Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

Born

25 March 1762

Died

26 February 1806

Born in Saint-Domingue to a Norman nobleman and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an enslaved woman, Dumas was sold by his father in 1776 under a right of redemption and bought back and freed on reaching France. He enlisted as a private dragoon in 1786 under his mother’s name, and in seven years rose to general of division, commanding in the Western Pyrenees, the Alps and the west. In Italy he objected to the army’s expropriations and quarrelled with Berthier and Bonaparte; his defence of the bridge at Clausen in March 1797 earned him the name of the Horatius of the Tyrol. He led the cavalry in Egypt, criticised the expedition openly and asked leave to return. Captured and imprisoned two years at Taranto, he came back broken and died in 1806. He was the novelist’s father.

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