Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/68



The successful young dramatist was preparing to visit Algiers, which had just been captured by the French, and which, (with that instinct which he developed in later years, Dumas was anxious to explore and exploit), when the Revolution of July 1830 broke out.

It is not our intention to describe the political crisis which led to the downfall of Charles X., and the accession of the younger branch of the Bourbons in the person of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, but sufficient must be told to explain the part which our hero played in the strange tragic-farce.

Charles X. had done much, during his brief reign, to rouse the old revolutionary spirit by his autocratic measures. On the 25th July 1830, he caused the famous "Ordonnances" to be issued, "putting an end to the freedom of the press, already largely curtailed, appointing a new mode of election, and dissolving the recently-elected chamber." Once more Paris saw the old familiar barricades rise in a single night; faded flags were brought forth, old watch-words were revived, and old veterans reappeared; the roll of the drums, and the thrilling notes of the "Marseillaise" resounded once more in the streets of the city. The revolutionaries, to