Chapter M: VIEUXBOIS almost inaudibly (11)

"Grimaud," said he, pointing to the dead who were lying on the bastion, "you will take these gentlemen and prop them up against the wall, and put their hats on their heads and their guns in their hands."

"Great man!" ejaculated D'Artagnan; "I begin to see."

"You do?" asked Porthos.

"Do _you_ understand, Grimaud?" said Aramis.

Grimaud nodded.

"Then we are all right," said Athos....

"On guard!" cried D'Artagnan. "Look at those red and black points moving down there! A regiment, did you call it, Athos?--it is a perfect army!"

"My word, yes!" said Athos, "there they come! How cunning to beat neither drums nor trumpets. Are you ready, Grimaud?"

Grimaud silently nodded, and showed them a dozen dead men, arranged skillfully in various attitudes, some porting arms, some taking aim, others drawing their swords.

"Well done!" exclaimed Athos, "it does honor to your imagination."

"If it is all the same to you," said Porthos, "I should like to understand what is going on."

"Let us get away first," replied D'Artagnan, "and you will understand after."

"One moment, please! Give Grimaud time to clear away the breakfast."

"Ah!" said Aramis; "the red and black specks are becoming more distinct, and I agree with D'Artagnan that we have no time to lose before we regain the camp."

"Very well," rejoined Athos, "I have nothing to say against retreating. The wager was for an hour, and we have been here an hour and a half. Let us be off at once."

The four comrades went out at the back, following Grimaud, who had already departed with the basket.

"Oh!" cried Athos, stopping suddenly, "what the devil is to be done?"

"Has anything been forgotten?" asked Aramis.

"Our flag, man, our flag! We can't leave our flag in the enemy's hands, if it is nothing but a napkin." And Athos dashed again into the bastion, and bore away the flag unhurt, amid a volley of balls from the Rochellois.

He waved his flag, while turning his back on the troops of the town, and saluting those of the camp. From both sides arose great cries, of anger on the one hand and enthusiasm on the other, and the napkin, pierced with three bullet-holes, was in truth transformed into a flag. "Come down, come down!" they shouted from the camp.

Athos came down, and his friends, who had awaited him anxiously, received him with joy.

"Be quick, Athos," said D'Artagnan; "now that we have got everything but money, it would be stupid to get killed."

But Athos would not hurry himself, and they had to keep pace with him.

By this time Grimaud and his basket were well beyond bullet range, while in the distance the sounds of rapid firing might be heard.

"What are they doing?" asked Porthos; "what are they firing at?"

"At our dead men," replied Athos.

"But they don't fire back."

"Exactly so; therefore the enemy will come to the conclusion that there is an ambuscade. They will hold a council, and send an envoy with a flag of truce, and when they at last find out the joke, we shall be out of reach. So it is no use getting apoplexy by racing."

"Oh, I understand," said Porthos, full of astonishment.

"That is a mercy!" replied Athos, shrugging his shoulders, as they approached the camp, which was watching their progress in a ferment of admiration.

This time a new fusillade was begun, and the balls whistled close to the heads of the four victors and fell about their ears. The Rochellois had entered the bastion.

"What bad shooting!" said D'Artagnan. "How many was it we killed? Twelve?"

"Twelve or fifteen."

"And how many did we crush?"

"Eight or ten."

"And not a scratch to show for it."

"Ah, what is that on your hand, D'Artagnan? It looks to me like blood."

"It's nothing," replied D'Artagnan.

"A spent ball?"

"Not even that."

"But what is it, then?" As we have said, the silent and resolute Athos loved D'Artagnan like his own son, and showed every now and then all the anxiety of a father.

"The skin is rubbed off, that is all," said D'Artagnan. "My fingers were caught between two stones--the stone of the wall and the stone of my ring."

"That is what comes of having diamonds," remarked Athos disdainfully....

"Here we are at the camp, and they are coming to meet us and bring us in triumphantly."

And he only spoke the truth, for the whole camp was in a turmoil. More than two thousand people had gazed, as at a play, at the lucky bit of braggadocio of the four friends,--braggadocio of which they were far from suspecting the real motive. The cry of "Long live the musketeers," resounded on all sides, and M. De Busigny was the first to hold out his hand to Athos and to declare that he had lost his wager. The dragoon and the Swiss had followed him, and all the others had followed the dragoon and the Swiss. There was nothing but congratulations, hand-shakings, embraces; and the tumult became so great that the Cardinal thought there must be a revolt, and sent La Houdiniere, his captain of guards, to find out what was the matter.

"Well?" asked the Cardinal, as his messenger returned.

"Well, monseigneur," replied La Houdiniere, "it is about three musketeers and a guardsman who made a bet with M. De Busigny to go and breakfast at the Bastion Saint-Gervais, and while breakfasting, held it for two hours against the enemy, and killed I don't know how many Rochellois."

"You asked the names of these gentlemen?"

"Yes, monseigneur."

"What are they?"

"Athos, Porthos, and Aramis."

"Always my three heroes," murmured the Cardinal. "And the guardsman?"

"M. D'Artagnan."

"Always my young rogue! I must gain over these men."

And the same evening, the Cardinal had a conversation with M. De Treville about the morning's exploit, with which the whole camp was still ringing. M. De Treville, who had heard it all at first hand, gave his Eminence all the details, not forgetting the episode of the napkin.

