Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/267

 During the next two years—troublous ones for our novelist—the rate of production slackened. With the very notable exception of "Bragelonne," and some historical studies, the chief work of importance in 1849 was "Le Collier de la Reine" ("The Queen's Necklace"), a continuation of the history-in-romance of the Louis XVI. period. So much has been written by Carlyle, by Funck-Brentano and others, about this famous episode in the career of Marie Antoinette, that there is no need to describe it here. Dumas (still with the valuable assistance of Maquet) tells the story of that extraordinary scandal in his own fashion, carrying forward, as he does so, the other "motifs' mentioned already. The comparative non-success of this book is probably due to the fact that history left so little to the imagination. "Les Mille-et-un Fantômes," said by some to have been written with Paul Bocage, by others with "Bibliophile Jacob," appeared this year. It is in great part a gruesome debate as to whether a severed head can speak, or retains knowledge of itself after parting from the body, and dwells on other similar matters,—being, in short, a book calculated to "make your flesh creep."

Of a very different nature was "La Tulipe Noire," which appeared in 1850. This book—"as modest as a story by Miss Edgeworth," Thackeray