For most books there is, or was at the time of their writing, a reason for being, and so with familiar spots, as with well-worn roads, there is always a new panorama projecting itself before one. The phenomenal, perennial, and still growing interest in the romances of Dumas the elder is the excuse for the present work, which it is to be hoped is admittedly a good one, however far short of exhaustiveness--a much overworked word, by the way--the volume may fall. It were not possible to produce a complete or "exhaustive" work on any subject of a historical, topographical or æsthetic nature: so why claim it? The last word has not yet been said on Dumas himself, and surely not on Paris--no more has it on Pompeii, where they are still finding evidences of a long lost civilization as great as any previously unearthed. It was only yesterday, too (this is written in the month of March, 1904), that a party of frock-coated and silk-hatted benevolent-looking gentlemen were seen issuing from a manhole in the _Université quartier_ of Paris. They had been inspecting a newly discovered _thermale établissement_ of Roman times, which led off one of the newly opened subterranean arteries which abound beneath Paris. It is said to be a rival of the Roman bath which is enclosed within the walls of the present Musée Cluny, and perhaps the equal in size and splendour of any similar remains extant. This, then, suggests that in every land new ground, new view-points, and new conditions of life are making possible a record which, to have its utmost value, should be a progressively chronological one. And after this manner the present volume has been written. There is a fund of material to draw upon, historic fact, pertinent and contemporary side-lights, and, above all, the environment which haloed itself around the personality of Dumas, which lies buried in many a _cache_ which, if not actually inaccessible, is at least not to be found in the usual books of reference. Perhaps some day even more will have been collected, and a truly satisfying biographical work compiled. If so, it will be the work of some ardent Frenchman of a generation following that in which Alexandre Dumas lived, and not by one of the contemporaries of even his later years. Albert Vandam, perhaps, might have done it as it should have been done; but he did not do so, and so an intimate personal record has been lost. Paris has ever been written down in the book of man as the city of light, of gaiety, and of a trembling vivacity which has been in turn profligate, riotous, and finally criminal. All this is perhaps true enough, but no more in degree than in most capitals which have endured so long, and have risen to such greatness.