À la suite d'un orage, Alfred de Nerval passe la nuit dans une abbaye en ruine. Dans l'obscurité la plus totale, il surprend alors un homme qui dissimule un objet sous une pierre tombale. Le lendemain, il revient à Trouville, où il loge, et apprend la mort inattendue de Pauline, la femme qu'il aime, mais qui a épousé un autre homme. Désespéré, il parvient à la voir une dernière fois avant son enterrement. Mais, au comble de la surprise, il constate que la jeune femme morte n'est pas Pauline ! Extrait : "Lorsque je revins à moi, j’étais dans le caveau. Le comte, guidé par le cri que j’avais poussé et par le bruit de ma chute, m’avait sans doute trouvée dans le laboratoire et, profitant de mon évanouissement, qui avait duré plusieurs heures, m’avait transportée dans cette tombe. Il y avait près de moi, sur une pierre, une lampe, un verre, une lettre. Le verre contenait du poison."
Author
This note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils. Alexandre Dumas, père (French for "father", akin to Senior in English), born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were serialized. Dumas also wrote plays and magazine articles, and was a prolific correspondent. Dumas was of Haitian descent and mixed-race. His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, a black slave. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, where he was educated in a military academy and entered the military for what became an illustrious career. Dumas' father's aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre Dumas acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, finding early success. He became one of the leading authors of the French Romantic Movement, in Paris. Excerpted from Wikipedia.
