pupil an accomplishment invaluable to him throughout his life—a beautiful writing-hand.
The first indication of the boy's future career, the first promptings towards it, were afforded by the visit to Villers-Cotterets of the son of a neighbour, a youth named Auguste Lafarge, who was a clerk in Paris. This city-mouse stirred the deep but slumbering ambitions of his poor "country cousin," and when, on his departure, the young visitor left behind him an epigram, levelled against a cruel inamorata of the neighbourhood, Dumas was fired with a desire to write French verse also. However, his tutor gave him some "bout-rimés" to complete, which, for the moment, effectually quenched the student's ardour.
Then came the thrilling drama of the "Hundred Days." Dumas had the good fortune to see the Emperor pass through the little town of Villers-Cotterets on his way to Waterloo, and on his return from that fatal field, and his description of the two episodes is most vivid. His passionate admiration for will-power and genius made him then, as he always remained, a Bonapartist—that is an individualist—in sentiment and fiction, though a staunch Republican in practice and politics.
He has given us a pen-picture of himself at this period. "I was rather a good-looking young monkey," he says. "I had long, curling hair, which fell over my shoulders, and which did not crispen until I was fifteen. I had big blue eyes, which are still the best feature of my face, a straight nose, small and rather well-shaped, big and mobile lips, and white and rather regular teeth. Lastly, add a startlingly pale complexion, which turned darker at the time that my hair became crisp."
He was a lad of spirit, "without knowledge and without fear," and his roving, out-door life was building up his frame with the strength to face the enormous life-work before him.
At sixteen a "calf" love-affair gave a necessary "finishing touch" to Dumas's education. He was stricken with admiration for one of two somewhat disdainful damsels who came on a visit from Paris. At that time our shabby-genteel hero dressed in rather an antiquated fashion, and the girls and his rivals made sly fun of the boy. On one occasion, anxious to "show off" before the "fair" in his gala attire, the impetuous Alexandre sprang across a wide ditch. The feat was skilful, but not particularly impressive—for the jumper split his tight kneebreeches in the effort. In the end the girls bade the love-sick but gauche young gentleman return to his marbles! But he had learnt something, for he had loved, and suffered in pride and heart.
And now there entered upon the scene an important actor in the drama of Dumas's life. Our hero was at this time only the junior clerk of M. Mennesson, the notary, with little more than clerkly prospects and ambitions, when there came to Villers-Cotterets an elegant young aristocrat, the Vicomte Adolphe Ribbing de Leuven by name. De Leuven dazzled his young friend completely. He could make amorous verse; he had written plays, he had even read one of them, at the Gymnase Theatre, at Paris; and being admitted behind the scenes of the theatres, could talk airily and familiarly to his envious friend of Mars and of Talma.
The call to Paris—the call to London—what young and aspiring heart does not know it? The summons that was at first a whisper became to the soul of the ardent young Alexandre a call, ever louder and more imperative; and now, a day's holiday at Soissons brought Dumas into contact with Shakespeare. It was Shakespeare diluted by Ducis, it is true, but even Ducis could not entirely spoil "Hamlet," and the young provincial, who entered the theatre ignorant of all three names, came out enraptured—dazzled—transformed. Whilst de Leuven was exciting the ambition of his friend, another comrade, Amedée de la Ponce, assisted to equip Dumas for the coming fight, by teaching him Italian, so that he might read Dante and Ariosto in the original, and German, enough to read Schiller. Better still, he gave him this priceless advice, which Dumas gratefully records:—"Be sure that there is something else in life besides pleasure, love, sport, dancing, and all the wild dreams of youth. There is Work: learn to work—learn, that is, to be happy."
Dumas's blood and parentage had important influences on his character; and a third factor to be remembered is the atmosphere of the times into which he was born. Even in his village seclusion, young Dumas could, as it were, feel the hot breath of Romanticism on his brow. The literary-political revolution was then commencing: a moderate "Romantic" like Casimir Delavigne was conquering Paris with his "Vêpres Siciliennes"; Béranger was thrilling France with his songs; and the popular feeling against the Bourbons—the old Republican spirit modified—expressed itself now in songs, plays, squibs and pamphlets. These Dumas read greedily, and the seed fell on fertile ground. Furthermore, de Leuven condescended to collaborate with the young clerk in some vaudevilles and other plays, and when the aristocrat returned with his father to Paris, he carried Dumas's heart and hopes with him.
