Chapter X: Dumas the Younger (2)

If anybody asks me, "Is this well done?" expecting me to enter on the discussion of the _lex non scripta_, I shall reply that this is not my trade. But if the question refers to the merits of the handling, I can reply as confidently as the dying Charmian, "It is well done, and fitting for a novelist." In no book, as it seems to me, has the author obtained such a complete command of his subject or reeled out his story with such steady confidence and fluency. No doubt he sometimes preaches too much.[383] The elder Ritz's advice against suicide, for instance, if sound is superfluous. But this is not a very serious evil, and the steady _crescendo_ of interest which prevails throughout the story carries it off. There are also numerous separate passages of real distinction, the fateful bathing-scene being, as it should be, the best, except the finale; but others, such as the history of Pierre's first modelling from the life, being excellent. The satire on the literary coteries of the Restoration is about the best thing of the kind that the author has done; and many of the "interiors"--always a strong point with him--are admirable. It is on the point of character that the chief questions may arise; but here also there seems to me to be only one of these--it is true it is the most important of all--on which there should be much debate. The succumbing of Constantin seems perhaps a little more justifiable by its importance to the story than by its intrinsic probability.[384] Clémenceau seems to me "constant to himself," or in the "good childlikeness" of his character, throughout; and to ask whether it was necessary to make him smash the bust that he finds in Serge's possession seems to be equivalent to asking whether it was necessary to put the Vice-Consul of Tetuan in petticoats.[385] It is only about Iza herself that there can be much dispute. Has that process synthetic which is spoken of elsewhere been carried too far with her? Have doses of childlikeness, beauty, charm, ill-nature, sensual appetite, etc., been taken too "boldly" (in technical doctors' sense) and mixed too crudely to measure? A word or two may be permissible on this.

I do not think that Iza is an impossible personage; nor do I think that she is even an improbable one to such an extent as to bar her out, possible or impossible. But I am not sure that she is not rather arbitrarily synthetised instead of being re-created, or that she, though possible and not quite improbable, is not singly abnormal[386] to the verge of monstrosity. It must be evident to any reader of tolerable acuteness that the obsession of _Manon Lescaut_ has not left Dumas _fils_. Although the total effect of Manon and of Iza is very different, and although they are differently "staged," their resemblances in detail are very great; and, to speak paradoxically, the differences are almost more resembling still. Iza offers herself as mistress if there are any difficulties in the way of her being a wife; would, in fact, as she admits long afterwards, have preferred the less honourable, but also less fettering, estate. On the other hand, be it remembered, it was something of an accident that Manon and Des Grieux were _not_ actually married. The two women are alike in their absolute insistence on luxury and pleasure before anything else; but they differ in that Iza does--as we said Manon did _not_, or did not specially--want "what Messalina wanted." On the other hand, Iza is ill-natured and Manon is not. In these respects we may say that the Manon-formula has passed through that of Madame de Merteuil, and bears unpleasant signs of the passage. Manon repents, which Iza never could do. But they agree in the courtesan essence--the readiness to exchange for other things that commodity of theirs which should be given only for love. I never wish to supply my readers with problem-tabloids; but I think that in this paragraph I have supplied them with materials for working out the double question, "Is Iza less human than Manon? and if so, why?" for themselves, as well as, if by any chance they should care to do so, of guessing my own answers to it.[387]

[Sidenote: Reflections.]

It is more germane to custom and purpose here to add a few general remarks on the story, and more, but still few, on its author's general position. _Affaire Clémenceau_ is certainly, as has been said before, his strongest book, and, especially if taken together with _La Dame aux Camélias_ (which, if less free from faults, contains some different merits), it constitutes a strong thesis or diploma-piece for all but the highest degree as a novelist. Taking in the others which have been surveyed, we must also acknowledge in the author an unusually wide range and a great display of faculty--even of faculties--almost all over that range, though perhaps in no other case than the two selected has he thoroughly mastered and firmly held the ground which he has attempted to win. If he has not--if _Tristan le Roux_ is, on the whole, only a second- or third-rate historical romance; _Trois Hommes Forts_ a fair and competent, but not thrilling melodrama, and so on, and so on--it is no doubt partly, to speak with the sometimes useful as well as engaging irrationality of childhood, "because he couldn't." But I think it is also because of something that can be explained. It was because he was far too prone to theorise about men and women and to make his books attempted demonstrations, or at least illustrations, of his theories. Now, to theorise about men is seldom very satisfactory; but to theorise about women is to weigh gossamer and measure moonbeams. The very wisest thing ever said about them is said in the old English couplet:

