The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-17

papers-at stipend of sous per line-drd
not bring him in enough to even live de-
Gently for himself. LEI alone navipo his
oeoss. 1t was at that juncture in his life
the turning point, as it were-that Young
Dumas met Marie Duplessis and fell in
ioVe with her. Her tragic fate soon after
inspired him to his first great effort. In
: sinali hotel at st. German, invisible
aiiu unapproachable for the rest of
the world, he wrote his noyel-..I.a
lame aux Camelias''-without stopninc
ne nrst editian of it he sold for the roa9-
innocent sum of 1000 francs (SoOo. il being
stipulated that for every new edition ne
was to get another 200 francs (Si0l But
after the second edition the publisher
feared TO have made too favorable a bar-
gain, and positively refused to assume the
rlsK OF third edition. Dumas was forced
10 take his novel TO another publisher
SMlchei Levy, who paid him 10 louis (40O
irahcs) for It. The novel. then, had been
anything but phenomenal success.
but young Dumas was far from discour-
aged. de went to his papa and asked him
IL IL wouldn't be wise to try dremetic
treatment on his Camille The old man
shook his arnbrosial curls at him and SAID.
ne drama, my boy, is something thou
dost not understand. Therefore don't try
II: The boy. however, did try il. wrote
his play and then read it to the author of
ms being. The old man listened TO it. and
then shed tears. He got up and pressed
ms BOY to his heart and promised him
TO see to 1T that the play should soon
appear on the boards of the Theater His
torlque. Alas! At the decisive moment
the manager of this theater became a
bankrupt, and Thaia had to leave the
halls sacred to her, hiding her diminished
head. And now young Dumas made the
ROUNDS OF the Paris theaters-the same nil
grlmage which has so often been described
by French authors and which has broken
SO many of their hearts-offering his
play and getting refusal after refusal.
When he at last found a director-the
one OF the Observation-Disclosures the latter's
vile thought the part would earn her
iresh laurels-there was another failure.
ana the new manager would not hear of
the play. The famous actress, yirginie
DeJazet. 1t is true, took great interest in
the play and its author, and she too went
from pure emotion at a reading of it. But
she, understand, couldn't play the part of
moribund woman; it wasn't in her line.
and poor Camille" had to continue her
search for an asylum. At last, too, the
government got hold of the play, read it,
and then issued mandate forbidding
its production. The government. he
1t said, had discovered a "gamey''
flavor IN the piece, an element of disorder
and of enmity to the established authority
that OF the emperor. And the strangest
part of it is that this imperial interdict
has really never been removed. "CamilIen
is even today officially forbidden. But the
order was disregarded and nullihed by
somebody who was higher than the gov
eminent officials at that time-the all
powerful favorite of Napoleon Ill. the
Duke de Morny, half-brother to the en-
peror. This man, in his rol eof Macenas,
found the play to his liking and permitted
Its production-quand meme.
Whoever looks carefully at the peculiar
face OF Vlctoried Sardou-a face Of which
it might be said, as Mirabeau said of him
self: "Je suis laid, mais c'est une belle
laideur"-will discover a wen of melan-
cnoly in it. This is doubtless due to his
early experiences. For they were even
more trying than those of Dumas. Who
today knows anything of la Taverne DIES
Etudiants?" Yet that was the play Sar-
dou wrote, and that met with such a
fearful, terrific tasco that for wears
the "reminiscences of the Partisan the
atrical public dealt with it. Sardou
had been an excellent pupil of the Col
lege Henry ". in Paris, and everybody
had great expectations of him. But
when he tried to earn his bread as a lit
erary worker for years he met with moth
ing but the most pronounced non-success.
He wrote drama after drama, of which
none saw the light of the lamps,
and all of which grew yellow with age in
his desk. He gave private lessons to
young collegians, and for time
he did hack work for the
"Dictionaire Biographique., work
on which he-a declared atheist-wrote
the article on Christian philosophy for a
diurnal remuneration of 90 sous (i9 cents).