MY MEMOIRS

BY

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

TRANSLATED BY

E. M. WALLER

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

ANDREW LANG

VOL. II

1822 TO 1825

WITH A FRONTISPIECE

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1907

CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

An unpublished chapter from the Diable boiteux—History of Samud and the beautiful Doña Lorenza 1

CHAPTER II

The good my flouting at the hands of the two Parisians had done me—The young girls of Villers-Cotterets—My three friends—First love affairs 13

CHAPTER III

Adolphe de Leuven—His family—Unpublished details concerning the death of Gustavus III.—The Count de Ribbing—The shoemakers of the château de Villers-Hellon 24

CHAPTER IV

Adolphe's quatrain—The water-hen and King William—Lunch in the wood—The irritant powder, the frogs and the cock—The doctor's spectre—De Leuven, Hippolyte Leroy and I are exiled from the drawing-room—Unfortunate result of a geographical error—M. Paroisse 34

CHAPTER V

Amédée de la Ponce—He teaches me what work is—M. Arnault and his two sons—A journey by diligence—A gentleman fights me with cough lozenges and I fight him with my fists—I learn the danger from which I escaped 48

CHAPTER VI

First dramatic impressions—The Hamlet of Ducis—The Bourbons en 1815—Quotations from it 57

CHAPTER VII

The events of 1814 again—Marmont, Duc de Raguse, Maubreuil and Roux-Laborie at M. de Talleyrand's—The Journal des Débats and the Journal de Paris—Lyrics of the Bonapartists and enthusiasm of the Bourbons—End of the Maubreuil affair—Plot against the life of the Emperor—The Queen of Westphalia is robbed of her money and jewels 63

CHAPTER VIII

Account of the proceedings relative to the abstraction of the jewels of the Queen of Westphalia by the Sieur de Maubreuil—Chamber of the Court of Appeal—The sitting of 17 April, 1817 88

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

The last shot of Waterloo—Temper of the provinces in 1817, 1818 and 1819—The Messéniennes—The Vêpres siciliennes—Louis IX.—Appreciation of these two tragedies—A phrase of Terence—My claim to a similar sentiment—Three o'clock in the morning—The course of love-making—Valeat res ludrica 96

CHAPTER II

Return of Adolphe de Leuven—He shows me a corner of the artistic and literary world—The death of Holbein and the death of Orcagna—Entrance into the green-rooms—Bürger's Lénore—First thoughts of my vocation 103

CHAPTER III

The Cerberus of the rue de Largny—I tame it—The ambush—Madame Lebègue—A confession 109

CHAPTER IV

De Leuven makes me his collaborator—The Major de Strasbourg—My first couplet-Chauvin—The Dîner d'amis—The Abencérages 117

CHAPTER V

Unrecorded stories concerning the assassination of the Duc de Berry.