Thereupon, the discomfited damsels withdrew to the hard benches of the public gallery.
Dumas, subpœnaed as a witness, drove all the way from Paris in a four-horsed carriage, with Méry as a travelling companion. When he took his place on the stand, M. de Tourville, affecting judicial ignorance, enquired his profession.
"If," returned the other, striking an attitude, "I did not here happen to find myself in the country of the illustrious Corneille, I should call myself a dramatist."
"Just so," was the caustic response, "but there are degrees among dramatists."
Taking this for encouragement, Dumas launched out into a disquisition on the history of the duello through the ages that was nearly as long as one of his own serials. In the middle of it, a member of the jury, anxious to be in the limelight, asked him a question.
"How does it happen," he enquired, "that Dujarier, who considered that a man of fashion must fight at least one duel, had never prepared himself by learning to shoot and fence?"
"I cannot tell you," was the reply. "My son, however, told me that he once accompanied him to a shooting-gallery. Out of twenty shots, he only hit the target twice."
Dumas made an exit as dramatic as his entry.
"I beg," he said, "that the honourable Court will permit me to return to Paris, where I have a new tragedy in five acts being performed this evening."
Lola Montez, garbed in heavy mourning, was the next summoned to give evidence.