From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: One of the brightest of Dumas' little one-act prose comedies. Audebrand credits Paul Bocage with a share in this piece ; Lecomte says Paul Bocage and Octave Feuillet; Glinel, Parran and other careful authorities leave the whole credit to Dumas, who, for his part, says that he obtained the central idea from a story by Auguste Lafontaine (the German writer). Blaze de Bury states that it was composed, by which Dumas would not necessarily infer put upon paper, in a wayside auberge during an afternoon, Dumas had spent the day shooting, was weary, and yet, by his own confession, wakeful ; he set to work, that same evening of 1851, and wrote it all out.
First performed at the Théâtre Français on the 13th of January, 1854.
Original edition : Paris, "Librairie Théâtrale," 1854, large 18mo., pp. 59.
Dumas published the full text in "Le Mousquetaire" between January 22nd and 27th, 1854.
On the 15th of the same month he gave. in that journal, a full report of the first performance, and incidentally made his review a storyette of the play. Strange to say, he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, Celestus, a remark which he had not made in the drama, but which distinctly improves what he did say: "Imbecile that I am . . . I have seen Orion, which is a hundred and twenty million leagues from the earth, and I did not perceive . . ."
This piece may now be read in Vol. XII. of the 15 Vol. edition. and Vol. XIX. of that in 25 Vols., as issued by Calmann-Lévy.
References :—
Dumas: "Mon Odyssée à la Comédie Française," Chapter XVIII.
Dumas: Causerie in "Le Mousquetaire" for January 15th, 1854. Audebrand: "A. Dumas à la Maison d'Or," page 306. Blaze de Bury: "Alexandre Dumas," page 66. Parran: "Bibliographie d'Alex. Dumas," pp. 33-34. Glinel: "Alex. Dumas et Son Œuvre," pp. 432-33. Lecomte: "Alexandre Dumas," page 120.
