Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/274

 care to compare the early chapters of "Ange Pitou" with the first volumes of the "Mémoires" will find that the hero and his author possess many interesting points of resemblance and dissimilarity.

Hre, so far as we can trace, ended the connection between Dumas and his best collaborator. It has been said that without Maquet our author was helpless. It is true that he was at his best with that admirable 'prentice; but it is none the less true that both before and after him, Dumas wrote books which none but he could have produced, whilst Maquet never achieved anything like the same degree of merit or success under his own name.

During his exile in Brussels (1851-3) Dumas, as he tells us in the preface to "Père Gigogne," was far from idle. He instances "Conscience l'Innocent" (or "L'Enfant"), "La Comtesse de Charny," "Le Pasteur d'Ashbourn," "Isaac Laquedem," "Catherine Blum," and a portion of his "Mémoires" as the result of two years' work, and adds "it will one day be a source of trouble for my biographers to discover the 'anonymous collaborators' who have written those books!"

It was about this time that the novelist turned from the romance of cap-and-sword, and devoted himself chiefly to semi-pastoral stories, to tales of contemporary, and often humble, life. In the opening passages of "Conscience" he dwells on this.