Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/123

 were gone by the following morning. "I returned to Sens," he says, "my heart full of joy at having seen and heard a man of genius. I still preserve the accounts I paid, which recall to me my two days passed in fairyland with 'Monte Cristo.' I regret only one thing—that I had not had the good sense to put ten thousand francs into my pocket, so that I might have prolonged this incomparable experience for a week or two."

Of course this political failure brought social consequences, but worse remained behind. The papers, being filled with public affairs, required no more feuilletons, and the "Théâtre Historique," which at first had succeeded, did terribly bad business, and eventually closed its doors. It was afterwards pulled down to make room for one of the boulevards of the Second Empire. Meanwhile "Monte Cristo" required an enormous income to maintain it, and it will easily be understood that this literary "cigale," who had saved no store for the winter of misfortune, soon came to grief. He was obliged in the end to abandon the scarcely-finished palace and the newly-opened theatre to his creditors. It was a cruel blow to the great man's hopes and vanities; but he bore it well. He had reigned, like his old employer Louis Philippe, from revolution to revolution.