A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2

by George Saintsbury

  CHAPTER X

  DUMAS THE YOUNGER

  [Sidenote: Division of future subjects.]

  No one who has not had some experience in writing literaryhistory knows the difficulties--or perhaps I should say the"unsatisfactorinesses"--which attend the shepherding of examples intoseparate chronological folds. But every one who has had that experienceknows that mere neglect to attempt this shepherding has seriousdrawbacks. In such cases there is nothing for it but a famous phrase,"We will do what we can." An endeavour has been made in the last chapterto show that, about the middle of the nineteenth century, a noteworthychange _did_ pass over French novel-literature. In a similar retrospect,at the end of the volume and the _History_, we may be able, _si Dieunous prete vie_, to show that this change was not actually succeeded byany other of equal importance as far as our own subject goes. But thestage had, like all such things, sub-stages; and there must becorresponding breaks, if only mechanical ones, in the narrative, toavoid the distasteful "blockiness" resulting from their absence. Afterseveral changes of plan I have thought it best to divide what remains ofthe subject into five chapters (to which a separate Conclusion may beadded). The first of these will be allotted, for reasons to be given, toAlexandre Dumas _fils_; the second to Gustave Flaubert, greatest by far,if not most representative, of all dealt with in this latter part of thevolume; the third to others specially of the Second Empire, but notspecially of the Naturalist School; the fourth to that School itself;and the fifth to those now defunct novelists of the Third Republic, upto the close of the century, who may not have been dealt with before.

  * * * * *

  There should not, I think, be much doubt that we ought to begin withAlexandre Dumas, the son, who--though he launched his most famous novelfive years before Napoleon the Third made himself come to the throne,had been writing for about as many earlier still, and lived till longafter the Terrible Year, and almost to the end of our own tether--is yetalmost more essentially _the_ novelist of the Second Empire than any oneelse, not merely because before its end he practically gave up Novel forDrama, but for other reasons which we may hope to set forth presently.

  [Sidenote: A confession.]

  Before sitting down comfortably to deal with him in my critical jacket,I have to put on, for ceremonial purposes, something of a white sheet,and to hold a candle of repentance in my hand. I have never said verymuch about the younger Dumas anywhere, and I am not conscious of anypositive injustice in what I _have_ said;[349] but I do suspect acertain imperfection of justice. This arose, as nearly all positive andcomparative injustices do, from insufficient knowledge and study. Whatit was exactly in him that "put me off" of old I could not now say; butI think it was because I did come across some of his numerous and famousfisticuffs of Preface and Dissertation and controversy. I thought then,and I still think, that the artist has something better to do than to"fight prizes": he has to do things worthy of the prize. "They say. Whatsay they? Let them say" should be his motto. And later, when I mighthave condoned this (in the proper sense of that appallingly misusedword) in virtue of his positive achievements, he had left offnovel-writing and had taken to drama, for which, in its modern forms, Ihave never cared. But I fear I must make a further confession. Theextravagant praise which was lavished on him by other critics, eventhough they were, in some cases at least, [Greek: philoi andres], oncemore proved a stumbling-block.[350] I have endeavoured to set mattersright here by serious study of his novel work and some reference to therest; so I hope that I may discard the sheet, and give the rest of thecandle to the poor, now much requiring it.

  [Sidenote: His general character.]

  One thing about him is clear from his first famous, though not hisfirst, book[351]--a book which, as has been said, actually preceded theSecond Empire, but which has been thought to cast something of aprophetic shadow over that period of revel and rottenness--that is tosay, from _La Dame aux Camelias_--that he was even then a very cleverman.[352]

  [Sidenote: _La Dame aux Camelias._]

  "The Lady with the Camellias" is not now the widely known book that onceit was; and the causes of its loss of vogue might serve as a text forsome "Meditations among the Tombs," though in respect of ratherdifferent cemeteries from those which Addison or Hervey frequented. As amere audacity it has long faded before the flowers, themselves "over"now, of that Naturalism which it helped to bring about; and the onceworld-popular composer who founded almost, if not quite, his mostpopular opera on it, has become for many years an abomination and ahissing to the very same kind of person who, sixty years since, wouldhave gone out of his way to extol _La Traviata_, and have found in _IlTrovatore_ something worth not merely all Rossini[353] and Bellini andDonizetti put together, but _Don Giovanni_, the _Zauberfloete_, and_Fidelio_ thrown in; while if (as he might) he had known _Tannhaeuser_and _Lohengrin_ he would have lifted up his hoof against them. It is thenature of the fool of all times to overblame what the fools of othertimes have overpraised. But the fact that these changes have happened,and that other accidents of time have edulcorated that general ferocitywhich made even men of worth in England refuse to lament the death ofthe Prince Imperial in our service, should on the whole be ratherfavourable to a quiet consideration of this remarkable book. Indeed, Idaresay some, if not many, of the "warm young men" to whom the very word"tune" is anathema might read the words, "Veux-tu que nous quittionsParis?" without having their pure and tender minds and ears sullied andlacerated by the remembrance of "Parigi, O cara, noi lasceremo"--simplybecause they never heard it.

  A very remarkable book it is. Camellias have gone out of fashion, whichis a great pity, for a more beautiful flower in itself does not exist:and those who have seen, in the Channel Islands, a camellia tree, as bigas a good-sized summer-house, clothed with snow, and the red blossomsand green leaf-pairs unconcernedly slashing the white garment, have seenone of the prettiest sights in the world. But I should not dream oftransferring the epithets "beautiful" or even "pretty" from the flowerto the book. It _is_ remarkable, and it is clever in no derogatorysense. For it has pathos without mere sentiment, and truth, throwing alight on humanity, which is not wholly or even mainly like that of

  The blackguard boy That runs his link full in your face.

  The story of it is, briefly, as follows. Marguerite Gautier, itsheroine, is one of the most beautiful and popular _demi-mondaines_ ofParis, also a _poitrinaire_,[354] and as this, if not as the other, thepet and protegee, in a _quasi_-honourable fashion, of an old duke, whosedaughter, closely resembling Marguerite, has actually died ofconsumption. But she does not give up her profession; and the duke in amanner, though not willingly, winks at it. One evening at the theatre ayoung man, Armand Duval, who, though by no means innocent, is shy and_gauche_, is introduced to her, and she laughs at him. But he fallsfrantically in love with her, and after some interval meets her again.The passion becomes mutual, and for some time she gives herself upwholly to him. But the duke cannot stand this open _affiche_, andwithdraws his allowances. Duval is on the point of ruining himself (heis a man of small means, partly derived from his father) for her, whileshe intends to sell all she has, pay her debts, and, as we may say,plunge into mutual ruin with him. Then appears the father, who at lastmakes a direct and effective appeal to her. She returns to business,enraging her lover, who departs abroad. Before he comes back, herhealth, and with it her professional capacity, breaks down, and she diesin agony, leaving pathetic explanations of what has driven him away fromher. A few points in this bare summary may be enlarged on presently.Even from it a certain resemblance, partly of a topsy-turvy kind, may beperceived by a reader of not less than ordinary acuteness to _ManonLescaut_. The suggestion, such as it is, is quite frankly admitted, andan actual copy of Prevost's masterpiece figures not unimportantly in thetale.[355] Of the difference between the two, again presently.