Some be lewd, and some be shrewd,
_But all they be not so_,

and I think that our fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century _vates_ showed his wisdom most in sticking to the strict negative in his exculpatory second line, here italicised.

Now if Alexander the Younger does not absolutely insist that "all they _be_ so," he goes very near to it, excepting only characters of insignificant domesticity. When he does give you an "honnête femme" who is not merely this, such as the Clémentine of the _Roman d'une Femme_ or the Marceline of _Diane de Lys_, he gives them some queer touches. His "_shady_ Magdalenes" (with apologies to one of the best of parodies for spoiling its double rhyme) and his even more shady, because more inexcusable, _marquises_; his adorable innocents, who let their innocence vanish "in the heat of the moment" (as the late Mr. Samuel Morley said when he forgot that Mr. Bradlaugh was an atheist), because the husbands pay too much attention to politics; and his affectionate wives, like the Lady in _Thérèse_,[388] who supply their missing husbands' place just for once, and forget all about it--these _might_ be individually creatures of fact, but as a class they _are_ creatures of theory. And theory never made a good novel yet: it is lucky if it has sometimes, but too rarely, failed to make a good into a bad one. But it has been urged--and with some truth as regards at least the later forms of the French novel--that it is almost founded on theory, and certainly Dumas _fils_ can be cited in support--perhaps, indeed, he is the first important and thoroughgoing supporter. And this of itself justifies the place and the kind of treatment allotted to him here, the justification being strengthened by the fact that he, after Beyle, and when Beyle's influence was still little felt, was a leader of a new class of novelist, that he is the first novelist definitely of the Second Empire.

FOOTNOTES:

[349] As, for instance, in _A Short History of French Literature_ (Oxford, 7th ed., 1917), pp. 550-552.

[350] At the same time, and admitting (see below) that it is wrong to meet overpraise with overblame, I think that it may be met with silence, for the time at any rate.

[351] I have, for reasons unnecessary to particularise, not observed strict chronological order in noticing his work or that of some others; but a sufficient "control" will, I hope, be supplied by the Appendix of dated books under their authors' names as treated in this volume.

[352] I observe with amusement (which may or may not be shared by "the friends of Mr. Peter Magnus") that I have repeated in the case of Dumas _fils_ what I said on Crébillon _fils_. The contrast-parallel is indeed rather striking. Partly it is a case of reversal, for Crébillon _père_ was a most respectable man, most serious, and an academician; the son, though not personally disreputable, was the very reverse of serious, and academic neither by nature nor by status. In Dumas' case the father was extremely lively, and the Academy shuddered or sneered at him; the son was very serious indeed, and duly academised. Some surprise was, I remember, occasioned at the time by this promotion. There are several explanations of it; mine is Alexander the son's fondness for the correct subjunctive. George Sand, in a note to one of her books (I forget which), rebelliously says that the speaker in the text _ought_ to have said, "aimasse," not "aimais," but that he didn't, and she will not make him do it. On the other hand, I find "aimasse," "haïsse," and "revisse" in just three lines of _La Dame aux Camélias_. And everybody ought to know the story of the Immortal who, upon finding a man "where nae mon should be," and upon that "mon" showing the baseness derived from Adam by turning on his accomplice and saying, "Quand je vous disais qu'il était temps que je m'en aille!" neglected _crim. con._ for _crim. gram._ and cried in horror, "Que je m'en all_asse_, Monsieur!" But this preciseness did not extend to the younger Alexander's choice of subjects.

