Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/47

 certain curiosity the theatrical productions of the period; but as he was not in sympathy with the style, the dialogue, the construction of those plays, which were of the pre-Romantic type, he felt no desire to imitate them. So steadily did he work, however, that when two months later his mother joined him, she scarcely knew her son again: he had become so serious!

Meanwhile the Romantics, like a crowd without leaders, growled and threatened inarticulately. Their growing power was greatly augmented by the stupidity of the Government, who persecuted that very moderate innovator Casimir Delavigne, and ennobled Ancelot, his Royalist rival. The year 1823 was indeed a year of revolution, literary and political. Hugo and Lamartine had already begun the attack in poetry, with the "Odes and Ballades" and the "Meditations"; Nodier had published his genre romances. Then came the turn of the painters; and the Salon of 1824 was full of pictures of a new type—Scheffer's "Death of Gaston de Foix," Delacroix's "Massacre of Chios," and Coigniet's "Massacre of the Innocents." Géricault, too, was at work on his famous "Wreck of the Medusa."

From abroad came winds to fan the flames. Byron, who died in this year, was deeply impressing the future author of "Antony"; Scott, who was