The Story You Didn’t Know About Alexandre Dumas And His Father
«Nobody has read all Dumas… If at this moment — it was said in 1850 — there is a Robinson Crusoe in a deserted island, he surely will be reading The Three Musketeers» — André Maurois
I have just restarted to read one of my favorite books. The 3 Musketeers of Alexandre Dumas.
This time I’m reading the special edition: Los Mosqueteros (Cátedra) that in between much content, from filmography to illustrations, stands out an extensive prologue very rich in historical details about the life and ancestry of the maestro Dumas.
Specifically there is a text that got stuck deep in my mind. This text summarizes the origins of his father, his military life next to General Bonaparte and his big achievements, but what highlights the most are the few but very significant memories his son has of the little time shared with the great man who influenced, in more than one way, the extensive work of the author of The Count of Monte Cristo.
The son of a french marquis and a black slave
Between the nobility and slavery was born Thomas Alexandre (1762), the first of four mulatto brothers. His father, the Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie (or Marquis de la Pailleterie), sold him with a resale agreement in Haiti, then went back to France.
It wasn’t until 1780 that the Marquis went back to buy his firstborn, so he had him meet him in Paris where he finally recognized him as his son.
Some time later (1786), the Marquis de la Pailleterie contracted a marriage that was not to the liking of his son. Thomas Alexandre decided then to enroll in the army at age 24 but as a simple soldier, which meant, he renounced his paternal (noble) surname and adopted that of his mother, Dumas.
And that’s when it gets good.
Thomas Alexandre Dumas soon became known among his compatriots comrades in arms for his herculean strength that, among other things, allowed him, by hanging on a beam, to lift a horse from the ground holding it between the thighs — also, these physical feats did not prevent him from taking the reading of the classics as a habit — .
Dumas participated in the French Revolution (1792), became colonel at the age of 30 and married Marie-Louise Labouret. The following year he was promoted to general and had his first daughter, Marie Alexandrine. In 1796, her second daughter was born, but unfortunately she died a few months later.
Placed under the command of General Bonaparte, Thomas Alexandre was a key member of his campaign in Italy with heroic exploits, among which we can find the following ones:
On one occasion, when his soldiers stopped at a palisade, he started throwing them one by one over the palisade over an enemy who, stupefied, soon gave up.
On another occasion, he prevented a whole squadron of the opposite army to cross a bridge on his own: the Austrians nicknamed him the black devil.
In 1798 he accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt, but several generals commented on the absurdity of that campaign in which they saw just a means of the future emperor to get fame and achieve his ambitions.
Dumas joined the discontent and said to Bonaparte:
— For the glory and honor of France I’ll go around the world, but if it were just a whim of you, I’d stop at the first step.
— So you’re willing to separate from me? — asked the general in chief.
— Yes, as soon as I think that you are separating from France.
The revolt of Cairo occurred, Dumas fought without rest and, after knocking down the gates of the resistance with cannon fire, he was the first to enter on horseback to the last bastion of the resistance, where, after finishing the confrontation, he found a great treasure which delivered to his general in chief. Bonaparte, admired for his courage and grateful for his generosity, promised him that he would immortalize his great deed in a painting — he kept his word, but 12 years later, when he recalled with irritation this indomitable mulatto general, he had a blond hussar painted instead… perhaps to contrast even more with the true hero of Cairo — .
Despite an initially successful expedition into Syria, Napoleon and his Armée d’Orient were eventually forced to withdraw.
After the defeat of the French army, Dumas managed, some time later, the means to return to France in a boat with many of his wounded French soldiers. But when forced to make a stopover in the kingdom of Naples — then allied with Great Britain — , he was caught and imprisoned for 2 years.
During this time his jailers poisoned him slowly and when he was finally able to return to France in 1801, he was already part-paralyzed and prematurely aged.
Without health nor fortune — and oblivion from Bonaparte — he settled with his wife in Villers-Cotterets, where on July 24, 1802, his last and only son, Alexandre Dumas, was born.
Alexandre only shared his first 4 years of life with his father.
But he retained unforgettable memories of a father for whom he felt a deep affection, along with fleeting images of the demigods that populated the new imperial Olympus: Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, and Murat. Quoting from his Memoirs:
«I adored my father. Perhaps, at that age, that feeling that I call love today was nothing more than a naive astonishment at that Herculean structure and that gigantic force that I had seen him deploy on several occasions […] »
«… Still today, the memory of my father, in every form of his body. In every feature of his face, is as present to me as if I had lost him yesterday; it’s a fact, in short, that I still love him today; I love him with such tender affection, as deep and as real as if he had protected my childhood and as if I had the good fortune of passing from childhood to adolescence supported by his strong arm.»
General Dumas died on February 26, 1806. Two days before, he wanted to ride a horse, but the pain made him desist from this attempt, and he went to bed to not get up ever again… — his son would be inspired by this episode to tell the last days of Athos — .
The afternoon of the same 26, the family took the son of the general to his cousin’s house. At midnight, Alexandre was awakened by a loud blow that resounded in his room door, which was only accessed by two consecutive rooms that were locked. The boy got up and ran to the door. His cousin, scared, asked him where he was going.
— I’m going to open the door for dad, who comes to say goodbye to us.
His cousin held him back and made him go back to bed.
The next day they announced to little Alexandre that his father had died that midnight, and also that he won’t see him again.
— Why won’t I see him again?
— Because God has taken him with him.
— Where is God?
— In heaven.
The boy took his father’s rifle and started going up the stairs.
— Where are you going?
— I’m going to heaven, to kill God.
This article summarizes just a fragment of the great historical content found in LOS MOSQUETEROS (credits: Javier La Orden Trimollet), the magnificent book edition that Cátedra made in spanish (Colección Biblioteca Avrea); this includes “The Three Musketeers” and “Twenty Years Later”, as well as the complete filmography of The Musketeers cycle and the incredible illustrations by Maurice Leloir and R. de La Nézière.
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The original post was published in spanish, here: La Historia Que No Sabías de Alexandre Dumas y su Padre
