Dumas, he says in another place, was as much smitten with her as her other admirers. This, of course, is no guarantee of her refinement, for the genial Creole had the reputation of not being over nice in his attachments and amours. He was then in the prime of life, and may be considered to have just reached the zenith of his fame by the publication of "Les Trois Mousquetaires," "Monte Cristo," and "La Reine Margot" (1844-5). Two years before he had formally and legally married Mademoiselle Ida Ferrier--this step, so inconsistent with his temperament and mode of life, having resulted from his own reckless disregard of the conventions. The lady had fascinated him while she was interpreting a _rôle_ of his creation at the Porte-St.-Martin. It did not strike him that it would be irregular to take her with him to a ball given by his patron, the Duke of Orleans, and he straightway did so. "Of course, my dear Dumas," said His Highness affably, "it is only your _wife_ that you would think of presenting to me." Poor Alexandre, the lover of all women and none in particular, was hoisted with his own petard. A prince's hints, above all when he is your patron and publisher, are commands. Dumas was led to the altar, like a sheep to the slaughter, by the charming Ida. Châteaubriand supported the bridegroom through the ordeal. However the chains of matrimony sat lightly on the irrepressible _romancier_. Madame Dumas soon after departed for Florence, greatly to the relief of her spouse. He was living, at the time of Lola's visit to Paris, at the Villa Médicis at St. Germain. There he could superintend the building of his palace of Monte Cristo, on the road to Marly, a part of which, with imperturbable _sang-froid_, he actually raised on the land belonging to a neighbour, without so much as a "by your leave." This ambitious residence emptied Dumas's pockets of the little money that the ladies he loved had left in them.
Alexandre, of course, fell passionately in love with Lola Montez. We need no written assurance of that. We read that he told her that she had acted "like a gentleman" in her treatment of Frederick William's policemen, and with what far-fetched compliments he followed up this commendation it is easy to imagine. There were certain resemblances in their temperaments, though the woman was far the stronger. Posterity is never likely to agree on an estimate of Dumas's character. Théodore de Banville thought him a truly great man.