by Tom Reiss
6 she reached out to Alex’s colleagues: For example, see General Joachim Murat to Marie-Louise, November 16, 1799, MAD.
7 “General Dumas has been taken”: Gazette Nationale du Moniteur, Vol. 3, September 11, 1799, no. 355.
8 the first letter I found: General Representative of the People Jourdan to the minister of war, July 25, 1799, SHD 7YD91.
9 Jourdan wielded considerable political influence: René Valentin, Le maréchal Jourdan, 1762–1833, pp. 184–207.
10 Jourdan had served with Dumas: In the Army of the North in 1794: Paul Marmottan, Le général Fromentin et l’armée du Nord (1792–1794), p. 14; at the Rhine in 1795: for Dumas’s role with Kléber, see ch. 13; for Jourdan’s presence with Kléber at the same time, see Charles Pierre Victor Pajol, Kléber: Sa vie, sa correspondance, p. 179.
11 “Citizeness Dumas, the wife”: General Representative of the People Jourdan to Minister of War Bernadotte, July 25, 1799, SHD 7YD91.
12 “Villers-Cotterêts, 24 Thermidor”: Marie-Louise to Minister of War Bernadotte, August 11, 1799, SHD 7YD91.
13 new coalition of powers: Alexander Rodger, War of the Second Coalition, 1798–1801.
14 Jews massacred in Siena: Alexander Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe, p. 157. For the collapse of the Italian “sister republics” in the face of the Austro-Russian invasion, also see Susan Nicassio, Imperial City.
15 Austro-Russian victory at Mantua: Edouard Gachot, Souvarow en Italie, chs. 12 and 14.
16 General Joubert’s death: Edmond Chevrier, Le Général Joubert: Étude sur sa vie, p. 217.
17 Republic of Rome fell on September 30: Ronald Ridley, The Eagle and the Spade, p. 4.
18 “satisfying information”: Minister of War Bernadotte to Marie-Louise, August 25, 1799, SHD 7YD91.
19 Marie-Louis wrote to Barras: Marie-Louise to Member of the Directory Paul Barras, October 1, 1799, MAD.
20 Barras’s intrigue with Louis XVIII: Jean-Baptiste Capefigue, L’Europe pendant la Révolution française, pp. 236–37.
21 Small vagrant armies pillaged and looted: Broers, Napoleon’s Other War, p. 21.
22 The men in power were looking for a way out: Brown, Ending the French Revolution.
23 Bonaparte landed in France on October 9: Napoleon, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Vol. 5, p. 582.
24 the most recent news: Alan Schom, Napoleon Bonaparte, p. 203.
25 “Better the plague than the Austrians!”: Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Mémoires de M. de Bourrienne, Vol. 3, p. 19.
26 Tallyrand’s role in the coup: Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, pp. 111–17.
27 Lucien Bonaparte’s maneuvers in the Council of Five Hundred: Andrea Campi, Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of Lucien Bonaparte, Vol. 1, p. 34.
28 Volney and Collot, co-conspirators: Denis Woronoff, La république bourgeois de Thermidor à Brumaire, p. 218.
29 “I received, Citizeness, your two letters”: Member of the Directory Jean-François Moulin to Marie-Louise, October 29, 1799, MAD.
30 the Ligurian Republic: Paul Gaffarel, Bonaparte et les républiques italiennes (1796–1799), pp. 92–94; David Nicholls, Napoleon: A Biographical Companion, p. 148; Ludovic Sciout, La République française et la République de Gênes, 1794–1799, p. 50.
31 “taken prisoner of war by the Neapolitans”: Minister Bourdon to Marie-Louise, November 4, 1799, MAD Safe.
32 “to call on the Spanish government to free your husband”: Minister of the Navy and the Colonies Marc-Antoine Bourdon de Vatry to Marie-Louise, November 4, 1799, MAD Safe.
33 “Under the present special circumstances”: Christian Fischer, ed., Collection générale et complète de lettres, proclamations … de Napoléon, p. 76.
34 On the cold, gray Sunday of November 10: Schom, pp. 217–19; Dwyer, ch. 21.
35 the day was saved for Napoleon: Marcello Simonetta and Noga Arikha, Napoleon and the Rebel, pp. 3–5. (This is the source for the account, including quotations, that follows, of Lucien’s actions in support of his older brother.)
36 Joseph “Hercules” Dominguez: Bernard Gainot, Les officiers de couleur dans les armées de la République et de l’Empire, 1792–1815, p. 139.
37 Murat, now a rising star: Andrew Hilliard Atteridge, Joachim Murat, pp. 52–53.
38 “At the General Headquarters in Paris”: General Joachim Murat to Marie-Louise, November 16, 1799, MAD.
