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Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

January 21, 2023

This article is about the French general and father of the writer Alexandre Dumas (père). For other uses, see Alexandre Dumas (disambiguation).

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (French: [tɔmɑ alɛksɑ̃dʁ dymɑ davi də la pajət(ə)ʁi]; known as Alexandre Dumas; 25 March 1762 – 26 February 1806) was a Creole general, from the French colony of Saint-Domingue, in Revolutionary France. Along with his French contemporary Joseph Serrant, Toussaint Louverture in Saint-Domingue and Abram Petrovich Gannibal in Imperial Russia, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas is notable as a man of African descent (in Dumas's case, through his mother) leading European troops as a general officer.[2] He was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general, divisional general, and general-in-chief of a French army.[3]

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas
Portrait by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, c. 1797
Birth nameThomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie
Born(1762-03-25)25 March 1762
Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (today, Haiti)
Died26 February 1806(1806-02-26) (aged 43)
Villers-Cotterêts, France
Allegiance Kingdom of France
 French First Republic
Service/branchFrench Army
French Revolutionary Army
Years of service1786–1801
RankDivisional general
Commands heldArmy of the Eastern Pyrenees
Army of the Alps
Army of the West
Commander of Cavalry, Armée d'Orient (1798)
Battles/warsFrench Revolutionary Wars
War of the First Coalition
War in the Vendée
Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars
Siege of Mantua (1796–1797)
French Campaign in Egypt and Syria
Battle of the Pyramids
Relations Alexandre Dumas (son)
Alexandre Dumas fils (grandson)
Alexandre Lippmann (great-great-grandson)
Statue of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, melted down following a 1941 decision [fr] of the German authorities[1]

Born in Saint-Domingue, Thomas-Alexandre was the son of Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and of Marie-Cessette Dumas, a slave of African descent. He was born into slavery because of his mother's status, but his father took him to France in 1776 and had him educated. Slavery had been illegal in metropolitan France since 1315 and thus any slave would be freed de facto by being in France.[4] His father helped him enter the French military.

Dumas played a large role in the French Revolutionary Wars. Entering the military in 1786 as a private at age 24, he commanded 53,000 troops as the General-in-Chief of the French Army of the Alps by age 31. Dumas's victory in opening the high Alpine passes in 1794 enabled the French to initiate their Second Italian Campaign against the Austrian Empire. During the battles in Italy, Austrian troops nicknamed Dumas the Schwarzer Teufel ("Black Devil", Diable Noir in French).[5] in 1797. The French—notably Napoleon—nicknamed him "the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol"[6] (after a hero who had saved ancient Rome[7]) for defeating a squadron of enemy troops at a bridge over the Eisack River in Clausen (today Klausen, or Chiusa, Italy) in March 1797.

Dumas participated in the French attempt to conquer Egypt and the Levant during the Expédition d’Égypte of 1798-1801, when he was a commander of the French cavalry forces. On the march from Alexandria to Cairo, he clashed verbally with the Expedition's supreme commander Napoleon Bonaparte, under whom he had served in the Italian campaigns. In March 1799, Dumas left Egypt on an unsound vessel, which was forced to run aground in the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples, where he was taken prisoner and thrown into a dungeon. He languished there until the spring of 1801.

Returning to France after his release, he and his wife had a son, Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), who would become one of France's most widely-read authors. The son's most famous literary characters were inspired by his father.[8]

Ancestry

Born 25 March 1762 in Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (today Haiti), Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie was the son of a French nobleman, Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie[9] (20 June 1714, Belleville-en-Caux–15 June 1786, Saint-Germain-en-Laye[10]) and Marie-Cessette Dumas (b. unknown; d. during or after 1772, La Guinodée, Saint-Domingue[11]), an enslaved African woman he owned.

Father

Noble pedigree

Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie,[9] born 1714, was the oldest of three sons of the Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie (1674 – 25 December 1758)[12] and Jeanne-Françoise Paultre (or Pautre) de Dominon (d. 1757).[13] The Davy de la Pailleteries were provincial Norman aristocrats whose wealth was in decline.[14] The family had acquired the title of "lords" (seigneurs) by 1632.[15] The French kingdom granted the title "marquis" to the family by 1708.[16]

Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie ("Antoine") had two younger brothers, Charles Anne Edouard (Charles) (b. 1716, d. 1773) (married 1738 to Anne-Marie Tuffé), and Louis François Thérèse (Louis) (b. 1718, d. 1773). All three were educated at a military school and pursued careers as officers in the French military. They first served during the War of the Polish Succession. Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, who reached the rank of colonel, saw action at the Siege of Philippsburg in 1734.

Career in Saint-Domingue

In 1732, Antoine's younger brother Charles had been given a military posting in Saint-Domingue, a French colony in the Caribbean that generated high revenues from its sugarcane plantations, worked by African slave labor. In 1738, Charles left the military to become a sugar planter in that colony; he married Anne-Marie Tuffé, a rich local French Creole widow, and took over her estate.

That year Antoine also left the Army and joined his brother and sister-in-law in Saint-Domingue. He lived with them and worked at the plantation until 1748. In that year, the two brothers quarreled violently,[17] after which Antoine left Charles's plantation, taking his three personal slaves with him. At this point, Antoine broke off contact with his brother and his family for a period of thirty years, although they both lived on the same small island.[18] Antoine made a living in Jérémie, Saint-Domingue as a coffee and cacao planter, under the assumed name of "Antoine de l'Isle".[18] At some point during these years, Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie purchased the slave woman Marie-Cessette "for an exorbitant price" and made her his concubine. In 1762, she gave birth to their mixed-race son Thomas-Alexandre. During her time with Antoine, she also bore him two or three daughters.

Antoine's mother, the Marquise Jeanne-Françoise, died in 1757 and his father, the Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, died in 1758. Charles (although younger than Antoine) returned to Normandy to claim the title of Marquis and the family château. The British blockade of French shipping during the Seven Years' War reduced Charles' income from sugar exports, so he tried to smuggle the commodity out of Saint-Domingue from his plantation. He used a wharf in the neutral border territory (and tiny island) of Monte Cristo (today Monte Christi, Dominican Republic). (Some historians argue that this island inspired Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo.[19]) Charles died of gout in 1773;[20] Louis, the youngest of the Davy de la Pailleterie brothers, died three months later. He had served a 15-day sentence for being involved in selling defective weapons to the French military (a famous scandal at the time known as the Invalides Trial [le procès des Invalides]).[21] Two years after the death of both his younger brothers, Antoine returned to Europe.

Mother

Marie-Cessette Dumas, described as a "great matriarch to a saga of distinguished men",[22] was an enslaved woman and concubine of African descent owned by the Marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie.[17] They resided together at a plantation called La Guinaudée[17] (Guinodée[23]), near Jérémie (formerly in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti) until shortly before Antoine's departure in 1775. He sold Marie-Cessette Dumas, their other two children, and her daughter by another man to a baron from Nantes before leaving Saint-Domingue.[17][24]

The only source for her full name, "Marie-Cessette Dumas", with that spelling, is General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas's later marriage certificate and contract.[23] Her grandson's memoir gave her name as Louise,[25] and another source recorded Cécile.[26] Sources have spelling variations of her name, as standardization was not common.[27][28] Some scholars have suggested that "Dumas" was not a surname for Marie-Cessette, but, meaning "of the farm" (du mas), was added to her first names to signify that she belonged to the property.[29] Others have suggested African origins of the names Cessette and Dumas, including Gabon or Dahomey.[30][31]

The two extant primary documents that state a racial identity for Marie-Cessette Dumas refer to her as a "négresse" (a black female) as opposed to a "mulâtresse" (a female of visible mixed race).[17][28]

Secondary sources on General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, dating back to 1822, almost always describe his mother as a black African ("femme africaine",[32] "négresse",[33] "négresse africaine",[34][35] "noire",[36] or "pure black African"[37]).[38]

Death

Sources differ on the date and circumstance of her death. Two documents signed by Alexandre Dumas—his contract and certificate of marriage to Marie-Louise Labouret—state that Marie-Cessette died in La Guinaudée, near Trou Jérémie, Saint-Domingue, in 1772.[23] Based on this date, Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson speculates that she may have died in the mass outbreak of dysentery following a hurricane that struck the Grand Anse region of Saint-Domingue.[39]

Two other documents attest that Marie-Cessette was alive after 1772: a letter recounting her sale in 1775[17] and an 1801 document signed by Dumas, saying that "Marie-Cezette" will be in charge of General Dumas's properties in Saint-Domingue.[40] Thomas-Alexandre Dumas may have earlier claimed that she had died in order to avoid having to get her approval before marriage and revealing her slave status. In addition, he was in a hurry to leave for the military front.[41]

Names

Dumas used several names in his life: Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie,[42] Thomas Rethoré (or Retoré), Alexandre Dumas, Alex Dumas, and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie. "Davy de la Pailleterie" is his father's family name. He used the name "Retoré" (sometimes spelled Rethoré) during and for some years after the period in which his father sold him and then re-purchased him (1775–1776). According to biographer Tom Reiss, the name Retoré was "picked up from a neighbor in Jérémie (where the name can be found on official records of the period)".[43] "Dumas" is from his mother. The first record of him as "Alexandre Dumas" is in the registry book of the Queen's Dragoons (joined 2 June 1786).[44] (It was known in his platoon that this was "not his real name".[45]) He used the simple form "Alex Dumas" starting in 1794.[46] General Dumas used the full name "Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie" on his son's birth certificate.[47]

Appearance

The enlistment roll-book for the 6th Regiment of the Queen's Dragoons, which Dumas joined in 1786, described him as "6 feet tall, with frizzy black hair and eyebrows... oval face, and brown skinned, small mouth, thick lips".[48] According to his earliest-known description (1797), he was "one of the handsomest men you could ever meet. [...] His frizzy hair recalls the curls of the Greeks and Romans." It described his face as 'something closer to ebony' than to 'bronze.'"[49] General Dumas was described as 'dark—very dark.'[50]

Early life

Thomas-Alexandre had two siblings by his parents: Adolphe and Jeannette. They also had an older half-sister, Marie-Rose, born to Marie-Cessette before Davy de la Pailleterie purchased her and began a relationship. His father sold Marie-Cessette and her other three children before taking Thomas-Alexandre to France.

In 1776, when Alexandre was 14, his father sold the boy for 800 French livres in Port-au-Prince, officially to a Lieutenant Jacques-Louis Roussel (but unofficially to a Captain Langlois). This sale (with right of redemption) provided both a legal way to have Alexandre taken to France with Langlois and a temporary loan to pay for his father's passage. The boy accompanied Captain Langlois to Le Havre, France, arriving on 30 August 1776, where his father bought him back and freed him.[51]

From his arrival in France until Autumn 1778, Alexandre (named Thomas Retoré) first lived with his father at the Davy de la Pailleterie family estate in Belleville-en-Caux, Normandy. After his father sold that estate in 1777, they moved to a townhouse on the rue de l'Aigle d'Or in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. There, Alexandre studied at the academy of Nicolas Texier de la Boëssière [fr], where he was given a young nobleman's higher education. He learned swordsmanship from the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, another mixed-race man from the French Caribbean.[52]

Flush with cash from the sale of his family estate, Davy de la Pailleterie for many years spent lavishly on Dumas. His notary said that the boy "cost him enormously".[53] From 1777 to 1786, from age 15 to 24, thanks to his father's wealth and generosity, Dumas lived a life of considerable leisure.

