Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/273

 idea for a new romance, to be founded on a real historical character, Ange Pitou, ballad-monger, Royalist, and the rest. (M. Maurice Engerrand has recently given us a brochure on this historical personage similar to the one written by M. Lenôtre on Rougeville, or "Maison Rouge.") The master bade his assistant prepare the usual material, that is to say, make researches, and reconstitute the man in his moral and historical atmosphere. On the strength of this project the romancer entered into a contract with publishers to write and supply the story. Luckily or unluckily, Dumas and Maquet quarrelled; the book had to be written by a certain date; the romancer, pressed for time, ignored research, and created his hero from his own imagination, locating him at Villers-Cotterets, giving him his own personal boyhood, and sending him to Paris to take part in the capture of the Bastille. Then, when the novel had reached the requisite length, he abandoned the work.

Dumas's own explanation, given in an introduction to "La Comtesse de Charny," is that just at that time the Chamber imposed a tax on every copy of those journals which contained a feuilleton, and that De Girardin, editor of the paper in which "Ange Pitou" appeared, wrote to Dumas bidding him cut the story short. Presumably the timbre was taken off soon after. Those readers who