Two anecdotes are told of Dumas’ books, one by M. Edmond About, the other by his own son, which show, in brief space, why this novelist is so beloved, and why he deserves our affection and esteem. M. Villaud, a railway engineer who had lived much in Italy, Russia, and Spain, was the person whose enthusiasm finally secured a statue for Dumas. He felt so much gratitude to the unknown friend of lonely nights in long exiles, that he could not be happy till his gratitude found a permanent expression. On returning to France he went to consult M. Victor Borie, who told him this tale about George Sand. M. Borie chanced to visit the famous novelist just before her death, and found Dumas’ novel, “Les Quarante Cinq” (one of the cycle about the Valois kings) lying on her table. He expressed his wonder that she was reading it for the first time.
“For the first time!—why, this is the fifth or sixth time I have read ‘Les Quarante Cinq,’ and the others. When I am ill, anxious, melancholy, tired, discouraged, nothing helps me against moral or physical troubles like a book of Dumas.” Again, M. About says that M. Sarcey was in the same class at school with a little Spanish boy. The child was homesick; he could not eat, he could not sleep; he was almost in a decline.
“You want to see your mother?” said young Sarcey.
“No: she is dead.”
“Your father, then?”
“No: he used to beat me.”
“Your brothers and sisters?”
“I have none.”
“Then why are you so eager to be back in Spain?”
“To finish a book I began in the holidays.”