Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/129

 Villemessant, "twenty times he took his work just where he had left it, to chat with a journalist, an actress or a director; he set aside a romance, to settle with a collaborator concerning the scenario of another book; but, as soon as the collaborator had gone, Dumas went back to his narrative, of which he had never for an instant lost the thread."

Abraham Hayward has quoted for us an account of Dumas's day's work, with less rhetoric but more detail. "He rises at six; before him are laid thirty-five sheets of paper of the largest size; he takes up his pen, and writes, in a hand that M. de Saint Omer would envy, till eleven. At eleven he breakfasts, always in company; and during this meal his spirits never flag. At twelve he resumes the pen, not to quit it again until six in the evening. The dinner-hour finds him as lively as at breakfast. If by any chance he has not filled the allotted number of sheets a momentary shade passes over his face: he steals away and returns two or three hours later, to enjoy the pleasures of the evening."

When the Queen visited Paris, in 1855, the actors of the Comédie Française gave a performance of the "Demoiselles de St. Cyr" at Her Majesty's request, for she had seen the piece in London, and had been so pleased with it that she wished to see it again.

"Two or three days after the performance at St