Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/284

 once Dumas did not give sufficient attention to the fusing process, and story and history could almost be disentangled without damage to either. The plot, as we learn in the epilogue, was given to Dumas by Schlegel, the great critic, whom the former met when he was "doing the Rhine" in 1838. The period of the story is that of the "Trou de l'Enfer"; Napoleon is in Germany; and the account of the attempted assassination of the Emperor by Staps, and of the Moscow campaign, are both of the author's best. The tale finishes with such a dramatic situation that one is tempted to regret the evident haste with which "Le Capitaine Richard" was written, a haste which compressed matter for a full-sized drama into the last few pages of a novel.

We pass by "L'Horoscope," a fragment of the history of the short-lived François II., husband of Mary Queen of Scots, a piece of work of which the little we possess makes us ask vainly for more; "Black," a pretty story, based on the idea of the transmigration of souls into the bodies of animals; and "Ammalat Beg" (or "Sultanetta"), rewritten by Dumas from a translation of a story in Russian by Marlinsky. This was published in 1859, being, of course, the result of Dumas's visit to the Caucasus