"Very good, M. De Treville," said the Cardinal; "but you must get me that napkin, and I will have three golden lilies embroidered on it, and give as a banner to your company."

"Monseigneur," replied M. De Treville, "that would be an injustice to the guards. M. D'Artagnan does not belong to me, but to M. Des Essarts."

"Then you must take him," said the Cardinal. "As these four brave soldiers love each other so much, they ought certainly to be in the same regiment."

That evening M. De Treville announced the good news to the three musketeers and to D'Artagnan, and invited them all to breakfast the following day.

D'Artagnan was nearly beside himself with joy. As we know, it had been the dream of his life to be a musketeer.

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK

From 'The Viscount of Bragelonne'

[Dumas adopts the theory that the Man in the Iron Mask was
the suppressed twin brother of Louis XIV.]

"What is all this noise?" asked Philippe, turning towards the door of the concealed staircase. And as he spoke a voice was heard saying, "This way, this way. Still a few steps, sire."

"It is M. Fouquet's voice," said D'Artagnan, who was standing near the Queen Mother.

"Then M. D'Herblay will not be far off," added Philippe; but little did he expect to see the person who actually entered.

All eyes were riveted on the door, from which the voice of M. Fouquet proceeded; but it was not he who came through.

A cry of anguish rang through the room, breaking forth simultaneously from the King and the spectators, and surely never had been seen a stranger sight.

The shutters were half closed, and only a feeble light struggled through the velvet curtains, with their thick silk linings, and the eyes of the courtiers had to get accustomed to the darkness before they could distinguish between the surrounding objects. But once discerned, they stood out as clear as day.

So, looking up, they saw Louis XIV. in the doorway of the private stair, his face pale and his brows bent; and behind him stood Fouquet.

The Queen Mother, whose hand held that of Philippe, uttered a shriek at the sight, thinking that she beheld a ghost.

Monsieur staggered for a moment and turned away his head, looking from the King who was facing him to the King who was by his side.

Madame on the contrary stepped forward, thinking it must be her brother-in-law reflected in a mirror. And indeed, this seemed the only rational explanation of the double image.

Both young men, agitated and trembling, clenching their hands, darting flames of fury from their eyes, dumb, breathless, ready to spring at each other's throats, resembled each other so exactly in feature, figure, and even, by pure accident, in dress, that Anne of Austria herself stood confounded. For as yet the truth had not dawned on her. There are some torments that we all instinctively reject. It is easier far to accept the supernatural, the impossible.

That he should encounter such obstacles had never for one moment occurred to Louis. He imagined he had only to show himself, for the world to fall at his feet. The Sun-king could have no rival; and where his rays did not fall, there must be darkness--

As to Fouquet, who could describe his bewilderment at the sight of the living portrait of his master? Then he thought that Aramis was right, and that the new-comer was every whit as much a king as his double, and that after all, perhaps he had made a mistake when he had declined to share in the _coup d'etat_ so cleverly plotted by the General of the Jesuits.

And then, it was equally the blood royal of Louis XIII. that Fouquet had determined to sacrifice to blood in all respects identical; a noble ambition, to one that was selfish. And it was the mere aspect of the pretender which showed him all these things.

D'Artagnan, leaning against the wall and facing Fouquet, was debating in his own mind the key to this wonderful riddle. He felt instinctively, though he could not have told why, that in the meeting of the two Louis XIV's lay the explanation of all that had seemed suspicious in the conduct of Aramis during the last few days.

Suddenly Louis XIV., by nature the most impatient of the two young men, and with the habit of command that was the result of training, strode across the room and flung open one of the shutters. The flood of light that streamed through the window caused Philippe involuntarily to recoil, and to step back into the shelter of an alcove.

The movement struck Louis, and turning to the Queen he said:

"Mother, do you not know your own son, although every one else has denied his King?"

Anne trembled at his voice and raised her arms to heaven, but could not utter a single word.

"Mother," retorted Philippe in his quietest tones, "do you not know your own son?"

And this time it was Louis who stepped back.

As for Anne, pierced to the heart with grief and remorse, she could bear it no longer. She staggered where she stood, and unaided by her attendants, who seemed turned into stone, she sank down on a sofa with a sigh.

This spectacle was too much for Louis. He rushed to D'Artagnan, whose brain was going round with bewilderment, and who clung to the door as his last hope.

"To me, musketeer! Look us both in the face, and see which is the paler, he or I."

The cry awoke D'Artagnan from his stupor, and struck the chord of obedience strong in the bosom of every soldier. He lifted his head, and striding straight up to Philippe laid his hand on his shoulder, saying quietly:--

"Monsieur, you are my prisoner."

Philippe remained absolutely still, as if nailed to the floor, his eyes fixed despairingly on the King who was his brother. His silence reproached him as no words could have done, with the bitterness of the past and the tortures of the future.

And the King understood, and his soul sank within him. His eyes fell, and drawing his brother and sister-in-law with him, he hastily quitted the room; forgetting in his agitation even his mother, lying motionless on the couch beside him, not three paces from the son whom for the second time she was allowing to be condemned to a death in life.

Philippe drew near to her, and said softly:--

"If you had not been my mother, madame, I must have cursed you for the misery you have caused me."

D'Artagnan overheard, and a shiver of pity passed through him. He bowed respectfully to the young prince, and said:--

"Forgive me, monseigneur; I am only a soldier, and my faith is due to him who has left us."