[353]

To whose "music" also our young friends,
As they tell us, have "lost the key."

[354] Dumas, like other mid-nineteenth century novelists in France and England both, is perhaps too fond of this complaint. But, after all, it _does_ "stage" more prettily than appendicitis or typhoid.

[355] Nor is this the only place where _Manon_ figures in the work of Alexander the younger. Especially in the early books direct references, more or less obvious, are frequent; and, as will be seen, the inspiration reappears in his best and almost last novel.

[356] It may perhaps seem to some readers that Janin's own novel-work should have been noticed earlier. I had at one time thought of doing this. But his most famous book of the sort, _L'Âne Mort et la Femme Guillotinée_, is a foolish _fatrasie_ of extravagant, undigested, unaffecting horrors, from the devouring by dogs of the _live_ donkey, at the beginning, to the "resurrectioning" of the guillotined woman, at the end. Sterne has played tricks with many clumsy imitators, but with none to more destructive effect than in this case. I read it first in the flush of my early enthusiasm for 1830, and was miserably disappointed; I tried to read it again the other day, and simply broke down. _Barnave_ is interesting only as referred to by Gautier; and so on. The fact is that "J. J." was "J. J. _J._"--a journalist merely--with a not unpleasant frothy ginger-beery style, but with nothing whatever within it or beyond it.

[357]

And, with dim-fretted foreheads all,
On corpses _three_ months old at noon she came.

(_The Palace of Art._)

[358] If anybody cannot tolerate the stretching he had better abstain from Alexander the younger's work, for "they all do it" there. The fact may have conciliated some of our own contemners of "good form."

[359] Every one is entitled to write this word once in his life, I believe; so I have selected my occasion at last. Of course some one may say: "You have admitted that he did not know Marguerite's pact with his father." True; and this might excuse the wrath, but not the way of showing it.

[360] As I write this I remember a comic experience of fifty years ago. I was trying to find out the ruins of a certain castle in Brittany, and appealed, in my very best bad French, to an old road-mender. He scowled at me, as if it had been in the days of the _Combat des Trente_, and answered, "_Mais c'est de l'Anglais que vous me parlez là!_"

[361] Another trait of his may not displease readers, though it be not strictly relevant. I once, perhaps with some faint mischievous intent, asked him about the competence of Dr. Pusey and of M. Renan in the sacred tongue. "Pusey," he said, "knew pretty well everything about Hebrew that there was to be known in his day." He was not quite so complimentary about Renan; though, as he put his judgment less pointedly, I do not remember the exact words.

[362] With a bow and arrows, remember; not a Browning pistol.

[363] The indebtedness to Michelet is pretty obvious.

[364] It may be well to illustrate this, lest it be said that having been more than just to the father (_v. sup._) I am still less than just to the son. Merlin is made to visit Morgane la Fée in the _eleventh_ century. It is quite true that people generally began to hear about Merlin and Morgane at that time. But he had then been for about half a millennium in the sweet prison of the Lady of the Lake--over whom even Morgane had no power. The English child-King, for whom Bedford was regent, is repeatedly called Henry _IV_. There would have been quite other fish for Joan to fry, and other thread for her to retwist, if she had had to do with Henry of Bolingbroke instead of Henry of Windsor. Tristan's Mauthe Doog--not a bad kind of hound, though--bears the "Celtic" name of Thor. Of course all these things are trifles, but they are annoying and useless. When the father abridged Charles the First's captivity from years to days, he did it for the good of his story. The son had no such justification. He is also very careless about minute joinings of the flats at a most important point of the conclusion (_v. inf._). Tristan has no sword, begs one of the _bourreau_, and is refused. He goes straight to church, and immediately afterwards we find him sword in hand. Where did he get it? By an unmentioned miracle?

[365] Tristan defeats an effort of Xaintrailles to rescue her, in a way vaguely resembling the defeat, in the greater Alexander's work, of the rescue of King Charles by the Four.

