Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

DULONG, PIERRE LOUIS (1785-1838), French chemist and physicist, was born at Rouen on the 12th (or 13th) of February 1785. He began as a doctor in one of the poorest districts of Paris, but soon abandoned medicine for scientific research. After acting as assistant to Berthollet, he became successively professor of chemistry at the faculty of sciences and the normal and veterinary schools at Alfort, and then (1820) professor of physics at the Ecole Polytechnique, of which he was appointed director in 1830. He died in Paris on the 18th (or 19th) of July 1838. His earliest work was chemical in character. In 1811 he discovered chloride of nitrogen; during his experiments serious explosions occurred twice, and he lost one eye, besides sustaining severe injuries to his hand. He also investigated the oxygen compounds of phosphorus and nitrogen, and was one of the first to hold the hydrogen theory of acids. In 1815, in conjunction with Alexis Therese Petit (1791-1820), the professor of physics at the Ecole Polytechnique, he made careful comparisons between the mercury and the air thermometer. The first published research (1816) dealt with the dilatation of solids, liquids and gases and with the exact measurement of temperature, and it was followed by another in 1818 on the measurement of temperature and the communication of heat, which was crowned by the French Academy. In a third, "On some important points in the theory of heat" (1819), they stated that the specific heats of thirteen solid elements which they had investigated were nearly proportional to their atomic weights--a fact otherwise expressed in the "law of Dulong and Petit" that the atoms of simple substances have equal capacities for heat. Subsequent papers by Dulong were concerned with "New determinations of the proportions of water and the density of certain elastic fluids" (1820, with Berzelius); the property possessed by certain metals of facilitating the combination of gases (1823 with Thenard); the refracting powers of gases (1826); and the specific heats of gases (1829). In 1830 he published a research, undertaken with Arago for the academy of sciences, on the elastic force of steam at high temperatures. For the purposes of this determination he set up a continuous column of mercury, constructed with 13 sections of glass tube each 2 metres long and 5 mm. in diameter, in the tower of the old church of St Genevieve in the College Henri IV. The apparatus was first used to investigate the variation in the volume of air with pressure, and the conclusion was that up to twenty-seven atmospheres, the highest pressure attained in the experiments, Boyle's law holds good. In regard to steam, the old tower was so shaky that it was considered unwise to risk the effects of an explosion, and therefore the mercury column was removed bodily to a court in the observatory. The original intention was to push the experiments to a pressure equivalent to thirty atmospheres, but owing to the signs of failure exhibited by the boiler the limit actually reached was twenty-four atmospheres, at which pressure the thermometers indicated a temperature of about 224 deg. C. In his last paper, published posthumously in 1838, Dulong gave an account of experiments made to determine the heat disengaged in the combination of various simple and compound bodies, together with a description of the calorimeter he employed.

DULSE (Ir. and Gael. _duileasg_), in botany, _Rhodymenia palmata_, one of the red seaweeds, consisting of flat solitary or tufted purplish-red fronds, fan-shaped in general outline and divided into numerous segments, which are often again and again divided in a forked manner. It varies very much in size and degree of branching, ranging from 5 or 6 to 12 or more inches long. It grows on rocks, shell-fish or larger seaweeds, and is used by the poor in Scotland and Ireland as a relish with their food. It is commonly dried and eaten raw, the flavour being brought out by long chewing. In the Mediterranean it is used cooked in ragouts and made dishes.

See W.H. Harvey, _Phycologica Britannica_, vol. ii. plates 217, 218.

DULUTH, a city and the county-seat of St Louis county, Minnesota, U.S.A., at the W. end of Lake Superior, at the mouth of the St Louis river, about 150 m. N.E. of Minneapolis and St Paul. Pop. (1880) 3483; (1890) 33,115; (1900) 52,969, of whom 20,983 were foreign-born and 357 were negroes; (1910 census) 78,466. Of the 20,983 foreign-born in 1900, 5099 were English-Canadians, 5047 Swedes, 2655 Norwegians, 1685 Germans, and 1285 French-Canadians. Duluth is served by the Duluth and Iron Range, the Duluth, Missabe & Northern, the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic, the Chicago & North-Western (the North-Western line), the Great Northern, and the Northern Pacific railways. Situated attractively on the side and along the base of a high bluff rising 600 ft. above the lake level, Duluth lies at the W. end of Superior Bay (here called Duluth Harbour), directly opposite the city of Superior, Wisconsin. A narrow strip of land known as Minnesota Point, 7 m. in length and extending toward Wisconsin Point, which projects from the Wisconsin shore, separates the bay from the lake and forms with St Louis Bay one of the finest natural harbours in the world. The natural entrance to the harbour is the narrow channel between the two points, but there is also a ship-canal across Minnesota Point, spanned by a curious aerial bridge 400 ft. long and 186 ft. above the water.

The unusually favourable position for lake transportation, and the extensive tributary region in the N.W., with ample rail connexions, make Duluth-Superior one of the greatest commercial ports in the country. The two cities constitute the largest coal-distributing centre in the N.W., and have some of the largest coal-docks in the world. Upwards of twenty grain elevators, with a net capacity of nearly 35,000,000 bushels, which receive enormous quantities of grain from the Red River Valley, Manitoba, and the Dakotas, either for home manufacture or for transhipment to the East, are among the noteworthy sights of the place; and extensive ore-docks are required for handling the enormous and steadily increasing shipments of iron ore from the rich Vermilion and Mesabi iron ranges first opened about 1890. In 1907 more than 29,000,000 tons of iron ore were shipped from this port. Duluth is also an important hay market. There are flour and lumber mills, foundries and machine shops, wooden ware, cooperage, sash, door and blind, lath and shingle factories, and shipyards. In 1909 great mills of the Minnesota Steel Co. were begun here. In 1905 the factory product of Duluth was valued at $10,139,009, an increase of 29.8% over that of 1900. The St Louis river furnishes one of the finest water-powers in the United States.