"Thank you, M. D'Artagnan. But what has become of M. D'Herblay?"

"M. D'Herblay is safe, monseigneur," answered a voice behind them; "and while I am alive and free, not a hair of his head shall be hurt."

"M. Fouquet!" said the prince, smiling sadly.

"Forgive me, monseigneur," cried Fouquet, falling on his knees; "but he who has left the room was my guest."

"Ah!" murmured Philippe to himself with a sigh, "you are loyal friends and true hearts. You make me regret the world I am leaving. M. D'Artagnan, I will follow you."

As he spoke, Colbert entered and handed to the captain of the musketeers an order from the King; then bowed, and went out.

D'Artagnan glanced at the paper, and in a sudden burst of wrath crumpled it in his hand.

"What is the matter?" asked the prince.

"Read it, monseigneur," answered the musketeer.

And Philippe read these words, written hastily by the King himself:--

"M. D'Artagnan will conduct the prisoner to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite. He will see that his face is covered with an iron mask, which must never be lifted on pain of death."

"It is just," said Philippe; "I am ready."

"Aramis was right," whispered Fouquet to D'Artagnan, "this is as good a king as the other."

"Better," replied D'Artagnan; "he only needed you and me."

A TRICK IS PLAYED ON HENRY III. BY AID OF CHICOT

From 'The Lady of Monsoreau'

The King and Chicot remained quiet and silent for the next ten minutes. Then suddenly the King sat up, and the noise he made roused Chicot, who was just dropping off to sleep.

The two looked at each other with sparkling eyes.

"What is it?" asked Chicot in a low voice.

"Do you hear that sighing sound?" replied the King in a lower voice still. "Listen!"

As he spoke, one of the wax candles in the hand of the golden satyr went out; then a second, then a third. After a moment, the fourth went out also.

"Oh, oh!" cried Chicot, "that is more than a sighing sound." But he had hardly uttered the last word when in its turn the lamp was extinguished, and the room was in darkness, save for the flickering glow of the dying embers.

"Look out!" exclaimed Chicot, jumping up.

"He is going to speak," said the King, shrinking back into his bed.

"Then listen and let us hear what he says," replied Chicot, and at the same instant a voice which sounded at once both piercing and hollow, proceeded from the space between the bed and the wall.

"Hardened sinner, are you there?"

"Yes, yes, Lord." gasped Henri with chattering teeth.

"Dear me!" remarked Chicot, "that is a very hoarse voice to have come from heaven! I feel dreadfully frightened; but never mind!"

"Do you hear me?" asked the voice.

"Yes, Lord," stammered Henri; "and I bow before your anger."

"Do you think you are carrying out my will by performing all the mummeries you have taken part in to-day, while your heart is full of the things of this world?"

"Well said!" cried Chicot; "you touched him there!"

The King's hands shook as he clasped them, and Chicot went up to him.

"Well," murmured Henri, "are you convinced now?"

"Wait a bit," answered Chicot.

"What do you want more?"

"Hush! listen to me. Creep softly out of bed, and let me take your place."

"Why?"

"Because then the anger of the Lord will fall first upon me."

"And do you think I shall escape?"

"We will try, anyway;" and with affectionate persistence he pushed the King out of bed, and took his place.

"Now, Henri," he said, "go and lie on my sofa, and leave all to me."

Henri obeyed; he began to understand Chicot's plan.

"You are silent," continued the voice, "which proves that your heart is hardened."

"Oh, pardon, pardon, Lord!" exclaimed Chicot, imitating the King's nasal twang. Then, stretching himself out of bed, he whispered to the King, "It is very odd, but the heavenly voice does not seem to know that it is Chicot who is speaking."

"Oh!" replied Henri, "what do you suppose is the meaning of that?"

"Don't be in a hurry; plenty of strange things will happen yet!"

"Miserable creature that you are!" went on the voice.

"Yes, Lord, yes!" answered Chicot. "I am a horrible sinner, hardened in crime."

"Then confess your sins, and repent."

"I acknowledge," said Chicot, "that I dealt wickedly by my cousin Conde, whose wife I betrayed; and I repent bitterly."

"What is that you are saying?" cried the King. "There is no good in mentioning that. It has all been forgotten long ago."

"Oh, has it?" replied Chicot; "then we will pass on to something else."

"Answer," said the voice.

"I acknowledge," said the false Henri, "that I behaved like a thief toward the Poles, who had elected me their king, in stealing away to France one fine night, carrying with me all the crown jewels; and I repent bitterly."

"Idiot!" exclaimed Henri, "what are you talking about now? Nobody remembers anything about that."

"Let me alone," answered Chicot, "I must go on pretending to be the King."

"Speak," said the voice.

"I acknowledge," continued Chicot, "that I snatched the throne from my brother D'Alencon, who was the rightful heir, since I had formally renounced my claims when I was elected King of Poland; I repent bitterly."

"Rascal!" cried the King.

"There is yet something more," said the voice.

"I acknowledge to have plotted with my excellent mother, Catherine de' Medicis, to hunt from France my brother-in-law the King of Navarre, after first destroying all his friends, and my sister Queen Marguerite, after first destroying all her lovers; and I repent bitterly."

"Scoundrel! Cease!" muttered the King, his teeth clenched in anger.

