Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/37

 Seminary of Soissons, he saw himself in imagination "un prêtre malgré lui" and the raillery of the fair Cecilia prompted him to hide away from his mother for three days, in a bird-catcher's hut. He was forgiven, of course, and obtained some sort of teaching at the hands of two Abbés of very opposite types, the gentle, pious Grégoire, and the bluff, worldly Fortier. Three masters struggled hopelessly to instil some notion of mathematics into the boy's head. He did not possess that kind of brain at all.

These peaceful lessons were interrupted by "alarums and excursions" such as Dumas's idol Shakespeare has described. It was now 1814, and the Allies were approaching Paris. Madame Dumas fled thither out of hearing of that terrible bogey-cry, "The Cossacks!" and as a consequence her son got a sight of the young king of Rome, who, on the abdication of the Emperor, was acclaimed as his father's successor by fickle and enthusiastic Paris. The skirmishes in the streets of Villers-Cotterets are vividly described by Dumas. It was at this period, according to our author himself, that his mother laid before him the choice of being a Davy de la Pailleterie, a "Marquis," and an aristocrat, like his grandfather, or a Republican, a simple "Dumas," as his father had been. The lad did not hesitate, although the advantages of the