The commanding heights upon which the principal residential section of the city is built render it at once attractive in appearance and healthful; there is a fine system of parks and boulevards, the chief of the former being Lester, Fairmount, Portland, Cascade, Lincoln and Chester. The popular Boulevard drive at the back of Duluth commands excellent views of city and lake. Among the principal buildings are the court house, the Masonic temple, chamber of commerce, board of trade, Lyceum theatre, Federal, Providence, Lonsdale, Torrey, Alworth, Sellwood and Wolvin buildings, St. Mary's hospital, St. Luke's hospital and Spalding Hotel. There is a public (Carnegie) library with 50,000 volumes in 1908. The building of the central high school (classical), one of the finest in the United States, erected at a cost of about $500,000, has a square clock tower 230 ft. high, and an auditorium seating 2000. The city also has a technical high school, and in addition to the regular high school courses there are departments of business, manual training and domestic science. At Duluth also is a state normal school, erected in 1902. The federal government maintains here a life-saving station on Minnesota Point, and an extensive fish hatchery.

The first Europeans to visit the site of Duluth were probably French _coureurs-des-bois_, possibly the adventurous Radisson and Groseilliers. The first visitor certainly known to have been here was Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Du Lhut (d. 1709), a French trader and explorer, who about 1678 skirted Lake Superior and built a stockaded trading-post at the mouth of Pigeon river on the N. shore. From him the place received its name. A trading-post was established near the present city, at Fond du Lac, about 1752, and this eventually became a depot of Astor's American Fur Company. There was no permanent settlement at Duluth proper, however, until 1853, and in 1860 there were only 80 inhabitants. Incorporated in 1870, in which year railway connexion with the South was established, its growth was slow for some years, the increase for the decade 1870-1880 being very slight (from 3131 to 3483); but the extension of railways into the north-western wheat region, the opening up of Lake Superior to commerce, and finally the development of the Vermilion and Mesabi iron ranges, brought on a period of almost unparalleled growth, marked by the remarkable increase in population of more than 850% between 1880 and 1890; between 1890 and 1900 the increase was 60%.

See J.R. Carey, _History of Duluth and Northern Minnesota_ (Duluth,
1898); Leggett and Chipman, _Duluth and its Environs_ (Duluth, 1895);
and J.D. Ensign, _History of St Louis County_ (Duluth, 1900).

DULWICH, a district in the metropolitan borough of Camberwell, London, England. The manor, which had belonged to the Cluniac monks of Bermondsey, passed through various hands to Edward Alleyn (q.v.) in 1606. His foundation of the College of God's Gift, commonly called Dulwich College, was opened with great state on the 13th of September 1619, in the presence of Lord Chancellor Bacon, Lord Arundell, Inigo Jones and other distinguished men. According to the letters patent the almspeople and scholars were to be chosen in equal proportions from the parishes of St Giles (Camberwell), St Botolph without Bishopsgate, and St Saviour's (Southwark), and "that part of the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate which is in the county of Middlesex." By a series of statutes signed in 1626, a few days before his death, Alleyn ordained that his school should be for the instruction of 80 boys consisting of three distinct classes:--(1) the twelve poor scholars; (2) children of inhabitants of Dulwich, who were to be taught freely; and (3) "towne or foreign schollers," who were "to pay such allowance as the master and wardens shall appoint." The almspeople consisted of six "poor brethren" and six "poor sisters," and the teaching and governing staff of a master and a warden, who were always to be of the founder's surname, and four fellows, all "graduates and divines," among whom were apportioned the ministerial work of the chapel, the instruction of the boys, and the supervision of the almspeople. That it was the founder's intention to establish a great public school upon the model of Westminster and St Paul's, with provision for university training, is shown by the statutes; but for more than two centuries the educational benefits of God's Gift College were restricted to the twelve poor scholars. Successive actions at law resulted in the ruling that it was not within the competence of the founder to divert any portion of the revenues of his foundation to the use of others than the members thereof, as specified in the letters patent. In 1842, however, some effort was made towards the realization of Alleyn's schemes, and in 1858 the foundation was entirely reconstituted by act of parliament. It comprises two schools, the "Upper" and the "Lower," now called respectively Dulwich College and Alleyn's school. In the Upper school, now one of the important English "public schools," there are classical, modern, science and engineering sides. The Lower school is devoted to middle-class education. The buildings of the Upper school, by Charles Barry, contain a fine hall. The college possesses a splendid picture gallery, bequeathed by Sir P.F. Bourgeois, R.A., in 1811, with a separate endowment. The pictures include some exquisite Murillos and choice specimens of the Dutch school. The surplus income of the gallery fund is devoted to instruction in drawing and design in the two schools.

See W.H. Blanch, _Dulwich College and Edward Alleyn_ (London, 1877);
R. Hovenden, _The History of Dulwich College, with a short biography
of its founder_ (London, 1873).

DUMAGUETE, the capital town of the province of Negros Oriental, island of Negros, Philippine Islands, on Tanon Strait. Pop. (1903) 14,894. The town of Sibulan (pop. in 1903, 8413) was annexed to Dumaguete in 1903, after the census had been taken. Dumaguete lies in the midst of a fertile agricultural district. The inhabitants are chiefly natives, but the shops are kept by Chinese merchants. The public buildings, which include an interesting watch-tower and belfry, are large, substantial and well cared for.

DUMANJUG, a town of the province of Cebu, island of Cebu, Philippine Islands, on the W. coast, at the mouth of the Dumanjug river, about 40 m. S.W. of the town of Cebu. Pop. (1903) 22,203. In 1903, after the census had been taken, the adjacent town of Ronda (pop. 9662) was annexed to Dumanjug. Dumanjug is in communication with the town of Sibonga, on the opposite shore of one of the few passes through the mountains of the interior. Indian corn and sugar-cane are grown successfully in the neighbouring country, and the town has an important coast trade.

