"I am lost," he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice from on high will be my death-warrant."
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR
(1824-1895)
BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY
e shall not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the younger. The history of a great writer is the history of his works. He was born in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name on the register of births appears as "Alexandre, son of Marie Catherine Lebay, seamstress." He was not acknowledged by his father until he had reached his sixth year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize this particular because it had great influence on the bent of his genius. During all his life Dumas was haunted by a desire of rehabilitating illegitimate children, of creating a reaction against their treatment by the Civil Code and the prejudice which makes of them something little better than outcasts in society.
"When seven years old," he himself says, "I entered as a boarder the school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Geneviève. Thence I passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School; the principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with whom he collaborated under the nom de plume of Dinaux. This school, which numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and with the rather strange habits which I tried to depict in 'The Clémenceau Case,' occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino de Paris and the 'Pôle-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left the Saint-Victor School for Monsieur Hénon's school, which was situated in the Rue de Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the Collêge Bourbon (now the Lycée Condorcet) that I received all my instruction, as the pupils of the two schools where I lived attended the college classes. I never belonged to any of the higher State schools,—I have not even the degree of bachelor."
At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He did not stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life which he saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled with serious yearnings.