Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/46

 was poor in money and influence. General Foy, however, received Dumas kindly, but found the young provincial woefully ignorant. Nevertheless, he bade the youth write down his address. When he saw the clerk's exquisite penmanship the General cried out—

"We are saved!"

"Why?"

"You write such a good hand!"

Dumas felt profoundly humiliated. He resolved then and there to earn his living one day, not by his penmanship, but by his pen.

This skill in caligraphy obtained for the despairing young man a clerkship in the Secretary's department of the Duke of Orleans, with a salary of about fifty pounds a year. Fifty pounds a year! It was the riches of Monte Cristo! Dumas hurried home full of joy, reached Villers-Cotterets at midnight, and rushed into his mother's bedroom, shouting "Victory! Victory!" He had indeed drawn first blood!

Once installed in his modest lodgings, No. 1 Paté des Italiens, Dumas set himself to study. The days were his noble master's, and from seven till ten every evening he returned to the bureau to work; but half the night he spent reading Juvenal, Tacitus, Suetonius; or in studying geography and physiology. He also followed with a