Chapter IV (2)

"Then the day came for M. Janin to read us his work. I said
nothing, for, as far as I can, I exercise charity, even
towards my enemies!... Let it be known only that, by common
accord, the work was judged null and void. Janin withdrew
and gave up the task (I will give the written proof), and
M. Harel returned purely and simply to my drama. Now, since
the day upon which I read my play, I had conceived new ideas
and improvements, due as much to discussion and to the
criticisms of the manager as to my own reflections. But,
in order to enlighten the public as to the true mysteries
of the birth of _La Tour de Nesle,_ and, as it were, to
initiate it into the phases and developments of the work by
which this drama was conceived, abnormal in its success and
by reason of the quarrels which it raised, I am about to
establish succinctly what the drama was, _as a whole,_ and
in comparison with the drama performed, which I read to M.
Harel, and which was returned to me at the epoch of which
I am speaking. It will be easy to all to understand me at
once (who has not seen _La Tour de Nesle_?), and to _verify_
me afterwards, M. Dumas having the original MS. in his
possession, and able to show it to whomsoever desires to see
it; also, people may be confident that I shall say _less_
rather than _more._ I quote from memory and my adversary has
the book!"

Here, M. Gaillardet gave the résumé of his first MS.; then he continued thus--

"The reader has already gathered at what points the _two_
dramas coincide. Are not these points, in the small portion
I have quoted, and quoted faithfully (for if I were the
man to make up an audacious lie, my adversary would hold
in his hands the means of exposing me!)--are not _those
points already_ the fundamental basis of the _acted_ drama?
Are they not the bones and marrow, the substance and
framework?... Indeed I I venture to say that had I done
_only that_ in the play, I should have done more than half
the drama, consequently ten, twenty times more than M. Dumas
allows me, since he allows me _nothing. Very well!_ he has
dared to write and to print it in all his letters! But,
after what we know of him, of what can we and should we be
surprised?

"M. Harel had expressed much regret to me; first, because
the drama was not _en tableaux_; that style suited the
ways of his theatre better, and the success of _Richard_
supported the opinion; secondly, that I had not made Buridan
the father of Gaultier and of Philippe, whose mother
(Marguerite) was alone known. 'That would complicate the
plot,' he said to me. Finally, he thought it improbable
that Marguerite, a queen and all-powerful, would not have
had Buridan arrested and got rid of, at the first words of
his revelation. At the juxtaposition of these two latter
objections a sudden ray of light sprang up in me. Let
Buridan be the _father_ indeed, by means of a pre-existing
intrigue, and let him be arrested by Marguerite, who wanted
to rid herself of him; then, at the moment of his greatest
peril, let him make himself known, and there would be the
opportunity for a magnificent scene--capital! The prison
scene was hit upon.

"Two days after that on which Janin had given up the drama,
like an athlete, exhausted by a task too heavy for him, I
took to M. Harel, the manager of the Porte-Saint-Martin,
a _scenario_ which was pretty nearly that of _La Tour de
Nesle._ I am, however, going to point out the differences.

"Orsini was not a tavern-keeper; that was Landry, although
both were men belonging to the tower of Nesle. As for
Orsini, he was one of those magicians extremely feared
in his time under the name of _envoûteurs._ A confidant
of Marguerite, he receives at his house the courtiers, a
part very much like that of Ruggieri in _Henri III._; it
is on that account, I think, that M. Dumas has made him a
tavern-keeper instead of Landry.

"Secondly, the prison scene was arranged like this so that
Buridan might finish his part holding Marguerite's hands,
and say to her, 'Délie ces cordes!' Marguerite, falling on
her knees obediently, and freeing him with _one single cut._
M. Dumas has _tripled_ that action by causing Buridan only
to be unbound after _three attempts._

"He is miles beyond me, as tried talent far exceeds feeble
inexperienced effort, as attainment exceeds inexperience.