The months passed, and doleful news came from headquarters to the would-be dramatist. The Parisian managers seemed strangely blind to their own best interests. At this juncture Dumas was promoted to a clerkship with one M. Lefévre, a Crépy notary, and it was from this town that he entered, with his accustomed impetuosity, into one of those rash enterprises of which youth is so commonly guilty, and which so often appear afterwards in the light of inspirations.
A comrade named Paillet came one day to Dumas and proposed that in the absence of M. Lefévre, who was about to pay a three days' visit to Paris, they, too, should take a holiday in that city. It was one of those mad, impossible schemes which always recommended themselves to Dumas. Two clerks, with thirty-five francs between them, were to set out to do the forty or fifty miles to Paris, enjoy themselves in the city, and return—in seventy-two hours! But Dumas's ingenuity was equal to the problem. Paillet had a horse, and the two youths used it alternately. That halved the walking distance. The one on foot carried the gun, and the game that they shot on the way was to pay for their food in Paris. Whenever they sighted a keeper, one rode off with the game and gun, the other stayed behind to demonstrate his innocence, to propitiate and, if necessary, "tip" the keeper. Paillet explained to the landlord of the little hotel they patronised that they had wagered with some Englishmen to visit Paris without spending a sou; and so persuaded the landlord to supply them with food, lodging and beds, in exchange for the game. Needless to say, this plan was young Alexandre's.
At Paris the first ambition of the budding author was realised; for, thanks to his friend de Leuven, he saw Talma, the tragedian, in "Sylla," and had the overwhelming joy of being admitted into the great man's dressing-room. Dumas was duly questioned as to his profession, and had to confess, with deep humiliation, that he was "only a notary's clerk."
"You need not despair on that account," said the kindly actor. "Corneille was an attorney's clerk. Gentlemen," he went on, turning to the brilliant company, "let me present to you a future Corneille!" Then, at the young man's earnest request, Talma laid his hand on Dumas's crisp locks, saying—
"Alexandre Dumas, I baptise thee Poet, in the name of Shakespeare, of Corneille, and of Schiller! Return to the country—go back to your office, and if you have a true call, the Angel of Poetry will be sure to find you, wherever you are!"
After such a benediction, the moment when Dumas should come to close quarters with his fate in Paris was but a matter of time, and, to the ardent young man's mind, the sooner the better!
The opportunity came sooner. M. Lefévre had returned to Crépy before his truant clerk, and Dumas answered the inevitable reproof with a rash resignation. This fertile brain had already begun to grow its first crop of ideas. The notary's clerk resolved to attack Paris at once.
He could scarcely have chosen a more inopportune moment, for his mother's resources had dwindled to a capital of 253 francs. Nevertheless, Dumas contrived to sell some old engravings; won his coach-fare to Paris from the proprietor of the posting-house, by means of his skill at billiards; and then, armed with letters written to General Dumas by his father's old friends, Marshals Jourdan, Victor, Sebastiani, and the rest—tokens which he believed to be better than any letters of introduction—he set out for Paris. He had first knelt and prayed with his mother, who, with many fears and sighs, let him go on his audacious quest.
At this point in the life of Alexandre Dumas there is a sharp dividing-linc. Until now he had been a boy, living an aimless life, without ambition and without prospects. He himself has confessed to the imperfect nature of his education, adding, "I possessed, however, all the physical advantages which a rustic life gives: I could ride any horse; I walked a dozen leagues to dance at a ball, and was pretty smart with the foil and pistol; I could play tennis like a St Georges, and rarely missed a hare or a partridge at thirty paces." His kindly patrons had tried to make a musician, a priest, a notary, or a scholar of him; now he freed himself from all restraining influences, and began to live, think, plan, and work for himself. The change, as we shall sec, worked wonders. Perhaps the phrase "for himself" is misleading; for his worst friends (and he made many) never doubted Dumas's passionate love for his mother. "I was a man, now," he writes, "for a woman depended on me. I was going to repay my mother in some degree for all the care she had lavished on me." Truly, he was a man, in two senses: he had reached the age of a a man, and he acted with all a man's courage and sense of responsibility.
