NOTE:

Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children. The novelist
has spared no language--has minced no words--to describe the violent
scenes of a violent time.

In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true perspective,
and in others the author makes unwarranted charges. It is not within our
province to edit the historical side of Dumas, any more than it would be
to correct the obvious errors in Dickens's Child's History of England.
The careful, mature reader, for whom the books are intended, will
recognize, and allow for, this fact.




INTRODUCTION

The contents of these volumes of 'Celebrated Crimes', as well as the
motives which led to their inception, are unique. They are a series of
stories based upon historical records, from the pen of Alexandre Dumas,
pere, when he was not "the elder," nor yet the author of D'Artagnan or
Monte Cristo, but was a rising young dramatist and a lion in the literary
set and world of fashion.

Dumas, in fact, wrote his 'Crimes Celebres' just prior to launching upon
his wonderful series of historical novels, and they may therefore be