[366] Unluckily, with a young man's misjudgment, Dumas would not let it be the actual end, though that is not a couple of pages off. After the fight Tristan goes out of the tomb to rest himself; and meets the herald Bretagne, whom he had saved from the wolves in the overture. Bretagne tells him what has happened since the Maid's death, including the fate of his half-brother on the father's side, Gilles de Retz, who, like himself, has repented in time to save his soul, if not his life. Having also seen afar off a cavalcade in which are Olivier and Alix, now married and rapturous, Tristan retires into the tomb, which closes over him. His horse "Baal" and his dogs, the "Celtically" (in the latter case we may say _Piratically_) named Thor and Brinda, are petrified round its entrance.

[367] Crusading times, and Jôf or Edessa for Rouen and Poitiers as places, might seem preferable. But the fifteenth century did a lot of _diablerie_ in the West.

[368] A curious variant of this fancy of his will be noticed later. What is more curious still need, perhaps, hardly be indicated for any intelligent reader--the "sicklying over" of Paul-de-Kockery with a "cast of thought"--"pale," or "dry," or up to "Old Brown" in strength and character as it may seem to different people.

[369] As I have received complaints, mild and other, of the frequency of my unexplained allusions, I may here refer explicitly to Mr. Traill's _Recaptured Rhymes_; and if anybody, after looking up the book, is not grateful to me, I am sorry for him. For the commoner practice here I can only plead that I follow the Golden Rule. Nothing pleases _me_ so much as an allusion that I understand--except one that I don't and have to hunt up.

[370] _Rather_ too big a title for an adventurer to meddle with, surely?

[371] He has found out a secret about her. When she learns his crimes and his fate, she puts an end to herself in a way which I fear Octave Feuillet borrowed, rather unceremoniously, though he certainly improved it, in _Julia de Trécoeur_ (_v. inf._). I did not read _Trois Hommes Forts_ till many years after I had read and praised Feuillet's work. Also, is it absolutely blasphemous to suggest that the beginning of the book has a faint likeness to that of _Les Misérables_ much later?

[372] _V. sup._ last chapter, _passim_.

[373] One remembers, as so often, Dr. Johnson to Boswell: "This lady of yours, Sir, is very fit for," etc.

[374] This is, I think, the best of his short stories. _Thérèse_ is rather a sermon on the somewhat unsavoury text of morbid appetite in the other sex, than a real story. The little _Histories Vraies_, which he wrote with a friend for the _Moniteur_ in 1864, are fairly good. For the formally entitled _Contes et Nouvelles_ and the collection headed by _Ilka_, _v. inf._

[375] He represents himself as suffering forty-eight hours of very easy imprisonment for not mounting guard as a "National," and writing the story to pass the time.

[376] The author has shown his skill by inducing at least one very old hand to wonder, for a time at least, whether Dr. Servans is a quack, or a lunatic, or Hoffmannishly uncanny, when he is, in fact, something quite different from any of these.

[377] The other, Clémentine (who is not very unlike a more modern Claire d'Orbe), being not nearly so "candid" as her comrade Marie, continues honest.

[378] _V. sup._ Vol. I. p. 204.

[379]

[Sidenote: _Revenants. Sophie Printemps._]

Two early and slight books (one of them, perhaps, the "bad" one referred to above) may find place in a note. _Revenants_ is a fantasy, in which the three most famous pairs of lovers of the later eighteenth century, Des Grieux and Manon, Paul and Virginie, Werther and Charlotte, are revived and brought together (_v. sup._ p. 378). This sort of thing, not seldom tried, has very seldom been a success; and _Revenants_ can hardly be said to be one of the lucky exceptions. _Sophie Printemps_ is the history of a good girl, who, out of her goodness, deliberately marries an epileptic. It has little merit, except for a large episode or parenthesis of some forty or fifty pages (nearly a sixth of the book), telling the prowess of a peremptory but agreeable baron, who first foils a dishonest banker, and then defends this very banker against an adventurer more rascally than himself, whom the baron kills in a duel. This is good enough to deserve extraction from the book, and separate publication as a short story.

