by Tom Reiss
33 the standard account of the novel’s origin: Dumas’s version is repeated in, for example, David Coward, “Introduction,” in Alexandre Dumas (père), The Count of Monte Cristo, ed. David Coward (Oxford, 2008), pp. ix–xxi; Harry Ashton-Wolfe, True Stories of Immortal Crimes, pp. 15–33; Arthur Davidson, Alexandre Dumas, père: His Life and Works, pp. 258–61. An exception is Gilles Henry, Les Dumas: Le secret de Monte Cristo.
34 Dumas wrote in an essay: Alexandre Dumas (père), “État-civil du Comte de Monte-Cristo.”
35 influence on pop culture and Batman: See Luc Sante, “Introduction,” in Alexandre Dumas (père), The Count of Monte Cristo, p. xxv.
36 “that negro”: Philibert Audebrand, Alexandre Dumas à la Maison d’Or, pp. 49–50.
37 “Scratch Monsieur Dumas’s hide”: Eugène de Mirecourt, Fabrique de romans, p. 7.
38 One well-known caricature: “Nouvelle bouillabaisse dramatique par M. Dumas père” (about Dumas’s five-act play Les Gardes Forestiers), Le Charivari, 1858, Collection de la Société des Amis d’Alexandre Dumas.
39 “many self-proclaimed Nietzscheans”: Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, trans. Joseph A. Buttigieg, Vol. 3 (2011), p. 382.
40 “dedicated to the life”: Brochure, Musée Alexandre Dumas.
41 looking into the matter, and following quotations: Conversations with Deputy Mayor Fabrice Dufour, February and March 2007, Villers-Cotterêts.
42 a little castle that General Dumas had rented: Ernest Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dumas,” p. 105.
43 the house where Dumas died: Ibid., pp. 107–8.
44 “What’s an adventure”: Conversation with François Angot, March 2007, Villers-Cotterêts.
BOOK
ONE CHAPTER 1: THE SUGAR FACTORY
1 Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie’s birth: Baptism certificate, parish of Bielleville, October 8, 1714, Registres paroissiaux, ADSM.
2 “without ceremony”: Ibid.
3 firstborn son: Document about Antoine’s property sales and the Count de Maulde, March 16, 1776, ADPC 10J34c.
4 an old family: Alexandre Mazas, Histoire de l’ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis, Vol. 2, p. 58. Mazas cites a May 8, 1755, letter sent to the minister of the navy, referring to the Davy de la Pailleterie family as “a good noble family … [its] origins are also known by an ennobling under Louis XI, nearly 300 years ago.”
5 “I loved war too much”: Voltaire, Histoire du siècle de Louis XIV, p. 81.
6 family’s coat of arms: Testimony about the Davy family, 1770, BNF NAF 24641, refers to “French Armories, Volume I, Part I, pg. 183”; François-Alexandre Aubert de La Chesnaye Des Bois, Dictionnaire généalogique, héraldique, chronologique et historique, Vol. 4, p. 546; Gustave Chaix d’Est-Ange, Dictionnaire des familles françaises anciennes ou notables à la fin du XIXe siècle, Vol. 15 (1903–29), p. 31; Henri Gourdon de Genouillac, Recueil d’armoiries des maisons nobles de France, p. 171.
7 provincial aristocrats … their fortune was not enough: Réginald Hamel, Dumas—insolite, p. 19.
8 claim the title of “marquis”: The Count de Maulde’s legal claim mentions “Messire Alexandre Antoine Davy, Chevalier Marquis de la Pailleterie,” November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35. A judgment refers to “Alexandre Davÿ Marquis de la Pailleterie,” August 9, 1786, AN Y1787.
9 limited prospects in Normandy: Fernand Gaudu, “Les Davy de La Pailleterie, seigneurs de Bielleville-en-Caux.”
10 Charles’s birth date: His baptism certificate, October 13, 1716, ADPC 10J26.
11 Louis’s birth date: His marriage certificate, June 18, 1753, ADPC 10J26.
12 sought their fortunes in the army: Louis is identified as a colonel in the Royal Artillery in Count de Maulde, legal claim, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35. Charles is identified as “ancien officier des troupes détachées de la marine à St Domingue” in a legal decision dated October 17, 1761, ADPC 10J35. Antoine joined the Corps Royal de l’Artillerie: Dumas’s marriage certificate, November 28, 1792, MAD Safe. See also Robert Landru, A propos d’Alexandre Dumas, les aïeux, le général, le bailli, premiers amis, pp. 56–57.
13 served at the front as a gentleman: Document discussing the dispute between Alexandre Dumas (then Thomas Rethoré) and his stepmother, November 22, 1786, AN LX465.
