The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

by Tom Reiss

  26 a delegation of free men of color and the “Club Massiac”: Dubois, Avengers of the New World, pp. 75–77, 80–85.

  27 “the terror of the colonists”: Florence Gauthier, L’aristocratie de l’épiderme, p. 90.

  28 “to lose everything”: Journal encyclopédique ou universel, Vol. 8, part 2 (1790), p. 248.

  29 parlement courts were suspended and abolished: Lynn Avery Hunt, Revolution and Urban Politics in Provincial France, p. 130.

  30 “active citizens”: Law of December 22, 1789, “De la formation des assemblées pour l’éléction des représentants à l’Assemblée nationale,” in Leopold Georges Wickham Legg, ed., Select Documents Illustrative of the History of the French Revolution, p. 161. Approximately 4.3 million men, or two-thirds of the adult male population, became citizens in this way (Sutherland, p. 83).

  31 women and Republican citizenship: David A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France, p. 127; Susan G. Bell and Karen M. Offen, Women, the Family, and Freedom: 1750–1880, pp. 97–109.

  32 Nearly a million positions: Sutherland, p. 82.

  33 Alexandre and Marie-Louis were engaged: Claude Labouret to Jean-Denis Leroy, in Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dumas,” p. 92.

  34 Dumas left Villers-Cotterêts: Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dumas,” p. 92.

  35 Fête de la Fédération: Henri Gourdon de Genouillac, Paris à travers les siècles, p. 175; Henriette Dillon, Journal d’une femme de cinquante ans, Vol. 1, pp. 241–43.

  36 “The Nation, the Law, the King”: Gazette Nationale, no. 197, July 16, 1790, in Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur, Vol. 5, p. 129.

  37 “King of the French”: Ibid., p. 131.

  38 “Frenchmen, we are free”: Dictionnaire de la conversation et de la lecture, Vol. 26, p. 381.

  39 first American flag displayed outside the United States: Unger, p. 266.

  40 feasting and public balls: Gourdon, pp. 178–79; Rebecca L. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture, pp. 100–103.

  41 Louis’s apparent enthusiasm: Schama, p. 506.

  42 hundreds of thousands of aristocratic émigrés: Colin Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution, p. 199.

  43 “done their business for us as rivals”: Edmund Burke, The Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. 1, p. 451.

  44 cover story to explain Louis’s flight: Schama, p. 555.

  45 petition was drafted denouncing Louis: François-Alphonse Aulard, La Société des Jacobins: Juillet 1791 à juin 1792, Vol. 3, p. 20.

  46 royal plot to destroy republicanism: Andress, p. 191.

  47 Alex Dumas and the Sixth Dragoons also rode: Dumas to the Committee of Public Safety, January 4, 1794, SHD 3B9.

  48 Champ de Mars Massacre: Andress; Wickham Legg, pp. 110–14.

  CHAPTER 9: “REGENERATION BY BLOOD”

  1 “Remember those crusades”: Patriote françois, no. 857, December 13, 1791, reprinted in Albert Mathiez, La révolution et les étrangers: Cosmopolitisme et défense nationale, p. 61.

  2 “the forces necessary”: The Pillnitz Declaration, signed by the Austrian emperor and the king of Prussia on August 27, 1791. Text reprinted in Raymond Williams Postgate, Revolution from 1789 to 1906, p. 39.

  3 “It is a cruel thing to think”: Jeanne-Marie Roland to Bancal des Issarts, June 25, 1791, in Charles-Aimé Dauban, Ètude sur Madame Roland et son temps, p. ci.

  4 “simplicity, goodness, and that dignity”: Eloise Ellery, Brissot de Warville: A Study in the History of the French Revolution, p. 72.

  5 Washington demurred: Ellery, p. 80.

  6 slaves, pitted against the land of liberty: The rhetoric of slavery could apply to internal enemies as well, e.g., Brissot at the National Assembly on June 1, 1792: “Slaves of the Austrian system, the Montmorins and Lessarts have never been more than puppets whose main string was in Vienna; this same string controlled the committee at Versailles while the people were toppling the Bastille.” Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860, Vol. 44 (May 22–June 8, 1792), p. 445.

  7 “The War Song for the Army of the Rhine”: François Le Roy de Sainte Croix, Le chant de guerre pour l’armée du Rhin, ou la Marseillaise, pp. 38–39.

  8 “What do they want, this horde of slaves”: Second verse of the “Marseillaise” as published on September 4, 1792, in the Courrier de Strasbourg, in Le Roy de Sainte Croix, p. 15.

  9 “We cannot be at ease”: Robert Roswell Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolutions, Vol. 2 (1959–64), p. 60.

