The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-05

patural son of the Marquis of Santo Domingo. Tn this country he would have been classed as "colored man" and his literary work been cited as an example of the possibilities of the negro race.
 But, as he lived in France. nothing of that sort happened. His one-fourth African blood was swallowed up in his three -fourths Caucasion. It Is interest ing. though, for the anthropologist to study his works with the idea of find ing in them, if he can, the effects of Dumas's strain of negro blood.
 Dumas was a prolific author and turned out an immense quantity of etuff-some of it of a high order, much of 1t mediocre. Much of his work he did in collaboration, merely giving to his collaborator the plot and sugges- tions for scenes and incidents. But, after all when the great man had touched 1t up. it was Dumas.
 During his life, when 1t became known that his works were best sellers" as the phrase Is now, many books bearing his name were published which Dumas not only never wrote. but had no hand in writing. "The Three Musketeers," 1t Is safe to say, Is all Dumas, and 1t is also the best of his stories and the work by which his place in literature is generally assigned. It is a bare tale of adventure with no love fin it. except illicit love. and the morals generally are those of the time of Louis XIII-that is to say. no morals at all.
 The hero, d'Artagnan, is Gascon swashbuckler who with his friends the khree musketeers, commits all tho crimes known to the Decalogue in a most exciting and fascinating manner. Personal courage is the keynote of the whole story-all else Is of no account.
 The honor" which Dumas's heroes prate about Is merely the vanity of a savage. Sir Walter Scott also exalted personal courage above all other quail ties in his writings, but the honor talked about by Scott's heroes and the perverted conceptions of that quality held by the heroes of Dumas are as different as a bright day Is from dark night.
 Those three valiant blades, Porthos. Athos and Aramis. gentlemen serving under assumed names in the ranks of the Musketeers of the Guard. were sworn friends and inseparable com panions D'Artagnan, a young Gascon serving his probationary time in the company of NJ Des Essarts, preparatory to becoming a Musketeer, made a fourth of the little coterie. He had made himself beloved of the others by chal- longing them each in turn and then fighting valiantly beside them against the guards of His Eminence the Car dinal
 The guards of the Cardinal ana the guards of the King fought each other on all convenient occasions. Armand Duplessis, Duke of Rchelieu and a Car dinal was not then the feeble old man we see in the play and as he is general ly depicted, but an active cavalier of 86 or 37, somewhat frail of body, but
 xant nlxf fin the cabinet but in the field His cardinals robe he kept for state oc-- casions, and in his own house or in the field dressed and acted like the great noble and warrior he was. The King and warrior that he was. The King feared him. and the Queen was piece upon the board in the great game the Cardinal played; the Queen a pawn of the opposition, to be swept away if necessary. So there were two parties in France, the Cardinalists and the Royalists.
 The Musketeers, being directly in the service of His Majesty, belonged naturally. to the latter, and accounted no act quite so praiseworthy as splitting a Cardinalist upon the points of their rapiers. Now, of the three guardsmen mentioned, Porthos was big. buster ing fellow, fond of display and given to bragging about his amours. Athos was the great nODl0 to ms ringer ups, and every one felt that his assumed name concealed one of the most re- nowned in France. As for Aramis, he was rather gentle, scholarly youth and had aspirations for the church: q am a musketeer only for a time." he said. But every time he reached the point of doffing the uniform for the cassock there came little, perfumed note to his lodgings and he became all musketeer again. As for dArtagnan, he had come up to Paris to seek his fortune-he was a young cub. scarcely twenty-and had all his troubles before him.
 The friendship of the four was all the greater that they were so dissimilar in character-they never bored each other. In the days of Louis the Just 1t was worth while being a military gentleman and a noble, and the Gascon youth. d'Artagnan, seldom paid his landlord for his lodging, though, after the manner of his kind, he fell deeply in love with the landlords wife. the pretty Mime. Bonacieux. linen woman to the Queen, much younger than her husband but older than d'Artagnan. Boys of twenty always fall in love with woman older than themselves-and generally she has been some time married.
 It happened at this time that the Queen wanted trusty and secret mes senger who should go to London and bring back a set of twelve diamond studs, the gift of the King. which she had presented to the Duke of Bucking- ham on the occasion of one of his sec ret visits to Paris. The Cardinal, who had his spies everywhere, knew of this little indiscretion on the part of the Queen, and wrote a certain agent of his in London as follows: 'Milady- you will attend the first ball at which the Duke of Buckingham appears, and cut off two of the twelve diamonds studs he will wear. Bring them to me-"
 Then he suggested to the King that he give a ball. It would please the Queen, and she would have an oppor- tunity to wear the diamond studs, His Majesty's present. which she had not shown to the world. He suggested a date for the ball far enough away to allow time for Milady to arrive in Paris with the evidence he desired, and the weak Louis, of course, accepted the suggestions of the strong Richelieu.
 When the Queen received the Kings orders to appear at the proposed ball despair; but the faithful Bonacieux said that if mortal man could get to London and bring back the studs in time, that man was her lover, d'Artagnan.
 The adventure just suited the Gascon, but, of course. he could not go without hIa three musketeers. and so the next