Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/239

 day, Dumas extracted, by some wonderful mental process, a stirring and dramatic story, full of incident and character. Of the spiteful wanton "Miladi" he made a powerful and tragic figure; and the three names Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in his hands, assumed individualities and became immortal. The whole plot concerning the Queen's studs, the sad story of Constance Bonacieux, the tragedy of Fenton and Buckingham—all these were either devised in the French novelist's fertile brain, or skilfully introduced by him into the framework provided for him by the "Mémoires." After the first six chapters (of which the dialogue, wit, and character-drawing were wholly his own), Dumas launched out for himself, and the plot begins.

Our author, too, makes use in this and subsequent romances, of Madame de la Fayette's "Histoire d'Henriette d'Angleterre," and also of the court chroniques of the time, omitting to avail himself of their most scandalous passages. He borrows from La Porte's memoirs the incident of Bonacieux's abduction; he finds the faint outline of his episode of the Bastion St Gervais, in an account of a scene at the siege of Casal in 1630. To Maquet probably belongs the credit of discovering these picturesque incidents; to Dumas the glory of giving them colour, shape, and life on his great canvas.

Of the other source of information—the "Mémoires