  The later editions of _La Dame aux Camelias_ open with an "Introduction"by Jules Janin, dealing with a certain Marie Duplessis
--the recentlyliving original, as we are told, of Marguerite Gautier. A good deal hasbeen said, not by any means always approvingly, of this system of"introductions," especially to novels. In the present instance I shouldsay that the proceeding was dangerous but effective--perhaps notentirely in the way in which it was intended to be so. "HonestJanin,"[356] as Thackeray (who had deservedly rapped his knucklesearlier for a certain mixture of ignorance and impudence) called himlater, was in his degree almost as "clever" a man as young Dumas; buthis kind was different, and it did involve the derogatory connotation ofcleverness. It is enough to say of the present subject that it displays,in almost the highest strength, the insincerity and superficiality ofmatter and thought which accompanied Janin's bright and almost brilliantfacility of expression and style. His Marie Duplessis is one of thoseremarkable young persons who, to alter Dr. Johnson very slightly, unite"the manners of a _duchess_ with the morals of" the other object of thedoctor's comparison unaltered; superadding to both the amiability of anangel, the beauty of Helen, and the taste in art of all the greatcollectors rolled into one. The thing is pleasantly written bosh; and,except to those readers who are concerned to know that they are going toread about "a real person," can be no commendation, and might even causea little disgust, not at all from the moral but from the purely criticalside.

  A lover of paradox might almost suggest that "honest Janin" had beenplaying the ingenious but dangerous finesse of intentionally setting upa foil to his text. He has certainly, to some tastes, done this. Thereis hardly any false prettiness, any sham Dresden china (a thing, by theway, that has become almost a proverbial phrase in French for_demi-monde_ splendour), about _La Dame aux Camelias_ itself. Nor, onthe other hand, is there to be found in it--even in such anticipated"naturalisms" as the exhumation of Marguerite's _two_-months'-oldcorpse,[357] and one or two other somewhat more veiled but equally ormore audacious touches of realism--anything resembling the exaggeratedhorrors of such efforts of 1830 itself as Janin's own _Ane Mort_ andpart of Borel's _Champavert_. In her splendour as in her misery, in herfrivolity as in her devotion and self-sacrifice, repulsive as thiscontrast may conventionally be, Marguerite is never impossible orunnatural. Her chief companion of her own sex, Prudence Duvernoy,though, as might be expected, a good deal of a _proxenete_, and by nomeans disinterested in other ways, is also very well drawn, and assiststhe general effect more than may at first be seen.

  The "problem" of the book, at least to English readers, lies in theperson whom it is impossible to call the hero--Armand Duval. It would bevery sanguine to say that he is unnatural; but the things that he doesare rather appalling. That he listens at doors, opens letters notaddressed to him, and so on, is sufficiently fatal; but a very generousextension of lovers' privileges may perhaps just be stretched over thesethings.[358] No such licence will run to other actions of his. In hisearly days of chequered possession he writes, anonymously, an insultingletter to his mistress, which she forgives; but he has at least thegrace to repent of this almost immediately. His conduct, however, whenhe returns to Paris, after staying in the country with his family, andfinds that she has returned to her old ways, is the real crime. Aviolent scene might, again, be excusable, for he does not know what hisfather has done. But for weeks this young gentleman of France devotesall his ingenuity and energies to tormenting and insulting the object ofhis former adoration. He ostentatiously "keeps" a beautiful butworthless friend of hers in her own class, and takes every opportunityof flaunting the connection in Marguerite's face. He permits himself andthis creature to insult her in every way, apparently descending oncemore to anonymous letters. And when her inexhaustible forgiveness hasinduced a temporary but passionate reconciliation, he takes freshumbrage, and sends money to her for her complaisance with another letterof more abominable insult than ever. Now it is bad to insult any one ofwhom you have been fond; worse to insult any woman; but to insult aprostitute, faugh![359]

  However, I may be reading too much English taste into French wayshere,[360] and it is impossible to deny that a man, whether French orEnglish, _might_ behave in this ineffable manner. In other words, theirresistible _humanum est_ clears this as it clears Marguerite's owngood behaviour, so conventionally inconsistent with her bad. The book,of course, cannot possibly be put on a level with its pattern andinspiration, _Manon Lescaut_: it is on a much lower level of literature,life, thought, passion--everything. But it has literature; it has lifeand thought and passion; and so it shall have no black mark here.

  [Sidenote: _Tristan le Roux._]

  Few things could be more different from each other than _Tristan leRoux_--another early book of Dumas _fils_--is from _La Dame auxCamelias_. Indeed it is a good, if not an absolutely certain, sign thatso young a man should have tried styles in novel-writing so far apartfrom each other. _Tristan_ is a fifteenth-century story of the laterpart of the Hundred Years' War, and of Gilles de Retz, and of Joan ofArc, and of _diablerie_, and so forth. I first heard approval of it froma person whose name may be unexpected by some readers--the lateProfessor Robertson Smith. But the sometime editor of the _EncyclopaediaBritannica_ was exceptionally well qualified for the literary side ofhis office, and could talk about French quite as knowledgeably as hecould about Arabic and Hebrew.[361] He was rather enthusiastic about thebook, an enthusiasm which, when I myself came to read it, for aconsiderable time puzzled me a little. It opens pretty well, but alreadywith a good deal of the "possible-improbable" about it; for when sometwenty wolves have once pulled a horse down and a man off it, his chanceof escaping (especially without revolvers) seems small, even though tworescuers come up, one of whom has a knack of shooting thesecreatures[362] and the other of throttling them. It is on these rescuersthat the central interest of the story turns. Olivier de Karnak andTristan le Roux are, though they do not at the time know it, brothers bythe same mother, the guiltless Countess of Karnak having been drugged,violated, and made a mother by Gilles de Retz's father. They are alsorivals for the love of their cousin Alix, and as she prefers Olivier,this sends Tristan literally "to the Devil." The compact is effected bymeans of a Breton sorceress, who has been concerned in the earliercrime, and is an accomplice of Gilles himself. That eminent patriotperforms,[363] for Tristan's benefit or ruin, one of his black masses,with a murdered child's blood for wine. Further _diablerie_ opens agreat tomb near Poitiers, where, seven hundred years earlier, in CharlesMartel's victory, an ancestor of the Karnaks has been buried alive,with the Saracen Emir he had just slain, by the latter's followers; andwhere the two have beguiled the time by continuous ghostly fighting. TheSaracen, when the tomb is opened, evades, seen by no one but Tristan,and becomes the apostate's by no means guardian devil. Then we have theintroduction of the Maid (whom Tristan is specially set by his master tocatch), the siege of Orleans and the rest of it, to the tragedy ofRouen.

  Up to this point--that is to say, for some seven-eighths of the book--Iconfess that I did not, and do not, think much of it. I am very fond offighting in novels; and of _diablerie_ even "more than reason"; and ofthe Middle Ages; and of many other things connected with the work. Butit does not seem to me well managed or well told. One never can make outwhether the "Sarrazin" is, as he is actually sometimes called, Satanhimself, or not. If he is not, why call him so? If he is, why was thereso little evidence of his being constantly employed in fighting with M.de Karnak between the Battle of Poitiers (not ours, but the other) andthe Siege of Orleans? I love my Dark and Middle Ages; but I should saythat there was considerable diabolic activity in them, outside tombs. Orwas the Princedom of the Air "in commission" all that time? Minorimprobabilities constantly jar, and there are numerous small blunders offact[364] of the unintentional kind, which irritate more thanintentional ones of some importance.

