The Real Count of Monte Cristo
This is some of the notes of the riveting book The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss. I've finished the book and here are some interesting stuff I've noted so far.
The Count of Monte Cristo
When I was still in primary school, my best friend happened to acquire a box of highly abridged world literature classics. I "borrowed" two of them (mea culpa, they are still with me today here in Singapore), one of them being The Count of Monte Cristo. I was never a book worm as a kid but this book captured my attention and left a deep impression on me. I was fascinated by the story of revenge.
Fast forward to university days where I started learning French, with its immense culture and history, I learnt about the names Alexandre Dumas (père et fils), which turned out to have nothing to do with horses. (大仲马/小仲马 in Chinese, I thought they were some kind of pen names. Similarly, Montesquieu (孟德斯鸠) is not related to birds.)
Fast forward to about a week ago when I got my hands on this book, I found out that actually there is a third Alexandre Dumas (grand-père I guess?), who was clearly and sadly not as well known as his son and grandson, but on the other hand, became immortal as he lives in the works of his son, the writer Alexandre Dumas père. You guessed it, he was the inspiration of the book The Count of Monte Cristo.
The Black Count
The Black Count, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, father of the writer, was actually both black and a Count. He was born in Saint Domingue, present day Haiti (which has its own fascinating history that I learnt from Hugo's InnerFrench podcast), by a white father Antoine (son of a Marquis) and a black mother Marie-Cessette Dumas (yes he took his mother's family name), and at time one was considered black even one was actually mulatto. Given that his father was the eldest son in the family, he naturally inherited the title of Marquis after the old Marquis passed away. (The story was actually not that straightforward given that there was an Uncle Charles involved, who ran sugar plantation business in Haiti and had a fallout with the elder brother; as a result, the father of the Black Count had to be presumed dead for decades. But I guess drama like this in a royal family didn't come off as surprising to me.) The Black Count, being the son of a Marquis, held the title Count. Why didn't he inherit the title Marquis after his father passed? Well, because French Revolution happened.
The Black Count returned to France at the age of 14 and started the aristocratic training. He joined the military and proved to be a tour de force, reaching all the way to the rank of divisional general. 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. He fought wars with Napoleon and during the Egyptian Campaign, locals remarked that Napoleon was quite small but Dumas was like a centaur, and they thought Dumas was actually the leading the army.
Many stories from the writer Dumas's books stem from his father, such as the three duals in one day from Three Masketeers. The escape from prison and sweet revenge was unfortunately not part of it.
Royal titles
The fact that the son of a Marquis is a Count piqued my interest to understand better the different royal titles. Here is what I found out:
- Duc / Duke / 公爵
- Marquis / Marquess / 侯爵
- Comte / Count (Earl) / 伯爵
- Vicomte / Viscount / 子爵
- Baron / Baron / 男爵
Apparently, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg is the head of state, The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Other royal titles that you might know include Kate Middleton, who is a Duchess, female version of Duke; and Earl Gray, the tea, is rumored to be related to the title "Earl Gray" in UK.
Political Left and Right
As with many modern political ideas, the term "left" and "right" come from French Revolution. Specifically, when the ancien regime was overthrown, the National Assembly had different deputies gathered in the Manège, the indoor riding hall where the Black Count took riding lessons.
The hall’s strange, narrow design, with tiered seating on both sides, caused the deputies to divide themselves according to their political opinions: radicals to the left of the Assembly’s president, conservatives to his right, the origin of the political terms "left" and "right."
Progenies
Since the Black Count was black, all his children were considered black too, which includes the writer and playwright. (One of the surprising learnings for me was to know that Alexandre Dumas père was actually mulatto.) Racism was on the rise in that period. I learnt that Balzac referred to Alexandre Dumas père as "that negro". Not something people bring up when talking about Honoré de Balzac.
Not only did the Black Count have wellknown son and grandson, the genes (which partly came from Charlemagne) seem to carry on a few more generations. To quote Wikipedia:
he and his wife had a son, Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), who would become one of France's most widely-read authors. The son's most famous literary characters were inspired by his father.[8] The general's grandson, Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895), became a celebrated French playwright in the second half of the nineteenth century. Another grandson, Henry Bauër [fr] (1851-1915), never recognized by the novelist Dumas, was a left-leaning theater-critic in the same period.[9] The General's great-grandson, Gérard Bauër [fr] (1888-1967), son of Henry Bauër, was a writer in the twentieth century. A great-great-grandson, Alexandre Lippmann (1881-1960, grandson of the playwright Dumas fils), was a two-time gold-medalist in fencing at the 1908 and 1924 Olympic games, winning silver in 1920
Summary
This is indeed a fascinating book, covering not only the story of the Black Count, but also the background of French Revolution. There are many gems I found, such as how Karl Marx and Frederick Engels met for the first time in Paris after the Revolution. If you like to read about history or French culture like I do, I can't recommend this book enough. Enjoy!