Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/543

Rh Mdlle. de Belle Isle, belong to the repertoire of the Com6die Frangaise. These will always be listened to with delight. His most popular stories have been mentioned, but even now their undue expansion and interminable development, owing to the necessities of the feuilleton system, are found to be serious obstacles to their popularity. He left a daughter, Madame Petel, who has written a few romances, and a son, the well-known &quot; Alexandre Fils,&quot; who, unlike his father, has been distinguished by slow and careful work. He is best known by his romance La Dame aux Camelias, which has been translated in every language in which romances are written, and by a number of dramas which deal satirically with the characters, follies, and man ners of society under the second empire.  DUMAS,, (–), a French general and military historian, was born at Montpellier of a noble family, on the 23d November. He joined the army in, and entered upon active service in , as aide-de-camp to Rochambeau commander-in-chief of the army sent to aid the Americans in their war against England. He had a share in all the principal engagements that occurred during a period of nearly two years. Shortly after the capture of Yorktown, in which he took part, he joined the expedition under Vandreuil intended to make an attack on Jamaica. On the conclusion of peace with England in he returned to France, where he soon afterwards received his commission as major. In he was sent to explore the archipelago and the coasts of Turkey, a service in which he was engaged for two , and which he performed with great thoroughness. He was present at the siege of Amsterdam in, where he co operated with the Dutch against the Prussians. At the Eevolution he acted with Lafayette and the constitutional liberal party, whose aim was to effect a complete reform without abolishing monarchy. He was intrusted by the Assembly with the command of the escort which conducted Louis XVI. to Paris from Varennes, where he had been arrested. In he was appointed to a command at Metz, where he rendered important service in improving the discipline of the troops, and in organizing the first battalion of horse artillery that was formed in France. Chosen a member of the Legislative Assembly in the same year by the department of Seine-et-Oise, he advocated with firmness and eloquence the principles and policy of the constitutional party to which he belonged. In the following year he was elected president of the Assembly. When the extreme republicans gained the ascendancy, however, he became a marked man, and judged it prudent to make his escape to England. Eeturning after a brief interval under the apprehension that his father-in-law would be held responsible for his absence, he arrived in Paris in the midst of the Reign of Terror, and had to flee to Switzerland to avoid the fate of his friends Barnave and Duport Dutertre. Soon after his return to France he was elected a member of the Council of Ancients. On the triumph of the extreme revolutionists in, Dumas, being proscribed as a monarchist, made his escape to Holstein, where he enjoyed the hospitality of Count Stolberg. During this exile he wrote the first part of his Precis des fivenements Mllitaires, which was published anonymously in monthly numbers at Hamburg in. Recalled to his native country when Bonaparte became first consul, he declined the prefecture of Bordeaux, preferring a military appointment. Intrusted with the organization of the army of reserve at Dijon, he was on the completion of the task appointed chief of the staff to that army. In he was nominated a councillor of state, and in the same year he was chosen to propose and defend in the Corps Legislatif the formation of the Legion of Honour, of which order he afterwards became grand officer. Attached to the household of Joseph Bonaparte, Dumas went in to Naples, where he became minister of war. On the transfer of Joseph to the throne of Spain, and the accession of Murat to that of Naples, Dumas rejoined the French army, with which he served in Spain during the campaign of , and in Germany during that of. After the battle of Wagram, Dumas was employed in negotiating the armistice, and ;he was left by Napoleon at Vienna in order to super intend the evacuation of Austrian territory by the French troops. In the disastrous Russian expedition of he held the post of intendant-general of the army, which involved the charge of the entire administrative department. He shared the horrors of the retreat from Moscow, and the privations he suffered brought on a dangerous ill ness, from which, however, he recovered after a brief interval of repose at Dantzic. Resuming his duties as in tendant-general, he took part in the battles of Liitzen and Bautzen. When the decisive defeat of Leipsic occurred, Dumas, who was stationed with the besieged army in Dresden, was employed to negotiate the unavoidable capitulation, the terms of which, though agreed to by the opposing general, were not ratified by the allied sovereigns. Dumas, who had gone to report the matter to the emperor, was consequently arrested and imprisoned in Hungary until peace was concluded in. On the accession of Louis XVIII. Dumas received several important commissions in connection with the administration of the army. He had the entire confidence of the king, and would have been appointed minister of marine but for the adverse influence of the party that had been in exile during the empire. When Napoleon returned from Elba, Dumas at first kept himself in retirement, but he was persuaded by Joseph Bonaparte to present himself to the emperor, who intrusted him with the task of organizing the National Guards. This brought him into disfavour with the Bourbons, and he was obliged to retire upon half-pay when Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne. He devoted his leisure to the continuation of his Precis des fivenements Militaires, of which nineteen volumes, embracing the history of the war from to the Peace of Tilsit in, appeared between and. A growing weakness of sight, ending in total blindness, prevented him from carrying the work farther, but he translated Napier s History of the Peninsular War as a sort of continuation to it. In Dumas was restored to favour through the influence of Gouvion Saint-Cyr, and admitted a member of the Council of State. In he was chosen a deputy by the first arrondissement of Paris. After the revolution of, in the events of which he took an active part, Dumas was created a peer of France, and re-entered the Council of State as president of the war committee. He died at Paris on the 16th October. Besides the Precis des tenements Militaires, which forms a valuable source for the history of the period of which it treats, Dumas wrote autobiographical reminiscences under the title of Souvenirs, which were published posthumously by his son (3 vols. ).  DUMBARTON, a western county of Scotland, anciently called Lennox or Levenaux, bounded by the river Clyde and its estuary on the S., by Stirlingshire and Lanarkshire on the E., by Perthshire on the N., and by Loch Long and Argyllshire on the W. It consists of two parts, which are six s distant from each other, and are separated by part of Lanarkshire. The western or larger district is about 35 s long from N.W. to S.E., and 15 broad, the breadth varying from 2 to 13 s. The eastern district, which is about 12 s in length from E. to W., and 4 ia breadth from N. to S., is completely inclosed by the counties of Stirling and Lanark. This detached part, coin- 