Quotes and Images from Celebrated Crimes

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Dumas Alexandre. Quotes and Images from Celebrated Crimes

PASSAGES FROM EACH VOLUME

INTRODUCTION

THE BORGIAS

THE CENCI

MASSACRES OF THE SOUTH

MARY STUEARE

NISIDA

KARL LUDWIG SAND

URBAIN GRANDIER

LA CONSTANTIN

DERUES

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK

JOAN OF NAPLES

MARTIN GUERRE

ALI PACHA

MURAT

THE COUNTESS OF SAINT GERAN

THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS

THE MARQUISE DE GANGES

VANINKA

SOME FAVORITE QUOTATIONS

Отрывок из книги

Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language – has minced no words – to describe the violent scenes of a violent time.

Dumas, in fact, wrote his 'Crimes Celebres' just prior to launching upon his wonderful series of historical novels, and they may therefore be considered as source books, whence he was to draw so much of that far-reaching and intimate knowledge of inner history which has perennially astonished his readers. The Crimes were published in Paris, in 1839-40, in eight volumes, comprising eighteen titles – all of which now appear in the present carefully translated text. The success of the original work was instantaneous. Dumas laughingly said that he thought he had exhausted the subject of famous crimes, until the work was off the press, when he immediately became deluged with letters from every province in France, supplying him with material upon other deeds of violence! The subjects which he has chosen, however, are of both historic and dramatic importance, and they have the added value of giving the modern reader a clear picture of the state of semi-lawlessness which existed in Europe, during the middle ages. "The Borgias, the Cenci, Urbain Grandier, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, the Marchioness of Ganges, and the rest – what subjects for the pen of Dumas!" exclaims Garnett.

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The third volume is devoted to the story of Mary Queen of Scots, another woman who suffered a violent death, and around whose name an endless controversy has waged. Dumas goes carefully into the dubious episodes of her stormy career, but does not allow these to blind his sympathy for her fate. Mary, it should be remembered, was closely allied to France by education and marriage, and the French never forgave Elizabeth the part she played in the tragedy.

The fourth volume comprises three widely dissimilar tales. One of the strangest stories is that of Urbain Grandier, the innocent victim of a cunning and relentless religious plot. His story was dramatised by Dumas, in 1850. A famous German crime is that of Karl-Ludwig Sand, whose murder of Kotzebue, Councillor of the Russian Legation, caused an international upheaval which was not to subside for many years.

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