CHAPTER 21: THE DUNGEON
1 Dumas lay doubled up: Except where noted, this chapter’s account of General Dumas’s experience in prison, including quotations, relies on “Rapport fait au gouvernement français par le général de division Alexandre Dumas, sur sa captivité à Tarente et à Brindisi, ports du Royaume de Naples,” May 5, 1801, MAD Safe.
2 Enemas are one of the most common remedies: Noga Arikha, Passions and Tempers; F. A. Gonzalez-Crussi, A Short History of Medicine, p. 191; Gretchen Smith, The Performance of Male Nobility in Molière’s Comédie-Ballets, pp. 141–66; Heneage Ogilvie, “The Large Bowel and Its Functions,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 44, no. 3 (March 1951), p. 204.
3 blistering and “ear injections”: Roy Porter, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine, p. 125; James Copland, A Dictionary of Practical Medicine, p. 164; Louis Vitet, Médecine vétérinaire, vol. 2 (1771), p. 710.
4 this had not yet translated into an understanding of disease: Arikha, p. 231.
5 the very qualities of the Enlightenment: Anne Vila, Enlightenment and Pathology, ch. 3.
6 “Nearly all men die of their remedies”: Molière, Le malade imaginaire, p. 130.
7 belief that depression was the cause of everything: Arikha, p. 60.
8 age-old theory of humors: Ibid., pp. 174–75, 230, 236.
9 Dumas’s lost letters: Dumas to Marie-Louise, April 13, 1801, MAD.
10 the sperm escaping: Samuel Tissot, L’onanisme, pp. 59–60, 106; Arikha, p. 82; Raymond Stephanson, The Yard of Wit: Male Creativity and Sexuality, 1650–1750 (2004), pp. 38–42.
11 surefire way to lose your life force: Tissot, L’onanisme; Jean Stengers and Anne Van Neck, Masturbation: The History of a Great Terror, p. 163.
12 Health Advice for the Common People: Samuel Tissot, Avis au peuple sur sa santé, first published in 1761; the eleventh and final edition appeared in 1792. It was translated into English in 1766 as Advice to the People in General, Regarding Their Health.
13 article on poison: Tissot, Avis au peuple sur sa santé, pp. 223–26.
14 chocolate as medicine in the eighteenth century: Susan Terrio, Crafting the Culture and History of French Chocolate, p. 279.
15 cinchona: Jean-Louis Alibert, Dissertation sur les fièvres pernicieuses ou ataxiques intermittentes, 2nd ed. (1801).
16 Napoleon in the Saint Bernard Pass: Alexander Rodger, War of the Second Coalition, p. 175; Napoleon, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Vol. 6, pp. 274–97.
17 Napoleon on a mule: Donna Smith, The Book of Mules (2009), p. 3; Englund, Napoleon, p. 318.
18 Victory at Marengo, June 14, 1799: Rodger, p. 243.
19 planting trees of liberty: Nathan Ausubel and David Gross, Pictorial History of the Jewish People (1984), p. 198.
20 a subsequent written complaint: Giovanni Bianchi (hereafter, “Bianchi”) to “the French Generals,” January 22, 1801, MAD.
21 “Let it be known to you”: Bonaventura Certezza to Dumas, August 6 or 17, 1801, MAD.
22 “Gentlemen, French Generals, Prisoners”: Bianchi to Dumas, December 28, 1800, MAD.
23 relay the news that Dumas’s requests: For example, Bianchi to Dumas, October 31, 1800, MAD.
24 a tortuously minute exchange about a cookpot: Bianchi to Dumas, October 8, 1800, and January 31, 1801, MAD.
25 picayune exchange of letters: Bianchi to Dumas, December 31, 1800, and January 6, 1801, MAD.
26 “the number of jackets, shoes”: Bianchi to Dumas, October 31, 1800, MAD.
27 “7 ducats and 90 grani”: Bianchi to Dumas, January 8, 18
01, MAD.
28 Bianchi sent an extraordinary letter to Dumas: Bianchi to Dumas, January 22, 1801, MAD.
29 “I’m always at your disposal”: Bianchi to Dumas, October 31, 1800, and January 2, March 9, and March 12, 1801, MAD.
30 “fabric samples”: Bianchi to Dumas, March 6, 1801, MAD.
31 the subject of his confiscated property: Bianchi to Dumas, March 7, 1801, MAD.
32 “double-barreled rifle … was thrown”: Bianchi to Dumas, March 9, 1801, MAD.
33 it has been impossible to procure: Bianchi to Dumas, March 7, 1801, MAD.
34 “safer and more comfortable”: Bianchi to Dumas, March 6, 1801, MAD.
35 “to wear the cockade of your nation”: Bianchi to Dumas, March 13, 1801, MAD.