"Sire, it is no use trying to hide what Providence knows as well as we do."

"There is a crime unconfessed that has nothing to do with politics," said the voice.

"Ah, now we are getting to it," observed Chicot dolefully; "it is about my conduct, I suppose?"

"It is," answered the voice.

"I cannot deny," continued Chicot, always speaking in the name of the King, "that I am very effeminate, very lazy; a hopeless trifler, an incorrigible hypocrite."

"It is true," said the voice.

"I have behaved ill to all women, to my own wife in particular; and such a good wife too."

"A man should love his wife as himself, and above all the world," cried the voice angrily.

"Oh dear!" wailed Chicot in despairing tones; "then I certainly have sinned terribly."

"And by your example you have caused others to sin."

"That is true, sadly true."

"You very nearly sent that poor Saint-Luc to perdition."

"Bah!" said Chicot, "are you sure I did not send him there quite?"

"No; but such a fate may befall both of you if you do not let him go back to his family at break of day."

"Dear me!" said Chicot to the King, "the voice seems to take a great interest in the house of Cosse."

"If you disobey me, you will suffer the same torments as Sardanapalus, Nabuchodnosor, and the Marshal De Retz."

Henry III. gave a loud groan; at this threat he became more frightened than ever.

"I am lost," he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice from on high will be my death-warrant."

ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR

(1824-1895)

BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY

We shall not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the younger. The history of a great writer is the history of his works. He was born in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name on the register of births appears as "Alexandre, son of Marie Catherine Lebay, seamstress." He was not acknowledged by his father until he had reached his sixth year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize this particular because it had great influence on the bent of his genius. During all his life Dumas was haunted by a desire of rehabilitating illegitimate children, of creating a reaction against their treatment by the Civil Code and the prejudice which makes of them something little better than outcasts in society.

"When seven years old," he himself says, "I entered as a boarder the school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Genevieve. Thence I passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School; the principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with whom he collaborated under the _nom de plume_ of Dinaux. This school, which numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and with the rather strange habits which I tried to depict in 'The Clemenceau Case,' occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino de Paris and the 'Pole-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left the Saint-Victor School for Monsieur Henon's school, which was situated in the Rue de Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the College Bourbon (now the Lycee Condorcet) that I received all my instruction, as the pupils of the two schools where I lived attended the college classes. I never belonged to any of the higher State schools,--I have not even the degree of bachelor."

At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He did not stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life which he saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled with serious yearnings.

"You have debts," his father said to him. "Do as I do: work, and you will pay them."

Such was indeed the young man's intention. His first work was a one-act play in verse, 'The Queen's Jewel,' which no one, assuredly, would mention to-day but for his signature. The date was 1845, and the author was then twenty-one. Other works by him were published at various times in the Journal des Demoiselles.

"I was," he has said, "the careless, lazy, and spoilt child of all my father's friends. I believed in the eternity of youth, of strength, of joy. I spent the whole day laughing, the whole night sleeping, unless I had some reason for writing verses."

About 1846 he set resolutely to work. He turned to novel-writing, which seemed to him to offer greater facilities for reaching the public and greater chances of immediate income than dramatic composition. Only two of his novels have survived: 'La Dame aux Camelias' ('Camille': 1848), because from this book came the immortal drama by the same title; and 'The Clemenceau Case,' because the author wrote it when he was in complete possession of his talent, and because moreover it is a first-rate work.

It was in 1852 that the Vaudeville Theatre gave the first performance of 'Camille,' the fortune of which was to be so extraordinary. For two or three years the play had been tossed from theatre to theatre. Nobody wanted it. To the ideas of the time it seemed simply shocking, and the play was still forbidden in London after its performances in France were numbered by the hundreds.

There is this special trait in 'Camille'--it was a work all instinct with the spirit of youth. Dumas twenty years later sadly said: "I might perhaps make another 'Demi-Monde'; I could not make another 'Camille.'" There existed, indeed, other works which have all the fire and charm of the twentieth year. 'Polyeucte' is Corneille's masterpiece; his 'Cid' breathes the spirit of youth: Corneille at forty could not have written the 'Cid.' Racine's first play is 'Andromaque': Beaumarchais's is the 'Barber of Seville'; Rossini, when young, enlivened it with his light and sparkling airs. Fifteen years later he himself wrote his 'William Tell,' a higher work, but a work which was not young.

If the theatrical managers had recoiled from 'Camille' in spite of the great names that recommended it, it is because it was cut after a pattern to which neither they nor the public were accustomed; it is because it contained the germ of a whole dramatic revolution. Now, the author was not a theatrical revolutionist. He had not said to himself, "I am going to throw down the old fabric of the drama, and erect a new one on its ruins." To tell the truth, he had no idea of what he was doing. He had witnessed a love drama. He had thrown it still throbbing upon the stage, without any regard for the dramatic conventions which were then imposed upon playwrights, and which were almost accepted as laws. He had simply depicted what he had seen. All the managers, attached as they were to the old customs, and respectful of the traditions, had trembled with horror when they saw moving around Camille the ignoble Prudence, the idiotic Due de Varville, the silly Saint-Gaudens. But the public--though the fact was suspected neither by them nor by the public itself--yearned for more truth upon the boards. When 'Camille' was presented to them, the play-goers uttered a cry of astonishment and joy: that was the thing! that was just what they wanted! From that day, which will remain as a date in the history of the French stage, the part of Camille has been performed by all the celebrated actresses. The part has two sides: one may see in it a degraded woman who has fallen profoundly in love, rather late in life; one may also see in it a woman, already poetical in her own nature, suddenly carried away by a great passion into the sacred regions of the Ideal.

