If so fastidious a flinching from tragic episode breathe the true French sentiment, what, we are moved to ask, is the significance of the unqualified regard which Ducis and his countrymen profess for Shakespearean drama? There seems a strange paradox in the situation. The history of France proves that Frenchmen can face without quailing the direst tragedies which can be wrought in earnest off the stage. There is a startling inconsistency in the outcry of Ducis's French clients against the terror of Desdemona's murder. For the protests which Ducis reports on the part of the Parisians bear the date 1792. In that year the tragedy of the French Revolution--a tragedy of real life, grimmer than any that Shakespeare imagined--was being enacted in literal truth by the Parisian playgoers themselves. It would seem that Ducis and his countrymen deemed the purpose of art to be alone fulfilled when the artistic fabric was divorced from the ugly facts of life. A like problem is presented by Dumas's efforts in more pacific conditions to adapt Shakespeare for the Parisian stage. With his friend Paul Meurice Dumas prepared the version of _Hamlet_ which long enjoyed a standard repute at the Comedie Francaise. Dumas's ecstatic adoration for Shakespeare's genius did not deter him, any more than Ducis was deterred by his more subdued veneration, from working havoc on the English text. Shakespeare's blank verse was necessarily turned into Alexandrines. That was comparatively immaterial. Of greater moment is it to note that the _denouement_ of the tragedy was completely revolutionised by Dumas. The tragic climax is undermined. Hamlet's life is spared by Dumas. The hero's dying exclamation, "The rest is silence," disappears from Dumas's version. At the close of the play the French translator makes the ghost rejoin his son and good-naturedly promise him indefinite prolongation of his earthly career. According to the gospel of Dumas, the tragedy of Hamlet ends, as soon as his and his father's wrongs have been avenged, in this fashion:-- _Hamlet._ Et moi, vais-je rester, triste orphelin sur terre, A respirer cet air impregne de misere?... Est-ce que Dieu sur moi fera peser son bras, Pere? Et quel chatiment m'attend donc? _Le Fantome._ Tu vivras.