Consequently, though for forty years Alexandre Dumas could not have earned less than eight thousand pounds per annum; though he neither smoked, drank, nor gambled; though, in spite of his mania for cooking, he himself was the most frugal eater—the beef from the soup of the previous day, grilled, was his favourite dish,—it rained writs and summonses around him, while he himself was frequently without a penny.
M. du Chaffault one day told me of a scene à propos of this which is worth reproducing. He was chatting to Dumas in his study, when a visitor was shown in. He turned out to be an Italian man of letters and refugee, on the verge of starvation. M. du Chaffault could not well make out what was said, because they were talking Italian, but all at once Dumas got up and took from the wall behind him a magnificent pistol, one of a pair. The visitor walked off with it, to M. du Chaffault's surprise. When he was gone, Dumas turned to his friend and explained: "He was utterly penniless, and so am I; so I gave him the pistol."
"Great Heavens, you surely did not recommend him to go and make an end of himself!" interrupted du Chaffault.
Dumas burst out laughing. "Of course not. I merely told him to go and sell or pawn it, and leave me the fellow one, in case some other poor wretch should want assistance while I am so terribly hard up."
And yet, in this very Rue d'Amsterdam, whether Dumas was terribly impecunious or not, the déjeûner, which generally began at about half-past eleven, was rarely finished before half-past four, because during the whole of that time fresh contingents arrived to be fed, and communication was kept up between the apartment and the butcher for corresponding fresh supplies of beefsteaks and cutlets.
Is it a wonder, then, that it rained summonses, and writs, and other law documents? But no one took much notice of these, not even one of the four secretaries, who was specially appointed to look after these things. If I remember aright, his name was Hirschler. The names of the other three secretaries were Rusconi, Viellot, and Fontaine. Unfortunately, Hirschler was as dilatory as his master, and, until the process-server claimed a personal interview, as indifferent. These "limbs of the law" were marvellously polite. I was present one day at an interview between one of these and Hirschler, for Dumas' dwelling was absolutely and literally the glass house of the ancient philosopher—with this difference, that no one threw any stones from it. There was no secret, no skeleton in the cupboard; the impecuniosity and the recurrent periods of plenty were both as open as the day.
The "man of law" and Hirschler began by shaking hands, for they were old acquaintances; it would have been difficult to find a process-server in Paris who was not an old acquaintance of Dumas. After which the visitor informed Hirschler that he had come to distrain.
"To distrain? I did not know we had got as far as that," said Hirschler. "Wait a moment. I must go and see." It meant that Hirschler repaired to the kitchen, where stood a large oaken sideboard, in a capacious drawer of which all the law documents, no matter by whom received, were indiscriminately thrown, to be fished out when the "mauvais quart d'heure" came, and not until then.
"You are right," said Hirschler, but not in the least worried or excited, "I really did not know we had got as far as that. I must ask you to wait another minute. I suppose a third or a fourth of the total amount will do for the present?"
"Well, I do not know," said the process-server with most exquisite politeness. "Try what you can do. I fancy that with a third I may manage to stop proceedings for a while."