Almost any young man in Dumas's place would have lost his head after so astounding a success, and might not have resisted the temptation of at once working out the vein. For on coming out of the theatre after the first performance, the author had all the managers at his feet, and the smallest trifle was sure to be accepted if it only had his signature. But he had learned, by the side of "a prodigal father," the art of husbanding his talent. He declined to front the footlights again, save with a work upon which he had been able to bestow all the care and labor it deserved: he waited a year before he gave, at the Gymnase theatre, 'Diane de Lys.'

'Diane de Lys' undoubtedly pleased the public, but its success was not exactly brilliant. It is full of great qualities, it is strongly conceived, constructed with rare power and logic, but it added nothing to his reputation. The play as a whole seemed long and melancholy. It is a curious subject for critical study, as one of the stages in which the genius of the author stopped awhile, on its way to higher works. It will leave no great trace in his career.

Two years later he gave at the Gymnase theatre--I do not dare to say his masterpiece, but certainly the best constructed and most enjoyable play he ever wrote, 'Le Demi-Monde' (The Other Half-World). In this play he discovered and defined the very peculiar world of those women who live on the margin of regular "society," and try to preserve its tone and demeanor. What scientific and strong construction are here! What an admirable disposition of the scenes, both flexible and logical! And through the action, which moves on with wonderful straightforwardness and breadth, how many portraits, drawn with a steady hand, each one bearing such distinctive features that you would know them if you met them on the street! Olivier de Jalin, the refined Parisian, the dialectician of the play, who is no other than Dumas himself; Raymond de Nanjac, handsome and honest, but not keen or Parisian; and that giddy Valentine de Sanctis, whose head turns with the wind, whose tongue cannot rest one moment; and especially Suzanne d'Ange, so witty, so complex, so devious in her motions, so _roublarde_, as a Parisian of to-day would say.

Between 'The Demi-Monde,' and 'La Question d'Argent' (The Money Question), which followed, Dumas spent two years at work. 'La Question d'Argent' is a favorite play with the connoisseurs; but its reception by the public was of the coldest. It is a noteworthy fact that plays turning upon money have never been successful. Le Sage's 'Turcaret' is a dramatic masterpiece: it never had the luck to please the crowd. Dumas's Jean Giraud is, however, a very curiously studied character. The author has represented in him the commonest type of the shady money-man, the unconscious rascal. And very skillfully he made an individual out of that general type, by giving to Jean Giraud a certain rough good-nature; the appearance of a good fellow, with a certain degree of fineness; a mixture of humility and self-conceit, of awkwardness and impudence, and even some ideas as to the power of money that do not lack dignity, and some real liberality of sentiment and act,--for wealth alone, though acquired by ignominious means, suggests and dictates to the great robbers some advantageous movements which the small rascal cannot indulge in: and around this Turcaret of the Second Empire how many pictures of honest people, every one of whom, in his or her way, is good and fine!

One year later Dumas carried to the Gymnase, his favorite theatre, 'Le Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son); and the next year 'Un Pere Prodigue' (A Prodigal Father; known also in English through a free adaptation as 'My Awful Dad').

In 'Le Fils Naturel' Dumas for the first time wrote a theme-play, a kind of work in which he was to become a master. Hitherto we have seen him drawing pictures of manners. To be sure, philosophical considerations on the period depicted are not wanting, but the play has not the form and does not assume the movement of a thesis. It does not take up one special trait of our social order, one of our worldly prejudices, in order to show its strong and weak sides. 'Le Fils Naturel' is the work of a moralist as well as of a playwright; or rather, it is the work of a playwright who was a born moralist.

'Un Pere Prodigue' originally excited great curiosity. It escaped no one that in his Count Fernand de la Rivonniere, Dumas had shown us some traits of his illustrious father, who _had_ been a prodigal father; and that he had depicted himself in Viscount Andre. Every one made comparisons; some, of course, accused the author of filial disrespect. The accusation was ridiculous, and he did not even answer it. He had so well disguised the persons, he had transported them into such different surroundings, that no one could recognize in them their true prototypes. Then--and this is no small praise--if Count de la Rivonniere is guilty of one fault, that of throwing to the wind his fortune, he is a most amiable nobleman, full of broad ideas and generous sentiments,--has a warm heart. The fourth act, in which the father sacrifices himself in order to save his son's life, is pathetic in the extreme. But nothing equals the first act, which is a model of animated and picturesque composition. No one ever painted in more vivid colors the pillage of a household, and a family without so much as a shadow of discipline. It is an accumulation of small details, not one of which is of an indifferent nature, and which, taken together, drive into our minds the idea that this nobleman, so well-mannered, so charming in conversation, so sober for himself, is running to ruin as gayly as he can.

