"Davy de la Pailleterie" is his father's family name. In his memoirs, Napoleon remembered threatening to shoot Dumas for sedition. [27] Sources have spelling variations of her name, as standardization was not common. So I made a special trip out to see this. He was born in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) in 1762. This replica of shackles and chains sits at Place du Général Catroux in Paris and is dedicated to Thomas Alexandre Dumas, an Afro-Caribbean army general who was the son of a Haitian slave. Dumas frequently commanded the legion, as Saint-Georges was often absent. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was the first known French general of color, being the son of a French plantation owner and a slave woman of African descent. Dumas soon participated in the Battle of the Pyramids (following which he chased retreating Mameluke horsemen) and the occupation of Cairo. A 1781 rule enabled men who could show four generations of nobility on their father's side to qualify to be commissioned as officers. He joined an enormous French armada in preparation for departure to a secret destination. In September, he was made commander-in-chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees. He lived with them and worked at the plantation until 1748. After the two brothers quarrelled violently,[18] Antoine left Charles's plantation, taking his three personal slaves. He participated in the French attack on Düsseldorf, where he was wounded. New Bridge. [1] He was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general, divisional general, and general-in-chief of a French army. [4] His father helped him enter the French military. Judgment in a dispute between Alexandre Dumas (named as Thomas Rethoré) and his father’s widow, Marie Retou, Archives Nationale de France, LX465. Seeing "him ride his horse over the trenches, going to ransom the prisoners, all of them believed that he was the leader of the Expedition. His father sold Marie-Cessette and her other three children before taking Thomas-Alexandre to France. Marie-Louise Labouret-Dumas to Madame Carmin, 4 December 1806, Musée Alexandre Dumas (Villers-Cotterêts, France). Under Joubert, Dumas led a small force that defeated several enemy positions along the Adige River. In November 1799, Napoleon had returned to Paris and seized power. All three were educated at a military school and pursued careers as officers in the French military. 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After he gained release in 1801, Dumas was not awarded "the pension normally allocated to the widows of generals" by the French government[85] and he struggled to support his family after his return to France. Down the street from the statue of Alexandre Dumas, which stands in the place du Docteur Jean Mouflier, lies the Alexandre Dumas Museum. [2] Dumas and Toussaint Louverture (appointed general-in-chief in 1797[3]) were the two highest-ranking officers of sub-Saharan African descent in the West until 1975, when "Chappie" James achieved the equivalent rank of four-star general in the United States Air Force. fils They had daughters Marie-Alexandrine (b. September 1794), Louise-Alexandrine (b. January/February 1796, d. 1797), and a son, Alexandre Dumas, who became a notable author, with success in plays and adventure novels. It was amazing to go here and see this incredible statue and across the street the breaking of the slave chains. Dumas's victory in opening the high Alps passes enabled the French to initiate their Second Italian Campaign against the Austrian Empire. Stationed on the Belgian frontier in the town of Maulde, on 11 August 1792 Dumas captured 12 enemy soldiers while leading a small scouting party of four to eight horsemen. During his imprisonment, he was aided by a secret local pro-French group, which brought him medicine and a book of remedies. In August 1798, Dumas discovered a large cache of gold and jewels beneath a house in French-occupied Cairo, which he turned over to Napoleon. S. Rethoré es sur leurs enfans nés es a Naitre consentant quil exerce lesd. Ricki Stevenson's Black Paris Tours, Paris Picture: DESTROYED STATUE OF THOMAS ALEXANDRE DUMAS - Check out Tripadvisor members' 307 candid photos and videos of Ricki Stevenson's Black Paris Tours Early on in the captivity, Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo tried to trade Dumas for a Corsican adventurer named Boccheciampe, an imposter posing as Prince Francis, son of Ferdinand IV, in order to aid the Holy Faith movement. Defaced statue Meanwhile, Monday also saw the opening of proceedings in Paris to judge the case of an activist who scrawled graffiti on the statue of the influential 17 th century French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert for his role in organizing the slave trade in France's colonies. In Paris today, a bronze statue of Gen. Alex Dumas’ son, the great novelist Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, and a stone sculpture of the general’s grandson, also an author, are in the same square where the general’s once stood. Dumas, you have already posed as the central figure." [75], Dumas was ordered to report to Toulon, France in March 1798 for an unspecified assignment. [11], Dumas spent his first years in the Queen's Dragoons in the provincial town of Laon, Picardy, close to the border with the Austrian Netherlands. In September 1784, while seated at Nicolet's Theater in the company of "a beautiful Creole" woman, he and his companion were harassed by a white colonial naval officer, Jean-Pierre Titon de Saint-Lamain, and one or two others. Thomas-Alexandre (later, simply Alex) Dumas was born in 1762 in Saint-Domingue to a blackguard French aristocrat named Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie and one of his black mistresses. If you are a resident of another country or region, please select the appropriate version of Tripadvisor for your country or region in the drop-down menu. The boy, his sister, and his widowed mother were plunged into deeper poverty. Dumas delayed his arrival in Paris until mid-July, and was not seen by the Committee before the Terror ended with the execution of Robespierre on 27 July 1794. Statue of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas destroyed by the Nazis during the occupation of Paris Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie ( French: [tɔmɑ alɛksɑ̃dʁ dymɑ davi də la pajət(ə)ʁi] ; also known as Alexandre Dumas ; 25 March 1762 – 26 February 1806) was a French general in Revolutionary France . Aboard the Guillaume Tell, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Dumas learned that he had been appointed as commander of all cavalry in the Army of the Orient. Relations. "[71], In September 1795 Dumas served under General Jean-Baptiste Kléber in the