From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: Two album verses, in Scene iii., each of four lines, rhyming a, b, a, b.
The first only had formed part of the lines addressed in 1830 to "Madame Melanie Waldor." (Refer to No. CCXCIX., on page 33.)
From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: A prose comedy in one act. The first of Dumas' short pieces of this nature, and a very favourite one. It saw a hundred and eighty-three performances at the Théâtre Français alone up to 1872.
Eugène Durieu and Anicet Bourgeois assisted in the first rough draft, but the composition and the wit are Dumas'.
The first of all his comedies, it revealed his genius in a new form. Quérard says it has the same subject and plot as "La Folle Épreuve," by Hoffmann, 1 act, performed at the Ambigu Comique on the 6th of November, 1787, but no one seems to have either corroborated this or compared the two pieces.
Not startingly appreciated on its first performance, it was frequently revived after, and always very successfully.
It was written, rehearsed and performed in just over a week, for the benefit performance of Mlle. Dupont, and all this during the grim days of the cholera, while numerous funerals passed daily beneath Dumas' windows.
First performed at the Théâtre Français on the 4th of April, 1832. It was announced as by M. . . .
Original edition : Paris, Auguste Auffray, 1832, 8vo., pp. 63. M. Parran had a copy bearing Dumas' name upon the title-page.
Second edition : Paris, Marchant, 1835, large 8vo., of two columns ("Magasin Théâtral"), pp. 16, bearing Dumas' name alone on the title.
It was included in Vol. III. of Passard's continuation of the Charpentier "Théâtre Complet," 1846.
Calmann-Lévy's Complete Plays include it in Vol. II. of the 15 Vol. series, and in Vol. III. of that in 25 Vols.
References :—
Dumas: "Mes Mémoires," Chapter CCXXXIII. Glinel: "Alexandre Dumas et Son Œuvre," pp. 315-16. Quérard: "Supercheries Littéraires Dévoilées," Vol. I., Column 1062.