In 1784, at age 22, Alexandre moved to an apartment on Rue Etienne, near the Louvre Palace in Paris, socializing at venues such as the Palais-Royal and Nicolet's Theater. In September 1784, while seated at Nicolet's Theater in the company of "a beautiful Creole" woman, he and his companion were harassed by a white colonial naval officer, Jean-Pierre Titon de Saint-Lamain, and one or two others. Following Dumas's verbal protests, the men "tried to force him to kneel before his attacker and beg for his freedom". The police report on the incident shows that Titon chose not to press charges as he might have, and all participants were released.[54]

Military career

Enlistment and service in the Queen's Dragoons

In February 1786 his father Davy de la Pailleterie married Françoise Retou, a domestic servant from the Davy de la Pailleterie estate.[55] Dumas did not sign as witness to the marriage contract. According to his son's memoir, the marriage precipitated a "cooling off" which led the father to tighten Dumas's allowance.[56]

Soon after, Dumas decided to join the French Army, a common occupation for gentlemen. Unlike his noble peers, who took arms as commissioned officers, Dumas enlisted as a private. A 1781 rule enabled men who could show four generations of nobility on their father's side to qualify to be commissioned as officers. Dumas had this, but the French race laws "made it hard for a man of mixed race to claim his rightful title or noble status".[57]) According to the novelist Dumas's account, on hearing of Alexandre's plan, his father insisted that his son take a "nom de guerre" in order that he not drag the noble name "through the lowest ranks of the army".[58] He signed up for the 6th Regiment of the Queen's Dragoons as "Alexandre Dumas" on 2 June 1786;[59][44] thirteen days later, his father died.[10]

Dumas spent his first years in the Queen's Dragoons in the provincial town of Laon, Picardy, close to the border with the Austrian Netherlands. On 15 August 1789, following the beginning of the French Revolution, his unit was sent to the small town of Villers-Cotterêts. The town's newly formed National Guard leader, innkeeper Claude Labouret, had called for them to come in response to a wave of rural violence known as the Great Fear. Dumas lodged at the Labourets' Hôtel de l'Ecu for four months, during which time he became engaged to Claude Labouret's daughter Marie-Louise.[60]

Dumas's regiment was in Paris on 17 July 1791, where they served as riot police along with National Guard units under the Marquis de Lafayette during the Champ de Mars Massacre of the French Revolution. Troops killed between 12 and 50 people when a large crowd gathered to sign a petition calling for the French King's removal. Two years later, when someone denounced Dumas to the Committee of Public Safety, he claimed that intervention in the conflict saved as many as 2,000 people.[61]

A corporal by 1792, Dumas had his first combat experience in a French attack on the Austrian Netherlands in April of that year. He was one of 10,000 men under the command of the General Biron. Stationed on the Belgian frontier in the town of Maulde, on 11 August 1792 Dumas captured 12 enemy soldiers while leading a small scouting party of four to eight horsemen.[62]

Second-in-command of the Black Legion

In October 1792, Dumas accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel in (and second-in-command of) the Légion franche des Américains et du Midi, founded a month earlier by Julien Raimond. This was a "free legion" (i.e., formed separately from the regular army) composed of free men of color (gens de couleur libres). It was called the "American Legion", "Black Legion", or Saint-Georges Legion, after its commanding officer, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Dumas frequently commanded the legion, as Saint-Georges was often absent. In April 1793, General Dumouriez attempted a coup d'état; Saint-Georges and Dumas refused to join it and defended the city of Lille from coup supporters. In the summer of 1793, Saint-Georges was accused of misusing government funds, and the Legion disbanded.[63]

Commander-in-chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees

On 30 July 1793, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Army of the North. One month later, he was promoted again, to general of division. In September, he was made commander-in-chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees.[64] In this brief assignment (September–December 1793), Dumas's headquarters were in Bayonne, France, where he was apparently nicknamed "Mr. Humanity" (Monsieur de l'Humanité) by local sans-culottes; they wanted to intimidate him to conform to their political line at a time when French generals were extremely vulnerable to accusations of treason that often led to execution.[65]

Commander-in-chief of the Army of the Alps

On 22 December 1793, Dumas was given command of the Army of the Alps.[66] His campaign in the Alps centered on defeating Austrian and Piedmontese troops defending the glacier-covered Little Saint Bernard Pass at Mont Cenis, on the French-Piedmont border. After months of planning and reconnaissance from his base in Grenoble, he had to wait for snow conditions to be favorable to his troops' passage. In April and May 1794, Dumas launched several assaults on Mont Cenis. In the final attack, Dumas's army, equipped with ice crampons, took the mountain by scaling ice cliffs and captured between 900 and 1,700 prisoners.[67]

Though his victory won Dumas praise from political leaders in Paris, he was called before the Committee of Public Safety in June 1794, for reasons unspecified but probably to face charges of treason, as this was the period of the "Great Terror", a period of accelerated political executions in the final months of the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution. Dumas delayed his arrival in Paris until mid-July, and was not seen by the Committee before the Terror ended with the execution of Robespierre on 27 July 1794.[67]

 
Portrait du Général Dumas, painting by Olivier Pichat (1825–1912) in the Alexandre Dumas Museum

Commander-in-chief of the Army of the West (1793) in the Vendée

In early August 1794 Dumas was briefly assigned to command the École de Mars military school at Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris.[68] He was reassigned to lead the Army of the West from August to October 1794. He was responsible for consolidating the recent government victory over a massive insurgency in the region of the Vendée against the French revolutionary government. He focused on increasing military discipline and eliminating soldiers' abuses of the local population.[69] One historian, despite or because of his pro-royalist sentiments, characterised Dumas in this command as "fearless and irreproachable", a leader who "deserves to pass into posterity and makes a favorable contrast with the executioners, his contemporaries, whom public indignation will always nail to the pillory of History!"[70]

General in the Army of the Rhine (France)

In September 1795 Dumas served under General Jean-Baptiste Kléber in the Army of the Rhine. He participated in the French attack on Düsseldorf, where he was wounded.[71]

General in the Army of Italy

Siege of Mantua

General Dumas joined the Army of Italy in Milan in November 1796, serving under the orders of commander-in-chief Napoleon Bonaparte. Tension between the two generals began as Dumas resisted Napoleon's policy of allowing French troops to expropriate local property. In December 1796, Dumas was in charge of a division besieging Austrian troops at the city of Mantua. By Christmas he intercepted a spy carrying a message to the Austrian commander with important tactical information. On 16 January 1797, Dumas and his division halted an Austrian attempt to break out of the besieged city and prevented Austrian reinforcements from reaching Mantua. The French were thereby able to maintain the siege until French reinforcements could arrive, leading to the city's capitulation on 2 February 1797.[72]

Campaign in Northern Italy

Following the 16 January fighting, Dumas felt insulted by the description of his actions in a battle report by General Berthier, Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, and wrote a letter to Napoleon cursing Berthier. Dumas was subsequently omitted from mention in Napoleon's battle report to the Directory, France's government at the time. He was then given a command well beneath his rank, leading a subdivision under General Masséna, despite a petition from Dumas's troops attesting to his valor. Under General Masséna in February 1797, Dumas helped French troops push the Austrians northward, capturing thousands. It was in this period that Austrian troops began calling him the der schwarze Teufel ("Black Devil", or Diable Noir in French).[73]

In late February 1797, Dumas transferred to a division commanded by General Joubert, who requested Dumas for his republicanism. Under Joubert, Dumas led a small force that defeated several enemy positions along the Adige River. Dumas's achievement in this period came on 23 March, when the general drove back a squadron of Austrian troops at a bridge over the Eisack River in Clausen (today Klausen, or Chiusa, Italy). For this the French began referring to him as "the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol" (after a hero who saved ancient Rome). Napoleon called Dumas by this, and rewarded him by making him cavalry commander of French troops in the Tyrol; he also sent Dumas a pair of pistols. Dumas spent much of 1797 as military governor, administering Treviso province, north of Venice.[74]

Commander of Cavalry in the French Campaign in Egypt

Dumas was ordered to report to Toulon, France, in March 1798 for an unspecified assignment. He joined an enormous French armada in preparation for departure to a secret destination. The armada departed on 10 May 1798, destination still unannounced. It was only on 23 June, after the fleet had conquered Malta, that Napoleon announced that the mission's main purpose: to conquer Egypt. Aboard the Guillaume Tell, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Dumas learned that he had been appointed as commander of all cavalry in the Army of the Orient. The armada arrived in the port of Alexandria at the end of June, and on 3 July Dumas led the Fourth Light Grenadiers over the walls as the French conquered the city. After fighting, Napoleon sent Dumas to pay ransom to some Bedouins who had kidnapped French soldiers. The expedition's chief medical officer recounted in a memoir that local Egyptians, judging Dumas's height and build versus Napoleon's, believed Dumas to be in command. Seeing "him ride his horse over the trenches, going to ransom the prisoners, all of them believed that he was the leader of the Expedition."[75]

From 7 to 21 July, Dumas commanded the invading army's cavalry as it marched south from Alexandria to Cairo. Conditions of heat, thirst, fatigue, and lack of supplies for the troops on the desert march were harsh; there were a number of suicides. While camped in Damanhour, General Dumas met with several other generals (Lannes, Desaix, and Murat). They vented criticisms of Napoleon's leadership and discussed the possibility of refusing to march beyond Cairo. Dumas soon participated in the Battle of the Pyramids (following which he chased retreating Mameluke horsemen) and the occupation of Cairo. At some point during the occupation, Napoleon learned of the earlier mutinous talk, and confronted Dumas. In his memoirs, Napoleon remembered threatening to shoot Dumas for sedition. Dumas requested leave to return to France, and Napoleon did not oppose it.[76] Napoleon was reported to have said: "I can easily replace him with a brigadier."[77]

Following the destruction of the French armada by a British fleet led by Horatio Nelson, however, Dumas was unable to get out of Egypt until March 1799. In August 1798, Dumas discovered a large cache of gold and jewels beneath a house in French-occupied Cairo, which he turned over to Napoleon. In October, he was important in putting down an anti-French revolt in Cairo by charging into the Al-Azhar Mosque on horseback. Afterward (according to his son, drawn largely from the memories of Dumas's aide-de-camp Dermoncourt), Napoleon told him: "I shall have a painting made of the taking of the Grand Mosque. Dumas, you have already posed as the central figure." The Girodet painting, however, which Napoleon commissioned eleven years later, shows a white man charging into the mosque.[78]

On 7 March 1799, Dumas boarded a small ship called the Belle Maltaise in the company of his fellow General Jean-Baptiste Manscourt du Rozoy, the geologist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, forty wounded French soldiers, and a number of Maltese and Genoan civilians. Dumas had sold the furnishings of his quarters in Cairo, and purchased 4,000 pounds of moka coffee; eleven Arabian horses (two stallions and nine mares) to establish breeding stock in France; and hired the ship.[79]

While returning to France, the ship began to sink, and Dumas had to jettison much of his cargo. The ship was forced by storms to land at Taranto, in the Kingdom of Naples. Dumas and his companions expected to get a friendly reception, having heard that the Kingdom had been overthrown by the Parthenopean Republic. But that short-lived republic had succumbed to an internal uprising by a local force known as the Holy Faith Army, led by Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, in alliance with King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples, who was at war with France.[80]

Imprisonment in the Kingdom of Naples

The Holy Faith Army imprisoned Dumas and the rest of the passengers and confiscated most of their belongings. Early on in the captivity, Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo tried to trade Dumas for a Corsican adventurer named Boccheciampe, an imposter posing as Prince Francis, son of Ferdinand IV, in order to aid the Holy Faith movement. Boccheciampe had been captured by French forces north of the Neapolitan kingdom, shortly after he had visited the prisoners, who were held inside Taranto's Aragonese Castle, but Ruffo lost interest in a trade when he learned Boccheciampe had been killed by the French.

