The Black Count: The Real Count of Monte Cristo

 The Black Count by Tom Reiss

Read: September 2021

This is the fascinating story of Alexandre Dumas, not the celebrated author, but that of his father and namesake. This story, if not true, would seem to leap out of the famous author's book. In fact, a lot of what we read in The Count of Monte Cristo is inspired from the amazing life of his father.

Senior Dumas was one of the foremost Generals of the revolutionary France. Amazingly, he joined French army as a lowly soldier, a dragoon, sort of cannon fodder, lower than even an infantry soldier. Within 10 years, helped by his staunch republicanism and currents of the revolution, he had become a General at the age of 31. And he goes on to carve historic victories for French army with his brute power and derring-do. He became a General when Napoleon was just a captain. But the brilliance, ambition, and cunning of the future dictator meant that Dumas had to serve in Napoleon's army later on, most notably at the siege of Fortress Mantua and as chief of cavalry on the disastrous Egypt expedition. Early on when Napoleon was a junior officer, he was slighted by General Dumas, and also because short and skinny Napoleon looked ridiculous in front of the herculean figure of Dumas, the famously petty dictator made it a point not to help Dumas or his family during their tough days.

While his career as a soldier and military leader was historic, his earlier life is straight out of a novel. He achieved all the glory in a period when being black usually meant being a slave. And that is exactly who he could have been having been born in French colony of St. Dominigue (now Haiti) to a French father and a slave mother. He father was from a noble family, hiding from authorities. It was in that tropical island that the young Dumas grew up tough. Later on he was reportedly sold as a slave by his father to arrange for a ticket back home. But then in a twist of fate as his father came into money, he secured the release of his son and brought him to France where his extraordinary rise began in the backdrop of fast changing French society reeling under the terror of revolution, but at the same time buoyed by the idealism of liberty and equality which saw a black mulatto like him commanding a vast French army which would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.

A fascinating read.