  But at the end the book improves quite astonishingly. Tristan, as hasbeen said, has been specially commissioned by the fiend to effect theruin of Joan. He has induced his half-brother, Gilles de Retz--not,indeed, to take the English side, for patriotism, as is well known, wasthe one redeemin
g point of that extremely loathsome person, but--to jointhe seigneurs who were malcontent with her, and if possible drug her andviolate her, a process, as we have seen, quite congenial, hereditarilyas well as otherwise, to M. de Laval. He is foiled, of course, andpardoned. But Tristan himself openly takes the English side, inflictsgreat damage on his countrymen, and after our defeat at the bastilles orbastides round Orleans, resumes his machinations against Joan, helps toeffect her capture, and does his utmost to torment and insult her, andif possible resume Gilles's attempt, in her imprisonment; while, on thecontrary, his brother Olivier (they are both disguised as monks) workson her side, nearly saves her,[365] and attends her on the scaffold. Itis somewhat earlier than this that the author, as has been said, "wakesup" and wakes _us_ up. When Tristan, admitted to Joan's cell, designsthe same outrage to which he had counselled his brother, it is theMaid's assumption of her armour to protect herself from him that (inthis point for once historically) seals her fate. But at the very lasthis hatred is changed, _not_ at all impossibly or improbably, to violentlove as she smiles on him from the fire; and he sees the legendary dovemount to heaven, after he himself has flung to her, at her dying cry, animprovised crucifix, or at least cross. And then a choice miraclehappens, told with almost all the vigour of the "Vin de Porto" itself.Tristan seeks absolution, but is, though not harshly, refused, beforepenitence and penance. He begs his brother Olivier's pardon, and isagain refused--this time with vituperation--but bears it calmly. Hetakes, meekly, more insult from the very executioner. At last he makesthe sign of the compact and summons the "Saracen" fiend. And then, aftera very good conversation, in which the Devil uses all his powers ofsarcasm to show his victim that, as usual, he has sold his soul fornaught, Tristan draws his sword, calls on the Trinity, Our Lady, andJoan, and one of the strangest though not of the worst fights in fictionbegins.

  The Red Bastard is himself almost a giant; but the Saracen is a fiend,and though it seems that in this case the Devil _can_ be dead, he can,it seems also, only be killed at Poitiers in his original tomb. So

  They wrestle up, they wrestle down, They wrestle still and sore,

  for two whole years, the Demon constantly giving ground and misleadinghis enemy as much as he can. But Tristan, in the strength of repentanceand with Joan's unseen help, lives, fights, and forces the fiend backover half France and half the world. By a good touch, after long combat,the Devil tries to tempt his adversary on the side of chivalry, askingto be allowed to drink at a stream on a burning day, to warm himself ata fire they pass in a snow-storm, to rest a moment. But Tristan has thesingle word "Non!" for any further pact with or concession to the EvilOne; the two years' battle wears away his sin; and at last he findshimself pressing his fainting foe towards the very tomb in the fields ofPoitou. It opens, and the combatants entering, find themselves by theactual graves. They drop their swords and now literally wrestle. Tristanwins, throws the Saracen into his own tomb, and runs him through thebody, once more inflicting on him such death as he may undergo.[366]

  There is a grandiose extravagance about it which is reallyOriental;[367] and perhaps it was this which conciliated RobertsonSmith, as it certainly reconciled me.

  [Sidenote: _Antonine._]

  A third "book of the beginning," _Antonine_, is far inferior to these.It is, in fact, little more than a decentish Paul-de-Kockery, with awould-be philosophical conclusion. Two young men, Gustave Daunont andEdmond de Pereux, saunter after breakfast looking for young ladies'ankles, and Edmond sees a pair so beautiful that he follows thepossessor and her unobservant father home. Having then ascertained thatthe father is a doctor, he adopts the surprisingly brilliant expedientof going to consult him, and so engineering an entry. _He_ thinks thereis nothing the matter with him; but the doctor (it was apparently "attemp. of tale"--1834, while the port was getting ready,--the practice ofFrench physicians, to receive their patients in dressing-gowns)discovers that he is in an advanced stage of Dumas _fils'_ favourite_poitrine_. He says, however, nothing about it (which seems odd) to hispatient, merely prescribing roast-meat and Bordeaux; but (which seemsodder) he _does_ mention it to his daughter Antonine, the Lady with theAnkles. For the moment nothing happens. But Gustave the friend has formistress an adorable _grisette_--amiability, in the widest sense, _nezretrousse_, garret, and millinery all complete--whom Madame de Pereux,Edmond's mother--a _sainte_, but without prejudices--tolerates, and infact patronises. It is arranged that Nichette shall call on Antonine toask, as a milliner, for her custom. Quite unexpected explanations followin a not uningenious manner, and the explosion is completed by Edmond'sopening (not at all treacherously) a letter addressed to Gustave andcontaining the news of his own danger. The rest of the story need not betold at length. A miraculous cure effected by M. Devaux, Antonine'sfather; marriage of the pair; pensioning off of Nichette, and marriageof Gustave to another adorable girl (ankles not here specified);establishment of Nichette at Tours in partnership with a respectablefriend, etc., etc., can easily be supplied by any novel-reader.

  But here the young author's nascent seriousness, and his still existingBuskbody superstition, combine to spoil the book, not merely, as in the_Tristan_ case, to top-hamper it. Having given us eight pages of rathercheap sermonising about the poetry of youth not lasting; havingrequested us to imagine Manon and Des Grieux "decrepit and catarrhous,"Paul and Virginie shrivelled and toothless, Werther and Charlotte unitedbut wrinkled,[368] he proceeds to tell us how, though Gustave and hisLaurence are as happy as they can be, though Nichette has forgotten herwoes but kept her income and is married to a book-seller, things are notwell with the other pair. Antonine loves her husband frantically, but hehas become quite indifferent to her--says, indeed, that he really doesnot know whether he ever _did_ love her. Later still we take leave ofhim, his "poetry" having ended in a prefecture, and his passion in a_liaison_, commonplace to the _n_th, with a provincial lawyer's wife._La moralite de cette comedie_ (to quote, probably not for the firsttime, or I hope the last, words of Musset which I particularly like)would appear to be--first, that to secure lasting happiness in matrimonyit is desirable, if not necessary, to have lived for eighteen monthsantenuptially with a charming _grisette_--amiability, _nez retrousse_,garret, and millinery all complete--_or_ to have yourself been thisgrisette; while, on the other hand, it is an extremely dangerous thingto recover a man of his consumption. Which last result the folkloristswould doubtless assimilate to the well-known superstition of the shoreas to the rescue of the drowning.