Dumas was malnourished and kept incommunicado for two years. By the time of his release, he was partially paralyzed, almost blind in one eye, had been deaf in one ear but recovered; his physique was broken. He believed his illnesses were caused by poisoning. During his imprisonment, he was aided by a secret local pro-French group, which brought him medicine and a book of remedies. In November 1799, Napoleon had returned to Paris and seized power. Dumas's wife lobbied his government for assistance in finding and rescuing her husband, to little result. Napoleon's forces, under the command of Dumas's fellow general Joachim Murat, eventually defeated Ferdinand IV's army and secured Dumas's release in March 1801.[81]

Political views

Dumas made few political statements, but those he made suggest deeply felt republican beliefs. One month after the French National Convention abolished slavery (4 February 1794), Dumas sent a message to troops under his command in the Army of the Alps:

Your comrade, a soldier and General-in-Chief ... was born in a climate and among men for whom liberty also had charms, and who fought for it first. Sincere lover of liberty and equality, convinced that all free men are equals, he will be proud to march out before you, to aid you in your efforts, and the coalition of tyrants will learn that they are loathed equally by men of all colors.[82]

Marriage and family

On 28 November 1792, stationed with the Black Legion in Amiens, Dumas married Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret in Villers-Cotterêts.[83] She stayed in Villers-Cotterêts with her family during his military campaigns. Dumas bought a farm of 30 acres there. They had daughters Marie-Alexandrine (b. September 1794), Louise-Alexandrine (b. January/February 1796, d. 1797), and a son, Alexandre Dumas, who became a notable author, with success in plays and adventure novels.

Later years and death

After he gained release in 1801, Dumas was not awarded "the pension normally allocated to the widows of generals" by the French government[84] and he struggled to support his family after his return to France.[85] He repeatedly wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte, seeking back-pay for his time lost in Taranto and a new commission in the military.[86] He died of stomach cancer[87] on 26 February 1806 in Villers-Cotterêts,[88] when his son Alexandre was three years and seven months old. The boy, his sister, and his widowed mother were plunged into deeper poverty.[89] Marie-Louise Labouret Dumas worked in a tobacconist's shop to make ends meet.[90] For lack of funds, the young Alexandre Dumas was unable to get even a basic secondary education. Marie-Louise lobbied the French government to pay her military widow's pension.[91] Marie-Louise and the young Alexandre blamed Napoleon Bonaparte's "implacable hatred" for their poverty.[92]

Legacy and honors

  • The general's grandson, Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895), became a celebrated French playwright in the second half of the nineteenth century. Another grandson, Henry Bauër [fr] (1851-1915), never recognized by the novelist Dumas, was a left-leaning theater-critic in the same period.[93]
  • Dumas's name is inscribed on the south wall of the Arc de Triomphe.
  • In 1913, a statue of General Dumas was erected in Place Malesherbes (now Place du Général Catroux) in Paris in Autumn 1912 after a long fundraising campaign spearheaded by Anatole France and Sarah Bernhardt. From the moment of its installation until some time after July 1913 the statue was covered by a shroud due to the difficulty of the numerous governmental agencies involved to reach agreement on the modalities of its official inauguration. It stood in Place Malesherbes for thirty years, alongside statues of Alexandre Dumas's descendants Alexandre Dumas, père (erected 1883) and Alexandre Dumas fils (erected 1906), as well as of Sarah Bernhardt. Germans destroyed it in the winter of 1941–1942.[94]
  • In 2009, a sculpture in his honor, made by Driss Sans-Arcidet,[95] was erected in Paris, Place du Général Catroux (formerly Place Malesherbes). Representing broken slave shackles, it was unveiled on 4 April 2009. Critic Jean-Joël Brégeon claimed that the symbolism of the statue was inappropriate due to his noble upbringing, he had never been a slave.[96] However, his father sold and then re-purchased Alexandre Dumas, disproving this. Dumas biographer Tom Reiss suggested that the monument is inappropriate for other reasons: "In the race politics of twenty-first-century France, the statue of General Dumas had morphed into a symbolic monument to all the victims of French colonial slavery ... There is still no monument in France commemorating the life of General Alexandre Dumas."[97]
  • In April 2009, writer Claude Ribbe started an internet petition, asking French President Nicolas Sarkozy to award General Dumas the Légion d'honneur.[98] As of February 2014, the petition has gathered over 7,100 signatories.[99]

Portrayal in popular culture

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas is a dateable non-player character in the historically-based dating sim video game Ambition: A Minuet in Power published by Joy Manufacturing Co.[100]