Army of the Rhine. On 16 January 1797, Dumas and his division halted an Austrian attempt to break out of the besieged city and prevented Austrian reinforcements from reaching Mantua. Gom pa nout mémwar Barbouy pa nout listwar But that short-lived republic had succumbed to an internal uprising by a local force known as the Holy Faith Army, led by Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, in alliance with King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples. Attractions near Monument to Alexandre Dumas: Place du General Catroux, бульвар Молишерб., 75017 Paris France, $$ - $$$ • Indian • Pakistani • Vegetarian Friendly, $$ - $$$ • French • European • Vegetarian Friendly, $$ - $$$ • Italian • Mediterranean • European, Points of Interest & Landmarks • Historic Walking Areas. His statue in Paris, destroyed by the Nazi occupant during World Word II, has yet to be replaced. [20]) Charles died of gout in 1773;[21] Louis, the youngest of the Davy de la Pailleterie brothers, died three months later. Entering the military as a private at age 24, Dumas commanded 53,000 troops as the General-in-Chief of the French Army of the Alps by age 31. General Alexandre Dumas to First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, 17 October 1803, and Marie-Louise Labouret-Dumas to the minister of war, 2 October 1814, both in Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes, France), 7YD91. Dumas had this, but the French race laws "made it hard for a man of mixed race to claim his rightful title or noble status". He focused on increasing military discipline and eliminating soldiers' abuses of the local population. For such a small museum, there is plenty to see! They also had an older half-sister, Marie-Rose, born to Marie-Cessette before Davy de la Pailleterie purchased her and began a relationship. [69] He was reassigned to lead the Army of the West from August to October 1794. ", Service historique de l'Armée de terre, G.D. 2/S 91, Dossier Dumas de la Pailleterie (Thomas Alexandre), certificat de services, cited by Erick Noël, “Une carrière contrariée: Alexandre Dumas, homme de couleur et général révolutionnaire,”. In 1762, she gave birth to their mixed-race son Thomas-Alexandre. The statue was destroyed by the German military during World War II. This sale (with right of redemption) provided both a legal way to have Alexandre taken to France with Langlois and a temporary loan to pay for his father's passage. Admire the oldest bridge in Paris constructed between 1578-1607. The only statue of him—in a country awash in marble generals—was erected in Paris more than a hundred years after his death, and then destroyed by the Nazis. There, Alexandre studied at the academy of Nicolas Texier de la Boëssière [fr], where he was given a young nobleman's higher education. [18] They resided together at a plantation called La Guinaudée[18] (Guinodée[24]), near Jérémie (formerly in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti) until shortly before Antoine's departure in 1775. For this the French began referring to him as "the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol" (after a hero who saved ancient Rome). According to biographer Tom Reiss, the name Retoré was "picked up from a neighbor in Jérémie (where the name can be found on official records of the period)". The French were thereby able to maintain the siege until French reinforcements could arrive, leading to the city's capitulation on 2 February 1797. We were surprised to find that it was a monument to Alexandre Dumas as my husband is a great fan and enjoyed reading his books. [24] Based on this date, Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson speculates that she may have died in the mass outbreak of dysentery following a hurricane that struck the Grand Anse region of Saint-Domingue. 1718, d. 1773). Nice big statue stands on a Dumas played a large role in the French Revolutionary Wars. On 15 August 1789, following the beginning of the French Revolution, his unit was sent to the small town of Villers-Cotterêts. Count de Maulde’s request at the Parliament, 30 November 1778, Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais (Dainville and Arras, France), 10J35. Letter from M. de Chauvinault, former royal prosecutor in. Dumas spent much of 1797 as military governor, administering Treviso province, north of Venice. "[76], From 7 to 21 July, Dumas commanded the invading army's cavalry as it marched south from Alexandria to Cairo. Early 20th-century picture, possibly cira 1912, of a statue of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas that stood in Place Malesherbes for thirty years, alongside statues of Alexandre Dumas’s descendants Alexandre Dumas, père (erected in 1883) and Alexandre Dumas, fils (erected in 1906), as well as one of Sarah Bernhardt, was destroyed by the Germans during the occupation of Paris 1941 … [66], On 22 December 1793, Dumas was given command of the Army of the Alps. A statue of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas is inaugurated in Place Malesherbes (today Place du Général Catroux, alongside previously existing statues of his son and grandson (the writers Alexandre Dumas père and Alexandre Dumas fils). It described his face as 'something closer to ebony' than to 'bronze. This is the version of our website addressed to speakers of English in the United States. National Convention decree, 22 December 1793, Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes, France), 7YD91, and memo published in, 114) S. H. A. T., G. D. 2/S 91, Dossier Dumas de la Pailleterie (Thomas Alexandre), ampliation du 15 thermidor an II, cited by Erick Noël, “Une carrière contrariée: Alexandre Dumas, homme de couleur et général révolutionnaire,”. He used the name "Retoré" (sometimes spelled Rethoré) during and for some years after the period in which his father sold him and then re-purchased him (1775–1776). The Adventures of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas: A Bloosmbury Reader by Catherine Johnson, Jacobo Valcárcel, "A black slave, Marie-Cesette Dumas", "Dumas (Alexandre Davï de la Pailleterie)", "Pétition à Nicolas Sarkozy pour qu'il décerne la Légion d'honneur au général Dumas", https://web.archive.org/web/20121109064245/http://www.claude-ribbe.com/index.php?option=com_petitions&view=petition&id=47&Itemid=74, Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Three Times, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas-Alexandre_Dumas&oldid=1023391800, Military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars, Names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Dumas's name is inscribed on the south wall of the, In 1913, a statue of General Dumas was erected in Place Malesherbes (now Place du Général Catroux) in. 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