14 the king’s dashing, fabulously rich cousin: Jacques Levron, Le maréchal de Richelieu: Les trésors des princes de Bourbon Conti; Jacques Roujon, Conti: L’ennemi de Louis XIV; Jonas Boyve, Annales historiques du comté de Neuchatel et Valangin; Jonathan R. Dull, The French Navy and the Seven Years’ War, p. 23.
15 “perfect example of how not”: Karl von Clausewitz, On War, p. 403.
16 fleeing a royal arrest warrant: “Epitre XLV,” Voltaire, Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 2, p. 612.
17 Voltaire at Philipsburg: Frank Hall Standish, The Life of Voltaire, p. 141.
18 offering bon mots between bouts: “A Monsieur *** / Du camp de Philippsbourg, le 3 juillet 1734,” Oeuvres choisies de Voltaire: Poésies, pp. 234–35.
19 duel between Lixen and Richelieu: Emile Colombey, Histoire anecdotique du duel, p. 82; Levron; Jean Fougeroux de Campigneulles, Histoire des duels anciens et modernes, Vol. 1, p. 200; Augustin Grisier, Les armes et le duel, p. 47; Roger de Beauvoir, Duels et duellistes, pp. 21–22, 23; Andrew Steinmetz, The Romance of Duelling in All Times and Countries, Vol. 1, p. 221; Louis François Armand du Plessis de Richelieu, Mémoires historiques et anecdotiques du duc de Richelieu, Vol. 6, p. 5; MM, p. 17.
20 torchlit swordfight in the trenches: Hugh Noel Williams, The Fascinating Duc de Richelieu, pp. 124–25.
21 with Antoine watching: Colombey, p. 82; Steinmetz, p. 221.
22 the duke sank his blade: Louis-François Faur, Vie privée du Maréchal de Richelieu, pp. 309–11; Fougeroux de Campigneulles, p. 200; Alexandre Dumas (père), “Préface en forme de causerie ou causerie en forme de préface,” pp. 46–47; Colombey, p. 82; de Beauvoir, pp. 21–22.
23 a sort of poetic justice: Robert Baldick, The Duel: A History of Duelling, p. 79; Martine Debaisieux and Gabrielle Verdier, Violence et fiction jusqu’à la Révolution, p. 381.
24 the name Richelieu “appears so often”: MM, p. 16.
25 Antoine got out of the army: Count de Maulde, legal claim, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35.
26 Charles settled in Saint-Domingue and Antoine followed: Ernest d’Hauterive, Un soldat de la Révolution: Le Général Alexandre Dumas, 1762–1806, p. 11.
27 Marie-Anne Tuffé and her family’s plantation: Marriage certificate, February 17, 1738, ADPC 10J26 (“marie anne Tuffé”); legal decision, dispute between Charles de la Pailleterie and M. Petit des Landes, October 17, 1761, ADPC 10J35 (“Marie Anne de Tuffé”).
28 sugar as medicine: Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power, pp. 96–99.
29 “two drams of fine sugar-candy”: Quoted in ibid., p. 107.
30 “like an apothecary without sugar”: Peter Macinnis, Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar, p. 18.
31 Columbus and sugar: Mintz, p. 32.
32 Hayti in the native tongue: Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World, p. 299.
33 artisans from the Canaries: Elizabeth Abbott, Sugar: A Bittersweet History, p. 25.
34 enslaving almost everybody else: Thomas R. Martin, Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times, p. 68.
35 Greek and Roman slavery: Thomas S. Burns, Rome and the Barbarians: 100 B.C.–A.D. 400, pp. 104–6.
36 slavery not based on race: David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage, pp. 56–58.
37 nearly all slaves imported into Europe were “slavs”: Ibid., p. 82.
38 Islam and slavery: W. G. Clarence-Smith, Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. (For a contrasting view of the racial aspect to Muslim slavery, see Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800, p. 79: “By the tenth century an association between blackness and menial slavery had developed in the Muslim and Arab world: the word ‘abd,’ or black, became synonymous with sl
ave.”)
39 Ottomans diverted Europe’s supply: Davis, pp. 82–84.
40 blacks now came to be considered uniquely destined: Ibid., pp. 55, 73.
41 slaves in Madeira: Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade, p. 70.
42 bois d’ébène: Phillipe Haudrère and Françoise Vergès, De l’Esclave au Citoyen, p. 10.
43 two-thirds of France’s overseas trade: Christopher Miller, The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade, p. 26.
44 more sugar than the British West Indian colonies combined: Laurent Dubois and John Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804, p. 11.
45 most valuable colony in the world: Robert Louis Stein, The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century, p. 23.
46 one-third of all slaves died: Dubois and Garrigus, p. 8.