See also

References

  1. ^ Volper, Julien; Rykner, Didier (12 May 2021). "La Case du siècle : la propagande En Marche" [The Case of the century: propaganda On the Move]. latribunedelart (in French). Retrieved 21 May 2022. Durant l'occupation allemande, le gouvernement de Vichy, faisant suite au décret du 11 décembre 1941, avait effacé la mémoire d'un officier supérieur d'origine africaine, le général Dumas [...], en faisant mettre à bas sa statue.
  2. ^ Toussaint Louverture was commissioned as "general-in-chief" of the army in French Saint-Domingue during the Haitian Revolution. Alfred-Amédée Dodds, who was of one-eighth African descent, became a general of division in 1898 and general-in-chief in 1900, but commanded only colonial troops. La Revue hebdomadaire, 2nd series, 4th year, v. 9, 4 August 1900, n.p., and in Mariani, Angelo and Uzanne, Joseph, eds., Figures contemporaines: Tirées de l'album Mariani v. 6 (Paris: H. Floury, 1901), n.p."Le Général Dodds". Abram Petrovich Gannibal had achieved major-general rank in the Imperial Russian Army by 1752. In continental Europe, however, Alexandre Dumas is the only general of division and general-in-chief in modern history.
  3. ^ Alexandre Dumas was made brigadier general (the entry-level rank for generals in the French military hierarchy) of the French Army of the West on 30 July 1793, general of division one month later, and general-in-chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees. Tom Reiss, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), 145 and 147. The next black people to make brigadier general in the French military were Toussaint Louverture, André Rigaud, and Louis-Jacques Beauvais, all promoted to that rank on 23 July 1795. Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 119. Note: Alexandre Dumas was the first French general of African descent, and was of mixed race; Louverture was the first French general of purely African descent. The assertion that Louverture was "the first black general in French history" is true if mixed-race men are not considered in this category, or if Dumas is overlooked. The claim has been made by Pierre Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture: Un révolutionnaire d'Ancien Régime (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 554, quoted in Daniel Desormeaux, Deborah Jenson and Molly Krueger Enz, "The First of the (Black) Memorialists: Toussaint Louverture", Yale French Studies no: 107 (2005), 138.
  4. ^ Compare: Christopher L. Miller, The French Atlantic triangle: literature and culture of the slave trade. Duke University Press, 2008. p.20 ISBN 978-0-8223-8883-8- "But the moral and legal context in France was complex. Conditions of slavery and servitude were offset by what Sue Peabody calls the Freedom Principle: the notion, supported by a decree of Louis X in 1315, that 'France' signifies freedom and that any slave setting foot on what we now call the hexagon should be freed. There was in fact a tradition of freeing slaves, and it remained influential, if often undercut, during the time of the Atlantic slave trade."
  5. ^ Report by Dumas's aide-de-camp Dermoncourt, quoted in Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 110
  6. ^ Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 127.
  7. ^ Tom Reiss, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), 213.
  8. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 12–14. See also Gilles Henry, Les Dumas: Le secret de Monte Cristo (Paris: France-Empire, 1999). A. Craig Bell argues for Porthos in Alexandre Dumas: A Biography and Study (London: Cassell and Co., 1950), 7.
  9. ^ a b Madison Smartt Bell (6 October 2012). "'The Black Count' by Tom Reiss". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  10. ^ a b Death certificate of Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 16 June 1786, Musée Alexandre Dumas (Villers-Cotterêts, France).
  11. ^ Tom Reiss, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), 54.
  12. ^ Fernand Gaudu, "Les Davy de La Pailleterie, seigneurs de Bielleville-en-Caux, Rouen," Revue des Sociétés savantes de Haute-Normandie, no. 65 (1972), 44–45.
  13. ^ Receipt, signed by Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, 29 June 1757, Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais (Dainville and Arras, France), 10J34.
  14. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, 24.
  15. ^ Fernand Gaudu, "Les Davy de La Pailleterie, seigneurs de Bielleville-en-Caux, Rouen," Revue des Sociétés savantes de Haute-Normandie, no. 65 (1972), 43.
  16. ^ Robert Landru, À propos d’Alexandre Dumas: Les aïeux, le général, le bailli, premiers amis (Vincennes: R. Landru, 1977), 22.
  17. ^ a b c d e f Letter from M. de Chauvinault, former royal prosecutor in Jérémie, Saint Domingue, to the Count de Maulde, 3 June 1776, privately held by Gilles Henry. Note: It says Dumas's father (then known as Antoine de l’Isle) “bought from a certain Monsieur de Mirribielle a negress named Cesette at an exorbitant price,” then, after living with her for some years, “sold... the negress Cezette” along with her two daughters "to a... baron from Nantes." Original French: "il achetais d’un certain Monsieur de Mirribielle une negresse nommée Cesette à un prix exhorbitant"; "qu’il a vendu à son depart avec les negres cupidon, la negresse cezette et les enfants à un sr barron originaire de nantes." (The spelling of her name varies within the letter.)
  18. ^ a b Count de Maulde’s request at the Parliament, 30 November 1778, Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais (Dainville and Arras, France), 10J35.
  19. ^ Tom Reiss, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), pp. 13–14 and 49; Gilles Henry, "Alexandre Dumas, Les dessous d'une légende: La véritable histoire de Monte-Cristo," Historia Magazine, (May 2002), 42–67.
  20. ^ Leroux to Maulde, 8 July 1773, Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais (Dainville and Arras, France), 10J26.
  21. ^ Gilles Henry, Les Dumas: Le secret de Monte Cristo (Paris: France-Empire, 1999), 47.
  22. ^ Jacobo Valcárcel, "A black slave, Marie-Cesette Dumas", GuinGuin Bali website, 3 February 2010, accessed 16 October 2012.
  23. ^ a b c Marriage contract and marriage certificate, both 28 November 1792, Musée Alexandre Dumas (Villers-Cotterêts, France). A copy of the certificate is also held in Archives de l’Aisne (Laon, France), 304 E 268.
  24. ^ Judgment in a dispute between Alexandre Dumas (named as Thomas Rethoré) and his father’s widow, Marie Retou, Archives Nationale de France, LX465. "En consideration des obligations cy dessus contractees par led. S. Rethoré es par suite de la presente transaction Mad DeMarquise de la Pailleterie a par les presentes cede es transporté aud. S. Rethoré ce acceptans tous les droits de proprieté quelle a et pouvoir avoir sur Marie Cezette negresse mere dud. S. Rethoré, Jeannette es Marie Rose, Creoles, filles de lad. Cezette es sœurs dud. S. Rethoré es sur leurs enfans nés es a Naitre consentant quil exerce lesd. droits es en jouisse fasse es dispose en toute propriété es Comme de Choses lui appartenant au Moyen des presentes, mad. De dela Pailleterie se dessaisissans a son profit de tous les droits de propriété quelle pouvais avoir sur lesd. negresses cy devans nommées es leurs Enfans [...]." Translation: "Considering the obligations contracted above by the said Mr. Rethoré and following the present transaction the Lady Marquise de la Pailleterie has by the present yielded and carried to the said Mr. Rethoré, thus accepting, all the property right that she has and has the power to have over Marie Cezette negress mother of the said Mr. Rethoré, Jeannette and Marie Rose, Creoles, daughters of the said Cezette and sisters of the said Mr. Rethoré and over their children, whether they were born or will be born, agreeing that he exercise these rights and benefits from them and dispose in full property and As Things that bring her by the Means of the present document the Lady de la Pailleterie relinquishing, to his profit, of all the ownership rights that she used to have on the said negresses named before and their Children [...]."
  25. ^ Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 14.
  26. ^ Service historique de l'Armée de terre, G.D. 2/S 91, Dossier Dumas de la Pailleterie (Thomas Alexandre), certificat de services, cited by Erick Noël, “Une carrière contrariée: Alexandre Dumas, homme de couleur et général révolutionnaire,” Etudes Françaises, no. 5 (March 1998), 61.
  27. ^ Registry of the Dragoons in the Regiment of the Queen, Dumas entry, the name is spelled "Cecette," 2 June 1786, privately held by Gilles Henry.
  28. ^ a b Judgment in a dispute between Alexandre Dumas (named as Thomas Rethoré) and his father’s widow, Marie Retou Davy de la Pailleterie, Archives Nationale de France, LX465. His mother's name is Marie-Cesette Dumas (spelled "Cezette") and referred to as “Marie Cezette, negress, mother of Mr. Rethoré” (“Marie Cezette negresse mere dud. [dudit] S. Rethoré”)
  29. ^ Gilles Henry, Les Dumas: Le secret de Monte Cristo (Paris: France-Empire, 1999), 73; Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson, Le général Alexandre Dumas: Soldat de la liberté (Sainte-Foy, Quebec: Les Editions Quisqueya-Québec, 1977), 25.
  30. ^ Albert M’Paka, Félix Eboué, 1884–1944, gouverneur général de l'Afrique équatoriale française: Premier résistant de l'Empire: Grand Français, grand Africain (Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 2008). Note: The francophone novelist Calixthe Beyala suggested that the name “Dumas” was initially “Dûma”, of Fang origin, meaning “dignity”.
  31. ^ Hans Werner Debrunner, Presence and Prestige, Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe before 1918 (Basel : Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1979.), 128. Note: Debrunner suggests she was more likely of Yoruba or Dahomey origin, given slave trading patterns.
  32. ^ Antoine-Vincent Arnault, Antoine Jay, Etienne de Jouy, and Jacques Marquet de Norvins, “Dumas (Alexandre Davy-de-la-Pailleterie),” in Biographie nouvelle des contemporains, v. 6 (Paris, 1822), 160; Marie Nicolas Bouillet, Dictionnaire universel d'histoire et de géographie, 9th ed., pt. 1 (Paris: Librairie de L. Hachette, 1852), 525.
  33. ^ Alphonse Rabbe, Claude-Augustin-Charles Vieilh de Boisjoslin, and Francois-Georges Binet de Boisgiroult, baron de Sainte-Preuve, “Dumas (Alexandre-Davy),” in Biographie universelle et portative des contemporains, v. 2. (Paris, 1834), 1469; Eugène de Mirecourt, Les contemporains: Alexandre Dumas (Paris: Gustave Havard, 1856), 10; Edmond Chevrier, Le général Joubert d'après sa correspondance: Étude historique (Paris: Fischbacher, 1884), 98; André Maurel, Les Trois Dumas (Paris: Librairie illustrée, 1896), 3.
  34. ^ Philippe Le Bas, “Dumas (Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie),” in Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la France, v. 6 (Paris, 1842), 773
  35. ^ Mullié, Charles (1852). "Dumas (Alexandre Davï de la Pailleterie)" . Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850  (in French). Paris: Poignavant et Compagnie. p. 462.
  36. ^ Alexandre Dumas fils, “Préface,” in Frédéric Fèbvre, Journal d'un comédien, 1870–1894, v. 2, (Paris: Paul Ollendorff, 1896), vii
  37. ^ Percy Fitzgerald, The Life and Adventures of Alexandre Dumas, v. 1 (London, 1873), 1–2
  38. ^ Anonymous, “Contributors’ Club: The Dumas Lineage,” Atlantic Monthly (January 1896), 142. This article describes her as “colored,” saying that “she can hardly have been a full-blooded negress” because she could not have had fully African ancestry because “she had all the education and energy to take charge of all the details of the marquis’s property.”
  39. ^ Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson, Le général Alexandre Dumas: Soldat de la liberté (Sainte-Foy, Quebec: Les Editions Quisqueya-Québec, 1977), 49–51.
  40. ^ “Par-devant le notaire public du departement de Seine-et-Oise [...] était present Thomas Dumas Davy de La Pailleterie, connu et nominé Dumas, general de division, demeurant a Villers-Cotterêts, departement de l'Aisne [...]. Lequel a fait et constitue pour son procureur general et special Marie-Cezette, sa mere, a la quelle il donne pouvoir de, pour lui et en son nom, d’agir, gerer et administrer les biens, terres, habitations et propriétés appartenant au constituant, comme fils et heritier d'Antoine Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie son pere, le tout situé cote et ile de Saint-Domingue ; de se mettre en possession du tout pour et au nom du constituant [...] ; et generalement, faire par ladite procuratrice constitue tout ce que sa prudence et les circonstances exigeront; le constituant entendant conferer a ladite procuratrice constitute tous les pouvoirs les plus illimites pour la regie desditeshabitations et autres proprietes, encore bien qu'elles ne soient pas litteralement énoncees ou representees.” Legal document, 8 November 1801, quoted in Raphäel Lahlou, Alexandre Dumas ou le don de l’enthousiasme (Paris: Bernard Giovanangeli, 2006), 13 (antique syntax in Lahlou).
  41. ^ Claude Ribbe, Le diable noir: Biographie du général Alexandre Dumas, 1762–1806, père de l'écrivain (Monaco: Alphée, 2008 and 2009), 14–15.
  42. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 91
  43. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 57
  44. ^ a b Registry of the Dragoons in the Regiment of the Queen, Dumas entry, 2 June 1786, privately held by Gilles Henry.
  45. ^ Ernest Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dumas,” Bulletin de la Société Historique de Villers-Cotterêts 2 (1906), p. 91, quoted by Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 109.
  46. ^ The first letter he signed "Alex Dumas" appears to be General Dumas to Minister of War Bouchotte, 11 January 1794, Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes, France), 3B9.
  47. ^ Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 4.
  48. ^ Registry of the Dragoons in the Regiment of the Queen, Dumas entry, 2 June 1786, privately held by Gilles Henry, quoted Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 91
  49. ^ Author unknown, “Le général Alexandre Dumas, homme de couleur,” n.d. [1797], Bibliothèque nationale de France, NAF 24641, quoted by Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 325
  50. ^ Arthur Davidson, Alexandre Dumas, père: His Life and Works (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1902), 4.
  51. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 54–55.
  52. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 59.
  53. ^ Delisson to the Count de Maulde, 25 June 1786, Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais (Dainville and Arras, France), 10J35.
  54. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 83–87.
  55. ^ Marriage contract between Marie Retou and Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, 13 February 1786, privately held by Gilles Henry.
  56. ^ Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 21.
  57. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 91–92. Note: One law required non-whites living in Paris to carry special identification. A 1780 law prohibited non-whites from using the titles "Sieur" or "Madame."
  58. ^ Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 21–22.
  59. ^ Six, Georges (1934). "Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre-Davy". Dictionnaire biographique des généraux et amiraux français de la Révolution et de l'Empire : 1792-1814 (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Librairie Historique et Nobilaire. pp. 394–395.
  60. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 102–115.
  61. ^ Reiss, The Black Count, pp. 120, 156–157.
  62. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 129-130.
  63. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 133–145
  64. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 145–146, 150.
  65. ^ Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 40, quoted by Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 152.
  66. ^ National Convention decree, 22 December 1793, Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes, France), 7YD91, and memo published in Le Moniteur, 24 December 1793, reprinted in Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur, Vol. 19 (1863); Executive Council decree, 28 December 1793, Musée Alexandre Dumas (Villers-Cotterêts, France), cited Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 152–153
  67. ^ a b Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 160–176.
  68. ^ 114) S. H. A. T., G. D. 2/S 91, Dossier Dumas de la Pailleterie (Thomas Alexandre), ampliation du 15 thermidor an II, cited by Erick Noël, “Une carrière contrariée: Alexandre Dumas, homme de couleur et général révolutionnaire,” Etudes Françaises, no. 5 (March 1998), 69–70.
  69. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 177–183
  70. ^ Henri Bourgeois, Biographies de la Vendée militaire: Alexandre Dumas (Luçon, France: M. Bideaux, 1900), 23, quoted in Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 181.
  71. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 183.
  72. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 190–204.
  73. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 204–207.
  74. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 206–214.
  75. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 218–237.
  76. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 240–251
  77. ^ J. Christopher Herald, Bonaparte in Egypt (London: H.H. Hamilton, 1962), 213.
  78. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 260–263.
  79. ^ John G. Gallaher General Alexandre Dumas: Soldier of the French Revolution (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), 114–118; Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 262–263.
  80. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 264–272.
  81. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 264–303.
  82. ^ Dumas to his “brothers in arms,” March 6, 1794, SHD 3B9, quoted by Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 159.
  83. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 139–141.
  84. ^ General Alexandre Dumas to First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, 17 October 1803, and Marie-Louise Labouret-Dumas to the minister of war, 2 October 1814, both in Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes, France), 7YD91.
  85. ^ General Alexandre Dumas to First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, 29 September 1801, cited in Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 193
  86. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 318.
  87. ^ Charles Glinel, Alexandre Dumas et son oeuvre (Reims, 1884), 23.
  88. ^ Alexandre Dumas's death act, 27 February 1806, Musée Alexandre Dumas (Villers-Cotterêts, France).
  89. ^ Marie-Louise Labouret-Dumas to Madame Carmin, 4 December 1806, Musée Alexandre Dumas (Villers-Cotterêts, France).
  90. ^ Antoine-Vincent Arnault, Antoine Jay, Etienne de Jouy, and Jacques Marquet de Norvins, “Dumas (Alexandre Davy-de-la-Pailleterie),” in Biographie nouvelle des contemporains, v. 6 (Paris, 1822), 162.
  91. ^ Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 233.
  92. ^ Marie-Louise Labouret-Dumas to the minister of war, 2 October 1814, Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes, France), 7YD91 and Alexandre Dumas, père, Mes mémoires, v. 1 (Paris, 1881), 231.
  93. ^ Marcel Cerf, Le mousquetaire de la plume: La vie d'un grand critique dramatique, Henry Bauër, fils naturel d'Alexandre Dumas, 1851–1915 (Paris: Académie d'Histoire, 1975.).
  94. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, pp. 327–329.
  95. ^ Driss Sans-Arcidet [fr]
  96. ^ Jean-Joël Brégeon, La Nouvelle Revue d'Histoire, No. 42 (May–June 2009).
  97. ^ Reiss (2012), The Black Count, p. 330.
  98. ^ "Pétition à Nicolas Sarkozy pour qu'il décerne la Légion d'honneur au général Dumas". general-dumas.org. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
  99. ^ . Archived from the original on 9 November 2012.
  100. ^ Valentine, Rebekah (9 July 2020). "Ambition: A Minuet in Power's extravagant aspirations". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 11 September 2021.

