Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/278

 countess herself, who develops into one of Dumas's most life-like heroines, is not very engrossing. We regret to find that in some English translations the "epilogue" to "La Comtesse de Charny," in which Ange Pitou and Catherine are satisfactorily brought together, is omitted.

In this cycle of revolutionary romance, which begins with the "Mémoires du Médecin," and ends with "Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge," there are several unsatisfactory gaps. The reader will find a consecutive and vivid panorama of the events of 1792, 1793, and 1794, from the battles of Valmy and Jemappes to the fall of Robespierre, in "Le Docteur Mysterieux" and "La Fille du Marquis." These volumes bear evident traces of Dumas's hand, touching as they do upon the restoration of reason to the imbecile, the use of "magnetic power," and the sense of life after death, in the case of a guillotined head (see "Le Mille-et-une Fantômes"). There is an interesting thread of fiction, and a translation of scenes from "Romeo and Juliet" may attract the curious. Chincholle tells us that when he visited the author in 1869, he was completing the dictation of these volumes, which were not published in book-form until after his death.

"Ever since 1832," Dumas tells us in one of his frequent bursts of confidence, "I have had in my mind the outline of a 'Juif errant,' to which I shall