Dumas' Paris. Mansfield Milburg Francisco

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СКАЧАТЬ he had finished reading it, he said, ‘If it is any consolation to you to know it, you are not the first who has come to ask for the “Memoirs of La Fère”; I have already seen at least thirty people who came solely for that purpose, and no doubt they hate you for sending them on a fool’s errand.’

      “As I was in search of material for a novel, and as there are people who declare novels are to be found ready-made, I asked for the catalogue.

      “Of course, I did not discover anything.”

      Every one knows of Dumas’ great fame as a gastronome and epicure; some recall, also, that he himself was a cuisinier of no mean abilities. How far his capacities went in this direction, and how wide was his knowledge of the subject, can only be gleaned by a careful reading of his great “Dictionnaire de Cuisine.” Still further into the subject he may be supposed to have gone from the fact that he also published an inquiry, or an open letter, addressed to the gourmands of all countries, on the subject of mustard.

      It is an interesting subject, to be sure, but a trifling one for one of the world’s greatest writers to spend his time upon; say you, dear reader? Well! perhaps! But it is a most fascinating contribution to the literature of epicurism, and quite worth looking up and into. The history of the subtle spice is traced down through Biblical and Roman times to our own day, chronologically, etymologically, botanically, and practically. It will be, and doubtless has been, useful to other compilers of essays on good cheer.

      Whatever may be the subtle abilities which make the true romancer, or rather those which make his romances things of life and blood, they were possessed by Alexandre Dumas.

      Perhaps it is the more easy to construct a romantic play than it is to erect, from matter-of-fact components, a really engrossing romantic novel. Dumas’ abilities seem to fit in with both varieties alike, and if he did build to order, the result was in most cases no less successful than if evolved laboriously.

      It is a curious fact that many serial contributions – if we are to believe the literary gossip of the time – are only produced as the printer is waiting for copy. The formula is manifestly not a good one upon which to build, but it has been done, and successfully, by more writers than one, and with scarce a gap unbridged.

      Dickens did it, – if it is allowable to mention him here, – and Dumas himself did it, – many times, – and with a wonderful and, one may say, inspired facility, but then his facility, none the less than his vitality, made possible much that was not granted to the laborious Zola.

      Dumas was untiring to the very last. His was a case of being literally worked out – not worked to death, which is quite a different thing.

      It has been said by Dumas fils that in the latter years of the elder’s life he would sit for length upon length of time, pen in hand, and not a word would flow therefrom, ere the ink had dried.

      An interesting article on Dumas’ last days appeared in La Revue in 1903. It dealt with the sadness and disappointments of Dumas’ later days, in spite of which the impression conveyed of the great novelist’s personality is very vivid, and he emerges from it much as his books would lead one to expect – a hearty, vigorous creature, surcharged with vitality, with desire to live and let live, a man possessed of almost equally prominent faults and virtues, and generous to a fault.

      Money he had never been able to keep. He had said himself, at a time when he was earning a fortune, “I can keep everything but money. Money unfortunately always slips through my fingers.” The close of his life was a horrible struggle to make ends meet. When matters came to a crisis Dumas would pawn some of the valuable objets d’art he had collected in the opulent past, or ask his son for assistance. But, though the sum asked was always given, there were probably few things which the old man would not have preferred to this appeal to the younger author.

      As he grew old, Dumas père became almost timid in his attitude toward the son, whose disapproval had frequently found expression in advice and warning. But Dumas could not settle down, and he could not become careful. Neither of these things was in his nature, and there was consequently always some little undercurrent of friction between them. To the end of his days his money was anybody’s who liked to come and ask for it, and nothing but the final clouding of his intellectual capacity could reduce his optimism. Then, it is true, he fell into a state of sustained depression. The idea that his reputation would not last haunted him.

      In 1870, when Dumas was already very ill, his son, anxious that he should not be in Paris during its investment by the Germans, took him to a house he had at Puys, near Dieppe. Here the great man rapidly sank, and, except at meal-times, passed his time in a state of heavy sleep, until a sudden attack of apoplexy finally seized him. He never rallied after it, and died upon the day the Prussian soldiers took possession of Dieppe.

      Many stories are rife of Dumas the prodigal. Some doubtless are true, many are not. Those which he fathers himself, we might well accept as being true. Surely he himself should know.

      The following incident which happened in the last days of his life certainly has the ring of truth about it.

      When in his last illness he left Paris for his son’s country house near Dieppe, he had but twenty francs, the total fortune of the man who had earned millions.

      On arriving at Puys, Dumas placed the coin on his bedroom chimneypiece, and there it remained all through his illness.

      One day he was seated in his chair near the window, chatting with his son, when his eye fell on the gold piece.

      A recollection of the past crossed his mind.

      “Fifty years ago, when I went to Paris,” he said, “I had a louis. Why have people accused me of prodigality? I have always kept that louis. See – there it is.”

      And he showed his son the coin, smiling feebly as he did so.

      CHAPTER IV.

      DUMAS’ CONTEMPORARIES

      Among those of the world’s great names in literature contemporary with Dumas, but who knew Paris ere he first descended upon it to try his fortune in its arena of letters, were Lamartine, who already, in 1820, had charmed his public with his “Meditations;” Hugo, who could claim but twenty years himself, but who had already sung his “Odes et Ballades,” and Chateaubriand.

      Soulié and De Vigny won their fame with poems and plays in the early twenties, De Musset and Chénier followed before a decade had passed, and Gautier was still serving his apprenticeship.

      It was the proud Goethe who said of these young men of the twenties, “They all come from Chateaubriand.” Béranger, too, “the little man,” even though he was drawing on toward the prime of life, was also singing melodiously: it was his chansons, it is said, that upset the Bourbon throne and made way for the “citizen-king.” Nodier, of fanciful and fantastic rhyme, was already at work, and Mérimée had not yet taken up the administrative duties of overseeing the preserving process which at his instigation was, at the hands of a paternal government, being applied to the historical architectural monuments throughout France; a glory which it is to be feared has never been wholly granted to Mérimée, as was his due.

      Guizot, the bête noire of the later Louis-Philippe, was actively writing from 1825 to 1830, and his antagonist, Thiers, was at the same period producing what Carlyle called the “voluminous and untrustworthy labours of a brisk little man in his way;” which recalls to mind the fact that Carlylean rant – like most of his prose – is a well-nigh insufferable thing.

      At this time Mignet, СКАЧАТЬ