DU MARSAIS, CESAR CHESNEAU, SIEUR (1676-1756), French philologist, was born at Marseilles on the 17th of July 1676. He was educated in his native town by the Fathers of the Oratory, into whose congregation he entered; but he left it at the age of twenty-five and went to Paris, where he married and was admitted an advocate (1704). He was tutor to the sons successively of the president de Maisons, of John Law, the projector, and of the marquis de Bauffremont. He then opened a boarding school in the faubourg St Victor, which scarcely afforded him the means of subsistence. He made contributions of great value on philological and philosophical subjects to the _Encyclopedie_, and after vain attempts to secure a competence from the court he was insured against want by the generosity of a private patron. He died in Paris on the 11th of June 1756. The researches of Du Marsais are distinguished by considerable individuality. He held sensible views on education and elaborated a system of teaching Latin, which, although open to grave criticism, was a useful protest against current methods of teaching. His best works are his _Principes de grammaire_ and his _Des tropes, ou des differents sens dans lesquels on peut prendre un mot_ (1730).

An edition of his works (7 vols.) was collected by Duchosal and
Millon, and was published with an eloge on Du Marsais by D'Alembert at
Paris in 1797.

DUMAS, ALEXANDRE [ALEXANDRE DAVY DE LA PAILLETERIE] (1802-1870), French novelist and dramatist, was born at Villers-Cotterets (Aisne) on the 24th of July 1802. His father, the French general, Thomas Alexandre Dumas (1762-1806)--also known as Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie--was born in Saint Domingo, the natural son of Antoine Alexandre Davy, marquis de la Pailleterie, by a negress, Marie Cessette Dumas, who died in 1772. In 1780 he accompanied the marquis to France, and there the father made a mesalliance which drove the son into enlisting in a dragoon regiment. Thomas Alexandre Dumas was still a private at the outbreak of the revolution, but he rose rapidly and became general of division in 1793. He was general-in-chief of the army of the western Pyrenees, and was transferred later to commands in the Alps and in La Vendee. Among his many exploits was the defeat of the Austrians at the bridge of Clausen on the 22nd of April 1797, where he commanded Joubert's cavalry. He lost Napoleon's favour by plain speaking in the Egyptian campaign, and presently returned to France to spend the rest of his days in retirement at Villers Cotterets, where he had married in 1792 Marie Elisabeth Labouret.

The novelist, who was the offspring of this union, was not four years old when General Dumas died, leaving his family with no further resource than 30 acres of land. Mme Dumas tried to obtain help from Napoleon, but in vain, and lived with her parents in narrow circumstances. Alexandre received the rudiments of education from a priest, and entered the office of a local solicitor. His chief friend was Adolphe de Leuven, the son of an exiled Swedish nobleman implicated in the assassination of Gustavus III. of Sweden, and the two collaborated in various vaudevilles and other pieces which never saw the footlights. Leuven returned to Paris, and Dumas was sent to the office of a solicitor at Crepy. When in 1823 Dumas contrived to visit his friend in Paris, he was received to his great delight by Talma. He returned home only to break with his employer, and to arrange to seek his fortune in Paris, where he sought help without success from his father's old friends. An introduction to the deputy of his department, General Foy, procured for him, however, a place as clerk in the service of the duke of Orleans at a salary of 1200 francs. He set to work to rectify his lack of education and to collaborate with Leuven in the production of vaudevilles and melodramas. Madame Dumas presently joined her son in Paris, where she died in 1838.

Soon after his arrival in Paris Dumas had entered on a liaison with a dressmaker, Marie Catherine Labay, and their son, the famous Alexandre Dumas _fils_ (see below), was born in 1824. Dumas acknowledged his son in 1831, and obtained the custody of him after a lawsuit with the mother.

The first piece by Dumas and Leuven to see the footlights was _La Chasse et l'amour_ (Ambigu-Comique, 22nd of Sept. 1825), and in this they had help from other writers. Dumas had a share in another vaudeville, _La Noce et l'enterrement_ (Porte Saint-Martin, 21st of Nov. 1826). It was under the influence of the Shakespeare plays produced in Paris by Charles Kemble, Harriet Smithson (afterwards Mme Berlioz) and an English company that the romantic drama of _Christine_ was written. The subject was suggested by a bas relief of the murder of Monaldeschi exhibited at the Salon of 1827. The piece was accepted by Baron Taylor and the members of the Comedie Francaise with the stipulation that it should be subject to revision by another dramatist because of its innovating tendencies. But the production of the piece was deferred. Meanwhile Dumas had met with the story of the ill-fated Saint-Megrin and the duchess of Guise in Anquetil's history, and had written, in prose, _Henri III. et sa cour_, which was immediately accepted by the Comedie Francaise and produced on the 11th of February 1829. It was the first great triumph of the romantic drama. The brilliant stagecraft of the piece and its admirable historical setting delighted an audience accustomed to the decadent classical tragedy, and brought him the friendship of Hugo[1] and Vigny. His literary efforts had met with marked disapproval from his official superiors, and he had been compelled to resign his clerkship before the production of _Henri III._ The duke of Orleans had, however, been present at the performance, and appointed him assistant-librarian at the Palais Royal. _Christine_ was now recast as a romantic trilogy in verse in five acts with a prologue and epilogue, with the sub-title of _Stockholm_, _Fontainebleau_, _Rome_, and was successfully produced by Harel at the Odeon in March 1830.

The revolution of 1830 temporarily diverted Dumas from letters. The account of his exploits should be read in his _Memoires_, where, though the incidents are true in the main, they lose nothing in the telling. During the fighting in Paris he attracted the attention of La Fayette, who sent him to Soissons to secure powder. With the help of some inhabitants he compelled the governor to hand over the magazine, and on his return to Paris was sent by La Fayette on a mission to raise a national guard in La Vendee. The advice he gave to Louis Philippe on this subject was ill-received, and after giving offence by further indiscretions he finally alienated himself from the Orleans government by being implicated in the disturbances which attended the funeral of General Lamarque in June 1832, and he received a hint that his absence from France was desirable. A tour in Switzerland undertaken on this account furnished material for the first of a long series of amusing books of travel. Dumas remained, however, on friendly and even affectionate terms with the young duke of Orleans until his death in 1842.

