Note 453 — BOOK II[407]

On the 5th of June 1832, Alexandre Dumas had followed the funeral of General Lamarque in the uniform of an artillery-man; it was rumoured that he had distributed arms at the Porte Saint-Martin. On the 9th of June, a newspaper announced that the author had been arrested with arms in his hands and that he had been shot on the morning of the 6th. An aide-de-camp of the King's hurried to his house, found him in perfect health and informed him that the question of his arrest had been seriously discussed. He was advised to go to spend a month or two abroad, in order that he might be forgotten. He put his dramatic affairs in order, obtained some money from Harel (no easy matter) and, on the 21st of July 1832, left for Switzerland, furnished with a regular passport. He returned to Paris at the commencement of October. His Impressions de Voyage, the publication of which began in 1833, have remained the best of his works. In the third volume, he tells of his visit to the author of the Génie du Christianisme, in a chapter entitled, Les Poules de M. de Chateaubriand.—B.