Further reading

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.
  • Alexandre Dumas, père. Mes mémoires Vol. 1 (Paris, 1881).
  • Jon G. Gallaher, General Alexandre Dumas: Soldier of the French Revolution (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997).
  • Ernest d’Hauterive, Un soldat de la Révolution: Le Général Alexandre Dumas (1762–1806) (Paris, 1897).
  • Gilles Henry, Les Dumas: Le secret de Monte Cristo Condé-sur-Noiraud: Corlet, 1982).
  • André Maurel, Les trois Dumas (Paris: Librairie illustrée, 1896).
  • André Maurois, The Titans: A Three-Generation Biography of the Dumas (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957).
  • Tom Reiss, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012).
  • Claude Ribbe, Alexandre Dumas, le dragon de la reine (Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 2002).
  • Claude Ribbe, Le diable noir (Monaco: Alphée, 2008).
  • Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson, Le Général Alexandre Dumas: Soldat de la liberté (Quebec: Quisqueya-Québec, 1977).

January 21, 2023
thomas, alexandre, dumas, this, article, about, french, general, father, writer, alexandre, dumas, père, other, uses, alexandre, dumas, disambiguation, davy, pailleterie, french, tɔmɑ, alɛksɑ, dymɑ, davi, pajət, known, alexandre, dumas, march, 1762, february, . This article is about the French general and father of the writer Alexandre Dumas pere For other uses see Alexandre Dumas disambiguation Thomas Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie French tɔmɑ alɛksɑ dʁ dymɑ davi de la pajet e ʁi known as Alexandre Dumas 25 March 1762 26 February 1806 was a Creole general from the French colony of Saint Domingue in Revolutionary France Along with his French contemporary Joseph Serrant Toussaint Louverture in Saint Domingue and Abram Petrovich Gannibal in Imperial Russia Thomas Alexandre Dumas is notable as a man of African descent in Dumas s case through his mother leading European troops as a general officer 2 He was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general divisional general and general in chief of a French army 3 Thomas Alexandre DumasPortrait by Guillaume Guillon Lethiere c 1797Birth nameThomas Alexandre Davy de la PailleterieBorn 1762 03 25 25 March 1762Jeremie Saint Domingue today Haiti Died26 February 1806 1806 02 26 aged 43 Villers Cotterets FranceAllegiance Kingdom of France French First RepublicService wbr branchFrench ArmyFrench Revolutionary ArmyYears of service1786 1801RankDivisional generalCommands heldArmy of the Eastern PyreneesArmy of the AlpsArmy of the WestCommander of Cavalry Armee d Orient 1798 Battles warsFrench Revolutionary WarsWar of the First CoalitionWar in the VendeeItalian campaigns of the French Revolutionary WarsSiege of Mantua 1796 1797 French Campaign in Egypt and SyriaBattle of the PyramidsRelationsAlexandre Dumas son Alexandre Dumas fils grandson Alexandre Lippmann great great grandson Statue of General Thomas Alexandre Dumas melted down following a 1941 decision fr of the German authorities 1 Born in Saint Domingue Thomas Alexandre was the son of Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie a French nobleman and of Marie Cessette Dumas a slave of African descent He was born into slavery because of his mother s status but his father took him to France in 1776 and had him educated Slavery had been illegal in metropolitan France since 1315 and thus any slave would be freed de facto by being in France 4 His father helped him enter the French military Dumas played a large role in the French Revolutionary Wars Entering the military in 1786 as a private at age 24 he commanded 53 000 troops as the General in Chief of the French Army of the Alps by age 31 Dumas s victory in opening the high Alpine passes in 1794 enabled the French to initiate their Second Italian Campaign against the Austrian Empire During the battles in Italy Austrian troops nicknamed Dumas the Schwarzer Teufel Black Devil Diable Noir in French 5 in 1797 The French notably Napoleon nicknamed him the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol 6 after a hero who had saved ancient Rome 7 for defeating a squadron of enemy troops at a bridge over the Eisack River in Clausen today Klausen or Chiusa Italy in March 1797 Dumas participated in the French attempt to conquer Egypt and the Levant during the Expedition d Egypte of 1798 1801 when he was a commander of the French cavalry forces On the march from Alexandria to Cairo he clashed verbally with the Expedition s supreme commander Napoleon Bonaparte under whom he had served in the Italian campaigns In March 1799 Dumas left Egypt on an unsound vessel which was forced to run aground in the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples where he was taken prisoner and thrown into a dungeon He languished there until the spring of 1801 Returning to France after his release he and his wife had a son Alexandre Dumas 1802 1870 who would become one of France s most widely read authors The son s most famous literary characters were inspired by his father 8 Contents 1 Ancestry 1 1 Father 1 1 1 Noble pedigree 1 1 2 Career in Saint Domingue 1 2 Mother 1 2 1 Death 2 Names 3 Appearance 4 Early life 5 Military career 5 1 Enlistment and service in the Queen s Dragoons 5 2 Second in command of the Black Legion 5 3 Commander in chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees 5 4 Commander in chief of the Army of the Alps 5 5 Commander in chief of the Army of the West 1793 in the Vendee 5 6 General in the Army of the Rhine France 5 7 General in the Army of Italy 5 7 1 Siege of Mantua 5 7 2 Campaign in Northern Italy 5 8 Commander of Cavalry in the French Campaign in Egypt 5 9 Imprisonment in the Kingdom of Naples 6 Political views 7 Marriage and family 8 Later years and death 9 Legacy and honors 10 Portrayal in popular culture 11 See also 12 References 13 Further readingAncestry EditBorn 25 March 1762 in Jeremie Saint Domingue today Haiti Thomas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie was the son of a French nobleman Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie 9 20 June 1714 Belleville en Caux 15 June 1786 Saint Germain en Laye 10 and Marie Cessette Dumas b unknown d during or after 1772 La Guinodee Saint Domingue 11 an enslaved African woman he owned Father Edit Noble pedigree Edit Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie 9 born 1714 was the oldest of three sons of the Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie 1674 25 December 1758 12 and Jeanne Francoise Paultre or Pautre de Dominon d 1757 13 The Davy de la Pailleteries were provincial Norman aristocrats whose wealth was in decline 14 The family had acquired the title of lords seigneurs by 1632 15 The French kingdom granted the title marquis to the family by 1708 16 Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie Antoine had two younger brothers Charles Anne Edouard Charles b 1716 d 1773 married 1738 to Anne Marie Tuffe and Louis Francois Therese Louis b 1718 d 1773 All three were educated at a military school and pursued careers as officers in the French military They first served during the War of the Polish Succession Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie who reached the rank of colonel saw action at the Siege of Philippsburg in 1734 Career in Saint Domingue Edit In 1732 Antoine s younger brother Charles had been given a military posting in Saint Domingue a French colony in the Caribbean that generated high revenues from its sugarcane plantations worked by African slave labor In 1738 Charles left the military to become a sugar planter in that colony he married Anne Marie Tuffe a rich local French Creole widow and took over her estate That year Antoine also left the Army and joined his brother and sister in law in Saint Domingue He lived with them and worked at the plantation until 1748 In that year the two brothers quarreled violently 17 after which Antoine left Charles s plantation taking his three personal slaves with him At this point Antoine broke off contact with his brother and his family for a period of thirty years although they both lived on the same small island 18 Antoine made a living in Jeremie Saint Domingue as a coffee and cacao planter under the assumed name of Antoine de l Isle 18 At some point during these years Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie purchased the slave woman Marie Cessette for an exorbitant price and made her his concubine In 1762 she gave birth to their mixed race son Thomas Alexandre During her time with Antoine she also bore him two or three daughters Antoine s mother the Marquise Jeanne Francoise died in 1757 and his father the Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie died in 1758 Charles although younger than Antoine returned to Normandy to claim the title of Marquis and the family chateau The British blockade of French shipping during the Seven Years War reduced Charles income from sugar exports so he tried to smuggle the commodity out of Saint Domingue from his plantation He used a wharf in the neutral border territory and tiny island of Monte Cristo today Monte Christi Dominican Republic Some historians argue that this island inspired Alexandre Dumas s The Count of Monte Cristo 19 Charles died of gout in 1773 20 Louis the youngest of the Davy de la Pailleterie brothers died three months later He had served a 15 day sentence for being involved in selling defective weapons to the French military a famous scandal at the time known as the Invalides Trial le proces des Invalides 21 Two years after the death of both his younger brothers Antoine returned to Europe Mother Edit Marie Cessette Dumas described as a great matriarch to a saga of distinguished men 22 was an enslaved woman and concubine of African descent owned by the Marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie 17 They resided together at a plantation called La Guinaudee 17 Guinodee 23 near Jeremie formerly in the French colony of Saint Domingue now Haiti until shortly before Antoine s departure in 1775 He sold Marie Cessette Dumas their other two children and her daughter by another man to a baron from Nantes before leaving Saint Domingue 17 24 The only source for her full name Marie Cessette Dumas with that spelling is General Thomas Alexandre Dumas s later marriage certificate and contract 23 Her grandson s memoir gave her name as Louise 25 and another source recorded Cecile 26 Sources have spelling variations of her name as standardization was not common 27 28 Some scholars have suggested that Dumas was not a surname for Marie Cessette but meaning of the farm du mas was added to her first names to signify that she belonged to the property 29 Others have suggested African origins of the names Cessette and Dumas including Gabon or Dahomey 30 31 The two extant primary documents that state a racial identity for Marie Cessette Dumas refer to her as a negresse a black female as opposed to a mulatresse a female of visible mixed race 17 28 Secondary sources on General Thomas Alexandre Dumas dating back to 1822 almost always describe his mother as a black African femme africaine 32 negresse 33 negresse africaine 34 35 noire 36 or pure black African 37 38 Death Edit Sources differ on the date and circumstance of her death Two documents signed by Alexandre Dumas his contract and certificate of marriage to Marie Louise Labouret state that Marie Cessette died in La Guinaudee near Trou Jeremie Saint Domingue in 1772 23 Based on this date Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson speculates that she may have died in the mass outbreak of dysentery following a hurricane that struck the Grand Anse region of Saint Domingue 39 Two other documents attest that Marie Cessette was alive after 1772 a letter recounting her sale in 1775 17 and an 1801 document signed by Dumas saying that Marie Cezette will be in charge of General Dumas s properties in Saint Domingue 40 Thomas Alexandre Dumas may have earlier claimed that she had died in order to avoid having to get her approval before marriage and revealing her slave status In addition he was in a hurry to leave for the military front 41 Names EditDumas used several names in his life Thomas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie 42 Thomas Rethore or Retore Alexandre Dumas Alex Dumas and Thomas Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie Davy de la Pailleterie is his father s family name He used the name Retore sometimes spelled Rethore during and for some years after the period in which his father sold him and then re purchased him 1775 1776 According to biographer Tom Reiss the name Retore was picked up from a neighbor in Jeremie where the name can be found on official records of the period 43 Dumas is from his mother The first record of him as Alexandre Dumas is in the registry book of the Queen s Dragoons joined 2 June 1786 44 It was known in his platoon that this was not his real name 45 He used the simple form Alex Dumas starting in 1794 46 General Dumas used the full name Thomas Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie on his son s birth certificate 47 Appearance EditThe enlistment roll book for the 6th Regiment of the Queen s Dragoons which Dumas joined in 1786 described him as 6 feet tall with frizzy black hair and eyebrows oval face and brown skinned small mouth thick lips 48 According to his earliest known description 1797 he was one of the handsomest men you could ever meet His frizzy hair recalls the curls of the Greeks and Romans It described his face as something closer to ebony than to bronze 