From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: Nine stanzas, of which all save the third rhyme a, b, a, b, c, c, d, e, e, d. The third has only nine lines, rhyming a, b, a, b, c, c, d, e, d. But for the fact that all versions are alike, one would have thought a line had been dropped. The verses are not quite regular, especially the first and third.
In 1826 Vatout published the "Galerie du Palais Royal," a lithographed reproduction of the artistic collections of the Duc d'Orléans. He asked Dumas, some of whose first work he had read, to compose a few verses for some of the illustrations he forwarded. Dumas selected one after a picture by Montvoisin, which depicted a. Roman shepherd lying asleep beneath a trellis.
After appearing in Vatout's publication, "Le Patre" was issued in "La Psyché," August, 1826.
It forms the thirteenth piece, pp. 121 to 128, in the MS. "Préludes Poétiques." It is there dedicated to "Mon Ami Th. Villenave," with an epigraph, as below, omitted from the printed copies.
Et tu vis, frappé de la foudre,
À tes pieds rouler dans la poudre
Cet aigle, fils des cieux, des cieux deshérité,
Sans demander à la victoire
Du faîte éclatant de la gloire.
Quel bras l'avait précipité.
Dumas prints it in Chapter CVI. of his "Mémoires," Glinel gives it in his "Alexandre Dumas et Son Œuvre," pp. 148-50. In his MS. collection he notes ten variants.