  [Sidenote: _La Vie a Vingt Ans._]

  Two other early books of this author promise the Pauline influence intheir titles and do not belie it in their contents, though in varyingway and degree. Indeed, the first story of _La Vie a Vingt Ans_--that ofa schoolboy who breaks his bounds and "sells his dictionaries" to go tothe Bal de l'Opera; receives, half in joy, half in terror, anassignation from a masked _debardeur_, and discovers her to be an agedmarried woman with a drunken husband (the pair knowing from his cardthat his uncle is a Deputy, and having determined to get a _debit detabac_ out of him)--made me laugh as heartily as the great Paul himselfcan ever have made Major Pendennis. The rest--they are all stories ofthe various amatory experiences of a certain Emmanuel de Trois Etoiles,and have a virtuous epilogue extolling pure affection and honestmatrimony--are inferior, the least so being that of the caprice-love ofa certain Augustine, Emmanuel's neighbour on his staircase, who admitsonly one other lover and finally marries _him_, but conceives a franticthough passing affection for her _voisin_. Unluckily there is in thisbook a sort of duplicate but, I think, earlier sketch of the atrociousconduct of Duval to the Dame aux Camelias; and there are some of theauthor's curious "holes where you can put your hand" (as a Jacobean poetsays of the prosodic licences in nomenclature and construction of hisfellows).

  [Sidenote: _Aventures de Quatre Femmes._]

  The other, much longer, and much more ambitious and elaborate book,_Aventures de Quatre Femmes et d'un Perroquet_, seems to me on the wholeworse than any just men
tioned, though it at least attempts to fly higherthan _Antonine_. It begins by one of those _goguenardises_ which 1830itself had loved, but it is not a good specimen. Two men who havedetermined on suicide--one by shooting, one by hanging--meet at the sametree in the Bois de Boulogne and wrangle about possession of the spot,till the aspirant to suspension _per coll._ recounts his history fromthe branch on which he is perched. After which an unlucky thirdsman,interfering, gets shot, and buried _as_ one of the others--"which iswitty, let us 'ope," as the poetical historian of the quarrel betweenMr. Swinburne and Mr. Buchanan observes of something else.[369] As thebook begins with two attempted and disappointed suicides, so it endswith two accomplished ones. A great part, and not the least readable, isoccupied by a certain English Countess of Lindsay (for Dumas theyounger, like Crebillon the younger, commits these _scandala magnatum_with actual titles). The hero is rather a fool, and not much less of aknave than he should be. His somewhat better wife is an innocentbigamist, thinking him dead; and one of the end-suicides is that of hersecond husband, who, finding himself _de trop_, benevolently makes way.As for the parrot, he nearly spoils the story at the beginning by"_singing_" (which I never heard a parrot do), and atones at the end bygetting poisoned without deserving it. I am afraid I must call it arather silly book.

  It does not, however, lack the cleverness with which silliness,especially in the young _and_ the old, is often associated, and so doesnot break the assignment of that quality to its author. All these fivebooks were produced (with others) in a very few years, by a man who wasscarcely over twenty when he began and was not thirty when he wrote thelast of them. Now people sometimes write wonderful poetry when they arevery young, because, after all, a poet is not much more than amouthpiece of the Divine, whose spirit bloweth where it listeth. But itis not often that they write thoroughly good novels till, like otherpersonages who have to wait for their "overseership" up to thirty, theyhave had time and opportunity roughly to scan and sample life. There is,in this work of Alexander the younger, plenty of imitation, ofconvention, of that would-be knowingness which is the most amusing formof ignorance, etc., etc. But there is a good deal more: and especiallythere is plenty of the famous _diable au corps_, of _verve_, of "go," ofrefusal to be content with one rut and one model. And all this cameonce, even at this period, in _La Dame aux Camelias_, to something whichI shall not call a masterpiece, but which certainly is a powerful thesisfor the attainment of the master's degree.

  [Sidenote: _Trois Hommes Forts._]

  Perhaps there is no better example of the curious mixture of _verve_,variety, and vigorous hitting-off which characterised the youth of Dumas_fils_ than _Trois Hommes Forts_--a book of the exact middle of thecentury, which begins with an idyll, passing into a tragedy; continueswith a lively ship-and-yellow-fever scene; plunges into a villainousconspiracy against virtue and innocence diversified with abull-throwing; and winds up with another killing, which, this time, _is_no murder; a trial, after which and an acquittal the accused and theCrown Prosecutor embrace before (and amidst the chalorous applause of)the whole Court; not forgetting a final _panache_ of happymarriage between innocence, a very little damaged, and thebull-thrower-avenger-_ouvrier_, Robert. It is of course puremelodrama--_Minnigrey_ and the Porte-Saint-Martin pleasantlyaccommodated. But it is not too long; it never drags; and it knocksabout in the cheerfullest "pit-box-and-gallery" fashion from first tolast. When the wicked "Joseph le Mendiant," _alias_ M. Valery, _alias_Frederic Comte de La Marche[370]--who has stabbed a priest with one handand throttled an old woman with the other; then made a fortune inMadagascar; then nearly died of yellow-fever on board ship, butrecovered (something after the fashion of one of Marryat's heroes) bydrinking a bottle of Madeira; then gone home and bought an estate andgiven himself the above title; then seduced the innocent sister of theperson who heard his confession; then tried to marry a high-bornmaiden;[371] then threatened to betray the sister's shame if herbrother "tells"--when this villain has his skull broken by Robert, allright-minded persons will clap their hands sore. But remembrance of onepassage at the beginning may "leave a savour of sorrow." Could you, evenin Meridional France, to-day procure a breakfast consisting of truffledpigs' feet, truffled thrush, tomato omelette (I should bar thetomatoes), and strawberries in summer, or "quatre-mendiants" (figs,nuts, and almonds and raisins) in winter, _with_ a bottle of soundRoussillon or something like it, for three francs? Alas! one fears not.

  [Sidenote: _Diane de Lys._]

  _Diane de Lys_, a little later than most of the books just mentioned,and one, I think, of the first to be dramatised, so announcing theauthor's change of "kind," acquired a certain fame by being made (inwhich form I am not certain, but probably as a play) the subject of oneof those odd "condemnations" by which the Second Empire occasionallyendeavoured to show itself the defender of morality and the prop offamily and social life. I do not think that Flaubert and Baudelaire hadmuch reason to pride themselves on their predecessor in this particularpillory. Alexander the younger is not here even a coppersmith; his metalis, to me, not attractive at all. The Marquise de Lys is one of thosebeauties, half Greek, half Madonnish, and wholly regular-scholastic, towhom it has been the habit of modern novelists and poets to assign whatour Elizabethan ancestors would have called "cold hearts and hotlivers." Dumas _fils'_ theory--for he must, Heaven help him! always haveone[372]--is that it all depends on ennui. I know not. At any rate,Diane is not a heroine that I should recommend, for personalacquaintance, to myself or my friends. With one of those rather sillyexcuses which chequer his cleverness equally, whether they are madehonestly or with tongue in cheek, our author says: "On va sans doutenous dire que nous presentons un caractere impossible, que nous faisonsde l'immoralite" (which the compositors of the stereotyped editionpleasantly misprint "immor_t_alite"), etc. Far be it from me to say thatany woman is impossible. I would only observe that when Diane, neglectedby and neglecting her husband for some two years, determines to take alover, being vexed at the idea of reaching the age of thirty withouthaving one; when she takes him without any particular preference, as onemight call a cab from a longish rank, and then has a fancy to make ascientific comparison of forgotten joys with her husband, decidingfinally that there is nothing like alternation--when, I say, she doesthis, I think she is not quite nice.[373] Nor does her school-friendMarceline Delaunay--who, being herself a married woman irreproachablyfaithful to her own husband, makes herself a go-between, at least ofletters, for Diane--seem very nice either. It is fair to say that Mme.Delaunay gets punished in the latter part of the story, which any onemay read who likes. It is, if not white, a sort of--what shall wesay?--French grey, compared with the opening.