36 Cardinal Ruffo had created a cockade: John A. Davis, Naples and Napoleon, p. 117.
37 Napoleon sends General Murat to lead an army: Richard Dunn-Pattison, Napoleon’s Marshals, p. 29.
38 Il re Gambalesta: Silvio Maurano, La Repubblica partenopea, pp. 49, 53.
39 Murat acting on orders from the minister of war: Napoleon, Correspondance, Vol. 6, p. 481.
40 King Ferdinand and General Murat: Jean Tulard, Murat, pp. 102–8.
41 by the end of March, Dumas was on a ship: Dumas to Marie-Louise, April 13, 1801, MAD.
42 “I have the honor of informing you”: Dumas to the government of France, April 13, 1801, MAD.
43 “if by luck she is still of this world”: Dumas to Marie-Louise, April 13, 1801, MAD.
44 “has kissed a thousand times”: Dumas to Marie-Louise, April 28, 1801, MAD.
CHAPTER 22: WAIT AND HOPE
1 “What dark and bloody secrets”: MM, p. 218.
2 Napoleon’s government: Isser Woloch, Napoleon and His Collaborators, ch. 2.
3 “It is founded on the true principles”: Will Durant and Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon (1975), p. 166.
4 Napoleon’s suppression of the press: Woloch, ch. 7.
5 “The terror he inspires”: Andrea Stuart, The Rose of Martinique, p. 303.
6 “I promise to avenge myself”: Marie-Louise to Dumas, May 27, 1801, MAD.
7 reunited in Paris: Dumas to Marie-Louise, June 4, 1801, MAD.
8 his claim would be high on the list: Several letters, including Ministry of War to Dumas, December 6, 1802, MAD; and Dumas to Napoleon, October 17, 1803, SHD 7YD91.
9 “receive the sum of 500,000 francs”: French Consul in Naples Alquier to General Murat, April 22, 1801, in Joachim Murat, Lettres et documents pour servir à l’histoire de Joachim Murat, p. 296.
10 Berthier informed Dumas: Minister of War Louis-Alexandre Berthier to Dumas, September 16, 1801, BNF NAF 24641.
11 “I hope”: Dumas to Napoleon, September 29, 1801, cited in Henry, pp. 100–101.
12 “I have the honor”: Dumas to Minister of War Louis-Alexandre Berthier, February 22, 1802, SHD 7YD91.
13 “hardly showed himself”: Antoine-Vincent Arnault et al., “Dumas (Alexandre Davy-de-la-Pailleterie),” p. 162.
14 a coalition of slavers: Pierre Branda and Thierry Lentz, Napoléon, l’esclavage, et les colonies, 52–61; Thomas Pronier, “L’implicite et l’explicite dans la politique de Napoléon,” in Yves Benot and Marcel Dorigny, eds., Le rétablissement de l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises, pp. 61–66.
15 a banquet by Charles de la Pailleterie’s old rivals: Maurice Begouen-Demeaux, Mémorial d’une famille du Havre, cited by Erik Noël, “La fortune antillaise des Delahaye-Lebouis,” p. 667.
16 exports of Saint-Domingue: Branda and Lentz, p. 137.
17 proposal for lifting the French ban: Ibid, p. 54.
18 replaced the minister of the navy and colonies and seeded pro-slavery figures: Ibid, pp. 52–61.
19 “The regime of the French colonies”: Constitution of the Year VIII, article 91.
20 a double game: Wanquet, La France et la première abolition de l’esclavage, pp. 521–656; Branda and Lentz, pp. 47–74; and Yves Benot, La démence coloniale sous Napoléon, pp. 15–56.
21 “Remember, brave Negroes”: Napoleon, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Vol. 6, p. 54.
22 he made a secret decision: Benot, p. 355.
23 size of armada: Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World, p. 253.
24 Napoleon wrote to a Martinique planter: Philippe R. Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon, p. 46.
25 Toussaint Louverture: Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint Louverture: A Biography.
26 –10: Isaac and Placide Louverture: This account of Toussaint Louverture’s sons’ experience in Paris, including quotations, is based on Isaac Louverture, “Mémoires d’Isaac Toussaint,” in Antoine Marie Thérèse Métral, Histoire de l’expédition des Français à Saint-Domingue, sous le consulat de Napoléon Bonaparte, pp. 227–324.
27 “His iron frame”: C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins, p. 365.
28 “It is not enough”: General Leclerc to Minister of the Navy Decrès, August 25, 1802, quoted by Carolyn Fick, “La résistance populaire au corps expéditionnaire du Général Leclerc et au Rétablissement de l’esclavage à Saint-Domingue (1803–1804),” in Benot and Dorigny, eds., p. 139.
29 Napoleon gave Leclerc strict orders: Napoleon’s instructions to General Leclerc, quoted by Ibid., p. 130.
30 illegally sold into slavery: Léo Élisabeth, “Déportés des Petites Antilles françaises, 1801–1803,” in Benot and Dorigny, eds., pp. 77–83.