  10 “It is because I want peace”: Baron Cloots quoted in David A. Bell, The First Total War, p. 115. (See Bell’s excellent description of Cloots and the international revolutionary warmongers.)

  11 Louis de la Pailleterie military service: An official document dated 1766 refers to Louis as “Lieutenant Colonel commandant l’artillerie a Dieppe Chevalier de l’ordre royal est militaire de St Louis,” ADPC, file 26; Edouard Delobette, Ces Messieurs du Havre, p. 1243; Alexandre Mazas, Histoire de l’ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis, p. 57 (giving Louis’s ranks in the Registre des Officiers supérieurs d’artillerie avant 1789).

  12 “I lead a gang of thieves”: Count de Saint-Germain to Joseph Pâris du Verney, November 11, 1757, cited in Claude Louis, Correspondance particulière du comte de Saint-Germain, p. 1.

  13 nearly a third of central Europe: Cathal J. Nolan, The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000–1650 (2006), p. 857.

  14 “Now suppose there arises”: Jacques de Guibert, Essai général de tactique, Vol. 2, p. 16.

  15 maps: William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power, pp. 161–62.

  16 strike at the Austrian Netherlands under Biron and Dillon: Ernest d’Hauterive, L’armée sous la Révolution, 1789–1794, pp. 197–98; Edward Baines, History of the Wars of the French Revolution, Vol. 1, p. 25; Heinrich von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, Vol. 1, pp. 447–50.

  17 recently promoted to corporal: Executive Council to Dumas, September 2, 1792, SHD 7YD91, and note of the Historical Service, November 6, 1848, SHD Y7D91.

  18 recommended for court martial: d’Hauterive, p. 198.

  19 the Austrian-Prussian coalition issued another threat: The Coblentz Declaration, or “Brunswick Manifesto,” written by the Duke of Brunswick, a commander in the Prussian army, July 25, 1792, in Adolphe Thiers, The History of the French Revolution, 1789–1800, Vol. 1, pp. 296–300.

  20 Dumas at Maulde: Le Moniteur Universel, reprinted in Réimpression de l’Ancien Moniteur, Vol. 13 (1842), p. 434; Antoine-Vincent Arnault et al., “Dumas (Alexandre Davy-de-la-Pailleterie),” p. 160; Ernest Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dumas,” p. 93.

  21 Dumas’s charge: Arnault et al., p. 160.

  22 “Spotting them”: MM, p. 30.

  23 “cut [the enemy riders] off so deftly”: Le Moniteur Universel, August 18, 1792, in Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur, Vol. 13 (1842).

  24 “Citizen Dumas, American”: Dumas, letter about the event in Maulde, Gazette nationale, no. 341, December 6, 1792, in Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur, Vol. 13 (1842).

  CHAPTER 10: “THE BLACK HEART ALSO BEATS FOR LIBERTY”

  1 Verdun commander committed suicide: Colonel Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire took his own life rather than face the indignity of handing over the fortress to the Prussians. See Arthur Chuquet, La première invasion Prussienne, and “The Campaign in France,” in Miscellaneous Travels of J. W. Goethe, ed. L. Dora Schmitz (1884), p. 93, in which Goethe discusses how, in Beaurepaire’s suicide, “a trait of a republican character was presented to us … [an] example of the highest patriotic devotion.”

  2 “ardently pray”: London Times, Monday, September 10, 1792.

  3 Lafayette was arrested by the Prussians: Harlow G. Unger, Lafayette, p. 290.

  4 “Here and now a new epoch”: Richard Friedenthal and Martha Friedenthal-Haase, Goethe: His Life and Times, p. 313.

  5 Edict of Fraternity: “Décret qui promet secours et fraternité à tous les peuples qui voudront recouvrer leur liberté,” November
19, 1792, in A Collection of Addresses Transmitted by Certain English Clubs and Societies to the National Convention of France, p. 19.

  6 “free legions”: Bernard Gainot, Les officiers de couleur dans les armées de la République et de l’Empire, 1792–1815, pp. 22–33.

  7 their own legions: Belgian legion and Germanic legion: Gainot, p. 32; English legion: Adam Zamoyski, Holy Madness, p. 79.

  8 legion of “Vandals”: Marita Gilli, Le Cheminement de l’idée européenne dans les idéologies de la paix et de la guerre, p. 43.

  9 The group was led by Julien Raimond: Gainot, pp. 33–38.

  10 “Free Legion of Americans”: “Formation du Régiment d’hussards américains et du Midy, d’après le décrêt du 7 septembre,” 1792, SHD XK9.