  [Sidenote: Shorter stories--_Une Loge a Camille_.]

  That standard edition of _Diane de Lys_ which has enabled us to pick upsuch a pleasant _coquille d'imprimerie_ contains three shorter stories(_Diane_ itself is not very long). Two or them are not worth much: _Cequ'on ne sait pas_ is a pathetic _grisetterie_, something of the classof Musset's _Frederic et Bernerette_; _Grangette_ deals with the verytrue but very common admonition that in being "on with" two loves atonce there is always danger, particularly when, as M. le Baron Francisde Maucroix does here, you write them letters (to save time) in exactlythe same phraseology. Neither love, Adeline the countess or theGris-Grang-ette, is disagreeable; indeed Francis himself is a notdetestable idiot, and there is a comfortable conversation as he sits atAdeline's feet in proper morning-call costume, with his hat and stickon a chair. (Even kneeling would surely be less dangerous, from thepoint of view of recovering a more usual attitude when another callercomes.) But the whole thing is slight. The third and last, however, _UneLoge a Camille_, is the only thing in the whole volume that isthoroughly recommendable. It begins with an obviously "felt" and "lived"complaint of the woes which dramatic authors perhaps most of all, butothers more or less, experience from that extraordinaryinconsecutiveness (to put it mildly) of their acquaintances which makespeople--who, to do them justice, would hardly ask for five, ten, o
rfifty shillings except as a loan, with at least pretence ofrepayment--demand almost, or quite, as a right, a box at the theatre ora copy of a book. This finished, an example is given in which thehapless playwright, having rashly obliged a friend, becomes (very muchin the same way in which Mr. Nicodemus Easy killed several persons onthe coast of Sicily) responsible for the breach, not merely of aleft-handed yet comparatively harmless _liaison_, but of a formalmarriage, the knitting of a costly and disreputable amour, a duel, animprisonment for debt, and--for himself--the abiding reputation ofhaving corrupted, half ruined, and driven into enlistment for Africa aguileless scientific student. It is good and clean fun throughout.[374]

  [Sidenote: _Le Docteur Servans._]

  [Sidenote: _Le Roman d'une Femme_.]

  Some others must have shorter shrift. One volume of the standard editioncontains two stories, _Le Docteur Servans_ and _Un Cas de Rupture_. Thelatter is short and not very happy, beginning with a rather feeblefollowing of Xavier de Maistre,[375] continuing with stock_liaison_-matter, and ending rather vulgarly. Let us, however, givethanks to Alexander the younger in that he nobly defends the sacredpersons of our English ladies against the venerable Gallic calumny oflarge feet, though he unhappily shows imperfect knowledge of the idiomsof our language by using "Lady" as if it were like "Milady": "RepritLady," "Lady vit," etc. _Le Docteur Servans_ is more substantial, thoughitself not very long. It is a rather well-engineered story (illustrativeof a fact to be noticed presently in regard to much of its author'swork) about a benevolent doctor who, at first as a method of kindnessand then as a method of testing character, "makes believe," and makesothers believe, that he has the secret of Resurrection.[376] On theother hand, I have only read _Le Roman d'une Femme_ in the belovedlittle old Belgian edition which gave one one's first knowledge of somany pleasant things, and the light-weighting and large print of whichare specially suitable to fiction. Putting one thing aside, it is notone of its author's greatest triumphs. It begins with a good deal ofthat rather nauseous gush about the adorable candour of young personswhich, in a French novel, too often means that the "blanche colombe"will become a very dingy dunghill hen before long--as duly happens here.There is, however, a chance for the novel reader of comparing thedeparture of two of these white doves[377] from their school-dovecotwith that of Becky and Amelia from Miss Pinkerton's. And I must admitthat, after a middle of commonplace grime, the author works up an end ofcomplicated and by no means unreal tragedy.

  [Sidenote: The habit of quickening up at the end.]

  The point referred to about the two principal books just noticed, andindeed about Alexander the Younger's books generally, is the remarkablefaculty--and not merely faculty but actual habit--which he displays, ofturning an uninteresting beginning into an interesting end. I cannotremember any other novelist, in any of the literatures with which I amacquainted, who possesses, or at least uses, this odd gift to anythinglike the same degree. On the contrary, some of the greatest--far greaterthan he is--give results exactly contrary. Lady Louisa Stuart's reproachto Scott for "huddling up" his conclusions is well known and by no meansill-justified, while Sir Walter is far from being a solitary sinner. Imust leave it to those who have given more study than I have to drama,especially modern drama, to decide whether this had anything to do withthe fact that Dumas turned to the other kind. The main fact itselfadmits, as far as my experience and opinion go, of absolutely nodispute. Again and again, not merely in _Le Docteur Servans_ and _LeRoman d'une Femme_, but in _La Dame aux Camelias_ itself, in _Tristan leRoux_, in _Les Aventures de Quatre Femmes_, and in others still, I havebeen, at first reading, on the point of dropping the book. But, owing tothe mere "triarian" habit of never giving up an appointed post, I havebeen able to turn my defeat (and his, as it seemed to me) into avictory, which no doubt I owe to him, but which has something of my ownin it too. His heroes very frequently disgust and his heroines do notoften delight me; I have "seen many others" than his baits ofvoluptuousness; he does not amuse me like Crebillon; nor thrill me likePrevost in the unique moment; nor interest me like his closestsuccessor, Feuillet. I cannot place his work, despite the excellence ofhis mere writing, high as great literature. He is altogether on a lowerlevel than Flaubert or Maupassant; and one could not think of eveninghim with Hugo in one way, with Balzac in another, with his own father ina third, with Gautier or Merimee in a fourth. But he does, somehow orother, manage that, in the evening time, there shall be such light as hecan give; and I am bound to acknowledge this as a triumph of craft, ifnot of actual art. That while a gift and a remarkable one, it is rathera dangerous gift for a novelist to rely on, needs little argument.

  [Sidenote: _Contes et Nouvelles._]

  The formally titled _Contes et Nouvelles_ do not contain very much ofthe first interest. In the opening one there is a lady who, not perhapsin the context quite tastefully, remarks that "Nous avons toutes notrecalvaire," her own Golgotha consisting of the duty of adjusting "theextremist devotion" to her husband with "remembrance" (there was a gooddeal to remember) of her lover "to her last heart-beat." To help her toperform this self-immolation, she bids the lover leave her, refuses him,and that repeatedly, permission to return, till, believing himselfutterly cast off, he makes up his mind to love a very nice girl whom hisparents want him to marry. _Then_ the self-Calvarised lady promptlydiscovers that she wants him again; and as he, acknowledging her claim,does not disguise his actual state of feeling, she, though going off ina huff, tells him that she had never meant him either to leave her atfirst or to accept her command not to return. All this, no doubt, is notunfeminine in the abstract; but the concrete telling of it required moreinteresting personages. _Le Prix de Pigeons_ is a good-humouredabsurdity about an English scientific society, which offers a prize ofL2000 to anybody who can eat a pigeon every day for a month; _Le Pendude la Piroche_, a fifteenth-century anecdote, which may be a sort of_brouillon_ for _Tristan_; _Cesarine_, a fortune-telling tale. But _LaBoite d'Argent_, the story of a man who got rid of his heart and foundhimself none the better for getting it back again (the circumstances ineach case being quite different from those of _Das kalte Herz_), and _Ceque l'on voit tous les jours_, a sketch of "scenes" between keeper andmistress, but of much wider application, go far above the rest of thebook. The first (which is of considerable length and very cleverlymanaged in the change from ordinary to extraordinary) only wants "that"to be first-rate. The second shows in the novelist the command ofdialogue-situation and of dialogue itself which was afterwards to standthe playwright in such good stead.

