stealing from Dumas. But the truth was easily to be proved--that Hugo's
play was _first_ written--and Dumas declared in the public newspapers
that if there was any plagiarism in anybody, himself was the guilty
party! A new play now appeared which was principally written by
assistants, and which was also defaced by plagiarisms. Like some of
those which preceded it, it made light, indeed glorified, vices of the
darkest dye.

A person by the name of Gillardet wrote a play, and presented it to the
manager of a theater, who not liking it, asked Jules Janin, the critic,
to revise it. Not liking it any better after the work of Janin upon it,
he handed it over to Dumas for a similar revision. He rearranged it and
brought it out as his own play! M. Gillardet went to law upon the matter
and recovered his rights. A duel was the result of the quarrel. Many
plays after this were written, until at last Janin, the critic, wrote a
severe article upon one of Dumas' plays. The author was wroth, and
replied. Janin made a second attack, and Paris laughed at the author.
Dumas swore that he would have blood, and author and critic went on to
the field for combat. Dumas demanded to fight with the sword--Janin with
the pistol--and finally not coming to agreement upon this point, the
parties made up their quarrel and became friends.

The reader will have seen by this time where Dumas' genius lies--it is
in the arrangements for a drama--in working a subject up for the stage.
It is not so much in the matter, as the manner. Give him incidents, and
he will group them so as to produce a great effect. This is his power.

Dumas' income grew large, and he took a new and more princely residence.
He associated himself with the great, and even went so far as to take an
actress to a ball given by his patron, the duke of Orleans. The woman
acted in his plays, and his relations with her were too intimate, but he
soon afterward married her. They lived so extravagantly that a
separation soon followed, and though Dumas' income was two hundred
thousand francs a year, yet he was constantly in debt from his
astonishing extravagance. He built at St. Germain his villa of Monte
Christo, which required enormous sums of money. He imported two
architects from Algiers, to decorate at a great expense one room after
the fashion of the east, and pledged them not to execute any similar
work in Europe. He has twelve reception-rooms in his house, and it is
magnificently furni