49 General Dumas was described as dark very dark 50 Early life EditThomas Alexandre had two siblings by his parents Adolphe and Jeannette They also had an older half sister Marie Rose born to Marie Cessette before Davy de la Pailleterie purchased her and began a relationship His father sold Marie Cessette and her other three children before taking Thomas Alexandre to France In 1776 when Alexandre was 14 his father sold the boy for 800 French livres in Port au Prince officially to a Lieutenant Jacques Louis Roussel but unofficially to a Captain Langlois This sale with right of redemption provided both a legal way to have Alexandre taken to France with Langlois and a temporary loan to pay for his father s passage The boy accompanied Captain Langlois to Le Havre France arriving on 30 August 1776 where his father bought him back and freed him 51 From his arrival in France until Autumn 1778 Alexandre named Thomas Retore first lived with his father at the Davy de la Pailleterie family estate in Belleville en Caux Normandy After his father sold that estate in 1777 they moved to a townhouse on the rue de l Aigle d Or in the Parisian suburb of Saint Germain en Laye There Alexandre studied at the academy of Nicolas Texier de la Boessiere fr where he was given a young nobleman s higher education He learned swordsmanship from the Chevalier de Saint Georges another mixed race man from the French Caribbean 52 Flush with cash from the sale of his family estate Davy de la Pailleterie for many years spent lavishly on Dumas His notary said that the boy cost him enormously 53 From 1777 to 1786 from age 15 to 24 thanks to his father s wealth and generosity Dumas lived a life of considerable leisure In 1784 at age 22 Alexandre moved to an apartment on Rue Etienne near the Louvre Palace in Paris socializing at venues such as the Palais Royal and Nicolet s Theater In September 1784 while seated at Nicolet s Theater in the company of a beautiful Creole woman he and his companion were harassed by a white colonial naval officer Jean Pierre Titon de Saint Lamain and one or two others Following Dumas s verbal protests the men tried to force him to kneel before his attacker and beg for his freedom The police report on the incident shows that Titon chose not to press charges as he might have and all participants were released 54 Military career EditEnlistment and service in the Queen s Dragoons Edit In February 1786 his father Davy de la Pailleterie married Francoise Retou a domestic servant from the Davy de la Pailleterie estate 55 Dumas did not sign as witness to the marriage contract According to his son s memoir the marriage precipitated a cooling off which led the father to tighten Dumas s allowance 56 Soon after Dumas decided to join the French Army a common occupation for gentlemen Unlike his noble peers who took arms as commissioned officers Dumas enlisted as a private A 1781 rule enabled men who could show four generations of nobility on their father s side to qualify to be commissioned as officers Dumas had this but the French race laws made it hard for a man of mixed race to claim his rightful title or noble status 57 According to the novelist Dumas s account on hearing of Alexandre s plan his father insisted that his son take a nom de guerre in order that he not drag the noble name through the lowest ranks of the army 58 He signed up for the 6th Regiment of the Queen s Dragoons as Alexandre Dumas on 2 June 1786 59 44 thirteen days later his father died 10 Dumas spent his first years in the Queen s Dragoons in the provincial town of Laon Picardy close to the border with the Austrian Netherlands On 15 August 1789 following the beginning of the French Revolution his unit was sent to the small town of Villers Cotterets The town s newly formed National Guard leader innkeeper Claude Labouret had called for them to come in response to a wave of rural violence known as the Great Fear Dumas lodged at the Labourets Hotel de l Ecu for four months during which time he became engaged to Claude Labouret s daughter Marie Louise 60 Dumas s regiment was in Paris on 17 July 1791 where they served as riot police along with National Guard units under the Marquis de Lafayette during the Champ de Mars Massacre of the French Revolution Troops killed between 12 and 50 people when a large crowd gathered to sign a petition calling for the French King s removal Two years later when someone denounced Dumas to the Committee of Public Safety he claimed that intervention in the conflict saved as many as 2 000 people 61 A corporal by 1792 Dumas had his first combat experience in a French attack on the Austrian Netherlands in April of that year He was one of 10 000 men under the command of the General Biron Stationed on the Belgian frontier in the town of Maulde on 11 August 1792 Dumas captured 12 enemy soldiers while leading a small scouting party of four to eight horsemen 62 Second in command of the Black Legion Edit In October 1792 Dumas accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel in and second in command of the Legion franche des Americains et du Midi founded a month earlier by Julien Raimond This was a free legion i e formed separately from the regular army composed of free men of color gens de couleur libres It was called the American Legion Black Legion or Saint Georges Legion after its commanding officer the Chevalier de Saint Georges Dumas frequently commanded the legion as Saint Georges was often absent In April 1793 General Dumouriez attempted a coup d etat Saint Georges and Dumas refused to join it and defended the city of Lille from coup supporters In the summer of 1793 Saint Georges was accused of misusing government funds and the Legion disbanded 63 Commander in chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees Edit On 30 July 1793 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Army of the North One month later he was promoted again to general of division In September he was made commander in chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees 64 In this brief assignment September December 1793 Dumas s headquarters were in Bayonne France where he was apparently nicknamed Mr Humanity Monsieur de l Humanite by local sans culottes they wanted to intimidate him to conform to their political line at a time when French generals were extremely vulnerable to accusations of treason that often led to execution 65 Commander in chief of the Army of the Alps Edit On 22 December 1793 Dumas was given command of the Army of the Alps 66 His campaign in the Alps centered on defeating Austrian and Piedmontese troops defending the glacier covered Little Saint Bernard Pass at Mont Cenis on the French Piedmont border After months of planning and reconnaissance from his base in Grenoble he had to wait for snow conditions to be favorable to his troops passage In April and May 1794 Dumas launched several assaults on Mont Cenis In the final attack Dumas s army equipped with ice crampons took the mountain by scaling ice cliffs and captured between 900 and 1 700 prisoners 67 Though his victory won Dumas praise from political leaders in Paris he was called before the Committee of Public Safety in June 1794 for reasons unspecified but probably to face charges of treason as this was the period of the Great Terror a period of accelerated political executions in the final months of the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution Dumas delayed his arrival in Paris until mid July and was not seen by the Committee before the Terror ended with the execution of Robespierre on 27 July 1794 67 Portrait du General Dumas painting by Olivier Pichat 1825 1912 in the Alexandre Dumas Museum Commander in chief of the Army of the West 1793 in the Vendee Edit In early August 1794 Dumas was briefly assigned to command the Ecole de Mars military school at Neuilly sur Seine near Paris 68 He was reassigned to lead the Army of the West from August to October 1794 He was responsible for consolidating the recent government victory over a massive insurgency in the region of the Vendee against the French revolutionary government He focused on increasing military discipline and eliminating soldiers abuses of the local population 69 One historian despite or because of his pro royalist sentiments characterised Dumas in this command as fearless and irreproachable a leader who deserves to pass into posterity and makes a favorable contrast with the executioners his contemporaries whom public indignation will always nail to the pillory of History 70 General in the Army of the Rhine France Edit In September 1795 Dumas served under General Jean Baptiste Kleber in the Army of the Rhine He participated in the French attack on Dusseldorf where he was wounded 71 General in the Army of Italy Edit Siege of Mantua Edit General Dumas joined the Army of Italy in Milan in November 1796 serving under the orders of commander in chief Napoleon Bonaparte Tension between the two generals began as Dumas resisted Napoleon s policy of allowing French troops to expropriate local property In December 1796 Dumas was in charge of a division besieging Austrian troops at the city of Mantua By Christmas he intercepted a spy carrying a message to the Austrian commander with important tactical information On 16 January 1797 Dumas and his division halted an Austrian attempt to break out of the besieged city and prevented Austrian reinforcements from reaching Mantua The French were thereby able to maintain the siege until French reinforcements could arrive leading to the city s capitulation on 2 February 1797 72 Campaign in Northern Italy Edit Following the 16 January fighting Dumas felt insulted by the description of his actions in a battle report by General Berthier Bonaparte s aide de camp and wrote a letter to Napoleon cursing Berthier Dumas was subsequently omitted from mention in Napoleon s battle report to the Directory France s government at the time He was then given a command well beneath his rank leading a subdivision under General Massena despite a petition from Dumas s troops attesting to his valor Under General Massena in February 1797 Dumas helped French troops push the Austrians northward capturing thousands It was in this period that Austrian troops began calling him the der schwarze Teufel Black Devil or Diable Noir in French 73 In late February 1797 Dumas transferred to a division commanded by General Joubert who requested Dumas for his republicanism Under Joubert Dumas led a small force that defeated several enemy positions along the Adige River Dumas s achievement in this period came on 23 March when the general drove back a squadron of Austrian troops at a bridge over the Eisack River in Clausen today Klausen or Chiusa Italy For this the French began referring to him as the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol after a hero who saved ancient Rome Napoleon called Dumas by this and rewarded him by making him cavalry commander of French troops in the Tyrol he also sent Dumas a pair of pistols Dumas spent much of 1797 as military governor administering Treviso province north of Venice 74 Commander of Cavalry in the French Campaign in Egypt Edit Dumas was ordered to report to Toulon France in March 1798 for an unspecified assignment He joined an enormous French armada in preparation for departure to a secret destination The armada departed on 10 May 1798 destination still unannounced It was only on 23 June after the fleet had conquered Malta that Napoleon announced that the mission s main purpose to conquer Egypt Aboard the Guillaume Tell in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea Dumas learned that he had been appointed as commander of all cavalry in the Army of the Orient The armada arrived in the port of Alexandria at the end of June and on 3 July Dumas led the Fourth Light Grenadiers over the walls as the French conquered the city After fighting Napoleon sent Dumas to pay ransom to some Bedouins who had kidnapped French soldiers The expedition s chief medical officer recounted in a memoir that local Egyptians judging Dumas s height and build versus Napoleon s believed Dumas to be in command Seeing him ride his horse over the trenches going to ransom the prisoners all of them believed that he was the leader of the Expedition 75 From 7 to 21 July Dumas commanded the invading army s cavalry as it marched south from Alexandria to Cairo Conditions of heat thirst fatigue and lack of supplies for the troops on the desert march were harsh there were a number of suicides While camped in Damanhour General Dumas met with several other generals Lannes Desaix and Murat They vented criticisms of Napoleon s leadership and discussed the possibility of refusing to march beyond Cairo Dumas soon participated in the Battle of the Pyramids following which he chased retreating Mameluke horsemen and the occupation of Cairo At some point during the occupation Napoleon learned of the earlier mutinous talk and confronted Dumas In his memoirs Napoleon remembered threatening to shoot Dumas for sedition Dumas requested leave to return to France and Napoleon did not oppose it 76 Napoleon was reported to have said I can easily replace him with a brigadier 77 Following the destruction of the French armada by a British fleet led by Horatio Nelson however Dumas was unable to get out of Egypt until March 1799 In August 1798 Dumas discovered a large cache of gold and jewels beneath a house in French occupied Cairo which he turned over to Napoleon In October he was important in putting down an anti French revolt in Cairo by charging into the Al Azhar Mosque on horseback