Of all his long and adventurous career, the story of Dumas's early struggles is the most familiar to the general reader; every sketch of his life, however short, deals with it, so that we, in turn, can be as brief as this interesting period will allow.
On his arrival in Paris Dumas went to each of his father's old comrades, and experienced the sad but inevitable disillusionment. Jourdan, Victor, Sebastiani, turned their backs on their old colleague's son; Verdier had himself been superannuated, and was poor in money and influence. General Foy, however, received Dumas kindly, but found the young provincial woefully ignorant. Nevertheless, he bade the youth write down his address. When he saw the clerk's exquisite penmanship the General cried out—
"We are saved!"
"Why?"
"You write such a good hand!"
Dumas felt profoundly humiliated. He resolved then and there to earn his living one day, not by his penmanship, but by his pen.
This skill in caligraphy obtained for the despairing young man a clerkship in the Secretary's department of the Duke of Orleans, with a salary of about fifty pounds a year. Fifty pounds a year! It was the riches of Monte Cristo! Dumas hurried home full of joy, reached Villers-Cotterets at midnight, and rushed into his mother's bedroom, shouting "Victory! Victory!" He had indeed drawn first blood!
Once installed in his modest lodgings, No. 1 Paté des Italiens, Dumas set himself to study. The days were his noble master's, and from seven till ten every evening he returned to the bureau to work; but half the night he spent reading Juvenal, Tacitus, Suetonius; or in studying geography and physiology. He also followed with a certain curiosity the theatrical productions of the period; but as he was not in sympathy with the style, the dialogue, the construction of those plays, which were of the pre-Romantic type, he felt no desire to imitate them. So steadily did he work, however, that when two months later his mother joined him, she scarcely knew her son again: he had become so serious!
Meanwhile the Romantics, like a crowd without leaders, growled and threatened inarticulately. Their growing power was greatly augmented by the stupidity of the Government, who persecuted that very moderate innovator Casimir Delavigne, and ennobled Ancelot, his Royalist rival. The year 1823 was indeed a year of revolution, literary and political. Hugo and Lamartine had already begun the attack in poetry, with the "Odes and Ballades" and the "Meditations"; Nodier had published his genre romances. Then came the turn of the painters; and the Salon of 1824 was full of pictures of a new type—Scheffer's "Death of Gaston de Foix," Delacroix's "Massacre of Chios," and Coigniet's "Massacre of the Innocents." Géricault, too, was at work on his famous "Wreck of the Medusa."
From abroad came winds to fan the flames. Byron, who died in this year, was deeply impressing the future author of "Antony"; Scott, who was eagerly read by the men of the rising generation, had revolutionised the old ideas of romance in general, and Dumas's notions in particular; and Cooper, the now-forgotten, found in the country of Chateaubriand and Rousseau a congenial home for his poetic romances of the prairies.
All this time the young collaborators, de Leuven and Dumas, had not been idle. In spite of his content with his modest salary, young Alexandre had spent more than double that income, during the first year, and his mother's little store was almost gone. At this crisis a third person was taken into the flourishing dramatic partnership—a clever drunkard named Rousseau; and the little play which resulted—"La Chasse et l'Amour"—though rejected at the Théâtre Gymnase, was accepted at the Ambigu, and played with success in 1825. This lightened the poverty which was weighing upon the author's household, and thus emboldened, Dumas put together three little stories which he had written, and persuaded a foolish publisher to go halves with him in the risk of producing them. This little volume, "Nouvelles Contemporaines," of which we shall treat at greater length later on, was published in 1826, but was not a success. Dumas tells us variously that four and again that six copies only were sold. It was favourably reviewed, however, by Etienne Arago, and proved a species of letter-ofintroduction to Buloz, when the Revue des Deux Mondes came into existence.
