Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was the son of Alexandre-Antoine Davy de
la Pailleterie and a slave, Louise-Céssette Dumas, on the
Caribbean island colony of Saint Domingue (now called Haiti). When
his son Thomas-Alexandre proposed to join the army, his father only
agreed on condition that he did not use the de la Pailleterie name.
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas' courage and strength was a legend, and
by 1793 he was a general at 31. Following a successful campaign
with Napoleon in Egypt, Dumas seemed set for a brilliant future
- but, involved in a republican plot, he was despatched to France,
captured during the journey and imprisoned. Freed after 20 months
he was lame, deaf in one ear, partly paralysed and penniless. At
the age of 35 he had to retire to Villers-Cotterêts, a quiet
village near Paris where he had married Marie-Louise Elizabeth Labouret
in 1792.
Alexandre was born on 24 July 1802. His mother was in raptures
because of his fair skin and blue eyes. A few days before she had
seen a puppet show with a black devil called Berlick, and she had
been terrified at the prospect of giving birth to a Berlick.
The boy adored his father, who died in 1806. Told that his father
been taken away by God, the four-year-old Dumas angrily declared
his intention of going up to heaven and demanding satisfaction.
In adult life he was to fictionalise many of his father's real-life
exploits in his famous novel The Three Musketeers .
Guest-curated for the British Library by Mike Phillips
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