Afterward according to his son drawn largely from the memories of Dumas s aide de camp Dermoncourt Napoleon told him I shall have a painting made of the taking of the Grand Mosque Dumas you have already posed as the central figure The Girodet painting however which Napoleon commissioned eleven years later shows a white man charging into the mosque 78 On 7 March 1799 Dumas boarded a small ship called the Belle Maltaise in the company of his fellow General Jean Baptiste Manscourt du Rozoy the geologist Deodat Gratet de Dolomieu forty wounded French soldiers and a number of Maltese and Genoan civilians Dumas had sold the furnishings of his quarters in Cairo and purchased 4 000 pounds of moka coffee eleven Arabian horses two stallions and nine mares to establish breeding stock in France and hired the ship 79 While returning to France the ship began to sink and Dumas had to jettison much of his cargo The ship was forced by storms to land at Taranto in the Kingdom of Naples Dumas and his companions expected to get a friendly reception having heard that the Kingdom had been overthrown by the Parthenopean Republic But that short lived republic had succumbed to an internal uprising by a local force known as the Holy Faith Army led by Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo in alliance with King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples who was at war with France 80 Imprisonment in the Kingdom of Naples Edit The Holy Faith Army imprisoned Dumas and the rest of the passengers and confiscated most of their belongings Early on in the captivity Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo tried to trade Dumas for a Corsican adventurer named Boccheciampe an imposter posing as Prince Francis son of Ferdinand IV in order to aid the Holy Faith movement Boccheciampe had been captured by French forces north of the Neapolitan kingdom shortly after he had visited the prisoners who were held inside Taranto s Aragonese Castle but Ruffo lost interest in a trade when he learned Boccheciampe had been killed by the French Dumas was malnourished and kept incommunicado for two years By the time of his release he was partially paralyzed almost blind in one eye had been deaf in one ear but recovered his physique was broken He believed his illnesses were caused by poisoning During his imprisonment he was aided by a secret local pro French group which brought him medicine and a book of remedies In November 1799 Napoleon had returned to Paris and seized power Dumas s wife lobbied his government for assistance in finding and rescuing her husband to little result Napoleon s forces under the command of Dumas s fellow general Joachim Murat eventually defeated Ferdinand IV s army and secured Dumas s release in March 1801 81 Political views EditDumas made few political statements but those he made suggest deeply felt republican beliefs One month after the French National Convention abolished slavery 4 February 1794 Dumas sent a message to troops under his command in the Army of the Alps Your comrade a soldier and General in Chief was born in a climate and among men for whom liberty also had charms and who fought for it first Sincere lover of liberty and equality convinced that all free men are equals he will be proud to march out before you to aid you in your efforts and the coalition of tyrants will learn that they are loathed equally by men of all colors 82 Marriage and family EditOn 28 November 1792 stationed with the Black Legion in Amiens Dumas married Marie Louise Elisabeth Labouret in Villers Cotterets 83 She stayed in Villers Cotterets with her family during his military campaigns Dumas bought a farm of 30 acres there They had daughters Marie Alexandrine b September 1794 Louise Alexandrine b January February 1796 d 1797 and a son Alexandre Dumas who became a notable author with success in plays and adventure novels Later years and death EditAfter he gained release in 1801 Dumas was not awarded the pension normally allocated to the widows of generals by the French government 84 and he struggled to support his family after his return to France 85 He repeatedly wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte seeking back pay for his time lost in Taranto and a new commission in the military 86 He died of stomach cancer 87 on 26 February 1806 in Villers Cotterets 88 when his son Alexandre was three years and seven months old The boy his sister and his widowed mother were plunged into deeper poverty 89 Marie Louise Labouret Dumas worked in a tobacconist s shop to make ends meet 90 For lack of funds the young Alexandre Dumas was unable to get even a basic secondary education Marie Louise lobbied the French government to pay her military widow s pension 91 Marie Louise and the young Alexandre blamed Napoleon Bonaparte s implacable hatred for their poverty 92 Legacy and honors EditThe general s grandson Alexandre Dumas fils 1824 1895 became a celebrated French playwright in the second half of the nineteenth century Another grandson Henry Bauer fr 1851 1915 never recognized by the novelist Dumas was a left leaning theater critic in the same period 93 Dumas s name is inscribed on the south wall of the Arc de Triomphe In 1913 a statue of General Dumas was erected in Place Malesherbes now Place du General Catroux in Paris in Autumn 1912 after a long fundraising campaign spearheaded by Anatole France and Sarah Bernhardt From the moment of its installation until some time after July 1913 the statue was covered by a shroud due to the difficulty of the numerous governmental agencies involved to reach agreement on the modalities of its official inauguration It stood in Place Malesherbes for thirty years alongside statues of Alexandre Dumas s descendants Alexandre Dumas pere erected 1883 and Alexandre Dumas fils erected 1906 as well as of Sarah Bernhardt Germans destroyed it in the winter of 1941 1942 94 In 2009 a sculpture in his honor made by Driss Sans Arcidet 95 was erected in Paris Place du General Catroux formerly Place Malesherbes Representing broken slave shackles it was unveiled on 4 April 2009 Critic Jean Joel Bregeon claimed that the symbolism of the statue was inappropriate due to his noble upbringing he had never been a slave 96 However his father sold and then re purchased Alexandre Dumas disproving this Dumas biographer Tom Reiss suggested that the monument is inappropriate for other reasons In the race politics of twenty first century France the statue of General Dumas had morphed into a symbolic monument to all the victims of French colonial slavery There is still no monument in France commemorating the life of General Alexandre Dumas 97 In April 2009 writer Claude Ribbe started an internet petition asking French President Nicolas Sarkozy to award General Dumas the Legion d honneur 98 As of February 2014 the petition has gathered over 7 100 signatories 99 Portrayal in popular culture EditThomas Alexandre Dumas is a dateable non player character in the historically based dating sim video game Ambition A Minuet in Power published by Joy Manufacturing Co 100 See also EditAbram Petrovich Gannibal The Black Count Glory Revolution Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo Representation of slavery in European art Museum Alexandre Dumas To Liberty The Adventures of Thomas Alexandre Dumas A Bloosmbury Reader by Catherine Johnson children s book about the life of Thomas Alexandre DumasReferences Edit Volper Julien Rykner Didier 12 May 2021 La Case du siecle la propagande En Marche The Case of the century propaganda On the Move latribunedelart in French Retrieved 21 May 2022 Durant l occupation allemande le gouvernement de Vichy faisant suite au decret du 11 decembre 1941 avait efface la memoire d un officier superieur d origine africaine le general Dumas en faisant mettre a bas sa statue Toussaint Louverture was commissioned as general in chief of the army in French Saint Domingue during the Haitian Revolution Alfred Amedee Dodds who was of one eighth African descent became a general of division in 1898 and general in chief in 1900 but commanded only colonial troops La Revue hebdomadaire 2nd series 4th year v 9 4 August 1900 n p and in Mariani Angelo and Uzanne Joseph eds Figures contemporaines Tirees de l album Mariani v 6 Paris H Floury 1901 n p Le General Dodds Abram Petrovich Gannibal had achieved major general rank in the Imperial Russian Army by 1752 In continental Europe however Alexandre Dumas is the only general of division and general in chief in modern history Alexandre Dumas was made brigadier general the entry level rank for generals in the French military hierarchy of the French Army of the West on 30 July 1793 general of division one month later and general in chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees Tom Reiss The Black Count Glory Revolution Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo New York Crown Publishers 2012 145 and 147 The next black people to make brigadier general in the French military were Toussaint Louverture Andre Rigaud and Louis Jacques Beauvais all promoted to that rank on 23 July 1795 Madison Smartt Bell Toussaint L Ouverture A Biography New York Vintage Books 2007 119 Note Alexandre Dumas was the first French general of African descent and was of mixed race Louverture was the first French general of purely African descent The assertion that Louverture was the first black general in French history is true if mixed race men are not considered in this category or if Dumas is overlooked The claim has been made by Pierre Pluchon Toussaint Louverture Un revolutionnaire d Ancien Regime Paris Fayard 1989 554 quoted in Daniel Desormeaux Deborah Jenson and Molly Krueger Enz The First of the Black Memorialists Toussaint Louverture Yale French Studies no 107 2005 138 Compare Christopher L Miller The French Atlantic triangle literature and culture of the slave trade Duke University Press 2008 p 20 ISBN 978 0 8223 8883 8 But the moral and legal context in France was complex Conditions of slavery and servitude were offset by what Sue Peabody calls the Freedom Principle the notion supported by a decree of Louis X in 1315 that France signifies freedom and that any slave setting foot on what we now call the hexagon should be freed There was in fact a tradition of freeing slaves and it remained influential if often undercut during the time of the Atlantic slave trade Report by Dumas s aide de camp Dermoncourt quoted in Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 110 Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 127 Tom Reiss The Black Count Glory Revolution Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo New York Crown Publishers 2012 213 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 12 14 See also Gilles Henry Les Dumas Le secret de Monte Cristo Paris France Empire 1999 A Craig Bell argues for Porthos in Alexandre Dumas A Biography and Study London Cassell and Co 1950 7 a b Madison Smartt Bell 6 October 2012 The Black Count by Tom Reiss The Boston Globe Retrieved 4 May 2013 a b Death certificate of Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie in Saint Germain en Laye 16 June 1786 Musee Alexandre Dumas Villers Cotterets France Tom Reiss The Black Count Glory Revolution Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo New York Crown Publishers 2012 54 Fernand Gaudu Les Davy de La Pailleterie seigneurs de Bielleville en Caux Rouen Revue des Societes savantes de Haute Normandie no 65 1972 44 45 Receipt signed by Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie 29 June 1757 Archives departementales du Pas de Calais Dainville and Arras France 10J34 Reiss 2012 The Black Count 24 Fernand Gaudu Les Davy de La Pailleterie seigneurs de Bielleville en Caux Rouen Revue des Societes savantes de Haute Normandie no 65 1972 43 Robert Landru A propos d Alexandre Dumas Les aieux le general le bailli premiers amis Vincennes R Landru 1977 22 a b c d e f Letter from M de Chauvinault former royal prosecutor in Jeremie Saint Domingue to the Count de Maulde 3 June 1776 privately held by Gilles Henry Note It says Dumas s father then known as Antoine de l Isle bought from a certain Monsieur de Mirribielle a negress named Cesette at an exorbitant price then after living with her for some years sold the negress Cezette along with her two daughters to a baron from Nantes Original French il achetais d un certain Monsieur de Mirribielle une negresse nommee Cesette a un prix exhorbitant qu il a vendu a son depart avec les negres cupidon la negresse cezette et les enfants a un sr barron originaire de nantes The spelling of her name varies within the letter a b Count de Maulde s request at the Parliament 30 November 1778 Archives departementales du Pas de Calais Dainville and Arras France 10J35 Tom Reiss The Black Count Glory Revolution Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo New York Crown Publishers 2012 pp 13 14 and 49 Gilles Henry Alexandre Dumas Les dessous d une legende La veritable histoire de Monte Cristo Historia Magazine May 2002 42 67 Leroux to Maulde 8 July 1773 Archives departementales du Pas de Calais Dainville and Arras France 10J26 Gilles Henry Les Dumas Le secret de Monte Cristo Paris France Empire 1999 47 Jacobo Valcarcel A black slave Marie Cesette Dumas GuinGuin Bali website 3 February 2010 accessed 16 October 2012 a b c Marriage contract and marriage certificate both 28 November 1792 Musee Alexandre Dumas Villers Cotterets France A copy of the certificate is also held in Archives de l Aisne Laon France 304 E 268 Judgment in a dispute between Alexandre Dumas named as Thomas Rethore and his father s