“‘These wool-merchants and these beer-drinkers have given plenty to do to Philippe de Valois, the Emperor Charles V., and Philippe II., who were three princes placed sufficiently high, monseigneur, for the comparison not to be disagreeable to you.’”
In “Pascal Bruno,” Dumas launched into a story of Sicilian brigandage, which has scarce been equalled, unless it were in his two other tales of similar purport—“Cherubino et Celestine,” and “Maître Adam le Calabrais.”
Originally it formed one of a series which were published in one volume—in 1838—under the title of “La Salle d’Armes, Pauline, et Pascal Bruno.”
According to the “Mémoires,” a favourite rendezvous of Dumas in Paris, at this period, was Grisier’s fencing-room. There it was that the maître d’armes handed him the manuscript entitled “Eighteen Months at St. Petersburg,”—that remarkable account of a Russian exile,—and it is there that Dumas would have his readers to believe that he collected the materials for “Pauline” and “Murat.”
The great attraction of “The Corsican Brothers” lies not so much with Corsica, the home of the vendetta, the land of Napoleon, and latterly known politically as the 86me Departement de France, as with the events which so closely and strenuously encircled the lives of the brothers De Franchi in Paris itself.
Corsican life and topography is limned, however, with a fidelity which has too often been lacking in Dumas’ description of foreign parts. Perhaps, as has been said before, he extracted this information from others; but more likely—it seems to the writer—it came from his own intimate acquaintance with that island, as it is known that he was a visitor there in 1834.
If this surmise be correct, the tale was a long time in taking shape,—an unusually long time for Dumas,—as the book did not appear until 1845, the same year as the appearance of “Monte Cristo” in book form.
It was dedicated to Prosper Merimée, whose “Colomba” ranks as its equal as a thrilling tale of Corsican life.
It has been remarked that, curiously enough, in spite of the fact that the story has been so often dramatized and adapted for the stage,—and acted by persons of all shades and grades of ability,—Dumas never thought well enough of it to have given it that turn himself.
Dumas’ acquaintance with Naples never produced any more lucid paragraphs descriptive of character, and the local colour and scenic effect besides, than in the few short pages of “Les Pêcheurs du Filet.” It comes, of course, as a result of Dumas’ rather extended sojourn in Italy.