  11 Saint-Georges: Jean Fougeroux de Campigneulles, Histoire des duels anciens et modernes, pp. 300–303; J.C. Prodhomme, “Le chevalier de Saint-Georges, escrimeur et musicien,” Les annales coloniales, no. 51 (March 1936), pp. 38–41; Gainot, pp. 43, 49; Erick Noël, “Saint-Georges, Un chevalier de sang mêlé dans la Société les Lumières,” pp. 131–53; Gabriel Banat, The Chevalier de Saint-Georges; Pierre Bardin, Joseph de Saint George, le Chevalier Noir, pp. 59–61.

  12 Hussars of Liberty and Equality: Executive Council document, September 2, 1792, SHD 7YD91.

  13 Dumas’s commission with the Hussards of the South: Ibid.

  14 Dumas joined up with the Americans: Approval of Dumas’s nomination as lieutenant-colonel in the Legion, September 15, 1792, SHD XK9; also see Léon Hennet, État militaire de France pour l’année 1793, p. 222.

  15 Dumas’s commission with the Black Legion: Military report dated September 15, 1792, SHD XK9; minister of war to Dumas, October 10, 1792, MAD Safe.

  16 law reaffirming the freedom principle: Declared by the National Assembly, September 18, 1791, “sanctioned” by the king on October 16. Collection générale des décrets rendus par l’Assemblée Nationale, Mois de Septembre 1791, deuxième partie, p. 725.

  17 lobbyists to work the deputies: Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World, pp. 85–90.

  18 Julien Raimond: On Raimond’s life and his efforts on behalf of free blacks, see Dubois, pp. 60–83, and John D. Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue.

  19 “new whites”: Garrigus, p. 220.

  20 “that there will be no change”: Abbé Grégoire, Lettre aux philantropes sur les malheurs, les droits et les réclamations des gens de couleur de Saint-Domingue, p. 12.

  21 French colonies received word: Dubois, pp. 80, 98.

  22 ten insurgents killed for every white death: Jeremy D. Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution, p. 42.

  23 “The black heart also beats”: Brissot, December 1, 1791, in Claude Wanquet, La France et la première abolition de l’esclavage, 1794–1802, p. 27.

  24 full citizenship to freed blacks: “Décret relatif aux moyens d’apaiser les troubles des colonies,” April 4, 1792, in J. B. Duvergier, Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, réglements, avis du conseil-d’état, Vol. 4, pp. 90–91.

  25 “sale, impression, or distribution”: Dubois, p. 103.

  26 “If Nature, inexhaustible”: Gainot, p. 35.

  27 “Sirs, Virtue in Honor”: Ibid.

  28 “The future marriage between citizen”: Marriage contract, November 28, 1792, ADA 304E268.

  29 “Citizen” and “Citizeness”: Gabriel Demante, Définition légale de la qualité de citoyen, pp. 25–26.

  30 “will not suffer the title”: Excerpt from the Patriote François, printed in Le Moniteur Universel, no. 270, September 26, 1792, in Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur, Vol. 14 (1858), p. 39.

  31 The couple were married: Marriage contract, November 28, 1792, ADA 304E268.

  32 Dumas père’s baptism: Alexandre Dumas to General Brune, July 26, 1802, BNF NAF 24641; baptism certificate, Registres d’état civil, Commune de Villers-Cotterêts, ADA.

  33 “Citizen Louis Augustin”: Dumas’s and Marie-Louise’s marriage certificate, November 28, 1792, MAD Safe.

  34 Espagne rising to Count of the Empire: Charles Mullié, Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850, Vol. 1, pp. 497–98.

  35 “widow of the late Anoine”: Dumas’s and Marie-Louise’s marriage certificate, November 28, 1792, MAD Safe.

  36 reconciliation between Dumas and Retou: Judgment in the dispute between Thomas Rethoré/Retoré and Marie Retou, November 22, 1786, AN LX465.

  37 financial conditions of the marriage, including quotation: Marriage contract, November 28, 1792, ADA 304E268.

  38 The honeymoon was brief: The town gave Dumas a certificate verifying that he was a “good citizen,” dated December 15, 1792, which suggests he left on that day—or at the very least shortly after (certificate, December 15, 1792, SHD 7YD91). According to Ernest Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dumas,” p. 94, Dumas left seventeen days after his wedding.

  39 first child: Alexandrine Aimée’s birth certificate, September 10, 1793, ADA.

  40 evolution of the Legion: Jacques de Cauna, Haïti: L’éternelle révolution (2009), p. 211; Bardin, p. 153; Banat, p. 380; Gainot, pp. 51–54; and Erick Noël, “Une entreprise originale—La Légion Noire de a Révolution,” p. 233.

  41 “As the head of the regiment”: MM, p. 34.

  42 “[Dumas] led his young warriors”: Antoine-Vincent Arnault, “Dumas (Alexandre Davy-de-la-Pailleterie),” pp. 160–61. The [correct] name of the city is “Mouvaux.”

