Alexandre Dumas - Early Life

Early Life

Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (later known as Alexandre Dumas) was born in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, France. He had an older sister, Marie-Alexandrine (b. before 1798). Their father was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), the mixed-race son of the marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and général commissaire in the artillery of the colony, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, a slave who was of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. It is not known whether she was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa (although the fact that she had a French surname probably means that she was Creole), nor is it known from which African people her ancestors came. Brought back to France by his father, Thomas-Alexandre was educated in a military school and joined the army as a young man. He married Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper. He took his mother's name, Dumas, after a break with his father. Thomas-Alexandre was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army. He served with distinction in the French Revolutionary Wars. Although a general under Bonaparte in the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, Thomas-Alexandre had fallen out of favor by 1800 and requested leave to return to France. On his return, his ship had to put in to Sicily, where he and others were held as prisoners of war. During his two-year imprisonment, his health was ruined. At the time of Alexandre's birth, his father was impoverished.

The father died of cancer in 1806 when Alexandre was four. His widowed mother could not provide her son with much of an education, but Dumas read everything he could. His mother's stories of his father's bravery during the campaigns of the Revolutionary Wars inspired the boy's vivid imagination. Although poor, the family had their father's distinguished reputation and aristocratic rank. In 1822, after the restoration of the monarchy, 20-year old Alexandre moved to Paris. He acquired a position at the Palais Royal in the office of Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans.