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At the age of eighteen, he entered a notary's office in his native village, with the purpose of studying law. Leuven, exiled from Paris until the return of the Bourbons, resided in the village, and forming the acquaintance of young Dumas and noticing that he was ambitious, he counseled him to write dramas, and he would make money.
Leuven received him with open arms, and gave the delighted youth a ticket to hear Talma. He was privileged to go behind the scenes between the acts, and converse with the actors. He was filled with delight. Talma saw him, and at once pronounced him a genius. In his memoirs, he declares that he said, "Alexander Dumas, I baptize you a poet, in the name of Shakspeare, Corneille, and Schiller.
It made a profound impression on me, awakening vast, aimless desires, strange gleams of mystery. A friend of mine, Adolphe de Leuven, himself an ardent versifier, guided me to a first sense of my vocation, and together we set to work as playwrights. Adolphe and his father went up to live in Paris, and our plays were submitted everywhere in vain.
Dumas followed his advice wrote three, which were offered to the directors of the Paris theaters, and were each rejected by all. But Dumas was made of stuff of the better sort, and was not thus to be discouraged. Leuven soon returned to Paris, and Dumas longed to follow him there. But he was too poor.