"As far as the truth of what I advance is concerned, it will
be detected by all impartial readers, first, in the accuracy
and faithfulness of its details, if I may so express it; I
do not merely relate what is in the actual _Tour de Nesle,_
but things that _are not to be found in that,_ among others,
one scene in the fourth act. Buridan comes as a gipsy,
and not as a captain, to visit the _wizard_ Orsini. The
latter wants to overawe the gipsy, who revealed to him the
murders of the tower of Nesle as he had revealed them to
Marguerite; and soon the magician falls at the gipsy's feet,
seized with the very superstitions he himself instils into
the vulgar-minded, to enquire if, perhaps, there be true
sorcerers! This scene was bound to disappear directly Orsini
was made an inn-keeper.

"Finally, as to probability, I might say concerning the
_proof_ of my word, that I have the actual words of M. Dumas
in the letter in which he says to me: 'Harel has come to ask
my _advice_ about a drama by _you_ which he wishes to put on
the stage. _Your play ..._ that which I have been happy to
have been able to _add_ to it ... etc.' Nobody speaks like
this of a work in which he has done _everything._

"Next, a line from M. Harel, which I received before my
departure (_after Janin's withdrawal,_) in which he says to
me: 'Write to me; take care of your health and, above all,
_work_! 'There were then, modifications, changes decided
upon, a _work to be done_!... They deny it; I assert it and
assert it with proof!... It is for the reader to decide the
matter.[9]

"So, now, you will perceive that it will matter little to me
whether M. Dumas either had or had not my _first_ MS. in his
possession. I have proved that he has had my second plan;
from another source, he himself confesses to have possessed
and partly copied Janin's MS. which was mine _spoilt...._
What more do I need?

"I will, therefore, resume my story from where I left
off. _Felonies_ were about to succeed one another like
file-firing. It was on 8 April when I took my _scenario_ to
M. Harel. My father died on the 9th; he had come to Paris on
purpose to fetch me away from the contagion which reigned
over the city, and his joy in being present at my first play
induced him to remain with me! This recollection breaks my
heart!... On the 10th, as a messenger of death, I went to
console my poor mother. This was the night of the same day
on which M. Harel wrote me the note wherein he said, '_Take
care of your health_!' Wretched irony, flung at me between
a misfortune which had come upon me and an act of robbery
which was about to overtake me! 'Go,' he had said to me; 'I
have a play before yours: you have three months before you.
Take it easy and write to me!'

"I had scarcely been gone a month before I had to write
to M. Janin to ask him about an announcement relative to
_La Tour de Nesle._ A book had just appeared upon the same
subject (_L'Écolier de Cluny),_ and I did not wish it to be
thought that my play was taken from the book. Janin replied--

"'I will willingly do what you ask me: but what is the good?
I announce the approaching performance of your play. I say
_your_ and not _our,_ because I count for _absolutely_
nothing in it; you know the matter rests between you and
M. Harel; that was agreed upon a long time ago, etc. JULES
JANIN'

"'10 _May_ 1832'

"After that, not a word further. I wrote to Paris, and I
learnt that M. Dumas _has been made and has constituted
himself_ my collaborator. I leave the reader to imagine what
my feelings were!...

"Beside myself, trembling with rage and indignation, I
wrote to M. Harel to forbid him to act the play; to M.
Dumas to beg him to prevent it. 'You have doubtless been
misinformed,' I said to him; 'the play belongs to me and
to me alone; I do not wish to have collaborators at all,
certainly not clandestine ones, imposed upon me; I therefore
appeal to you, for your own honour's sake, and I point out
to you the necessity for stopping the rehearsals, etc.'

"No answer either from M. Harel or M. Dumas!... I set off,
and, before going to my home, I went in travelling garb, as
I was, straight to M. Harel. 'I am ruined!' he said to me;
'it is true I have deceived you.... Now, what are you going
to do?... Stop the play!--You will not succeed in doing
that; I shall change the title of it and play it. You can
attack me for forgery, theft, plagiarism, what you like: you
would obtain 1200 francs damages. Ask a lawyer! If, however,
you let it be played you will gain 12,000 francs, etc.'
He spoke the truth, for such is the protection ordinarily
granted by our judges to the author who is robbed!... I
returned home, pale with rage, and it was then I found the
grandiloquent letter from M. Dumas, quoted by me at the
beginning of this article. Such are the principal facts.