[380] It is constantly called (and I fear I have myself sinned in this respect) _L'Affaire Clémenceau_. But this is not the proper title, and does not really fit. It is the heading of a client's instruction--a sort of irregular "brief"--to the advocate who (_resp. fin._) is to defend him; and is thus an autobiographic narrative (diversified by a few "put-in" letters) throughout. The title is the label of the brief.

[381] This is probably meant as the first "fight" on the shady side of Iza's character; not that, in this instance, she means to insult or hurt, but that the probability of hurting and insulting does not occur to her, or leaves her indifferent.

[382] Second "light," and now not dubious, for it is made a point of later.

[383] It has sometimes amused me to remember that some of the warmest admirers of Dumas _fils_ have been among the most violent decriers of Thackeray--_for_ preaching. I suppose they preferred the Frenchman's texts.

[384] Neither morality, nor friendship, nor anything like sense of "good form" could be likely to hold him back. But he is represented as nothing if not _un homme fort_ in character and temperament, who knows his woman thoroughly, and must perceive that he is letting himself be beaten by her in the very act of possessing her.

[385] Vide _Mr. Midshipman Easy_.

[386] This phrase may require just a word of explanation. I admitted (Vol. I. p. 409) the abnormality in _La Religieuse_ as not disqualifying. But this was not an abnormality of the _individual_. Iza's is.

[387] Perhaps I may add another subject for those who like it. "Both Manon and Iza do _prefer_, and so to speak only _love_, the one lover. Does this in Iza's case aggravate, or does it partially redeem, her general behaviour?" A less disputable addition, for the reason given above, may be a fairly long note on the author's work outside of fiction.

[Sidenote: Note on Dumas _fils'_ drama, etc.]

With the drama which has received such extraordinary encomia (the great name of Molière having even been brought in for comparison) I have no exhaustive acquaintance; but I have read enough not to wish to read any more. If the huge prose tirades of _L'Étrangère_ bore me (as they do) in the study, what would they do on the stage, where long speeches, not in great poetry, are always intolerable? (I have always thought it one of the greatest triumphs of Madame Sarah Bernhardt that, at the very beginning of her career, she made the heroine of this piece--_if_ she did so--interesting.) Over the _Fils Naturel_ I confess that even I, who have struggled with and mastered my thousands, if not my tens of thousands, of books, broke down hopelessly. _Francillon_ is livelier, and might, in the earlier days, have made an amusing novel. But discounting, judicially and not prejudicially, the excessive laudation, one sees that even here he did what he meant to do, and though there is higher praise than that, it is praise only too seldom deserved. As for his Prefaces and Pamphlets, I think nearly as much must be granted; and I need not repeat what has been said above on the other side. The charity "puff" of _Les Madeleines Repenties_ is an admirable piece of rhetoric not seldom reaching eloquence; and it has the not unliterary side-interest of suggesting the question whether its ironic treatment of the general estimate of the author as Historiographer Royal to the venal Venus is genuine irony, or a mere mask for annoyance. The Preface to the dreary _Fils Naturel_ (it must be remembered that Alexander the Younger himself was originally illegitimate and only later legitimated), though rhetorical again, is not dreary at all. It contains a very agreeable address to his father--he was always agreeable, though with a suspicion of rather amusing patronage-upside-down, on this subject--and a good deal else which one would have been sorry to lose. In fact, I can see, even in the dramas, even in the prose pamphleteering, whether the matter gives me positive delight or not, evidence of that _competence_, that not so seldom mastery, of treatment which entitles a man to be considered not the first comer by a long way.

[388] The obliging gentleman who on this occasion plays the part of "substitute" in a cricket-match, is the most elaborate and confessed example of Dumas' "theorised" _men_. He is what the seedsmen call an "improved Valmont," with more of lion in him than to meddle with virgins, but absolutely destructive to duchesses and always ready to suggest substitution to distressed grass-widows.