For four years after the production of 'Un Pere Prodigue' Dumas wrote nothing. But in 1864 he reappeared at the Gymnase with a strange play, 'L'Ami des Femmes' (A Friend of the Sex), which completely failed. After 'L'Ami des Femmes' there was another interruption, not of Dumas's labors but of his dramatic production. Perhaps he was sick of an art which had caused him a cruel disappointment. He turned again to novel-writing, and published (1866) 'L'Affaire Clemenceau' (The Clemenceau Case), the success of which was not as great as he had hoped. In France, when a man is superior in one specialty people will not let him leave it. He is not allowed to be at once an unequaled novelist and a first-rate dramatist.

At that time Dumas hesitated which road to follow. An incident which created a great deal of comment threw him back towards the stage, and towards a new form of comedy.

M. Emile de Girardin, one of the best known publicists of the Second Empire, had bethought himself, when over fifty years of age, and knowing nothing of this kind of work, to write a play. He had been a great friend of Dumas pere, and had kept up the most affectionate intercourse with his son. He had asked him to fit his play for the stage. It possessed one really dramatic idea. Dumas, in order to oblige his father's friend, made out of it 'Le Supplice d'une Femme' (A Woman's Torture). Emile de Girardin, who was self-conceited and somewhat despotic, refused to recognize his offspring in the bear that Dumas had licked. He declined to sign the play: "Neither shall I," Dumas retorted.

'A Woman's Torture' was acted at the Comedie Francaise with extraordinary success. This success was for Dumas a warning and a lesson. 'A Woman's Torture' was a three-act play, short, concise, panting, which hurried to the _coup de theatre_ of the second act, upon which the drama revolved, and rushed to its conclusion. The time of five-act comedies, with ample expositions, copious developments, philosophical disquisitions, curious and fanciful episodes, was gone. Henceforth the dramatist had to deal with a hurried and _blase_ public, which, taking dinner at eight, could give to the theatre but a short time, and an attention disturbed by the labor of digestion. 'A Woman's Torture,' which lasted only an hour and a half, and proceeded only by rapid strokes, was exactly what that public wanted. After that time Dumas wrote only three-act and one-act plays; using four acts only for 'Les Idees de Madame Aubray' (Madame Aubray's Ideas); and these four acts are very short. In 1867 this play announced Dumas's return to the stage; and Dumas is here more paradoxical than he had ever been. His theme looked like a wager not simply against bourgeois prejudices, but even against good sense, and, I dare to say, against justice. This wager was won by Dumas, thanks to an incredible display of skill. He took up the thesis a second time in 'Denise,' and won his wager again, but with less difficulty. In 'Denise' the lover struggles only against social prejudices, and allows himself to be carried away by one of those emotional fits which disturb and confound human reason. In 'Madame Aubray's Ideas' the triumph is one of pure logic.

'Une Visite de Noces' (A Wedding Call) and 'La Princesse Georges' followed rather closely on 'Madame Aubray's Ideas.' 'A Wedding Call'!--what a thunderbolt then! It was of but one act, _but_ one act the effect of which was prodigious, the echo of which is still heard. Time and familiarity have now softened for us the too sharp outlines of this bitter play. It has been acknowledged a masterpiece. It is certainly one of the boldest works of this extraordinary magician, who, thanks to his unerring skill and to the dazzling wit of his dialogue, brought the public to listen to whatever he chose to put upon the stage. It seemed that, like a lion tamer in the arena, Dumas took pleasure in belaboring and exasperating this many-headed monster, in order to prove to his own satisfaction that he could subdue its revolts.

'La Princesse Georges' is a work of violent and furious passion. We find in it Madame de Terremonde, the good woman who adores her husband, but who adores him with fury, who wants him all to herself, and who, when sure that she is betrayed, passes from the most exasperated rage to tears and despair. There is in the first act a scene of exposition which has become celebrated. No one ever so rapidly mastered the public; no one ever from the first stroke so painfully twisted the heart of the spectators.

Let us pass rapidly over 'La Femme de Claude' (Claude's Wife: 1873). Of all his plays it is the one Dumas said he liked best, the one he most passionately defended with all sorts of commentaries, letters, prefaces, etc.; the one which he insisted on having revived, a long time after it had failed. To my mind that play was a mistake; and the public, in spite of Dumas's arguments, in spite of the protests of the critics, who are often very glad to distinguish themselves by not yielding to the common voice,--the public insisted on agreeing with me.

Only a few months later, Dumas brilliantly retrieved himself with 'Monsieur Alphonse.' His Madame Guichard is the most cheerfully vulgar type of the _parvenue_ which any one ever dared to put upon the stage. She can hardly read and write; she is no longer young, and she is "to boot" very proud of her money; she has no tact and no taste; but at heart she is a good sort of woman. Her morality is as primitive as her education. But deceit disgusts her; she hates but one thing, she says,--lying. She is not troubled by conventionalities; and her speech has all the color and energy of popular speech. But see! Dumas in depicting this woman preserved exquisite measure. Madame Guichard says many pert and droll things; she never utters a coarse word. Her language is picturesque; it is free from slang. Hers is a vulgar nature, but she does not offend delicate ears by the grossness of her utterance. Dumas never drew a more living picture; she is the joy of this rather sad play.

All that remain to be reviewed are 'L'Etrangere,' 'La Princesse de Bagdad,' and 'Francillon'; all of which were given at the Comedie Francaise. 'L'Etrangere' is indeed a melodrama, with an admixture of comedy. Had he gone further in that direction, Dumas might have made a new sort of play, which would perhaps have reigned a long time on the stage. But after this trial, successful though it was, he stopped. 'La Princesse de Bagdad' entirely failed. 'Francillon' was Dumas's last success at the Comedie Francaise.