  [Sidenote: _Ilka._]

  Some forty years afterwards--indeed I think posthumously--anothercollection appeared, with, for main title, that of its first story,_Ilka_. Subject to the caution, several times already given, of theinadequacy of a foreigner's judgment, I should say that it shows a greatimprovement in mere style, but somewhat of a falling off in originalityand _verve_. The most interesting thing, perhaps, is an anecdote of theauthor's youth, when, having in the midst of a revolution extracted themighty sum of two hundred francs in one bank-note from a publisher for abad novel (he does not tell us which), he gives it to a porter tochange, and the messenger being delayed, entertains the direstsuspicions (which turn out to be quite unjust) of the poor fellow'shonesty. The sketch of mood is capitally done, and is set off by a mostpleasant introduction of Dumas _pere_. More ambitious but lesssuccessful, except as mere descriptive _ecphrases_,[378] are thetitle-story of a beautiful model posing, and _Le Songe d'une Nuitd'Ete_, with a companion picture of two lovers bathing at night; _Pileou Face_ (a girl who is so divided between two lovers that a friendadvises her to toss up, with the pessimist-satiric addition that nodoubt, between tossing and marriage, she will be sorry she did not takethe other, but afterwards will forget all about him) is slighter; and_Au Docteur J. P._ looks like a kind of study for a longer novel or atleast a more elaborate novel-hero.[379]

  [Sidenote: _Affaire Clemenceau._]

  And so, at last, we may come to the book which curiously carries out
,with a slight deflection, but an almost equivalent intensification, ofmeaning, what has been observed before of others--the singular habitwhich Dumas _fils_ has of quickening up for the run-in. This book was,I believe, in all important respects actually his run-in for thenovel-prize; and what he had hitherto shown in the conduct of individualbooks he now showed in regard to his whole novel-list, betaking himselfthenceforward, though he had nearly a third of a century to live, to thetheatre, to pamphlets, etc. Against _Affaire Clemenceau_[380] there aresome things to be said, and in criticism, not necessarily hostile, agreat many about it. But nobody who knows strength when he sees it candeny that this is a strong book from start to finish. I can very wellremember the hubbub it caused when it first appeared, and the debatesabout "Tue-la!" but I did not then read it, having, as I have confessed,a sort of prejudice--not then or at any time common with me--against theauthor--a prejudice strengthened rather than weakened by reviews of thebook. What did I care (I am bound to say that I might add, "What _do_ Icare?") about discussions whether if somebody breaks the SeventhCommandment to your discomfort you may break the Sixth to theirs? Did Iwant diatribes on the non-moral character of women, or anything of thatsort? I wanted an interesting story; an attractive (no matter in whatfashion) heroine; a hero who is a gentleman, if possible, a man anyhow;and I did not think I should find them here. _Now_, I can "dichotomise"to some extent; and I can get an interesting story, striking moments, ifnot exactly an attractive heroine or hero, at any rate such as taketheir part in the interest, though I may have crows to pluck with them.It is, once more, a strong book: it is nearly--though I do not thinkquite--a great book. And to all sportsmanlike lovers of letters it is,despite its discomfortable matter, a comfortable book, because it showsus a considerable man of letters who has never yet, save perhaps in _LaDame aux Camelias_, quite "come off," coming off beyond all fair doubtor reasonable question.

  [Sidenote: Story of it.]

  Probably a good many people know the story of it, but certainly some donot. It can be told pretty shortly. Pierre Clemenceau, the _filsnaturel_ (for this _vulnus_ is _eternum_) of a linen-draperess, is made,partly on account of his birth, unhappy at school, being especiallytormented by an American-Italian boy, Andre Minati, whom, however, hethrashes, and who dies--but not of the thrashing. The father of anotherand _not_ hostile school-fellow, Constantin Ritz, is a sculptor, andaccident helps him to discover the same vocation in young Clemenceau,who is taken into his protector's household as well as his studio, andmakes great progress in his art--the one thing he cares for. He goes,however, a very little into society, and one evening meets a remarkableRussian-Polish Countess, whose train (for it is a kind of fancy ball) isborne by her thirteen-year-old daughter Iza, dressed as a page. The girlis extraordinarily beautiful, and Clemenceau, whose heart is practicallyvirgin, falls in love with her, child as she is; improving theacquaintance by making a drawing of her when asleep, as well as later abust from actual sittings, _gratis_. After a time, however, theCountess, who has some actual and more sham "claims" in Poland andRussia, returns thither. Years pass, during which, however, Pierre hearsnow and then from Iza in a mixed strain of love and friendship, till atlast he is stung doubly, by news that she is to marry a young Russiannoble named Serge, and by a commission for the trousseau to be suppliedby his mother,[381] who has retired from business. The correspondencechanges to sharp reproach on his part and apparently surprisedresentment on hers. But before long she appears in person (the Sergemarriage having fallen through), and, to speak vernacularly, throwsherself straight at Pierre's head, even offering to be his mistress ifshe cannot be his wife.[382] They are married, however, and spend notmerely a honeymoon, but nearly a honey-year in what is, in _Hereward theWake_, graciously called "sweet madness," the madness, however, beingpurely physical, though so far genuine, on her side, spiritual as wellas physical on his. The central scene of the book (very well done) givesa picture of Iza insisting on bathing in a stream running through thepark (private, but practically open to the public) of the house lent tothem. When her husband has brought her warm milk in a chased-silver cupof their host's, she casts it, empty, on the ground, and on thehusband's exclamation, "Take care!" replies coolly, "What does itmatter? It isn't _mine_."

  This may be said to be the third warning-bell; but though it shocks eventhe "ensorceressed" Pierre for the moment, his infatuation continues. Atlast he begins to have an idea that people look askance at him; trainsof suspicion are laid; after one or two clever evasions of Iza's, theusual "epistolary communication" forces the matter, and Constantin Ritzat last tells the unhappy husband that not merely has "Serge"reappeared, but there are nearly half-a-dozen "others," and that doubtshave even been suggested as to connivance on Pierre's part--doubtsstrengthened by Iza's treacherous complaints as to her husband havingemployed her as a model. A violent scene follows, Iza brazening it out,and calmly demanding separation. Clemenceau goes to Rome after forcing aduel on Serge and wounding him; but the blow has weakened, if notdestroyed, his powers in art. Fresh scandals follow, and theirresistible Iza seduces Constantin himself, characteristicallycommunicating the fact in an anonymous letter to her miserable husband.He returns (for the second time), takes no vengeance on his friend, butsees his wife. The interview provides an audaciously devised but finelyexecuted curtain. She calmly proposes--how shall we say it?--to "putherself in commission." She loves nobody but him, she says, and knows hehas loved, loves, and will love nobody but her. He ought, originally,to have taken her offer of being his mistress, and then no harm wouldhave happened. She would really like to go back with him to Saint-Assise(the honeymoon place). Suppose they do? As for _living_ with him andbeing "faithful" to him--that is impossible. But she will come to him,at his whistle, whenever he likes, and be absolutely his for a day and anight and a morrow. In fact he may begin at once if he likes: and sheputs her arms round his neck and her mouth to his. He takes her at herword; but when the night is half passed and she is asleep, he gentlyrises, goes into the next room, fetches a stiletto paper-knife withwhich he has seen her playing, half wakes her, asks her if she loveshim, to which, still barely conscious, she answers "Yes!" with ahalf-formed kiss on her lips. Then he stabs her dead with a single blow,leaving the house quietly, and giving himself up to the police at dawn.

