The Last Cavalier
by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Lauren Yoder
Fourth Estate, 731pp, £20 IT SOUNDS IMPROBABLE: A LOST novel by Dumas. Improbable because Dumas was not only one of the most prolific, but most popular nove
lists of his time. It is like discovering an unknown or forgotten novel by Scott or Dickens. Nevertheless, that's what this is.
The Last Cavalier – French title "Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine" – was published in serial form in the newspaper, Le Moniteur Universel, then disappeared from view until the Dumas scholar Claude Scoppe discovered a reference to it, then by means of diligent research recovered the text, and three years ago brought out the first French edition in book form.
The sense of improbability is diminished when one considers the circumstances of the serial publication. This is Dumas's last book, and it is unfinished, despite running to more than 700 pages. Indeed, judging from the synopsis Dumas wrote, we have perhaps little more than half the novel he envisaged. Publication started on 1 January, 1869; Dumas died on 5 December, 1870 at his son's home near Dieppe. 1870 was of course the year of the Franco-Prussian war, and four days after his death the victorious Prussian army marched into Dieppe. So it is not surprising that the novel died with its author.
There's a tendency now to regard Dumas as a mere entertainer, partly because his best-known novels have so often been abridged, filmed and serialised for television. But he was much more than that.
He set himself to tell the history of France from the 16th century to his own time through the medium of fiction. That's to say, he attempted to do for France but Scott had done for Scotland. He sometimes takes liberties with the facts; most of the time, however, he keeps close to his sources, enlivening them only by the brilliance of his dialogue and the fertility of his imagination.
The Last Cavalier fills in the last gap in this fictional history: the Napoleonic period. It should have run from the mid-1790s to Waterloo and the second restoration of the Bourbons. In fact it breaks off in 1806. The first part of what we have is intensely political – almost all the characters are historical figures; the second part less so. The portrait of Napoleon is brilliant. Dumas's attitude to the emperor was ambivalent. He was, like almost everyone of his generation (born 1802) dazzled by his meteoric life and the legend it spawned. At the same time, there was resentment: Napoleon had broken the career of the novelist's father, a republican general, son of an aristocrat and a black slave. This first section is full of Royalist plots, Jacobin plots, police-work – marvellous portrait of the minister of police, Joseph Fouché – and offers a vivid account of the Chouan civil war in Brittany and the superb Royalist leader there, Georges Cadoudal. It is wonderfully vivid and intelligent, and, though there are some characteristically extravagant Romantic flourishes, the narrative is for the most part realistic and historically accurate.
The hero, Hector de SainteHermine, actually plays only a small part in this first section and, sad to say, this is a good thing. Hector is not really a character at all; he is at best an idea. Member of a royalist family, father and one brother guillotined, another shot, he is condemned to vengeance by his sense of honour. Eventually he is captured, but spared from death, thanks to the improbable intervention of Fouché. He spends three years in prison, where he educates himself, then is released on condition he serve in either the army or the navy as an ordinary soldier or sailor. Opting for the navy, he has marvellous adventures in the Far East, then serves at Trafalgar – where he may have fired the shot that killed Nelson. But, in his perfections and accomplishments, he is simply an excuse for adventures. It's impossible to take him seriously. Dumas's synopsis suggests that he may have been intended to become more interesting, that in some way he represents the idea of France, but as it is he is of no interest himself.
The novel is dense with incident and conversation. There are many digressions, such as when Hector holds forth for a whole chapter on the tombs on the Appian Way; and yet it contrives to move with that engaging rapidity which never failed Dumas.
I wouldn't compare what we have of this novel with his masterpieces – for me, these are the novels set in the 17th century, plus one set even earlier, Marguerite de Valois, with its tremendous description of the Massacre of St Bartholomew's Night. All the same, I am delighted it has been rediscovered, and delighted to find that so much of Dumas's magic still exerts its spell in this work from his last years.
The full article contains 816 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
