From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: The commencement only of a romance which was obviously intended to be much longer. What interrupted it is not known. It seems certain that here Dumas was working alone.
It opens with chapters which pronounce horoscopes on the lives of each of the three most powerful men in France at the time : the Constable de Montmorenci, the Duc de Guise and the Maréchal de Saint-André. Not one of these is fulfilled in the story (as was evidently intended to be the case), or even came near being so, though history of course records the facts. So far as the romance progresses, it deals mainly with the prominent characters at the court of France during the brief reign of François II. The period is 1559. The fragment we possess reads well, and makes us regret that the work was not completed.
Original edition : Brussels. Office de Publicité (Collection Hetzel), 3 vols., 32mo., 1858. The third volume was completed by the "Aventures de Lyderic" (see page 144). This edition was interdicted in France.
First French edition : Paris, Cadot, 3 vols., 8vo., 1858 (Thieme). Neither Glinel nor Parran refer to this edition, indeed the latter does not seem to know the work.
Brussels, Méline, Cans et Cie., 3 vols., 185—.
It now forms one volume in the standard Calmann-Lévy edition, and one in the same firm's "Musée Littéraire."
In Le Vasseur's "Alexandre Dumas Illustré" it forms part of Vol. XI.
References :— Glinel: "Alexandre Dumas et Son Œuvre," pp. 445-46.
Thieme: "Guide Bibliographique" (1907), page 128.
English Translations :—
"The Horoscope;" London, Dent, 1 vol., cr. 8vo., illustrated, pp. 336, 1897. Reprinted, same firm (with "The Brigand"), 1907 and 1926.
"The Horoscope;" London, Methuen, sewed, 1908.