47 the punishment: C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint l’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, pp. 252–53.
48 eighteen hours a day: Bernard Moitt, Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848, p. 39.
49 le Code noir (the Black Code): “Le code noir ou Édit du roy, touchant la Discipline des esclaves nègres des Isles de l’Amérique française. Donné à Versailles au mois de mars 1685,” in Le Code noir et autres textes de lois sur l’esclavage, pp. 11–37.
50 Charles marrying into money: Marriage certificate, February 17, 1738, and Count de Maulde, legal claim, November 30, 1778, both ADPC 10J35.
51 Cap Français: Stewart R. King, Blue Coat or Powdered Wig, pp. 22–23.
52 Charles gets one half of the plantation: Marriage certificate, February 17, 1738, ADPC 10J26, and letter to the Count de Maulde mentioning the acquisition of the other half, March 17, 1789, ADPC 10J35.
53 sugar production: Mintz, pp. 19–22; Stein, pp. 60–61.
54 slaves for the brute fieldwork: Stein, p. 44.
55 plantations owned by people of color: John D. Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue, p. 72.
56 Antoine with his brother in Saint-Domingue: Count de Maulde, legal claim, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35.
57 Charles buys the second half of his plantation: M. Tardivy to Marianne de Maulde, June 26, 1773, ADPC 10J26; letter to the Count de Maulde mentioning the acquisition of the other half, March 17, 1789, ADPC 10J35.
58 the old marquis swore: Gaudu, p. 46, referring either to a burial certificate in the Registre paroissial de Bielleville or to a tax document (“capitation des privilégiés de l’élection de Caudebec”), in ADSM C 2223.
59 Antoine was cut from a different: Gilles Henry, Les Dumas: Le secret de Monte-Cristo, p. 18; Dominique Fernandez, Jérémie! Jérémie!, p. 85.
60 “A stay in Saint-Domingue”: Michel-René Hilliard d’Auberteuil, Considérations sur l’état présent de la colonie française de Saint-Domingue, Vol. 2, p. 24, quoted in Garraway, pp. 219–26.
61 “given to amusement”: Moitt, p. 99.
62 “Creole” had a different meaning: Doris Lorraine Garraway, The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean, p. 248.
63 “contribut[ing] to the population”: Alexandre-Stanislas de Wimpffen, Haïti au XVIIIe siècle, p. 281 of the 1817 imprint, quoted in Garraway, p. 229.
64 “to debauch negresses”: “Reglement de M. de Tracy, Lieutenant Général de l’Amérique, touchant les Blasphemateurs et la police des Isles,” in Médéric Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitution des colonies françaises de l’Amérique sous le vent de 1550 à 1785, Vol. 1 (1784–90), pp. 117–22, quoted in Garraway, p. 201.
65 “abuse of intimacy” and next quotations: De Wimpffen quoted in Garraway, pp. 207–8, 228.
66 the brothers quarrel: M. de Chauvinault to the Count de Maulde, June 3, 1776, CGH. (Maulde later maintained that Antoine’s disappearance was mysterious and without obvious cause: see his legal request, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35.)
67 parents owe money to Charles: Receipt, June 29, 1757, ADPC 10J34.
68 “full of honor”: M. de Chauvinault to the Count de Maulde, June 3, 1776, CGH.
69 Catin, Antoine’s mistress, and two other slaves: Document about debts and slaves, 1748, CGH; M. de Chauvinault to the Count de Maulde, June 3, 1776 (describes Antoine taking Catin, Rodrigue, and Cupidon with him), CGH.
70 Antoine absent for nearly thirty years: Count de Maulde’s request at the Parliament, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35.
CHAPTER 2: THE BLACK CODE
1 “Charles Edouard searched all the French possessions”: Count de Maulde, legal claim, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35.
2 Antoine had fled into the jungle: M. de Chauvinault to the Count de Maulde, June 3, 1776, CGH.
3 marron communities: Richard Price, Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, 3rd ed., pp. 107–12.
4 marron derived from cimarrón: Carolyn F. Fick, The Making of Haïti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below, p. 275.
5 Antoine had left no trace: Count de Maulde, legal claim, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35.
6 Charles’s parents die: Tax document (“Capitation des privilégiés de l’élection de Caudebec”), ADSM C 2223, cited by Fernand Gaudu, “Les Davy de La Pailleterie,” p. 46.
7 “it is not known” and “had married a wealthy woman”: M. Le Flamang, report, September 26,1760 (“Capitation des privilégiés de l’élection de Caudebec”), ADSM C 2223 (quoted in Gaudu, p. 60).
8 Grand Anse (“Great Cove”): Médéric Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue, Vol. 2.
9 communications went by sea: Keith Anthony Manuel, Slavery, Coffee, and Family in a Frontier Society: Jérémie and Its Hinterland, 1780–1789, p. 10.
