Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/77

 of his famous play, "Antony." To the bulk of British admirers of Dumas the very title will be strange; but in France our dramatist was better known, for generations, as the author of "Antony," than as the writer of any romance or play whatever. He tells us that the idea of the drama came to him at the time when "Christine" was temporarily forbidden.

"One day I was pacing the boulevards... I stopped suddenly, and said to myself, 'A man who, when surprised by the husband of his mistress, should kill her, saying that she had resisted him, and who should die on the scaffold in consequence, would save the honour of that woman, and expiate his crime.' The idea of 'Antony' was found: six weeks afterwards the play was written."

"When I was writing 'Antony, says Dumas elsewhere, "I was in love with a woman of whom I was terribly jealous: jealous because she was in the position of Adèle (in the play) in that she had a husband, an officer in the army.... Read 'Antony': he will tell you what I suffered then."

M. Parigot, in his study "Le Drame d'Alexandre Dumas," throws further light on this subject. A number of unpublished letters from the lover to the lady were placed in the critic's hands, and he has quoted from them exhaustively. The "Adèle" appears to have been one Melanie