"Now, what do you say to those lines of M. Dumas? 'I
wrote to the young man, and the young man _never favoured
me with an answer_!' This time it is the philosophy of
_truthfulness,_ with a vengeance! Nobody would have believed
it, if I had not held the _evidence_ and the _means_ of
proving what I am stating! M. Dumas not having yielded to
the request or to the summons that I sent him to stop the
rehearsals of the play (which was the first, if not the
second, of his _mistakes,_ from which he will never clear
himself, because it proves his _complicity),_ and M. Harel
threatening to play in spite of me--which, both morally and
physically, he was capable of doing,--there was nothing
else left for me to do but to let my drama be performed,
and according to the _conditions_ stipulated in M. Dumas's
letter, in which he stated that _his name would not be
given,_ that I should be the _sole author,_ that he wished
to _tender_ me a service and not to _sell_ it me.

"Very well, then, the day following the first performance,
_asterisks_ appeared on the playbills _before_ my name, and
now, M. Dumas wants to replace _my name_ by his: it will be
seen what encroachments these were! This is not all. When
it came to payment, they would not give me more than _one
share._ Now, listen carefully: during the current April, the
Commission of Authors had made an agreement with M. Harel,
before the performance of my play, which stipulated for a
fee of ten per cent, for the authors, in the performances
_to come on_ at the Porte-Saint-Martin. I had, then, the
right to the benefit of this agreement. M. Dumas enjoyed
it, and more beside; he also received two and three hundred
francs per night. What did they leave me? Forty-eight
francs, the price of an old agreement! and M. Dumas took
_half_ of it from me--that is the service he wished to
_tender_ me, and not to _sell_!!!

"There was nothing for it but to go to law to protest
against such deeds, as there is nothing but the police
station against theft and pickpocketting. I therefore had
recourse to the law courts.

"If more proof _still_ be needed, I have it at hand,
drawn up and set forth in the legal deeds, _properly
attested,_ which began the examination of this trial. But
it would seem that the trial a little alarmed M. Dumas's
public conscience, for he suggested to me to stop it by a
compromise.

"In that compromise--First, we both acknowledged each
other as _joint_ authors of _La Tour de Nesle;_ second, it
was specified that this play should always be published
and acted under _my name,_ followed by asterisks; third,
M. Dumas guaranteed me a settled sum of 48 francs per
performance, and _half_ of his tickets. 'To what sum do
they amount?' I asked him in all good faith. 'To 36 francs,
upon my honour!' he replied, glancing at M. Harel; so I
accepted 18 francs' worth of tickets. Next day, M. Harel
would not fulfil the above-mentioned compromise, as far as
it concerned himself, although he had been the instigator
of, and witness to, it. It needed a _trial_ to compel him
to do it, and M. Dumas blamed him on that occasion.... I
had that to thank him for ... it was the _first_ and _last_
time. He also quoted my letter.

"A little while later, I learnt that M. Dumas, who had
declared to me upon his honour that there would only be 36
francs' worth of tickets, had over 50! But, while taking
the oath, he had looked at M. Harel. The MS. was still for
sale. Barba, who had offered 1000 francs for it, and never
1400, would give no more than 500 francs. Half that sum
should have been paid down to each of us there and then,
and the remainder in six months from that date. In a few
days' time, when I went to M. Barba to get my 125 francs, I
learnt that M. Dumas had come and taken my share of the cash
_payable_ down with his own, _saying he was authorised to do
so by me_!

