Alexandre Dumas - "i Am A Gemstone Hunter," Signed Autograph Manuscript.

Alexandre Dumas: “I, too, am a seeker of precious stones,” an exquisite autograph manuscript.

“Just as Raspail was a seeker of arsenic—and like La Fontaine’s Rooster—I believe that pearls can be found everywhere.”

Signed autograph manuscript by Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870).

No place, no date [circa 1855]. Two small pages in black ink taken from an album amicorum belonging to the actress Amélie Siona Lévy, mounted on sturdy cardboard and framed.

Dimensions: 12.5 x 12 cm / With black and gold wooden frame (included): 28 x 23 cm (can be unframed upon request).

An exquisite and amusing anecdote inscribed in the album amicorum of actress Amélie Siona Lévy (1831–1914).

Alexandre Dumas weaves a metaphor here based on the research of chemist François-Vincent Raspail (1794–1878), a scientific expert during the highly publicized trial of the poisoner Marie Lafarge in Tulle in 1840 (see below), wittily comparing himself to the rooster in La Fontaine’s famous fable (“The Rooster and the Pearl”—Book I, Fable 20, in which the rooster finds a pearl in manure), Dumas is a seeker of literary gems who believes “that pearls can be found everywhere.”

“Raspail once said to the presiding judge of the Tulle criminal court during the trial of Mrs.[Miss] Lafarge

—arsenic, but I’ll find arsenic everywhere—even in your armchair.”

I, too, am a seeker of literary gems, just as Raspail was a seeker of arsenic—and like La Fontaine’s Rooster, I believe that pearls can be found everywhere.

A[lexandre] D[umas]

(Inscription in another hand: Alexandre Dumas)"