Meanwhile he had produced _Napoleon Bonaparte_ (Odeon, 10th of Jan 1831), his unwillingness to make a hero of the man who had slighted his father having been overcome by Harel, who put him under lock and key until the piece was finished. His next play, _Antony_, had a real importance in the history of the romantic theatre. It was put in rehearsal by Mlle Mars, but so unsatisfactorily that Dumas transferred it to Bocage and Mme Dorval, who played it magnificently at the Porte Saint-Martin theatre on the 3rd of May 1831. The Byronic hero Antony was a portrait of himself in his relations with Mme Melanie Waldor, the wife of an officer, and daughter of the journalist M.G. T. de Villenave, except of course in the extravagantly melodramatic _denouement_, when Antony, to save his mistress's honour, kills her and exclaims, "Elle me resistait, je l'ai assassinee." He produced more than twenty more plays alone or in collaboration before 1845, exclusive of dramatizations from his novels. _Richard Darlington_ (Porte Saint Martin, 10th of Dec 1831), the first idea of which was drawn from Sir Walter Scott's _Chronicles of the Canongate_, owed part of its great success to the admirable acting of Frederick Lemaitre. _La Tour de Nesle_ (Porte Saint-Martin, 29th of May 1832), announced as by MM. X X X and Gaillardet, was the occasion of a duel and a law-suit with the original author, Frederic Gaillardet, whose MS. had been revised, first by Jules Janin and then by Dumas. In rapidity of movement, and in the terror it inspired, the piece surpassed _Henri III._ and _Antony_. A lighter drama, _Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle_ (Theatre Francais, 2nd of April 1839), still remains in the repertory.

In 1840 Dumas married Ida Ferrier, an actress whom he had imposed on the theatres that took his pieces. The amiable relations which had subsisted between them for eight years were disturbed by the marriage, which is said to have been undertaken in consequence of a strong hint from the duke of Orleans, and Mme Dumas lived in Italy separated from her husband.

As a novelist Dumas began by writing short stories, but his happy collaboration with Auguste Maquet,[2] which began in 1839, led to the admirable series of historical novels in which he proposed to reconstruct the whole course of French history. In 1844 he produced, with Maquet's help, that most famous of "cloak and sword" romances, _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ (8 vols.), the material for which was discovered in the _Memoires de M. d'Artagnan_ (Cologne, 1701-1702) of Courtils de Sandras. The adventures of d'Artagnan and the three musketeers, the gigantic Porthos, the clever Aramis, and the melancholy Athos, who unite to defend the honour of Anne of Austria against Richelieu and the machinations of "Milady," are brought down to the murder of Buckingham in 1629. Their admirers were gratified by two sequels, _Vingt ans apres_ (10 vols., 1845) and _Dix ans plus tard, ou le vicomte de Bragelonne_ (26 pts., 1848-1850), which opens in 1660, showing us a mature d'Artagnan, a respectable captain of musketeers, and contains the magnificent account of the heroic death of Porthos. The three musketeers are as famous in England as in France. Thackeray could read about Athos from sunrise to sunset with the utmost contentment of mind, and R.L. Stevenson and Andrew Lang have paid tribute to the band in _Memories and Portraits_ and _Letters to Dead Authors_. Before 1844 was out Dumas had completed a second great romance in 12 volumes, _Le Comte de Monte-Cristo_, in which he had help from Fiorentino as well as from Maquet. The idea of the intrigue was suggested by Peuchet's _Police devoilee_, and the stress laid on the earlier incidents, Dantes, Danglars and the Chateau d'If, is said to have been an afterthought. Almost as famous as these two romances is the set of Valois novels of which Henri IV. is the central figure, beginning with _La Reine Margot_ (6 vols., 1845), which contains the history of the struggle between Catherine of Medicis and Henry of Navarre; the history of the reign of Henry III. is told in _La Dame de Monsoreau_ (8 vols., 1846), generally known in English as _Chicot the Jester_, from its principal character; and in _Les Quarante-cinq_ (10 vols., 1847-1848), in which Diane de Monsoreau avenges herself on the duke of Anjou for the death of her former lover, Bussy d'Amboise.

Much has been written about the exact share which Dumas had in the novels which bear his name. The Dumas-Maquet series is undoubtedly the best, but Maquet alone never accomplished anything to approach them in value. The MSS. of the novels still exist in Dumas's handwriting, and the best of them bear the unmistakable stamp of his unrivalled skill as a narrator. The chief key to his enormous output is to be found in his untiring industry and amazing fertility of invention, not in the system of wholesale collaboration which was exposed with much exaggeration by Querard in his _Supercheries litteraires_ and by "Eugene de Mirecourt" (C.B.J. Jacquot) in his misleading _Fabrique de romans, maison Alexandre Dumas et c^ie_ (1845). His assistants, in fact, supplied him with outlines of romances on plans drawn up by himself, and he then rewrote the whole thing. That this method was never abused it would be impossible to say; _Les Deux Diane_, for instance, a prelude to the Valois novels, is said to have been written entirely by Paul Meurice, although Dumas's name appears on the title-page.