In the midst of these ever-growing interests and possibilities—for Alexandre had now the privilege of contributing (without pay) to a monthly magazine called Le Psyche, and was interested, along with a colleague named Lassagne, in the fortunes of a second play called "La Noce et l'Enterrement"—a blow fell upon him. News of this employee's frivolous dallying with the Muses had reached the ears of the authorities, and Lassagne was forbidden to encourage such evil practices for the future. Dumas was so alarmed at this threatened stoppage of his life-work, that he found courage to beard his superior, M. Oudard, in his den. That official, it appeared, would be pleased to permit the young clerk his literary pranks, if he strove to emulate Delavigne; but Dumas replied, with more honesty than prudence, that if he did not hope to do something in the future very different from what M. Delavigne had done, he would then and there renounce all his ambitions. This answer was treated as an impertinence by the chiefs of the bureau, and laughed at as the drollest of jokes by the rest of the staff. From this time dated the series of petty persecutions which in the end cost the youth his salary, and nearly lost him his place.
Whilst Dumas was struggling on, more or less in the dark as to the nature and direction of his own abilities, two events of great importance happened. Louis XVIII. had died, and had been succeeded by Charles X., whose career in some respects resembled that of our James II. Charles had pledged himself on his accession to abolish the censorship; but he soon attempted to re-impose it. A political-literary agitation followed, and after a struggle the obnoxious threat was withdrawn. The other event was the arrival in Paris of Kean and an English company of Shakespearean actors. Not so long before, English players had been pelted from the pit of the Porte St Martin, but at this moment (1827) the French had been seized with Anglo-mania. Scott was being read and dramatised on all hands; Guizot was studying the British constitution, for future application to French politics, and Byron was a literary fashion. Dumas was even more prepared to welcome Shakespeare than were the majority of his fellow-Romantics. He saw "Hamlet," and it electrified him. He knew every word of the play beforehand, and strange as he found the English style of acting, he "saw light" for the first time on the path of his future. But let him speak for himself:
"Ah, this was what my soul had been seeking after: this was what I had lacked, and which had come at last! Here were actors forgetting that they were acting—here was mock life become real life, by the power of art; here was truth of speech and action, which transformed the players into human beings, with their virtues, passions, and weaknesses, instead of into cold-blooded posers, unnatural, declamatory, sententious.... I read—nay, devoured—not only the repertory of Shakespeare but that of every other foreign dramatic poet, and I came to recognise that in the world of the theatre everything emanates from Shakespeare, as in the real world all emanates from the sun.... I recognised, in short, that he was the one who had created most, after God."
"From that moment my career was decided: I felt that the special call which is sent to every man had come to me, then; I felt a confidence which has never since failed me. Nevertheless I did not disguise from myself the difficulties which such a life-work would involve. I knew that above all other professions this one demanded deep and special study, and that, to operate with success upon living life, I should first need to study 'dead nature' long and earnestly. Shakespeare, Corneille, Molière, Calderon, Goëthe, and Schiller—I laid their works before me, like bodies on the surgeon's table, and with scalpel in hand, long nights through, I probed them to the heart to discover the secret of their life. I saw by what admirable mechanism these authors set the nerves and muscles of their creatures moving and working, and noted with what skill they clothed and re-clothed with different flesh that framework which was always the same."
Dumas had translated the "Fiesco" of Schiller, and vainly attempted to dramatise Scott with Soulié, but Shakespeare filled his heart and brain with new thoughts, greater ambitions. No sooner had the English actors gone than the Salon opened, and the young author, paying an early visit, was immediately impressed by a picture representing the murder of Monaldeschi by order of Queen Christine of Sweden. Dumas seized upon the incident then and there as a subject for a poetic drania; he found the details of the tragedy in an article in the "Biographie Michaud," and set to work.