10 second-most-lucrative crop: Ira Berlin, Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas, p. 124.
11 largest coffee producer: James E. McClellan III, Colonialism and Science: Saint Domingue and the Old Regime, p. 66.
12 capital to start up a coffee plantation: Stewart R. King, Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue, p. 124.
13 arpent: Robert Leslie Ellis, The Mathematical and Other Writings of R. L. Ellis, ed. William Walton (1863), p. 389.
14 settled in the parish of Jérémie: Manuel, pp. 9–16.
15 Trou Bonbon: Ibid.
16 Highland planters lived off coffee: Ibid.
17 animals: McClellan, pp. 31–33.
18 feral beasts and buccaneers: John M. Street, “Feral Animals in Hispaniola.”
19 white immigrants from the lower classes: King, p. 123.
20 Antoine in La Guinaudée: Alex Dumas’s marriage contract and certificate mention that his mother died in La Guinaudée in 1772, so we can assume that it was where Antoine had settled. November 28, 1792, MAD Safe.
21 “Antoine de l’Isle”: M. de Chauvinault to the Count de Maulde, June 3, 1776, CGH (spelled “de Lille”); Count de Maulde, legal claim, November 30, 1778, ADPC 10J35.
22 “The beginnings of Monsieur Delisle”: M. de Chauvinault to the Count de Maulde, June 3, 1776, CGH.
23 colonial records contain both assertions: Agreement between Dumas and his father’s widow, Marie Retou, November 22, 1786, AN LX465. Cessette is described as a négresse.
24 “for an exorbitant price”: M. de Chauvinault to the Count de Maulde, June 3, 1776, CGH.
25 Dumas’s birth: Minister of war to the Executive Directory, November 28, 1795, SHD 7YD91 (“dumas alexandre ne à jeremie en amerique le 25 mars 1762”). This is the first time Dumas’s date of birth is mentioned in a document. Dumas’s marriage certificate says that he was thirty years and eight months old on November 28, 1792 (abstract of the registry with the certificate of Alexandre Dumas and Marie-Louise’s marriage, November 28, 1792, MAD Safe). His certificate of enrollment in the dragoons says he was twenty-four years old in June 1786 (Registry of the Dragoons in the Regiment of the Queen, Dumas entry, June 2,
1786, CGH). The exact date is given in military notes about Dumas’s career (November 6, 1848, SHD 7YD91; March 2, 1962, SHD 7YD91; March 19, 1962, SHD 7YD91).
26 “My father’s eyes”: MM, p. 14.
27 “Free men who have one”: Code noir (1685), article 9, in Le Code noir et autres textes de lois sur l’esclavage, pp. 15–16.
28 “an empire based on libertinage”: Michel-René Hilliard d’Auberteuil, Considérations sur l’état présent de la colonie française de Saint-Domingue, Vol. 2 (quoted in Victor-Emmanuel Roberto Wilson, Le Général Alexandre Dumas: Soldat de la liberté, p. 29).
29 rights of people of color: Jeremy D. Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery, p. 64; Doris Garraway, The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean, pp. 205, 235.
30 “expel all the Jews who”: Code noir (1685), article 1, in Le Code noir et autres textes de lois sur l’esclavage, p. 12.
31 free women of color: Laurent Dubois and John Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804, pp. 13–14; Garraway, pp. 230–35; Moreau de Saint-Méry, Vol. 1, p. 105.
32 slave women’s labor: Bernard Moitt, Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848, pp. xiv, 35–36, 45–46.
33 “concubinage with slaves”: “Ordonnance des Administrateurs, concernant le concubinage avec les esclaves, du 18 Décembre, 1713,” Moreau de Saint-Méry, Vol. 2, p. 406.
34 manumission taxes: John D. Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue, p. 197.
35 no evidence of official marriage: Dumas’s marriage certificate identifies “Marie-Cessette” as Dumas’s mother and Antoine as his father but never mentions that they are married: Registry abstract with certificate of Alexandre Dumas and Marie-Louise’s marriage, November 28, 1792, MAD Safe.
36 life in Jérémie: Manuel, pp. 13, 23, 25.
37 “a courageous act”: Moreau de Saint-Méry.
38 defenses of Jérémie: Ghislaine Rey Charlier and Carrol F. Coates, “Memories of a Freedwoman,” p. 342; Moreau de Saint-Méry, Vol. 2, p. 788.
39 “slave pens”: Manuel, pp. 2–20.
40 “One isn’t admitted”: Moreau de Saint-Méry, quoted in Jean Fouchard, Le Théâtre à Saint-Domingue, p. 96.