"There is something so incredible in such an act, so petty,
so degrading to the _man of letters,_ that I should not have
dared to cite it, had I not possessed the proof, written
by M. Dumas himself. Indeed, when Barba informed me of
_that,_ not venturing to believe it, I wrote to M. Dumas,
who replied that he had, indeed, received 250 francs; but
Barba had said he had special arrangements with me (did
they not say that it was Barba who had wished to pay there
and then?); that, moreover, he had enabled me to exact the
same advantage for myself as for him ... that I could make
use of his letter to get myself also paid at once, that he
authorised me, etc. This was making use of a first _fraud_
in order to commit a second, two _indelicacies_ instead of
one! I should have preferred to be settled by a six months'
bill.[10] Now, Monsieur Dumas, what do you suppose I should
reply to you--you who treated me in your letter as though
I were a _poor devil_ of a fellow?... I am too well-bred
for you to guess. Now, in order to escape the sooner out of
these unworthy details, which present so ill a picture, I
will state that I should never oppose the insertion of _La
Tour de Nesle_ among M. Dumas's complete works (although
that right resulted strictly as mine from the terms of our
transaction together), if M. Dumas had consented to make a
simple mention of my collaboration in that play. That is
the method followed nowadays by M. Scribe. But, to a polite
letter M. Dumas replied by one of those _incivilities_ of
which he claims the monopoly.[11]

"Finally, if I asked M. Dumas for my _first_ MS. through
a sheriff's officer, it was because it was, on his part,
incredible disloyalty to put side by side with this _sole_
and only MS. a play which had had at the least three!

"This is the truth about _La Tour de Nesle_ and the whole
truth. I should add to the documents which I have brought
forward and to the proofs I have given, that, summoned
before our peerage, the Commission of Authors, I cited and
enumerated all these details and facts before M. Dumas in
person! And there, as here, I more than once felt my cheeks
flush with involuntary shame. Up to now, M. Dumas seemed
great and sacred in my eyes, with the greatness of talent,
the sacredness of art. So, if, after this controversy, which
he provoked, another should follow it, my hand may indeed
tremble ... for behind M. Dumas the _man,_ there is the
_artist,_ and, beneath the _shame,_ is his _fame._

"P.S.--In support of his statements, M. Dumas has produced
various certificates, to each of which I shall only concede
what is necessary in order to the appreciation of their
worth and weight.

"I will say nothing of M. Harel, who was the primary culprit
in the whole affair, and whose _accomplice_ M. Dumas is. M.
Dumas ought to be ashamed to call upon such a witness.

"M. Verteuil, _M. Harel's secretary,_ asserts to having gone
to M. Dumas's house to fetch the five acts of _La Tour de
Nesle_ (excellent!) as he wrote them, to having re-copied
his manuscript entirely (better and better!), which had no
sort of resemblance with _that_ (which?) of M. Gaillardet,
a MS. which was in my possession about three months....
Ah! Monsieur Verteuil, I pull you up here!... _La Tour de
Nesle_ was performed on 31 _May._ It was on 29 March (look
at the date at the top) when my MS. was received. I left
on 10 _April_; M. Dumas was my collaborator on the 11th.
He declares he did his work in _a week,_ and you declare
that my MS. had _then_ been _about three months_ in your
possession?... Oh I Monsieur Verteuil, you are indeed
_secretary to M. Harel._

"M. Duvernoy certifies that I wished to sell the drama (I
believe him there, indeed!). He asserted to me that M. Dumas
had quoted a _false_ price; this is rather more positive.
There now only remains M. Janin's attestation. Ah! that, I
confess, I scarcely expected. M. Janin writes that nothing
can be more accurate than the details given by M. Dumas,
which _he thinks_ he remembers and that, on the whole, M.
Dumas's reply is _truthful_! and M. Dumas declares that
_Janin, accepted by me as a collaborator, had given his
rights to him and been sent by M. Harel_! This is too much!
M. Janin, then, forgets that _he had no further rights,_
that he _had waived his claim,_ that he _had proclaimed this
to me_ in a letter _written_ and _signed_ in his own hand?

