Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/104

 fauteuil" in good company, and recollecting the treatment which the Academy had meted out to great Frenchmen, from Corneille and Molière, downward. Repulsed once more, he returned to Florence, saying to himself, "Je demande à être le quarantième, mais il paraît qu'on me faire faire quarantaine!" ("I ask to be made the fortieth, but it appears they wish to keep me in quarantine!")

The year 1844 was one of the great years in the life of Dumas. "Les Trois Mousquetaires" and "Monte Cristo" both appeared at that time, and were welcomed enthusiastically by the public. During their progress in feuilleton form, people had discussed the sayings and doings of D'Artagnan or Dantès as if the men were alive, and known to everybody—as, indeed, they were. Villemessant tells us how he woke his wife in the night to tell her of the escape in the sack from the Chateau d'If; and Gautier has described amusingly enough the grip which the two books obtained on the imagination of the Parisian public. Dumas had achieved a second fame.

In his preface to "Les Trois Mousquetaires," Alexandre Dumas fils has left us a charming picture of his father at the time these great romances were written. Their author was then working in some modest lodgings, overlooking the courtyard of the