widow Marie Retou Archives Nationale de France LX465 En consideration des obligations cy dessus contractees par led S Rethore es par suite de la presente transaction Mad DeMarquise de la Pailleterie a par les presentes cede es transporte aud S Rethore ce acceptans tous les droits de propriete quelle a et pouvoir avoir sur Marie Cezette negresse mere dud S Rethore Jeannette es Marie Rose Creoles filles de lad Cezette es sœurs dud S Rethore es sur leurs enfans nes es a Naitre consentant quil exerce lesd droits es en jouisse fasse es dispose en toute propriete es Comme de Choses lui appartenant au Moyen des presentes mad De dela Pailleterie se dessaisissans a son profit de tous les droits de propriete quelle pouvais avoir sur lesd negresses cy devans nommees es leurs Enfans Translation Considering the obligations contracted above by the said Mr Rethore and following the present transaction the Lady Marquise de la Pailleterie has by the present yielded and carried to the said Mr Rethore thus accepting all the property right that she has and has the power to have over Marie Cezette negress mother of the said Mr Rethore Jeannette and Marie Rose Creoles daughters of the said Cezette and sisters of the said Mr Rethore and over their children whether they were born or will be born agreeing that he exercise these rights and benefits from them and dispose in full property and As Things that bring her by the Means of the present document the Lady de la Pailleterie relinquishing to his profit of all the ownership rights that she used to have on the said negresses named before and their Children Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 14 Service historique de l Armee de terre G D 2 S 91 Dossier Dumas de la Pailleterie Thomas Alexandre certificat de services cited by Erick Noel Une carriere contrariee Alexandre Dumas homme de couleur et general revolutionnaire Etudes Francaises no 5 March 1998 61 Registry of the Dragoons in the Regiment of the Queen Dumas entry the name is spelled Cecette 2 June 1786 privately held by Gilles Henry a b Judgment in a dispute between Alexandre Dumas named as Thomas Rethore and his father s widow Marie Retou Davy de la Pailleterie Archives Nationale de France LX465 His mother s name is Marie Cesette Dumas spelled Cezette and referred to as Marie Cezette negress mother of Mr Rethore Marie Cezette negresse mere dud dudit S Rethore Gilles Henry Les Dumas Le secret de Monte Cristo Paris France Empire 1999 73 Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson Le general Alexandre Dumas Soldat de la liberte Sainte Foy Quebec Les Editions Quisqueya Quebec 1977 25 Albert M Paka Felix Eboue 1884 1944 gouverneur general de l Afrique equatoriale francaise Premier resistant de l Empire Grand Francais grand Africain Paris Editions L Harmattan 2008 Note The francophone novelist Calixthe Beyala suggested that the name Dumas was initially Duma of Fang origin meaning dignity Hans Werner Debrunner Presence and Prestige Africans in Europe A History of Africans in Europe before 1918 Basel Basler Afrika Bibliographien 1979 128 Note Debrunner suggests she was more likely of Yoruba or Dahomey origin given slave trading patterns Antoine Vincent Arnault Antoine Jay Etienne de Jouy and Jacques Marquet de Norvins Dumas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie in Biographie nouvelle des contemporains v 6 Paris 1822 160 Marie Nicolas Bouillet Dictionnaire universel d histoire et de geographie 9th ed pt 1 Paris Librairie de L Hachette 1852 525 Alphonse Rabbe Claude Augustin Charles Vieilh de Boisjoslin and Francois Georges Binet de Boisgiroult baron de Sainte Preuve Dumas Alexandre Davy in Biographie universelle et portative des contemporains v 2 Paris 1834 1469 Eugene de Mirecourt Les contemporains Alexandre Dumas Paris Gustave Havard 1856 10 Edmond Chevrier Le general Joubert d apres sa correspondance Etude historique Paris Fischbacher 1884 98 Andre Maurel Les Trois Dumas Paris Librairie illustree 1896 3 Philippe Le Bas Dumas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie in Dictionnaire encyclopedique de la France v 6 Paris 1842 773 Mullie Charles 1852 Dumas Alexandre Davi de la Pailleterie Biographie des celebrites militaires des armees de terre et de mer de 1789 a 1850 in French Paris Poignavant et Compagnie p 462 Alexandre Dumas fils Preface in Frederic Febvre Journal d un comedien 1870 1894 v 2 Paris Paul Ollendorff 1896 vii Percy Fitzgerald The Life and Adventures of Alexandre Dumas v 1 London 1873 1 2 Anonymous Contributors Club The Dumas Lineage Atlantic Monthly January 1896 142 This article describes her as colored saying that she can hardly have been a full blooded negress because she could not have had fully African ancestry because she had all the education and energy to take charge of all the details of the marquis s property Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson Le general Alexandre Dumas Soldat de la liberte Sainte Foy Quebec Les Editions Quisqueya Quebec 1977 49 51 Par devant le notaire public du departement de Seine et Oise etait present Thomas Dumas Davy de La Pailleterie connu et nomine Dumas general de division demeurant a Villers Cotterets departement de l Aisne Lequel a fait et constitue pour son procureur general et special Marie Cezette sa mere a la quelle il donne pouvoir de pour lui et en son nom d agir gerer et administrer les biens terres habitations et proprietes appartenant au constituant comme fils et heritier d Antoine Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie son pere le tout situe cote et ile de Saint Domingue de se mettre en possession du tout pour et au nom du constituant et generalement faire par ladite procuratrice constitue tout ce que sa prudence et les circonstances exigeront le constituant entendant conferer a ladite procuratrice constitute tous les pouvoirs les plus illimites pour la regie desditeshabitations et autres proprietes encore bien qu elles ne soient pas litteralement enoncees ou representees Legal document 8 November 1801 quoted in Raphael Lahlou Alexandre Dumas ou le don de l enthousiasme Paris Bernard Giovanangeli 2006 13 antique syntax in Lahlou Claude Ribbe Le diable noir Biographie du general Alexandre Dumas 1762 1806 pere de l ecrivain Monaco Alphee 2008 and 2009 14 15 Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 91 Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 57 a b Registry of the Dragoons in the Regiment of the Queen Dumas entry 2 June 1786 privately held by Gilles Henry Ernest Roch Le General Alexandre Dumas Bulletin de la Societe Historique de Villers Cotterets 2 1906 p 91 quoted by Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 109 The first letter he signed Alex Dumas appears to be General Dumas to Minister of War Bouchotte 11 January 1794 Service historique de la Defense Vincennes France 3B9 Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 4 Registry of the Dragoons in the Regiment of the Queen Dumas entry 2 June 1786 privately held by Gilles Henry quoted Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 91 Author unknown Le general Alexandre Dumas homme de couleur n d 1797 Bibliotheque nationale de France NAF 24641 quoted by Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 325 Arthur Davidson Alexandre Dumas pere His Life and Works Philadelphia Lippincott 1902 4 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 54 55 Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 59 Delisson to the Count de Maulde 25 June 1786 Archives departementales du Pas de Calais Dainville and Arras France 10J35 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 83 87 Marriage contract between Marie Retou and Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie 13 February 1786 privately held by Gilles Henry Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 21 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 91 92 Note One law required non whites living in Paris to carry special identification A 1780 law prohibited non whites from using the titles Sieur or Madame Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 21 22 Six Georges 1934 Dumas Thomas Alexandre Davy Dictionnaire biographique des generaux et amiraux francais de la Revolution et de l Empire 1792 1814 in French Vol 1 Paris Librairie Historique et Nobilaire pp 394 395 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 102 115 Reiss The Black Count pp 120 156 157 Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 129 130 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 133 145 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 145 146 150 Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 40 quoted by Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 152 National Convention decree 22 December 1793 Service historique de la Defense Vincennes France 7YD91 and memo published in Le Moniteur 24 December 1793 reprinted in Reimpression de l ancien Moniteur Vol 19 1863 Executive Council decree 28 December 1793 Musee Alexandre Dumas Villers Cotterets France cited Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 152 153 a b Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 160 176 114 S H A T G D 2 S 91 Dossier Dumas de la Pailleterie Thomas Alexandre ampliation du 15 thermidor an II cited by Erick Noel Une carriere contrariee Alexandre Dumas homme de couleur et general revolutionnaire Etudes Francaises no 5 March 1998 69 70 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 177 183 Henri Bourgeois Biographies de la Vendee militaire Alexandre Dumas Lucon France M Bideaux 1900 23 quoted in Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 181 Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 183 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 190 204 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 204 207 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 206 214 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 218 237 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 240 251 J Christopher Herald Bonaparte in Egypt London H H Hamilton 1962 213 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 260 263 John G Gallaher General Alexandre Dumas Soldier of the French Revolution Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press 1997 114 118 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 262 263 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 264 272 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 264 303 Dumas to his brothers in arms March 6 1794 SHD 3B9 quoted by Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 159 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 139 141 General Alexandre Dumas to First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte 17 October 1803 and Marie Louise Labouret Dumas to the minister of war 2 October 1814 both in Service historique de la Defense Vincennes France 7YD91 General Alexandre Dumas to First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte 29 September 1801 cited in Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 193 Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 318 Charles Glinel Alexandre Dumas et son oeuvre Reims 1884 23 Alexandre Dumas s death act 27 February 1806 Musee Alexandre Dumas Villers Cotterets France Marie Louise Labouret Dumas to Madame Carmin 4 December 1806 Musee Alexandre Dumas Villers Cotterets France Antoine Vincent Arnault Antoine Jay Etienne de Jouy and Jacques Marquet de Norvins Dumas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie in Biographie nouvelle des contemporains v 6 Paris 1822 162 Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 233 Marie Louise Labouret Dumas to the minister of war 2 October 1814 Service historique de la Defense Vincennes France 7YD91 and Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires v 1 Paris 1881 231 Marcel Cerf Le mousquetaire de la plume La vie d un grand critique dramatique Henry Bauer fils naturel d Alexandre Dumas 1851 1915 Paris Academie d Histoire 1975 Reiss 2012 The Black Count pp 327 329 Driss Sans Arcidet fr Jean Joel Bregeon La Nouvelle Revue d Histoire No 42 May June 2009 Reiss 2012 The Black Count p 330 Petition a Nicolas Sarkozy pour qu il decerne la Legion d honneur au general Dumas general dumas org Retrieved 3 September 2015 Claude Ribbe Archived from the original on 9 November 2012 Valentine Rebekah 9 July 2020 Ambition A Minuet in Power s extravagant aspirations GamesIndustry biz Retrieved 11 September 2021 Further reading Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas pere Mes memoires Vol 1 Paris 1881 Jon G Gallaher General Alexandre Dumas Soldier of the French Revolution Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press 1997 Ernest d Hauterive Un soldat de la Revolution Le General Alexandre Dumas 1762 1806 Paris 1897 Gilles Henry Les Dumas Le secret de Monte Cristo Conde sur Noiraud Corlet 1982 Andre Maurel Les trois Dumas Paris Librairie illustree 1896 Andre Maurois The Titans A Three Generation Biography of the Dumas New York Harper amp Brothers 1957 Tom Reiss The Black Count Glory Revolution Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo New York Crown Publishers 2012 Claude Ribbe Alexandre Dumas le dragon de la reine Paris Editions du Rocher 2002 Claude Ribbe Le diable noir Monaco Alphee 2008 Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson Le General Alexandre Dumas Soldat de la liberte Quebec Quisqueya Quebec 1977 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Thomas Alexandre Dumas amp oldid 1131042822, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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