[DUMAS Alexandre (1802-1870)] Manuscript of a passage from "Mes Mémoires", written by a secretary. 2 large folio pages on the front of 2 sheets mounted on cardboard. Alexandre Dumas published the novel of his life in 22 volumes from 1852 to 1854 (Paris, Cadot). The present passage is situated at the beginning of chapter LXXXVII. The great theater of the world: Miss George at the French and Napoleon at Austerlitz. Alexandre Dumas evokes Bonaparte's love affair with the actress Mlle George, and paints a picture of the theatrical scene under the Empire, with a plagiarism affair at the Comédie-Française, a marked praise of Raynouard, a murderous mockery against Lebrun, a savoury anecdote about Louis-Sébastien Mercier... "The same year 1802 Georges, protected by Bonaparte, and Duschenois by Joséphine, were hired at 4000 f. salary. Six months later, they were members of the society at half price. It was the height of favor and it took no less than the influence of Bonaparte on the one hand and that of Josephine on the other to achieve this double result. How did Napoleon leave you?" I asked Georges one day. He left me to become emperor," she answered. In fact, the event that was most talked about in France after the debut of Georges and Duschesnois as tragic princesses, was the debut of Napoleon as emperor. These beginnings also were not free of cabal, the kings whistled, but the great actor, who gave the world the spectacle of his usurpation, silenced them at Austerlitz, and from that moment until the retreat from Russia, it must be said, the clappers were for him. However, the imperial literature went on its little train. In 1803 the Roman d'une heure by Hoffmann was performed... In 1806.... the two great successes of the year were Les Templiers [by Raynouard] and La Jeunesse de Henri V [by Alexandre Duval]. La Jeunesse de Henri V was borrowed from a very light comedy by the playwright Mercier. This unperformed but printed and published comedy was entitled Charles II in a certain place [a brothel]. Nothing had troubled Alexander more than a word, a single word, from Mercier. Mercier had fallen out with the Comédie-Française, which in its offended dignity had sworn that never a play by Mercier would be performed at the theater in the rue de Richelieu. On the evening of the performance, Alexandre Duval was strutting in the foyer. Mercier approached him and, touching his shoulder: "Say, Duval," he said, "the French actors who said they would never play anything by me again, the fools. Alexandre Duval scratched his ear, went home, got jaundice and stayed two years without doing anything. 105 The Templars of Mr. Raynouard... is the most remarkable dramatic work of the whole imperial period, so it had a prodigious success. The role of the queen was the second role that Melle Georges created since she entered the French Theatre and it was already four years since she had entered. Her first role had been Calypso in a tragedy by Telemachus. Who had been able to make, the reader will ask, a translation of Telemachus? Was it Lebrun Pindar, was it Lebrun the ex-consul, was it Lebrun the future academician, peer of France, director of the National Printing Office? I do not know. But what I do know is that the crime was committed.