The fact that George Sand’s theatre was the forerunner of the theatre of Dumas fils gives it additional value.  We have already noticed the analogy of situations and the kinship of theories contained in George Sand’s best plays and in the most noted ones by Dumas.  I have no doubt that Dumas owed a great deal to George Sand.  We shall see that he paid his debt as only he could have done.  He knew the novelist when he was quite young, as Dumas pere and George Sand were on very friendly terms.  In her letter telling Sainte-Beuve not to take Musset to call on her, as she thought him impertinent, she tells him to bring Dumas pere, whom she evidently considered well bred.  As she was a friend of his father’s, she was like a mother for the son.  The first letter to him in the Correspondance is dated 1850.  Dumas fils was then twenty-six years of age, and she calls him “my son.”

He had not written La Dame aux Camelias then.  It was performed for the first time in February, 1852.  He was merely the author of a few second-rate novels and of a volume of execrable poetry.  He had not found out his capabilities at that time.  There is no doubt that he was greatly struck by George Sand’s plays, imbued as they were with the ideas we have just pointed out.

All this is worthy of note, as it is essential for understanding the work of Alexandre Dumas fils.  He, too, was a natural son, and his illegitimate birth had caused him much suffering.  He was sent to the Pension Goubaux, and for several years he endured the torture he describes with such harshness at the beginning of L’Affaire Clemenceau.  He was exposed to all kinds of insults and blows.  His first contact with society taught him that this society was unjust, and that it made the innocent suffer.  The first experience he had was that of the cruelty and cowardice of men.  His mind was deeply impressed by this, and he never lost the impression.  He did not forgive, but made it his mission to denounce the pharisaical attitude of society.  His idea was to treat men according to their merits, and to pay them back for the blows he had received as a child.(49) It is easy, therefore, to understand how the private grievances of Dumas fils had prepared his mind to welcome a theatre which took the part of the oppressed and waged war with social prejudices.  I am fully aware of the difference in temperament of the two writers.  Dumas fils, with his keen observation, was a pessimist.  He despised woman, and he advises us to kill her, under the pretext that she has always remained “the strumpet of the land of No.” although she may be dressed in a Worth costume and wear a Reboux hat.

     (49) See our study of Dumas fils in a volume entitled Portraits
     d’ecrivains.

As a dramatic author, Alexandre Dumas fils had just what George Sand lacked.  He was vigorous, he had the art of brevity and brilliant dialogue.  It is thanks to all this that we have one of the masterpieces of the French theatre, Le Marquis de Villemer, as a result of their collaboration.