After 1887 Dumas gave nothing to the stage. He had completed a great five-act play, 'The Road to Thebes,' which the manager of the Comedie Francaise hoped every year to put on the boards. Dumas kept promising it; but either from distrust of himself or of the public, or from fatigue, or fear of meeting with failure, he asked for new delays, until the day when he declared that not only the play would not be acted during his life, but that he would not even allow it to be acted after his death.

This death he saw coming, with sad but calm eyes. It was a sorrow for us to see this man, whom we had known so quick and alert, grow weaker every day, showing the progress of disease in his shriveled features and body. The complexion had lost all color, the cheeks had become flaccid, the eye had no life left.

On October 1st, 1895, he wrote to his friend Jules Claretie:--"Do not depend upon me any more; I am vanquished. There are moments when I mourn my loss, as Madame D'Houdetot said when dying." He was at Puys, by the seaside, when he wrote that despairing letter. He returned to Marly, there to die, surrounded by his family, on November 28th, 1895, in a house which he loved and which had been bequeathed to him years before by an intimate friend.

His loss threw into mourning the world of letters, and the whole of Paris. People discovered then--for death loosens every tongue and every pen--how kind and generous in reality was Dumas, who had often been accused of avarice by those who contrasted him with his father; how many services he had discreetly rendered, how open his hand always was. His constant cheerfulness and good-nature had finally caused him to be forgiven for his wit, which was sarcastic and cutting, and for his success, which had thrown so many rivals into the shade. This witty man, who was always obliging and even tender-hearted, had no envy, and gave his applause without a shadow of reserve to the successes of others. Every young author found in him advice and support; he did not expect gratitude, and therefore was soured by no disappointment. He was a good man, partly from nature, partly from determination; for he deemed that, after all, the best way to live happy in this world is to make happy as many people as possible.

If in this long essay I have not spoken of Dumas as a moralist, it is because, in my opinion, in spite of all that has been said, Dumas was a dramatist a great deal more than a philosopher. In his comedies he discussed a great many moral and social questions, without giving a solution for any; or rather, the solutions that he gave were due not to any set of fixed principles, but to the conclusion which he was preparing for this play or that. He said, indifferently, "Kill her" or "Forgive her," according to the requirements of the subject which he had selected; and he would afterwards write a sensational preface with a view to demonstrate that the solution this time given by him was the only legitimate one. These prefaces are very amusing reading; for he wrote them with all the fire of his nature, and he had the gift of movement. But they were a strange medley of incongruous and contradictory statements. Every idea that he expresses can be grasped and understood; but it is impossible to see how it agrees with those that precede and follow. It is a chaos of clear ideas.

Dumas was not a philosopher, but an agitator. He stirred up a great many questions; he drew upon them our distracted attention; he compelled us to think of them. Therein he did his duty as a dramatist.

He gave much thought to the fate of woman in our civilization. We may say, however, that though loving her much, he still more feared her, and I shall even add, despised her. All his characters who have the mission of defending morality and good sense are very attentive to her, but keep her at arm's-length. They are affectionate counselors, not lovers. They hold her to be a frail being, who must be controlled and guided. Some one has said that there was in Dumas something of the Catholic priest. It is true. He was to women a lay director of conscience.

He was a great connoisseur of pictures and a great art lover. Music, I think, is the only art that did not affect him much. He was a dazzling talker; his plays teem with bright sayings; his conversation sparkled with them. I did not know him in his prime, when he delighted his friends and companions by his unceasing flow of spirits. I became intimate with him only later. If you knew how to start him, he simply coruscated. I never knew any one, save Edmond About, who was as witty, and who, like About, always paid you back in good sounding coin.

Dumas was a member of the French Academy. He had not wished for that honor, because it had been denied to his father. He desired, in his reception speech, to call up the great spirit of this illustrious father and make it share his academician's chair. He had this joy; the two Dumas were received on the same day. Their two names will never perish.

[The editors have been compelled, for lack of space, to leave out that part of M. Sarcey's valuable essay which is a professional analysis of several of Dumas's plays, and which would be of interest, chiefly, to special students of the French drama and stage.]

THE PLAYWRIGHT IS BORN--AND MADE

From the Preface to 'A Prodigal Father'

Of all the various forms of thought, the stage is that which nearest approaches the plastic arts--inasmuch as we cannot work in it unless we know its material processes; but with this difference: that in the other arts one learns these processes, while in play-writing one guesses them; or to speak more accurately, they are in us to begin with.

One can become a painter, a sculptor, a musician, by sheer study: one does not become a dramatic author in this fashion. A caprice of nature makes your eye in such a way that you can see a thing after a particular manner, not absolutely correct, but which must nevertheless appear, to any other persons that you wish to have so think, the only correct point of view. The man really called to write for the stage reveals what is an extremely rare faculty, in his very first attempts,--say in a farce in school, or a drawing-room charade. There is a sort of science of optics and of perspective that enables one to draw a personage, a character, a passion, an impulse of the soul, with a single stroke of the pen. Dramatic _cheating of the eye_ is so complete that often the spectator, when he is a mere reader of the play, desiring to give himself once more the same emotion that he has felt as one of the audience, not only cannot recapture that emotion in the written words before him, but often cannot even distinguish the passage where the emotion lies hid. It was a word, a look, a silence, a gesture, a purely atmospheric combination, that held him spellbound. So comes in the genius of the playwright's trade, if those two words can be associated. One may compare writing for the stage in relation to other phases of literature, as we compare ceiling painters with [painters of] pictures for the wall or the easel. Woe to the painter if he forget that his composition is to be looked at from a distance, with a light below it!

