The Rue Coq-Héron is one of those whimsically named streets of Paris, which lend themselves to the art of the novelist.
The origin of the name of this tiny street, which runs tangently off from the Rue du Louvre, is curious and naïve. A shopkeeper of the street, who raised fowls, saw, one day, coming out of its shell, a petit coq with a neck and beak quite different, and much longer, than the others of the same brood. Everybody said it was a heron, and the neighbours crowded around to see the phenomenon; and so the street came to be baptized the Rue Coq-Héron.
In the Rue Chaussée d’Antin, at No. 7, the wily Baron Danglars had ensconced himself after his descent on Paris. It was here that Dantès caused to be left his first “carte de visite” upon his subsequent arrival.
Among the slighter works of Dumas, which are daily becoming more and more recognized—in English—as being masterpieces of their kind, is “Gabriel Lambert.” It deals with the life of Paris of the thirties; much the same period as does “Captain Pamphile,” “The Corsican Brothers,” and “Pauline,” and that in which Dumas himself was just entering into the literary life of Paris.
Like “Pauline” and “Captain Pamphile,” too, the narrative, simple though it is,—at least it is not involved,—shifts its scenes the length and breadth of the continent of Europe, and shows a versatility in the construction of a latter-day romance which is quite the equal of that of the unapproachable mediæval romances. It further resembles “The Corsican Brothers,” in that it purveys a duel of the first quality—this time in the Allée de la Muette of the Bois de Boulogne, and that most of the Parisians in the story are domiciled in and about the Boulevard des Italiens, the Rue Taitbout, and the Rue du Helder; all of them localities very familiar to Dumas in real life. In spite of the similarity of the duel of Gabriel to that of De Franchi, there is no repetition of scene or incident detail.
The story deals frankly with the brutal and vulgar malefactor, in this case a counterfeiter of bank notes, one Gabriel, the son of a poor peasant of Normandy, who, it would appear, was fascinated by the ominous words of the inscription which French bank notes formerly bore.
LA LOI PUNIT DE MORT
LE CONTREFACTEUR
Dumas occasionally took up a theme which, unpromising in itself, was yet alluring through its very lack of sympathy. “Gabriel Lambert” is a story of vulgar rascality unredeemed by any spark of courage, wit, or humanity. There is much of truth in the characterization, and some sentiment, but little enough of romance of the gallant vagabond order.
Dumas never attempted a more difficult feat than the composition of an appealing story from this material.
Twenty years after the first appearance of “Gabriel Lambert,” in 1844, M. Amédée de Jallais brought Dumas a “scenario” taken from the romance. Unsuitable and unsympathetic though the principal character was, Dumas found the “scenario” so deftly made that he resolved to turn the book into a drama. This was quickly done, and the rehearsals promised a success. On the evening of the first performance Dumas showed himself full of confidence in the play—confidence which amounted almost to certainty; for he said to a friend with whom he promenaded the corridors of the theatre while awaiting the rise of the curtain: “I am sure of my piece; to-night, I can defy the critics.” Some of these gentlemen, unfortunately overhearing him, were provoked to hostility, and, finding unhappy phrases here and there in the piece, they laid hold of them without mercy. Only the comic part of the drama, a scene introduced by Dumas, in which a vagabond steals a clock in the presence of its owner with superb audacity, disarmed their opposition. But the verve of this comic part could not save the play, says Gabriel Ferry, in narrating this anecdote. The antipathy aroused by the principal character doomed it, and the career of the piece was short.