"Christine" was soon written. It was only half-classical in style, for although it observed some of the "unities," it was thoroughly romantic in form. "What, then, was to be done with the bastard infant, born outside the pale of the Institute and the Academy?" Dumas asked himself. The Comédie Française, a State-endowed theatre, ruled by the Government and a committee of its actors, and bound by tradition to the classic school of Corneille and Racine, would not be likely to tolerate any suspicion of vulgarity, in the shape of plays cast in the mould of Shakespeare. But this very system of national control enables young writers to obtain, by right, at least a hearing. There was, Dumas learnt, an official examiner of plays, who would probably be a year before he got down to "Christine," so great were his arrears of work; but there was the commissary, Baron Taylor, open to give attention to more favoured candidates. Dumas succeeded in obtaining an appointment with the Baron, though it was for seven in the morning—the only time the overworked official could spare. Very droll is the young dramatist's account of Baron Taylor in his bath, groaning whilst a merciless poet read every line of a five—act tragedy to him. At the end of the reading the commissary was frozen and cross, and poor Dumas offered to come again; but the kindly Baron encouraged him to begin his own play, and became quite enthusiastic at the end. Thanks to Taylor's exertions, the trembling author read the play before the brilliant staff of the Française; he was applauded loudly, and the play was accepted with acclamation, subject to revision. It is worthy of remark that Dumas, hurrying home to delight his sorrowing mother with the news, lost the MS. on the way,—and rewrote it that night. He knew every line of it by heart!
The gentleman appointed on behalf of the Comédie Française to consider "Christine" was of the classic school, and he smilingly bade the young iconoclast go back to his desk—and stay there. Yet again the play was read, and once more set aside for revision; and this time Dumas took the opportunity of remodelling and entirely altering the motive of the play.
Poor "Christine"! No sooner was she clad in her new robe, than bureaucratic and social intrigues forced Dumas to consent to the indefinite postponement of its production, in favour of another version of the subject by a more influential writer. But he was far from being daunted, and a chance occurrence set him on the road to success by another path.
One day the office cupboard from which Dumas usually got his writing-paper was locked, and he was obliged to go into another office to fetch some. As he passed through the room his eyes fell on a book which was lying on a desk. It was a volume of Anquetil, open at the passage which describes the Duke de Guise's jealousy of St Mégrin, and the trick which he played upon the Duchess in consequence. Guise gave her a dose of what he called "poison," but which turned out to be harmless soup. The incident seemed so dramatic that it excited Dumas's interest, and he sought for and read the story of the murder of St Mégrin, and of Bussy d'Amboise in the "Mémoires d'Estoile." From 
Dumas in 1828. From a drawing by Deveria. these, he tells us, he constructed his play of "Henri Trois et sa Cour."
"I was then twenty-five years of age," he writes; "'Henri Trois' was my second scrious work. Let a conscientious critic take it and submit it to the most searching examination—he will find in the matter of style everything to censure; in the matter of plot, nothing. I have written fifty dramas since, and none of them is more skilfully constructed." These are bold words, and would be boastful if good critics did not confirm them.
The young author's superiors were equally busy during this time. They piled the work upon him for fear that he should use a minute of their time in writing his "trashy" dramas; they took away his salary, and if Dumas had not been able to borrow from Lafitte, the famous banker and politician, he and his mother would have starved. Finally, the Duke of Orleans withheld from our author the customary yearly bonus given to his staff. But for all that, "Henri Trois" was written, was read privately, and greeted with enthusiasm—was read before the Comédie Française, and accepted by acclamation.
Soon the news got about that a new play—a play which would revolutionise the French stage—had been written by an obscure young man, and little by little the public excitement grew. The production was fixed for February 10th, 1829, and rehearsals went forward more or less smoothly. Firmin (the leading actor since Talma's death) and Mdlle. Mars were to play the chief parts, and Dumas was full of joy and hope and pride, when news came to him that his mother was dying.
Madame Dumas had never possessed the buoyant spirits, the hopeful temperament, the love of daring which characterised her quadroon son. She would probably have borne the anxieties which his ambitions caused her—for she loved him and believed in him—if her friends and neighbours had not aggravated her trouble with their croaking, spiteful tongues. On the eve of the production of her son's play, the poor widow, coming away after a more or less trying interview of this nature, fell down in an apoplectic fit. Alexandre, struck with despair, rendered his mother all the help which devotion and intelligence could give, but the fateful night came, and found her still unconscious and in danger.
