Christine and the murder of Monaldeschi furnished the first topic. After troubles and complications innumerable (there were three _Christines_ in the field), Dumas's play was written, and re-constructed, and accepted. In the interval he had made, for the joy of mankind, the acquaintance of Henri III. and Saint-Mégrin, of Catherine de Medici and Chicot, and Guise, in the _Mémoires_ of L'Estoile. The time was now 1828-30. Dumas left his official work; the authorities did not think him a model clerk, he was a good deal interrupted by actresses while _Henri III._ was being rehearsed. Just before the first night his mother suffered a shock of apoplexy; his attention was divided between the stage and her bedside. With colossal self-confidence, he invited the Duc d'Orléans to his play. The Due had a dinner-party, but what of that? The party must meet earlier; the play must begin earlier than the usual hours, and all the party must come. But the adventure of the Duchesse de Guise and Saint-Mégrin, the appearance of that Elagabalus of the Valois, Henri III., with his _mignons_, and cup and ball, his foppery and asceticism, thrilled and entertained a large and distinguished audience in the Théâtre Français. Dumas triumphed; unhappily his mother was unable to share his joy. His fortune was made, and he took pleasure in his publicity. He was probably better known for the time and more spoken of than Victor Hugo, whose really sonorous fame scarcely dates before the first night of _Hernani._ Though Dumas thus led the _Romantiques_ of 1830 through the breach, though he was first in the forlorn hope that took the acropolis of the old classical drama, one does not think of him as a _Romantique._ For one reason or another, he stands a little aloof from Hugo, Gautier, Alfred de Musset, and the set of Pétrus Borel, however intimate he may have been with Augustus Mackeat (Maquet).