Almost any young man in Dumas's place would have lost his head after so astounding a success, and might not have resisted the temptation of at once working out the vein. For on coming out of the theatre after the first performance, the author had all the managers at his feet, and the smallest trifle was sure to be accepted if it only had his signature. But he had learned, by the side of "a prodigal father," the art of husbanding his talent. He declined to front the footlights again, save with a work upon which he had been able to bestow all the care and labor it deserved: he waited a year before he gave, at the Gymnase theatre, 'Diane de Lys.'
'Diane de Lys' undoubtedly pleased the public, but its success was not exactly brilliant. It is full of great qualities, it is strongly conceived, constructed with rare power and logic, but it added nothing to his reputation. The play as a whole seemed long and melancholy. It is a curious subject for critical study, as one of the stages in which the genius of the author stopped awhile, on its way to higher works. It will leave no great trace in his career.
Two years later he gave at the Gymnase theatre—I do not dare to say his masterpiece, but certainly the best constructed and most enjoyable play he ever wrote, 'Le Demi-Monde' (The Other Half-World). In this play he discovered and defined the very peculiar world of those women who live on the margin of regular "society," and try to preserve its tone and demeanor. What scientific and strong construction are here! What an admirable disposition of the scenes, both flexible and logical! And through the action, which moves on with wonderful straightforwardness and breadth, how many portraits, drawn with a steady hand, each one bearing such distinctive features that you would know them if you met them on the street! Olivier de Jalin, the refined Parisian, the dialectician of the play, who is no other than Dumas himself; Raymond de Nanjac, handsome and honest, but not keen or Parisian; and that giddy Valentine de Sanctis, whose head turns with the wind, whose tongue cannot rest one moment; and especially Suzanne d'Ange, so witty, so complex, so devious in her motions, so roublarde, as a Parisian of to-day would say.
Between 'The Demi-Monde,' and 'La Question d'Argent' (The Money Question), which followed, Dumas spent two years at work. 'La Question d'Argent' is a favorite play with the connoisseurs; but its reception by the public was of the coldest. It is a noteworthy fact that plays turning upon money have never been successful. Le Sage's 'Turcaret' is a dramatic masterpiece: it never had the luck to please the crowd. Dumas's Jean Giraud is, however, a very curiously studied character. The author has represented in him the commonest type of the shady money-man, the unconscious rascal. And very skillfully he made an individual out of that general type, by giving to Jean Giraud a certain rough good-nature; the appearance of a good fellow, with a certain degree of fineness; a mixture of humility and self-conceit, of awkwardness and impudence, and even some ideas as to the power of money that do not lack dignity, and some real liberality of sentiment and act,—for wealth alone, though acquired by ignominious means, suggests and dictates to the great robbers some advantageous movements which the small rascal cannot indulge in: and around this Turcaret of the Second Empire how many pictures of honest people, every one of whom, in his or her way, is good and fine!
One year later Dumas carried to the Gymnase, his favorite theatre, 'Le Fils Naturel' (The Natural Son); and the next year 'Un Père Prodigue' (A Prodigal Father; known also in English through a free adaptation as 'My Awful Dad').
In 'Le Fils Naturel' Dumas for the first time wrote a theme-play, a kind of work in which he was to become a master. Hitherto we have seen him drawing pictures of manners. To be sure, philosophical considerations on the period depicted are not wanting, but the play has not the form and does not assume the movement of a thesis. It does not take up one special trait of our social order, one of our worldly prejudices, in order to show its strong and weak sides. 'Le Fils Naturel' is the work of a moralist as well as of a playwright; or rather, it is the work of a playwright who was a born moralist.
'Un Père Prodigue' originally excited great curiosity. It escaped no one that in his Count Fernand de la Rivonnière, Dumas had shown us some traits of his illustrious father, who had been a prodigal father; and that he had depicted himself in Viscount André. Every one made comparisons; some, of course, accused the author of filial disrespect. The accusation was ridiculous, and he did not even answer it. He had so well disguised the persons, he had transported them into such different surroundings, that no one could recognize in them their true prototypes. Then—and this is no small praise—if Count de la Rivonnière is guilty of one fault, that of throwing to the wind his fortune, he is a most amiable nobleman, full of broad ideas and generous sentiments,—has a warm heart. The fourth act, in which the father sacrifices himself in order to save his son's life, is pathetic in the extreme. But nothing equals the first act, which is a model of animated and picturesque composition. No one ever painted in more vivid colors the pillage of a household, and a family without so much as a shadow of discipline. It is an accumulation of small details, not one of which is of an indifferent nature, and which, taken together, drive into our minds the idea that this nobleman, so well-mannered, so charming in conversation, so sober for himself, is running to ruin as gayly as he can.
For four years after the production of 'Un Père Prodigue' Dumas wrote nothing. But in 1864 he reappeared at the Gymnase with a strange play, 'L'Ami des Femmes' (A Friend of the Sex), which completely failed. After 'L'Ami des Femmes' there was another interruption, not of Dumas's labors but of his dramatic production. Perhaps he was sick of an art which had caused him a cruel disappointment. He turned again to novel-writing, and published (1866) 'L'Affaire Clémenceau' (The Clémenceau Case), the success of which was not as great as he had hoped. In France, when a man is superior in one specialty people will not let him leave it. He is not allowed to be at once an unequaled novelist and a first-rate dramatist.
At that time Dumas hesitated which road to follow. An incident which created a great deal of comment threw him back towards the stage, and towards a new form of comedy.
M. Émile de Girardin, one of the best known publicists of the Second Empire, had bethought himself, when over fifty years of age, and knowing nothing of this kind of work, to write a play. He had been a great friend of Dumas père, and had kept up the most affectionate intercourse with his son. He had asked him to fit his play for the stage. It possessed one really dramatic idea. Dumas, in order to oblige his father's friend, made out of it 'Le Supplice d'une Femme' (A Woman's Torture). Émile de Girardin, who was self-conceited and somewhat despotic, refused to recognize his offspring in the bear that Dumas had licked. He declined to sign the play: "Neither shall I," Dumas retorted.