"This is not all, and, since I must tell it you, reader, be
informed that, after the first performance of _La Tour de
Nesle,_ it was M. Janin who _bound me_ to protest; it was
_at his house_ that I wrote my protest; it was _he_ himself
who _wanted_ to dictate it to me and _did do so_! He was
furious with MM. Harel and Dumas. This is not all yet; in
consequence of the lawsuit which arose between M. Harel and
myself before the Tribunal de Commerce, M. Janin _himself_
wrote to M. Darmaing, to support a protest that I made to
the _Gazette des Tribunaux_: 'I beg M. Darmaing to insert
the enclosed short note, I entreat it _in my own name,_ and
that of M. Gaillardet. I do not understand the stubbornness
with which they seek to rob this young man of _that which
belongs to him,_ etc.' (See _La Gazette des Tribunaux, 1_
July 1832.) What do you say to it, reader? I had promised to
relate the petty secrets of this apostasy, but I have not
space; and, besides, I reflected that it was not worth the
trouble, and so I sign myself--"F. GAILLARDET"

After this reply, it will be realised that M. Gaillardet had no right to delay our duel, as, not having spared me less than I had him, it was I who considered myself the injured party. So, after a fresh call on the part of my seconds, the meeting was fixed for 17 October 1834.

[Footnote 1: _Histoire de Paris,_ by Félibien, vol. iii. of the proofs, p. 378, Collect, B.

[Footnote 2: "Epigramm, libro," p. 140. edit. Lugd. Batav.]

[Footnote 3: "In fact, Fourcade, one of my best friends, son of the Consul-General of that name, had come a few days previously to make me this offer. It will not be surprising, I think, in a letter of this kind, that I mention every one by name; for a name written out plainly saves me testimonials and certificates."]

[Footnote 4: This treaty is still in the possession of M. Harel.]

[Footnote 5: Verteuil is M. Haxel's secretary.]

[Footnote 6: "This had already happened to me in _Richard_; but, this time, it was not the voice of my _amour propre_ which compelled me to restrain myself, but the entreaties of my collaborator. Ten times during the performance, Dinaux and M. Harel came into my box to beg me with growing solicitations as the drama increased in popularity to give out my name. They have not forgotten the firmness of my refusal, I believe; but neither shall I forget the friendly delicacy of their entreaties."]

[Footnote 7: "The object of that declaration was to make it known that I resigned being put first, and that I had never solicited that position."]

[Footnote 8: See Appendix.]

[Footnote 9: "'I, the undersigned, one of the managers of the newspaper, _l'Avant-Scène,_ ex-inspector-general of the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, under M. de Lhéry, M. Harel's predecessor, assert that, a short time before M. de Lhéry's retirement, M. F. Gaillardet communicated with me concerning a MS. of _La Tour de Nesle,_ in five acts without scenes, of which he was the sole author; that, later, and before his departure for the provinces, M. Gaillardet showed me a new plan of the same drama in scenes, in which was pretty nearly the whole of the original _Tour de Nesle;_ a plan that had just been settled, he said, between himself and M. Harel. In witness of which, etc., DUPERRET']

[Footnote 10: "Here is M. Barba's statement--

"I think I remember (it is more than two years ago) that half the purchase money of _La Tour de Nesle_ was given, in cash, to M. Dumas on his saying that that was agreed upon with M. Gaillardet, which the latter denied. He was then obliged by the terms of our agreement to accept my note for his share.

BARBA '29 _August_ 1834' ]

[Footnote 11: "'You have written _Struensee_!' he says to me. Does M. Dumas think to prove by that that I have done nothing in _La Tour de Nesle_? He forgets, then, that he, too, has written also _La Chasse et l'Amour, La Noce et l'Enterrement_? (who has heard these plays mentioned?) Then the wretched _Napoléon,_ which has had two Waterloos, dragging with it in its second the downfall of the Odéon and of M. Harel! then, immediately after _La Tour de Nesle, Le Fils de l'Émigré,_ which had three performances with M. Anicet; _Angèle,_ which had thirty with M. Anicet; _La Vénitienne,_ which had twenty with M. Anicet; _Catherine Howard,_ which has had fifteen without M. Anicet? Are we really to suppose that M. Dumas is not therefore the author of the beauties of _Antony,_ of _Henri III.,_ and of _Christine_? It has surely been said so here and there, and even partly proved! Perhaps it is to this that I owe M. Dumas's attack? But he need not be anxious: I shall never write a _Gaule et France_ and certainly not a _Madame et la Vendée._]