Of all "first nights" on record, probably that of "Henri III." was the most eventful and strange. As an epoch-making event, as a triumph, it was greater even than "Hernani" a year later, and "Antony," which afterwards made such a sensational début. The accounts of those who witnessed this première have assured us that the author's description does the scene no more than justice.
"I passed the whole day by my mother's bedside. She was still unconscious. At a quarter to eight I left her, and entered my box side, as the curtain rose."
"The first act was received complacently, although the exposition of the plot was long, stiff and tedious. As the curtain fell I ran out to revisit my mother."
"On my return I had just time to cast a glance round the auditorium. Those who were present will recollect what a magnificent coup d'œil it presented. The first tier was crowded with men resplendent with the Orders of five or six countries on their breasts; the whole aristocracy was massed together in the boxes, and the ladies glistened with diamonds."
"The second act, containing the sarbacane episode, about which I had been so nervous, passed without opposition, and the curtain fell in the midst of applause."
"From the third act, to the close the play was no longer a success: it was a growing delirium. Everyone applauded, even the women; and amongst them Madame Malibran, leaning far out of a box and clinging with both hands to a column to keep herself from falling."...
Then, when Firmin came forward to name the author, the enthusiasm was so unanimous that the Duke of Orleans himself rose and listened, standing, to the announcement of his talented employee's name. That night Dumas received an effusive letter of congratulation, from the very official who had deprived him of his salary!
Next morning the successful young playwright's room was crowded with bouquets, which he proudly placed on his mother's bed. Dumas had sold the manuscript of his play for 6,000 francs, and repaid Lafitte, when news came that "Henri Trois" was suspended by the Minister of the Interior. Happily, Dumas straightway obtained a revocation of the order, but during the interim the young author could scarcely be said to breathe!
He began immediately to pay for his success. An anonymous attack in one of the papers brought a challenge from the fiery young author, and—greater honour still!—seven "classical" playwrights drew up a pompous address to the King, imploring him to save the national theatre from "despicable mountebanks," and to keep to the orthodox writers—that is, themselves. Happily Charles X. replied simply, that he had only his place in the pit, as other Frenchmen had, and could not interfere.
About this time Nodier, of whom we have spoken, was holding his salon at the Arsenal, and Dumas had the good fortune to be admitted to that brilliant literary circle. Nodier's daughter, Marie Mennessier-Nodier, tells in her recollections of her father an amusing story of Dumas's first introduction to the Arsenal. The librarian was constantly pestered by poorer literary brethren, who called to sponge on him. Therefore, when one day Marie begged her father to receive a handsome young "man of letters" who had called, the wary bibliophile flatly refused. Dumas laughed, went away, and—called again. Marie was much taken with the gay, goodlooking young fellow, and Nodier at last grumblingly consented to see him, preparing as he spoke to part with a score or two of francs. He received Dumas, first with distrust, then with surprise, chatted with him animatedly, and parted with him as unwillingly as he had greeted him. Needless to say, money was not mentioned!
Nodier gave the young writer more than money: he gave him a social life, and a literary encouragement and education which was invaluable. Here the young author met Hugo, De Vigny, Sainte Beuve, De Musset, and others almost as brilliant but less known. Thenceforth a place was kept for the witty young writer at the famous Sunday dinners of the Arsenal, and here in due course, "little Alexandre" was brought. The friendship between the two men remained close, affectionate and unalterable, until the elder man's death.
Fame now came swiftly to the author of the first great romantic play. Dumas was appointed assistant-librarian to the Duke of Orleans, under Delavigne, at the princely salary of £100 a year! The author of "Henri Trois" was the lion of Paris for the winter of 1829; Deveria made an engraving of him; David of Angers a medallion. "Nothing was wanting to my glory," says Dumas frankly,—"not even that little shade of the ridiculous which always accompanies literary reputations." Wild stories were repeated in "classic" circles, of the triumphant orgies of the Romantics,—how they had danced about a bust of Racine, crying exultantly that they had "done for him"; how they were calling for the heads of the Academicians on chargers, and so forth. No wonder the Seven appealed to the King!
