Alexandre Dumas

Derues Alexandre Dumas

One afternoon in September 1751, around five thirty, around twenty young children, chatting, pushing and falling on each other like a team of scholars, issued by one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the small troop that had just escaped from a long and tired captivity was doubly large: a slight accident for one of the masters had caused the class to leave half an hour earlier than usual, and as a consequence of the additional duty thrown into the The brother's teaching staff whose duty it was to examine all the scholars in the safe home was forced to avoid that part of their daily occupation. Therefore, not only thirty or forty minutes of work were stolen, but there was even a rapid and uncontrolled freedom, free from the guard of that black supervisor who carried the mandate in their formations. thirty minutes! to that stage is a century, of laughter and games of the future! Each one had solemnly affirmed, under pain of austere punishment, to return directly to his paternal nest without waiting, nevertheless the air was so fresh and pure, the country smiled everywhere! The academy, or preferably the box, which had just been confessed, lay on the far edge of one of the suburbs, and it only took a few steps to slide down a group of trees near a sparkling stream beyond which it rose. the undulating terrain, breaking the Monotony of a vast and fertile plain.