A man without merit as a thinker, a moralist, a philosopher, an author, may turn out to be a dramatic author of the first class; that is to say, in the work of setting in motion before you the purely external movements of mankind; and on the other hand, to become in the theatre the thinker, the moralist, the philosopher, or the author to whom one listens, one must indispensably be furnished with the particular and natural qualities of a man of much lower grade. In short, to be a master in the art of writing for the stage, you must be a poor hand in the superior art....

That dramatic author who shall know mankind like Balzac, and who shall know the theatre like Scribe, will be the greatest dramatic author that has ever existed.

Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,'
by E. Irenaeus Stevenson

AN ARMED TRUCE

From 'A Friend of the Sex'

[The following conversation in the first act of the play
takes place in the pleasant morning-room of a country-house
near Paris, the home of M. and Madame Leverdet. M. Leverdet
is asleep in his chair. The speakers are Madame Leverdet, a
coquettish, sprightly lady approaching middle age, and young
M. De Ryons, a friend and neighbor. Madame Leverdet is
determined to marry off De Ryons advantageously, and as soon
as possible. Unfortunately he is a confirmed bachelor, not to
say woman-hater, whose cynicism is the result of severely
disappointing experiences. Under that cynicism there is
however genuine respect and even chivalry as to the right
sort of woman,--the superior and sincere type, which he does
not happen often to encounter.]

_Madame Leverdet_--Let us come to serious topics while we are alone, my friend.

_De Ryons_--And apropos of them?

_Madame Leverdet_--Are you willing to be married off yet?

_De Ryons_ [_with a start of terror_]--Pardon me, my dear lady! At what hour can I take the first train for Paris?

_Madame Leverdet_--Now listen to me, at least.

_De Ryons_--What! Here it is two years since I have called on you; I come to make you a little visit of a morning, in all good friendship, with the thermometer forty, centigrade; I am totally unsuspecting; all I ask is to have a little lively chat with a clever woman--and see how you receive me.

_Madame Leverdet_ [_continuing_]--A simple, charming young girl--

_De Ryons_ [_interrupting her, and in the same tone_]-- --musical, speaks English, draws nicely, sings agreeably, a society woman, a domestic woman,--all at the choice of the applicant.

_Madame Leverdet_ [_laughing_]--Yes, and pretty and graceful and rich; and, by-the-by, one who finds you a charming fellow.

_De Ryons_--She is quite right there. I shall make a charming husband--I shall; I know it. Only thirty-two years old; all my teeth, all my hair (no such very common detail, the way young men are nowadays); lively, sixty thousand livres income as a landed proprietor--oh, I am an excellent match: only unfortunately I am not a marrying man.

_Madame Leverdet_--And why not, if you please?

_De Ryons_ [_smiling_]--It would interfere severely with my studies.

_Madame Leverdet_--What sort of studies?

_De Ryons_--My studies of--woman.

_Madame Leverdet_--Really! I don't understand you.

_De Ryons_--What! Do you not know that I am making women my particular, my incessant study, and that I am reckoning on leaving some new and very interesting documents dealing with that branch of natural history?--a branch very little understood just at present, in spite of all that has been written on the topic. My friend, I cannot sacrifice the species to the individual; I belong to science. It is quite impossible for me to give myself wholly and completely--as one certainly should do when he marries--to one of those charming and terrible little carnivora for whose sake men dishonor themselves, ruin themselves, kill themselves; whose sole preoccupation, in the midst of the universal carnage that they make, is to dress themselves now like umbrellas and now like table bells.

_Madame Leverdet_ [_scornfully_]--So you really think you understand women, do you?

_De Ryons_--I rather think I do. Why, just as you see me this instant, at the end of five minutes' study or conversation I can tell you to what class a woman belongs,--whether to the middle class, to women of rank, artists, or whatever you please; what are her tastes, her characteristics, her antecedents, the state of her heart,--in a word, everything that concerns my special science.

_Madame Leverdet_--Really! Will you have a glass of water?

_De Ryons_--Not yet, thank you.

_Madame Leverdet_--I suppose, then, you are under the impression that you know me too.

_De Ryons_--As if I did not!

_Madame Leverdet_--Well, and I am--what?

_De Ryons_--Oh, you are a clever woman. It is for that reason that I call on you [_aside:_ every two years].

_Madame Leverdet_--Will you kindly give me the sum of your observations in general? You can tell me so much, since I am a clever woman.

_De Ryons_--The true, the true, the true sum?

_Madame Leverdet_--Yes.

_De Ryons_--Simply that woman of our day is an illogical, subordinate, and mischief-making creature. [_In saying this De Ryons draws back and crouches down as if expecting to be struck._]

_Madame Leverdet_--So then, you detest women?

_De Ryons_--I? I detest women? On the contrary, I adore them; but I hold myself in such a position toward them that they cannot bite me. I keep on the outside of the cage.

_Madame Leverdet_--Meaning by that--what?