"Henri Trois," indeed, was a revelation and a revolution. It was a romance drawn from French history; its characters were real in origin, and true to life in their words and deeds; instead of dull declamatory couplets, and a tawdry, meaningless plot, the audience was enthralled by the rapid, merciless development of a story of human passion. The love of St Mégrin for the Duchess of Guise, the Duke's jealousy of St Mégrin, both private and political, the vivid picture of Henri III. and his mignons and the everyday life of the French court—the series of dramatic scenes which develop the intrigue, until St Mégrin goes to the assigna
Alexandre Dumas. From a lithograph by Delpach of a drawing by Maurie. tion which Guise forces his wife to make—all this was so novel, so congenial, so startling, that for the moment Paris talked of nothing else.
Our author, with characteristic tact, determined to follow up this success with another as soon as he possibly could. He withdrew "Christine" from the Comédie Française, where it was receiving lukewarm treatment, and took it to the Odéon. He had reconstructed the play, "to make it more modern and more dramatic"; and for this purpose had taken coach to Havre and back, working out the remodelled play in his brain, to the jolting of coach!
But this time the "classicists" were not to be taken by surprise. The play was forbidden: then, when the mandate was withdrawn and the rehearsals went forward, an opposition was organised. Fortunately the young "romantics" rallied round Dumas; his friendly rival Soulié brought in a number of his workmen to form a claque, and the forces were about equal. On March 30th, 1830, the battle of the Odéon was fought. The theatre resounded alternately with applause and "hissing"; roars of delight and of disgust succeeded each other. This terrible battle lasted seven hours. "Ten times overthrown, the play sprang to its feet after each reverse, and at two in the morning it finished, having thrown the public, panting, thrilled and terrified, on its knees!" Yet the success of "Christine" was still undecided when the curtain fell, and Dumas and his backers retired to supper, jubilant but exhausted. The author had seen that many parts of the dialogue urgently required to be altered or omitted, and had arranged that the revisions should be sent to the actors next morning; but how was it possible for the host of that joyous company to find the time to do the work? Hugo and Alfred de Vigny grasped the situation, and came to the rescue. Bidding Dumas entertain his guests, they retired to another room and wrought at the play for the rest of the night, and at dawn walked away, arm-in-arm, leaving the revised MS. on the mantelpiece in the room where the revellers were snoring.
With the change consequent on his achievement of fame and (in a less degree) of fortune, Dumas closed a chapter in his life which had an important influence on his future. When he first took lodgings in Paris, he was not quite twenty-one. He lived in a garret, dreamed of fame, and was happy, like Béranger's hero—
"Dans une grenier, qu'on est bien à vingt ans!"
The handsome lad had for neighbour one Madame Marie-Catherine Lebay, a young and pretty seamstress, amicably separated from her husband, She brightened the life of the young playwright with her cheerful society, and the pair fell in love. When Madame Dumas followed her son to Paris, he found her rooms elsewhere, and Alexandre Dumas fils was born of this intimacy, in 1824. When worldly temptations came upon the vain young genius he separated from his mistress, and little by little lost sight of her. Although the object of jealous rivalry and of a struggle for possession between father and mother, and although alternately under the control of each, the younger Dumas grew up to love his two parents, so strangely different in nature and position, with almost equal affection. As long as the father possessed a franc the son was welcome to it, and this affection was repaid to the full in the last sad days of the elder man's life.
What Dumas might have been, had he remained true to his first love, we can only conjecture. That it would have been for the good of his genius, his happiness, and his success, those who have read the story of this sweet and able woman's life cannot doubt. Although at first there was a bitterness between them after the separation, she remained through life proud of the success of her famous lover, and during the last years was reconciled to him. Her death in 1868 was one of the sorrows of the old Dumas, when he himself was nearing his end.
- ↑ Alexandre Dumas Père ("Les Grand Écrivains Français").