  [Sidenote: Criticism of it and of its author's work generally.]

  If anybody asks me, "Is this well done?" expecting me to enter on thediscussion of the _lex non scripta_, I shall reply that this is not mytrade. But if the question refers to the merits of the handling, I canreply as confidently as the dying Charmian, "It is well done, andfitting for a novelist." In no book, as it seems to me, has the authorobtained such a complete command of his subject or reeled out his storywith such steady confidence and fluency. No doubt he sometimes preachestoo much.[383] The elder Ritz's advice against suicide, for instance, ifsound is superfluous. But this is not a very serious evil, and thesteady _crescendo_ of interest which prevails throughout the storycarries it off. There are also numerous separate passages of realdistinction, the fateful bathing-scene being, as it should be, the best,except the finale; but others, such as the history of Pierre's firstmodelling from the life, being excellent. The satire on the literarycoteries of the Restoration is about the best thing of the kind that theauthor has done; and many of the "interiors"--always a strong point withhim--are admirable. It is on the point of character that the chiefquestions may arise; but here also there seems to me to be only one ofthese--it is true it is the most important of all--on which there shouldbe much debate. The succumbing of Constantin seems perhaps a little morejustifiable by its importance to the story than by its intrinsicprobability.[384] Clemenceau seems to me "constant to himself," or inthe "good childlikeness" of his character, throughout; and to askwhether it was necessary to make him smash the bust that he finds inSerge's possession seems to be equivalent to asking whether it wasnecessary to put the Vice-Consul of Tetuan in petticoats.[385] It isonly about Iza herself that there can be much dispute. Ha
s that processsynthetic which is spoken of elsewhere been carried too far with her?Have doses of childlikeness, beauty, charm, ill-nature, sensualappetite, etc., been taken too "boldly" (in technical doctors' sense)and mixed too crudely to measure? A word or two may be permissible onthis.

  I do not think that Iza is an impossible personage; nor do I think thatshe is even an improbable one to such an extent as to bar her out,possible or impossible. But I am not sure that she is not ratherarbitrarily synthetised instead of being re-created, or that she, thoughpossible and not quite improbable, is not singly abnormal[386] to theverge of monstrosity. It must be evident to any reader of tolerableacuteness that the obsession of _Manon Lescaut_ has not left Dumas_fils_. Although the total effect of Manon and of Iza is very different,and although they are differently "staged," their resemblances indetail are very great; and, to speak paradoxically, the differences arealmost more resembling still. Iza offers herself as mistress if thereare any difficulties in the way of her being a wife; would, in fact, asshe admits long afterwards, have preferred the less honourable, but alsoless fettering, estate. On the other hand, be it remembered, it wassomething of an accident that Manon and Des Grieux were _not_ actuallymarried. The two women are alike in their absolute insistence on luxuryand pleasure before anything else; but they differ in that Iza does--aswe said Manon did _not_, or did not specially--want "what Messalinawanted." On the other hand, Iza is ill-natured and Manon is not. Inthese respects we may say that the Manon-formula has passed through thatof Madame de Merteuil, and bears unpleasant signs of the passage. Manonrepents, which Iza never could do. But they agree in the courtesanessence--the readiness to exchange for other things that commodity oftheirs which should be given only for love. I never wish to supply myreaders with problem-tabloids; but I think that in this paragraph I havesupplied them with materials for working out the double question, "IsIza less human than Manon? and if so, why?" for themselves, as well as,if by any chance they should care to do so, of guessing my own answersto it.[387]

  [Sidenote: Reflections.]

  It is more germane to custom and purpose here to add a few generalremarks on the story, and more, but still few, on its author's generalposition. _Affaire Clemenceau_ is certainly, as has been said before,his strongest book, and, especially if taken together with _La Dame auxCamelias_ (which, if less free from faults, contains some differentmerits), it constitutes a strong thesis or diploma-piece for all but thehighest degree as a novelist. Taking in the others which have beensurveyed, we must also acknowledge in the author an unusually wide rangeand a great display of faculty--even of faculties--almost all over thatrange, though perhaps in no other case than the two selected has hethoroughly mastered and firmly held the ground which he has attempted towin. If he has not--if _Tristan le Roux_ is, on the whole, only asecond- or third-rate historical romance; _Trois Hommes Forts_ a fairand competent, but not thrilling melodrama, and so on, and so on--it isno doubt partly, to speak with the sometimes useful as well as engagingirrationality of childhood, "because he couldn't." But I think it isalso because of something that can be explained. It was because he wasfar too prone to theorise about men and women and to make his booksattempted demonstrations, or at least illustrations, of his theories.Now, to theorise about men is seldom very satisfactory; but to theoriseabout women is to weigh gossamer and measure moonbeams. The very wisestthing ever said about them is said in the old English couplet:

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

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

  Now if Alexander the Younger does not absolutely insist that "all they_be_ so," he goes very near to it, excepting only characters ofinsignificant domesticity. When he does give you an "honnete femme" whois not merely this, such as the Clementine of the _Roman d'une Femme_ orthe Marceline of _Diane de Lys_, he gives them some queer touches. His"_shady_ Magdalenes" (with apologies to one of the best of parodies forspoiling its double rhyme) and his even more shady, because moreinexcusable, _marquises_; his adorable innocents, who let theirinnocence vanish "in the heat of the moment" (as the late Mr. SamuelMorley said when he forgot that Mr. Bradlaugh was an atheist), becausethe husbands pay too much attention to politics; and his affectionatewives, like the Lady in _Therese_,[388] who supply their missinghusbands' place just for once, and forget all about it--these _might_ beindividually creatures of fact, but as a class they _are_ creatures oftheory. And theory never made a good novel yet: it is lucky if it hassometimes, but too rarely, failed to make a good into a bad one. But ithas been urged--and with some truth as regards at least the later formsof the French novel--that it is almost founded on theory, and certainlyDumas _fils_ can be cited in support--perhaps, indeed, he is the firstimportant and thoroughgoing supporter. And this of itself justifies theplace and the kind of treatment allotted to him here, the justificationbeing strengthened by the fact that he, after Beyle, and when Beyle'sinfluence was still little felt, was a leader of a new class ofnovelist, that he is the first novelist definitely of the Second Empire.

  FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

  [352] I observe with amusement (which may or may not be shared by "thefriends of Mr. Peter Magnus") that I have repeated in the case of Dumas_fils_ what I said on Crebillon _fils_. The contrast-parallel is indeedrather striking. Partly it is a case of reversal, for Crebillon _pere_was a most respectable man, most serious, and an academician; the son,though not personally disreputable, was the very reverse of serious, andacademic neither by nature nor by status. In Dumas' case the father wasextremely lively, and the Academy shuddered or sneered at him; the sonwas very serious indeed, and duly academised. Some surprise was, Iremember, occasioned at the time by this promotion. There are severalexplanations of it; mine is Alexander the son's fondness for the correctsubjunctive. George Sand, in a note to one of her books (I forgetwhich), rebelliously says that the speaker in the text _ought_ to havesaid, "aimasse," not "aimais," but that he didn't, and she will not makehim do it. On the other hand, I find "aimasse," "haisse," and "revisse"in just three lines of _La Dame aux Camelias_. And everybody ought toknow the story of the Immortal who, upon finding a man "where nae monshould be," and upon that "mon" showing the baseness derived from Adamby turning on his accomplice and saying, "Quand je vous disais qu'iletait temps que je m'en aille!" neglected _crim. con._ for _crim. gram._and cried in horror, "Que je m'en all_asse_, Monsieur!" But thispreciseness did not extend to the younger Alexander's choice ofsubjects.

  [353]

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

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

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

  [356] It may perhaps seem to some readers that Janin's own novel-workshould have been noticed earlier. I had at one time thought of doingthis. But his most famous book of the sort, _L'Ane Mort et la FemmeGuillotinee_, is a foolish _fatrasie_ of extravagant, undigested,unaffecting horrors, from the devouring by dogs of the _live_ donkey, atthe beginning, to the "resurre
ctioning" of the guillotined woman, at theend. Sterne has played tricks with many clumsy imitators, but with noneto more destructive effect than in this case. I read it first in theflush of my early enthusiasm for 1830, and was miserably disappointed; Itried to read it again the other day, and simply broke down. _Barnave_is interesting only as referred to by Gautier; and so on. The fact isthat "J. J." was "J. J. _J._"--a journalist merely--with a notunpleasant frothy ginger-beery style, but with nothing whatever withinit or beyond it.

  [357]

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

  (_The Palace of Art._)

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

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

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

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

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

  [363] The indebtedness to Michelet is pretty obvious.

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

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

  [366] Unluckily, with a young man's misjudgment, Dumas would not let itbe the actual end, though that is not a couple of pages off. After thefight Tristan goes out of the tomb to rest himself; and meets the heraldBretagne, whom he had saved from the wolves in the overture. Bretagnetells him what has happened since the Maid's death, including the fateof his half-brother on the father's side, Gilles de Retz, who, likehimself, has repented in time to save his soul, if not his life. Havingalso seen afar off a cavalcade in which are Olivier and Alix, nowmarried and rapturous, Tristan retires into the tomb, which closes overhim. His horse "Baal" and his dogs, the "Celtically" (in the latter casewe may say _Piratically_) named Thor and Brinda, are petrified round itsentrance.

  [367] Crusading times, and Jof or Edessa for Rouen and Poitiers asplaces, might seem preferable. But the fifteenth century did a lot of_diablerie_ in the West.

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

  [369] As I have received complaints, mild and other, of the frequency ofmy unexplained allusions, I may here refer explicitly to Mr. Traill's_Recaptured Rhymes_; and if anybody, after looking up the book, is notgrateful to me, I am sorry for him. For the commoner practice here I canonly plead that I follow the Golden Rule. Nothing pleases _me_ so muchas an allusion that I understand--except one that I don't and have tohunt up.

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

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

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

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

  [374] This is, I think, the best of his short stories. _Therese_ israther a sermon on the somewhat unsavoury text of morbid appetite in theother sex, than a real story. The little _Histories Vraies_, which hewrote with a friend for the _Moniteur_ in 1864, are fairly good. For theformally entitled _Contes et Nouvelles_ and the collection headed by_Ilka_, _v. inf._

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

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

  [377] The other, Clementine (who is not very unlike a more modern Claired'Orbe), being not nearly so "candid" as her comrade Marie, continueshonest.

  [378] _V. sup._ Vol. I. p. 204.

  [379]

  [Sidenote: _Revenants. Sophie Printemps._]

  Two early and slight books (one of them, perhaps, the "bad" one referredto above) may find place in a note. _Revenants_ is a fantasy, in whichthe three most famous pairs of lovers of the later eighteenth century,Des Grieux and Manon, Paul and Virginie, Werther and Charlotte, arerevived and brought together (_v. sup._ p. 378). This sort of thing, notseldom tried, has very seldom been a success; and _Revenants_ can hardlybe said to be one of the lucky exceptions. _Sophie Printemps_ is thehistory of a good girl, who, out of her goodness, deliberately marriesan epileptic. It has little merit, except for a large episode orparenthesis of some forty or fifty pages (nearly a sixth of the book),telling the prowess of a peremptory but agreeable baron, who first foilsa dishonest banker, and then defends this very banker against anadventurer more rascally than himself, whom the baron kills in a duel.This is good enough to deserve extraction from the book, and separatepublication as a short story.

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

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

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

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

  [384] Neither morality, nor friendship, nor anything like sense of "goodform" could be likely to hold him back. But he is represented as nothingif not _un homme fort_ in character and temperament, who knows his womanthoroughly, and must perceive that he is letting himself be beaten byher in the very act of possessing her.

  [385] Vide _Mr. Midshipman Easy_.

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

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

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

  With the drama which has received such extraordinary encomia (the greatname of Moliere having even been brought in for comparison) I have noexhaustive acquaintance; but I have read enough not to wish to read anymore. If the huge prose tirades of _L'Etrangere_ bore me (as they do) inthe study, what would they do on the stage, where long speeches, not ingreat poetry, are always intolerable? (I have always thought it one ofthe greatest triumphs of Madame Sarah Bernhardt that, at the verybeginning of her career, she made the heroine of this piece--_if_ shedid so--interesting.) Over the _Fils Naturel_ I confess that even I, whohave struggled with and mastered my thousands, if not my tens ofthousands, of books, broke down hopelessly. _Francillon_ is livelier,and might, in the earlier days, have made an amusing novel. Butdiscounting, judicially and not prejudicially, the excessive laudation,one sees that even here he did what he meant to do, and though there ishigher praise than that, it is praise only too seldom deserved. As forhis Prefaces and Pamphlets, I think nearly as much must be granted; andI need not repeat what has been said above on the other side. Thecharity "puff" of _Les Madeleines Repenties_ is an admirable piece ofrhetoric not seldom reaching eloquence; and it has the not unliteraryside-interest of suggesting the question whether its ironic treatment ofthe general estimate of the author as Historiographer Royal to the venalVenus is genuine irony, or a mere mask for annoyance. The Preface to thedreary _Fils Naturel_ (it must be remembered that Alexander the Youngerhimself was originally illegitimate and only later legitimated), thoughrhetorical again, is not dreary at all. It contains a very agreeableaddress to his father--he was always agreeable, though with a suspicionof rather amusing patronage-upside-down, on this subject--and a gooddeal else which one would have been sorry to lose. In fact, I can see,even in the dramas, even in the prose pamphleteering, whether the mattergives me positive delight or not, evidence of that _competence_, thatnot so seldom mastery, of treatment which entitles a man to beconsidered not the first comer by a long way.

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