The latter part of Dumas's life is a record of excessive toil to meet prodigal expenditure and accumulated debts. His disasters began with the building of a house in the Renaissance style, with a Gothic pavilion and an "English" park, at Saint Germain-en-Laye. This place, called Monte-Cristo, was governed by a crowd of hangers-on of both sexes, who absorbed Dumas's large earnings and left him penniless. Dumas also founded the Theatre Historique chiefly for the performance of his own works. The enterprise was under the patronage of the duc de Montpensier, and was under the management of Hippolyte Hostein, who had been the secretary of the Comedie Francaise. The theatre was opened in February 1847 with a dramatic version of _La Reine Margot_. Meanwhile Dumas had been the guest of the duc de Montpensier at Madrid, and made a quasi-official tour to Algeria and Tunis in a government vessel, which caused much comment in the press. Dumas had never changed his republican opinions. He greeted the revolution of 1848 with delight, and was even a candidate for electoral honours in the department of the Yonne. But the change was fatal to his theatrical enterprise, for the failure of which in 1850 he was made financially responsible. His son, Alexandre Dumas, was at that time living with his mother Mlle Labay, who was eventually reconciled with the elder Dumas. Father and son, though always on affectionate terms when they met, were too different in their ideas to see much of one another. After the _coup d'etat_ of 1851 Dumas crossed the frontier to Brussels, and two years of rapid production, and the economy of his secretary, Noel Parfait, restored something like order to his affairs. On his return to Paris in the end of 1853 he established a daily paper, _Le Mousquetaire_, for the criticism of art and letters. It was chiefly written by Dumas, whose _Memoires_ first appeared in it, and survived until 1857, when it was succeeded by a weekly paper, the _Monte-Cristo_ (1857-1860). In 1858 Dumas travelled through Russia to the Caucasus, and in 1860 he joined Garibaldi in Sicily. After an expedition to Marseilles in search of arms for the insurgents, he returned to Naples, where Garibaldi nominated him keeper of the museums. After four years' residence in Naples he returned to Paris, and after the war of '66 he visited the battlefields and produced his story of _La Terreur prussienne_. But his powers were beginning to fail, and in spite of the 1200 volumes which he told Napoleon he had written, he was at the mercy of his creditors, and of the succession of theatrical ladies who tyrannized over him and feared nothing except the occasional visits of Dumas _fils_. He was finally rescued from these by his daughter, Mme Petel, who came to live with him in 1868; and two years later, on the 5th of December 1870, he died in his son's house at Puys, near Dieppe.

Dumas was never an actual candidate for academic honours, but he had more than once taken steps to investigate his chances of success. A statue of him was erected on the Place Malesherbes, Paris, in 1883, and the figure of d'Artagnan finds a place on the pedestal.

Auguste Maquet was Dumas's chief collaborator. Others were Paul Lacroix (the bibliophile "P.L. Jacob"), Paul Bocage, J.P. Mallefille and P.A. Fiorentino. The novels of Dumas may be conveniently arranged in a historical sequence. The Valois novels and the musqueteers series brought French history down to 1672. Contributions to later history are:--_La Dame de volupte_ (2 vols., 1864), being the memoirs of Mme de Luynes, and its sequel _Les Deux Reines_ (2 vols., 1864); _La Tulipe noire_ (3 vols., 1850), giving the history of the brothers de Witt; _Le Chevalier d'Harmental_ (4 vols., 1853), and _Une Fille du regent_ (4 vols., 1845), the story of two plots against the regent, the duke of Orleans; two books on Mme du Deffand, _Memoires d'une aveugle_ (8 vols., 1856-1857) and _Les Confessions de la marquise_ (8 vols., 1857), both of doubtful authorship; _Olympe de Cleves_ (9 vols., 1852), the story of an actress and a young Jesuit novice in the reign of Louis XV., one of his most popular novels; five books on the beginning of the Revolution down to the execution of Marie Antoinette: the _Memoires d'un medecin_, including _Joseph Balsamo_ (19 pts., 1846-1848), in which J.J. Rousseau, Mme du Barry and the dauphiness Marie Antoinette figure, with its sequels; _Le Collier de la reine_ (9 vols., 1849-1850), in which Balsamo appears under the alias of Cagliostro; _Ange Pitou_ (8 vols., 1852), known in English as "The Taking of the Bastille"; _La Comtesse de Charny_ (19 vols., 1853-1855), describing the attempts to save the monarchy and the flight to Varennes; and _Le Chevalier de maison rouge_ (6 vols., 1846), which opens in 1793 with the hero's attempt to save the queen. Among the numerous novels dealing with the later revolutionary period are:--_Les Blancs et les bleus_ (3 vols., 1868) and _Les Compagnons de Jehu_ (7 vols., 1857). _Les Louves de Machecoul_ (10 vols., 1859) deals with the rising in 1832 in La Vendee. Other famous stories are:--_Les Freres corses_ (2 vols., 1845); _La Femme au collier de velours_ (2 vols., 1851); _Les Mohicans de Paris_ (19 vols., 1854-1855), detective stories with which may be classed the series of _Crimes celebres_ (8 vols., 1839-1841), which are, however, of doubtful authorship; _La San Felice_ (9 vols., 1864-1865), in which Lady Hamilton played a prominent part, with its sequels _Emma Lyonna_ and _Souvenirs d'une favorite_. Of his numerous historical works other than fiction the most important is his _Louis XIV et son siecle_ (4 vols., 1845). _Mes Memoires_ (20 vols., 1852-1854; Eng. trans. of selections by A.F. Davidson, 2 vols., 1891) is an account of his father and of his own life down to 1832. There are collective editions of his plays (6 vols., 1834-1836, and 15 vols., 1863-1874), but of the 91 pieces for which he was wholly or partially responsible, 24 do not appear in these collections.

The complete works of Dumas were issued by Michel Levy _freres_ in 277
volumes (1860-1884). The more important novels have been frequently
translated into English. There is a long list of writings on his life
and his works both in English and French. The more important French
authorities are: his own memoirs, already cited; C. Glinel, _Alexandre
Dumas et son oeuvre_ (Reims, 1884); H. Parigot, _Dumas pere_ (Grands
ecrivains francais series, 1902), and _Le Drame d'Alexandre Dumas_
(1899); H. Blaze de Bury, _Alexandre Dumas_ (1885); Philibert
Andebrand, _Alexandre Dumas a la maison d'or_ (1888); G. Ferry,
_Dernieres Annees d'Alexandre Dumas_ (1883); and L.H. Lecomte,
_Alexandre Dumas_ (1904). Of the English lives of Dumas perhaps the
best is that by Arthur F. Davidson, _Alexandre Dumas Pere, his Life
and Works_ (1902), which contains an extensive bibliography. See also
lives by P. Fitzgerald (2 vols., 1873) and H.A. Spurr (1902), and
essays by Andrew Lang (_Letters to Dead Authors_), Brander Matthews
(_French Dramatists_), R.L. Stevenson (_Memories and Portraits_).
(M. Br.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] His friendship with Victor Hugo was interrupted in 1833-1834 by
the articles contributed to the _Journal des debats_ by a friend and
protege of the poet, Granier de Cassagnac, who brought against Dumas
charges of wholesale plagiarism from other dramatists.