31 More than forty thousand French soldiers died: David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, p. 178.
32 killed by deliberate asphyxiation: Laurent Dubois, Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, p. 40.
33 welcomed some whites: Ibid.
34 French forces also invaded Guadeloupe: Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804, pp. 317–422; Henri Bangou, La révolution et l’esclavage à la Guadeloupe, 1789–1802, pp. 118–43.
35 La Soufrière and Louis Delgrès: Dubois, pp. 236, 239, 353–400; Bernard Gainot, Les officiers de couleur dans les armées de la République et de l’Empire 1792–1815, p. 88.
36 National Colonial Institute: This account of the closing of the Institute, including quotations, relies on Gainot, pp. 160–63.
37 Ferdinand Christophe: Deborah Jenson, Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution, pp. 196–205; Gainot, pp. 161–62.
38 “[She] saw a young man”: Jenson, Beyond the Slave Narrative, pp. 203–4.
39 “without even having been made a Chevalier”: MM, p. 231.
40 “pass on with pleasure”: Marshal of the Empire Murat to Dumas, August 16, 1804, MAD.
41 Napoleon’s true position on slavery in the French Empire: Law of 30 Floréal, Year X (May 20, 1802), in Claude Wanquet, La France et la première abolition de l’esclavage, 1794–1802, p. 641; see also Patrick Geggus, The World of the Haitian Revolution, p. 194.
42 law banning all officers and soldiers of color: Law of 9 Prairial, Year X (May 29, 1802), in Wanquet, p. 647.
43 “blacks, mulattos, and men of color … from entering”: Law of 13 Messidor, Year X (July 2, 1802), in J. B. Duvergier, Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, réglements, et avis du conseil-d’état, Vol. 13, p. 485.
44 “the intention of the government that no act of marriage”: Law of 18 Nivôse, Year XI (January 8, 1803), in Jean-Simon Loiseau, Dictionnaire des arrêts modernes, Vol. 2 (1809), p. 449.
45 a mulatto servant in Napoleon’s own household: Stuart, p. 396.
46 General Dumas would need to request a special dispensation: Report by M. Duchateau to the minister of war, between May 21 and June 19, 1802, SHD 7YD91.
47 so he wouldn’t be deported: Napoleon’s regime sought to deport people of color out of the French mainland in the summer of 1802: Élisabeth, p. 92.
48 “no longer worthy of the cause”: Dumas (then commanding the First Division of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle) to War Minister Aube
rt du Bayet, February 3, 1796, SHD 7YD91.
49 another folder of letters: SHD XH3.
50 Black Pioneers: John Elting, Swords Around a Throne, pp. 274–75; Gainot, pp. 166–83.
51 asking his comrade generals to help him: Marshal Joachim Murat to Dumas, August 16 and October 28, 1804, MAD.
52 “colored men who will be treated”: Consuls of the Republic, decree, December 4, 1802, SHD 1XH3.
53 dozens of long and eloquent letters: SHD XH3.
54 Royal African Regiment: Gainot, pp. 204–11.
55 “Africans”: Ibid., pp. 177–78, 228.
56 birth of the third child: Alexandre Dumas’s birth certificate, July 24, 1802, Registres d’état civil, ADA.
57 “before the Egyptian campaign”: MM, p. 198.
58 Dumas wrote to an old friend: Dumas to General Brune, July 26, 1802, BNF NAF 24641.
59 “a superstition”: Brune to Dumas, July 29, 1802, quoted in MM, pp. 198–99.
60 Labouret standing in for Brune: Ibid., p. 198.
61 “As soon as the current war”: Dumas to Napoleon, October 17, 1803, SHD 7YD91.
62 “Whatever my sufferings”: Dumas to the minister of war, May 5, 1801, SHD 7YD91.
63 “It was my father’s naked form” and “my father’s grand form”: MM, p. 202.
64 “I adored my father” and “On his side, too”: MM, pp. 224–25.
65 cancer diagnosis and visit to doctor in Paris: Charles Glinel, Alexandre Dumas et son oeuvre, p. 23.
66 “My father embraced Brune”: MM, p. 217.
67 visit to Pauline Bonaparte and “A woman reclined on a sofa”: Ibid., pp. 219–20.
68 a note inviting “Madame Dumas”: Princess Pauline to “Mme Dumas” (Marie-Louise), date unknown, MAD Safe.
69 “I remember that my father”: MM, p. 221.
70 the final night: Alex Dumas’s death act, February 27, 1806, MAD, and M. Deviolaine to his cousin, February 27, 1806, MAD Safe.
71 “‘Oh!’ he cried” and next three quotations: MM, pp. 222–23, 228, 231.
72 I found a detailed inventory: Inventory of Dumas’s belongings after his death, August 25, 1806, MAD Safe.
