Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/52

 authors set the nerves and muscles of their creatures moving and working, and noted with what skill they clothed and re-clothed with different flesh that framework which was always the same."

Dumas had translated the "Fiesco" of Schiller, and vainly attempted to dramatise Scott with Soulié, but Shakespeare filled his heart and brain with new thoughts, greater ambitions. No sooner had the English actors gone than the Salon opened, and the young author, paying an early visit, was immediately impressed by a picture representing the murder of Monaldeschi by order of Queen Christine of Sweden. Dumas seized upon the incident then and there as a subject for a poetic drania; he found the details of the tragedy in an article in the "Biographie Michaud," and set to work.

"Christine" was soon written. It was only half-classical in style, for although it observed some of the "unities," it was thoroughly romantic in form. "What, then, was to be done with the bastard infant, born outside the pale of the Institute and the Academy?" Dumas asked himself. The Comédie Française, a State-endowed theatre, ruled by the Government and a committee of its actors, and bound by tradition to the classic school of Corneille and Racine, would not be likely to tolerate any suspicion of vulgarity, in the shape of plays cast in the mould of Shakespeare. But this very