[2] The details of this collaboration were brought to light in a suit
brought against Dumas by Maquet with regard to his share in the
profits. See the _Gazette des tribunaux_ (January 21, 22, 28, and
February 4, 1858).

DUMAS, ALEXANDRE ["DUMAS _FILS_"] (1824-1895), French dramatist and novelist, was born in Paris on the 27th of July 1824, the natural son of Alexandre Dumas (see above) and the dressmaker Marie Labay. His father at that date was still a humble clerk and not much more than a boy. "Happily," writes the son, "my mother was a good woman, and worked hard to bring me up"; while of his father he says, "by a most lucky chance he happened to be well-natured," and "as soon as his first successes as a dramatist" enabled him to do so, "recognized me and gave me his name." Nevertheless, the lad's earlier school-life was made bitter by his illegitimacy. The cruel taunts and malevolence of his companions rankled through life (see preface to _La Femme de Claude_ and _L'Affaire Clemenceau_), and left indelible marks on his character and thoughts. Nor was his paternity, however distinguished, without peril. Alexandre the younger and elder saw life together very thoroughly, and Paris can have had few mysteries for them. Suddenly the son, who had been led to regard his prodigal father's resources as inexhaustible, was rudely undeceived. Coffers were empty, and he had accumulated debts to the amount of two thousand pounds.

Thereupon he pulled himself together. To a son of Dumas the use of the pen came naturally. Like most clever young writers--and report speaks of him as specially brilliant at that time--he opened with a book of verse, _Peches de jeunesse_ (1847). It was succeeded in 1848 by a novel, _La Dame aux camelias_, a sort of reflection of the world in which he had been living. The book had considerable success, and was followed, in fairly quick succession, by _Le Roman d'une femme_ (1848) and _Diane de Lys_ (1851). All this, however, did not deliver him from the load of debt, which, as he tells us, remained odious. In 1849 he dramatized _La Dame aux camelias_, but for various reasons, the rigour of the censorship being the most important, it was not till the 2nd of February 1852, and then only by the intervention of Napoleon's all-powerful minister, Morny, that the play could be produced at the Vaudeville. It succeeded then, and has held the stage ever since, less perhaps from inherent superiority to other plays which have foundered than to the great opportunities it affords to any actress of genius.

Thenceforward Dumas's career was that of a brilliant and prosperous dramatist. _Diane de Lys_ (1853), _Le Demi-Monde_ (1855), _La Question d'argent_ (1857), _Le Fils naturel_ (1858), _Le Pere prodigue_ (1859) followed rapidly. Debts became a thing of the past, and Dumas a wealthy man. The didactic habit was always strong upon him. "Alexandre loves preaching overmuch," wrote his father; and in most of his plays he assumes the attitude of a rigid and uncompromising moralist commissioned to impart to a heedless world lessons of deep import. The lessons themselves are mostly concerned with the "eternal feminine," by which Dumas was haunted, and differ in ethical value. Thus in _Les Idees de Madame Aubray_ (1867) he inculcates the duty of the seducer to marry the woman he has seduced; but in _La Femme de Claude_ (1873) he argues the right of the husband to take the law into his own hand and kill the wife who is unfaithful and worthless--a thesis again defended in his novel, _L'Affaire Clemenceau_, and in his pamphlet, _L'Homme-femme_; while in _Diane de Lys_ he had taught that the betrayed husband was entitled to kill--not in a duel, but summarily--the man who had taken his honour; and in _L'Etrangere_ (1876) the bad husband is the victim. Nor did he preach only in his plays. He preached in voluminous introductions, and pamphlets not a few. And when, in 1870 and 1872, France was going through bitter hours of humiliation, he called her to repentance and amendment in a _Nouvelle Lettre de Junius_ and two _Lettres sur les choses du jour_.

As a moralist Dumas _fils_ took himself very seriously indeed. As a dramatist, didacticism apart, he had great gifts. He knew his business thoroughly, possessed the art of situation, interest, crisis--could create characters that were real and alive. His dialogue also is admirable, the repartee rapier-like, the wit most keen. He was singularly happy, too, in his dramatic interpreters. The cast of _L'Etrangere_, for instance, comprised Sarah Bernhardt, Sophie Croizette, Madeleine Brohan, in the female characters; and Coquelin, Got, Mounet-Sully and Febvre in the male characters; and Aimee Desclee, whom he discovered, gave her genius to the creation of the parts of the heroine in _Une Visite de noces_, the _Princesse Georges_ and _La Femme de Claude_. His wit has been mentioned. He possessed it in abundance, of a singularly trenchant kind. It shows itself less in his novels, which, however, do not contain his best work; but in his introductions, whether to his own books or those of his friends, and what may be called his "occasional" writings, there is an admirable brightness. At work of this kind he showed the highest literary skill. His style is that of the best French traditions. Towards his father Dumas acted a kind of brother's part, and while keeping strangely free from his literary influence, both loved and admired him. The father never belonged to the French Academy. The son was elected into that august assembly on the 30th of January 1874. He died on the 27th of November 1895.

See also Jules Claretie, _A. Dumas fils_ (1883); Paul Bourget,
_Nouveaux Essais de psychologie contemporaine_ (1885); "La Comedie de
moeurs," by Rene Doumic, in L. Petit de Julleville's _Histoire de la
langue et de la litterature francaise_, viii. pp. 82 et seq.; R.
Doumic, _Portraits d'ecrivains_ (1892), Emile Zola, _Documents
litteraires, etudes et portraits_ (1881). (F. T. M.)

