Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/14

 contemptible. Dumas ignored them; his colleagues in the higher ranks of literature discredited them; his enemies accepted them willingly, without demanding proof. "M. de Mirecourt" was sentenced to imprisonment for publishing his statements; but their improbability is still stronger proof of their falseness. When Dumas's "collaborators" denied the allegations made "on their behalf," "M. de Mirecourt" impudently accused them of having allowed Dumas to dictate their denials; when he "proved" Dumas's illiteracy, by an anecdote in which he cited M. Maquet in support, that gentleman promptly gave the libeller the lie!

We make no apology for dwelling on this point, for the charges of this M. Jacquot have been accepted almost universally as the truth. Quérard cites the gentleman with obvious complacency; Larousse in his Dictionnaire quotes him constantly, and Mr Fitzgerald condemns the man's testimony almost as often as he makes use of it. Mr Henley's article in Chambers's "Encyclopædia" is probably the only biographical account of Dumas which is trustworthy. That in the ninth edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" is by Mr Fitzgerald.

Of M. Quérard, who in his "Superchéries" proves to his own satisfaction that with one or two insignificant exceptions Dumas never wrote anything at all, it is sufficient to point out that he considered