Alexandre Dumas's father (1762-1806) won fame through a brilliant military
career under the Revolution : he started as private and it took him seven
years to become a general. Son of a French aristocrat, Alexandre Davy de
La Pailleterie, living in Santo Domingo (then Haiti), and of a black slave,
Marie-Césette Dumas, this mulatto was characterized by his exceptional
strength and his bravoury. Very close to Bonaparte during the early years
of the latter's rise, General Dumas quarreled with the future emperor during
the campaign of Egypt. Naples's kindom took him prisoner while he was going
back to France, and he spent two years in jail. When released, in 1801,
his health had seriously deteriorated. He spent the last years of his life
in Viller-Cotterêts, where Alexandre Dumas was born in 1802, and where
the general died in 1806, on February 26th. Although hardly known by the
future writer, his father will greatly influence his works. The mythical
figure of the dauntless giant appears in Dumas's novels, and Porthos is
the main example of this influence. |