DUMAS, GUILLAUME MATHIEU, COUNT (1753-1837), French general, was born at Montpellier, of a noble family, on the 23rd of November 1753. He joined the army in 1773, and entered upon active service in 1780, as aide-de-camp to Rochambeau in the American War. He had a share in all the principal engagements that occurred during a period of nearly two years. On the conclusion of peace in 1783 he returned to France as a major. He was engaged from 1784 to 1786 in exploring the archipelago and the coasts of Turkey. He was present at the siege of Amsterdam in 1787, where he co-operated with the Dutch against the Prussians. At the Revolution he acted with Lafayette and the constitutional liberal party. He was entrusted by the Assembly with the command of the escort which conducted Louis XVI. to Paris from Varennes. In 1791 as a _marechal de camp_ he was appointed to a command at Metz, where he rendered important service in improving the discipline of the troops. Chosen a member of the Legislative Assembly in the same year by the department of Seine-et-Oise, he was in the following year elected president of the Assembly. When the extreme republicans gained the ascendancy, however, he judged it prudent to make his escape to England. Returning after a brief interval, under the apprehension that his father-in-law would be held responsible for his absence, he arrived in Paris in the midst of the Reign of Terror, and had to flee to Switzerland. Soon after his return to France he was elected a member of the Council of Ancients. After the 18th Fructidor (1797) Dumas, being proscribed as a monarchist, made his escape to Holstein, where he wrote the first part of his _Precis des evenements militaires_ (published anonymously at Hamburg, 1800).

Recalled to his native country when Bonaparte became First Consul, he was entrusted with the organization of the "Army of Reserve" at Dijon. In 1801 he was nominated a councillor of state. He did good service at Austerlitz, and went in 1806 to Naples, where he became minister of war to Joseph Bonaparte. On the transfer of Joseph to the throne of Spain, Dumas rejoined the French army, with which he served in Spain during the campaign of 1808, and in Germany during that of 1809. After the battle of Wagram, Dumas was employed in negotiating the armistice. In 1810 he became grand officer of the Legion of Honour and a count of the empire. In the Russian campaign of 1812 he held the post of intendant-general of the army, which involved the charge of the administrative department. The privations he suffered in the retreat from Moscow brought on a dangerous illness. Resuming, on his recovery, his duties as intendant-general, he took part in the battles of 1813, and was made prisoner after the capitulation of Dresden. On the accession of Louis XVIII., Dumas rendered his new sovereign important services in connexion with the administration of the army. When Napoleon returned from Elba, Dumas at first kept himself in retirement, but he was persuaded by Joseph Bonaparte to present himself to the emperor, who employed him in organizing the National Guard. Obliged to retire when Louis XVIII. was restored, he devoted his leisure to the continuation of his _Precis des evenements militaires_, of which nineteen volumes, embracing the history of the war from 1798 to the peace of 1807, appeared between 1817 and 1826. A growing weakness of sight, ending in blindness, prevented him from carrying the work further, but he translated Napier's _Peninsular War_ as a sort of continuation to it. In 1818 Dumas was restored to favour and admitted a member of the council of state, from which, however, he was excluded in 1822. After the revolution of 1830, in which he took an active part, Dumas was created a peer of France, and re-entered the council of state. He died at Paris on the 16th of October 1837.

Besides the _Precis des evenements militaires_, which forms a valuable
source for the history of the period, Dumas wrote _Souvenirs du
lieut.-general Comte Mathieu Dumas_ (published posthumously by his
son, Paris, 1839).

DUMAS, JEAN BAPTISTE ANDRE (1800-1884), French chemist, was born at Alais (Gard) on the 15th of July 1800. Disappointed in his early hope of entering the navy, he became apprentice to an apothecary in his native town; but seeing little prospect of advancement in that calling, he soon moved to Geneva (in 1816). There he attended the lectures of such men as M.A. Pictet in physics, C.G. de la Rive in chemistry, and A.P. de Candolle in botany, and before he had reached his majority he was engaged with Pierre Prevost in original work on problems of physiological chemistry, and even of embryology. In 1823, acting on the advice of A. von Humboldt, he left Geneva for Paris, which he made his home for the rest of his life. There he gained the acquaintance of many of the foremost scientific men of the day, and quickly made a name for himself both as a teacher and an investigator, attaining within ten years the honour of membership of the Academy of Sciences. When approaching his fiftieth year he entered political life, and became a member of the National Legislative Assembly. He acted as minister of agriculture and commerce for a few months in 1850-1851, and subsequently became a senator, president of the municipal council of Paris, and master of the French mint; but his official career came to a sudden end with the fall of the Second Empire. He died at Cannes on the 11th of April 1884. Dumas is one of the most prominent figures in the chemical history of the middle part of the 19th century. He was one of the first to criticize the electro-chemical doctrines of J.J. Berzelius, which at the time his work began were widely accepted as the true theory of the constitution of compound bodies, and opposed a unitary view to the dualistic conception of the Swedish chemist. In a paper on the atomic theory, published so early as 1826, he anticipated to a remarkable extent some ideas which are frequently supposed to belong to a later period; and the continuation of these studies led him to the ideas about substitution ("metalepsis") which were developed about 1839 into the theory ("Older Type Theory") that in organic chemistry there are certain types which remain unchanged even when their hydrogen is replaced by an equivalent quantity of a haloid element. Many of his well-known researches were carried out in support of these views, one of the most important being that on the action of chlorine on acetic acid to form trichloracetic acid--a derivative of essentially the same character as the acetic acid itself. In the 1826 paper he described his famous method for ascertaining vapour densities, and the redeterminations which he undertook by its aid of the atomic weights of carbon and oxygen proved the forerunners of a long series which included some thirty of the elements, the results being mostly published in 1858-1860. He also devised a method of great value in the quantitative analysis of organic substances for the estimation of nitrogen, while the classification of organic compounds into homologous series was advanced as one consequence of his researches into the acids generated by the oxidation of the alcohols. Dumas was a prolific writer, and his numerous books, essays, memorial addresses, &c., show him to have been gifted with a clear and graceful style. His earliest large work was a treatise on applied chemistry in eight volumes, the first of which was published in 1828 and the last twenty years afterwards. In the _Essai de statique chimique des etres organises_ (1841), written jointly with J.B.J.D. Boussingault (1802-1887), he treated the chemistry of life, both plant and animal; this book brought him into conflict with Liebig, who conceived that some of his prior work had been appropriated without due acknowledgment. In 1824, in conjunction with J.V. Audouin and A.T. Brongniart, he founded the _Annales des sciences naturelles_, and from 1840 he was one of the editors of the _Annales de chimie et de physique_. As a teacher Dumas was much sought after for his lectures at the Sorbonne and other institutions both on pure and applied science; and he was one of the first men in France to realize the importance of experimental laboratory teaching.

