Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/198

 man: a Swiss mercenary in the royalist pay shoots him, and he dies. It takes six or eight centuries to 'colour' a cathedral: an architect with 'taste' comes on the scene, and scrapes it! Oh, why doesn't the Swiss shoot the architect, or the architect scrape the Swiss?"

If his enemies had not insisted on the contrary, one would hardly have thought it necessary to claim courage for a man who was in the streets of Paris during the days of July 1830, who chose to be "out" with Garibaldi, and who fought two or three duels and sent goodness knows how many challenges. As a fact, Dumas's courage was of the best quality.

"In manhood his earliest impulse," Mr Lang tells us, "was to rush at danger; if he had to wait he felt his courage oozing out at the tips of his fingers, like Bob Acres, but in the moment of peril he was himself again." His bravery greatly resembled that of Henri Quatre in "Les Quarante Cinq": it was a fear of fear, which overmastered any fear of the event that menaced him.

Once, when serving in the National guard, Dumas was summoned to help to arrest the Chamber of Deputies! He and another comrade met at the doors: they waited, but no one joined them. The "false alarm" appears to have been in the nature of a test, which the author passed successfully.

The great man's disdain of danger was partly due