  43 Saint-Georges going to Lille: Ernest d’Hauterive, Un soldat de la Révolution: Le Général Alexandre Dumas (1762–1806), pp. 32–33.

  44 Saint-Georges going to Paris: Erick Noël, “Saint-Georges: Un chevalier de sang mêlé dans la société des Lumières,” p. 143.

  45 Saint-Georges accused: Banat, pp. 380–81 (citing a letter from General Dufrenne, May 2, 1793, SHD, 2Y); Noël, “Saint-Georges …,” p. 175.

  46 “As Saint-Georges’s books” and following three quotations: MM, pp. 55–56.

  47 neither a reprimand nor a summons: d’Hauterive, p. 32; Banat, p. 381.

  48 Alex Dumas promoted to brigadier general: Provisional Executive Council, letter signed by the minister of war, July 30, 1793, MAD Safe.

  CHAPTER 11: “MR. HUMANITY”

  1 Dumas promoted to general of division: Administrative note from the Ministry of War, November 6, 1848, SHD 7YD91.

  2 civilian “commissioners”: Established by decree on April 9, 1793. See Henri Wallon, Histoire du tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, Vol. 4, p. 95; Gunther Erich Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, p. 111.

  3 “to encourage the others”: Biographie universelle et portative des contemporains, Vol. 4 (1834), p. 464. During 1793–94, 84 generals were executed and 352 fired (David Bell, The First Total War, p. 151).

  4 “You no longer have any reason”: “Rapport sur la nécessité de déclarer le gouvernement provisoire de la France révolutionnaire jusqu’à la paix,” in Alexis Eymery, Choix de rapports, opinions et discours prononcés à la Tribune Nationale depuis 1789 jusqu’à ce jour, pp. 118–30.

  5 “the Organizer of Victory”: On Carnot, see A. Picaud, Carnot: L’organisateur de la victoire; and Marcel Reinhard, Le Grand Carnot. (For more on Carnot’s important contributions to mathematics, see Gert Schubring, Conflicts Between Generalization, Rigor and Intuition, Section V, pp. 309–69.)

  6 levée en masse: Bell, pp. 148–51. (Essentially every other Western power would institute conscription during the Napoleonic wars.)

  7 increased France’s troop strength: Colin Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution, p. 147–55, 156; Gregory Freemont-Barnes, The French Revolutionary Wars, p. 33.

  8 “The pike is the arm of liberty”: John A. Lynn, “French Opinion and the Military Resurrection of the Pike, 1792–1794,” p. 4. Carnot was a vehement propagandist on behalf of pikes; see his July 25, 1792, speech to the Legislative Assembly encouraging the distributi
on of pikes to all soldiers and citizens (Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860, Vol. 47, p. 122).

  9 “Pikes began the revolution”: Etienne Cabet, Histoire Populaire de la Révolution Française, Vol. 2, p. 511.

  10 pikes: On French attitudes about pikes, see Lynn; on pikes as a medieval battlefield weapon, see J. F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages.

  11 “If we have not been either Spartans”: Bell, p. 139.

  12 “Strike en masse”: From the “general rules” regarding military operations issued by Carnot and the Committee of Public Safety on February 2, 1794 (Journal des sciences militaires, Vol. 13 [1902], p. 354).

  13 many letters signed by Carnot: The extant letters from Carnot and the Committee of Public Safety can be found in SHD 3B9, SHD 7YD91, and in MAD.

  14 “has given up his profession”: Oscar Browning, Napoleon, the First Phase, p. 178.

  15 “What a fool!”: Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Mémoires de M. de Bourrienne, p. 51.

  16 Dumas’s general politics: For Dumas’s expressions of republicanism, see Dumas to the Municipality of Ferrera, August 19, 1797, SHD V3B118; Dumas to the Directory, September 24, 1797, BNF NAF 24641; and Dumas to Marie-Louise, May 12, 1801, MAD.

  17 Alexandrine Aimée: Birth certificate, Registres d’état civil, Villers-Cotterêts, ADA.

  18 Dumas rode to Villers-Cotterêts: Claude Labouret, letter to a friend, September 20, 1793, cited in Ernest Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dubois,” p. 95.

  19 Dumas appointed commander-in-chief: Alex Dumas to Minister of War Bouchotte, September 15, 1793, SHD 7YD91; Minister of War Bouchotte to the Convention, September 9, 1793, published in Le Moniteur, September 10, 1793, reprinted in Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur (1840), p. 17.

  20 “This appointment”: Minister of War Bouchotte to Alex Dumas, September 11, 1793, cited in MM, p. 35.

  21 “The General”: Claude Labouret, letter to a friend, September 20, 1793, cited in Roch, “Le Général Alexandre Dumas,” p. 95.