DU MAURIER, GEORGE LOUIS PALMELLA BUSSON (1834-1896), British artist and writer, was born in Paris. His father, a naturalized British subject, was the son of _emigres_ who had left France during the Reign of Terror and settled in London. In _Peter Ibbetson_, the first of the three books which won George Du Maurier late in life a reputation as novelist almost as great as he had enjoyed as artist and humorist for more than a generation, the author tells in the form of fiction the story of his singularly happy childhood. He was brought to London, indeed, when three or four years old, and spent in Devonshire Terrace and elsewhere two colourless years; but vague memories of this period were suddenly exchanged one beautiful day in June--"the first day of his conscious existence"--for the charming realities of a French garden and "an old yellow house with green shutters and mansard roofs of slate." Here, at Passy, with his "gay and jovial father" and his young English mother, the boy spent "seven years of sweet priceless home-life--seven times four changing seasons of simple genial prae-Imperial Frenchness." The second chapter of Du Maurier's life had for scene a Paris school, very much in the style of that "Institution F. Brossard" which he describes, at once so vividly and so sympathetically, in _The Martian_; and like "Barty Josselin's" schoolfellow and biographer, he left it (in 1851) to study chemistry at University College, London, actually setting up as an analytical chemist afterwards in Bucklersbury. But this was clearly not to be his _metier_, and the year 1856 found him once more in Paris, in the Quartier Latin this time, in the core of that art-world of which in _Trilby_, forty years later, he was to produce with pen and pencil so idealistic and fascinating a picture. Then, like "Barty Josselin" himself, he spent some years in Belgium and the Netherlands, experiencing at Antwerp in 1857, when he was working in the studio of van Lerius, the one great misfortune of his life--the gradual loss of sight in his left eye, accompanied by alarming symptoms in his right. It was a period of tragic anxiety, for it seemed possible that the right eye might also become affected; but this did not happen, and the dismal cloud was soon to show its silver lining, for, about Christmastime 1858, there came to the forlorn invalid a copy of _Punch's Almanac_, and with it the dawn of a new era in his career.

There can be little doubt that the study of this _Almanac_, and especially of Leech's drawings in it, fired him with the ambition of making his name as a graphic humorist; and it was not long after his return to London in 1860 that he sent in his first contribution (very much in Leech's manner) to _Punch_. Mark Lemon, then editor, appreciated his talent, and on Leech's death in 1865 appointed him his successor, counselling him with wise discrimination not to try to be "too funny," but "to undertake the light and graceful business" and be the "romantic tenor" in Mr Punch's little company, while Keene, as Du Maurier puts it, "with his magnificent highly-trained basso, sang the comic songs." These respective roles the two artists continued to play until the end, seldom trespassing on each other's province; the "comic songs" finding their inspiration principally in the life of the homely middle and lower middle classes, while the "light and graceful business" enacted itself almost exclusively in "good Society." To a great extent, also, Du Maurier had to leave outdoor life to Keene, his weak sight making it difficult for him to study and sketch in the open air and sunshine, thus cutting him off, as he records regretfully, from "so much that is so popular, delightful and exhilarating in English country life"--hunting and shooting and fishing and the like. He contrived, however, to give due attention to milder forms of outdoor recreation, and turned to good account his familiarity with Hampstead Heath and Rotten Row, and his holidays with his family at Whitby and Scarborough, Boulogne and Dieppe.

Of Du Maurier's life during the thirty-six years of his connexion with _Punch_ there is not, apart from his work as an artist, much to record. In the early 'sixties he lived at 85 Newman Street in lodgings, which he shared with his friend Lionel Henley, afterwards R.B.A., working hard at his _Punch_ sketches and his more serious contributions to _Once a Week_ and the _Cornhill Magazine_. After his marriage with Miss Emma Wightwick in 1862 he took a spacious and pleasant house near Hampstead Heath, in surroundings made familiar in his drawings. Shortly before he died he moved to a house in Oxford Square. About 1866 he struck out a new line in his admirable illustrations to Jerrold's _Story of a Feather_. In 1869 he realized a long-cherished aspiration, the illustrating of Thackeray's _Esmond_, and in 1879 he drew twelve additional vignettes for it, in the same year providing several illustrations for the _Ballads_. From time to time he sent pretty and graceful pictures to the exhibitions of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colour, to which he was elected in 1881. In 1885 the first exhibition of his works at the Fine Art Society took place. Thus occupied in the practice of his art, spending his leisure in social intercourse with his many friends and at home with his growing family, hearing all the new singers and musicians, seeing all the new plays, he lived the happiest of lives. He died somewhat suddenly on the 8th of October 1896, and was buried in the Hampstead parish churchyard. He left a family of two sons--the elder, Major Guy Du Maurier (b. 1865), a soldier who became more widely known in 1909 as author of the military play _An Englishman's Home_, and the younger, Gerald, a well-known actor--and three daughters.