WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:07.240 Happy Saturday. Our next couple of Saturday classics are inspired 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:11.200 by both recent and upcoming episodes of the show. So 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.800 coming up next week we have an episode related to 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.800 the French Revolution that has a connection to Toma Alexander Duma, 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.520 and then our previous October episode on the Ludon Possessions 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.160 referenced work by his son Alexander Duma peer So over 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:29.560 the next two Saturdays, we are re releasing our two 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.120 episodes on them. They are different episodes, not a two parter, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.960 but I just kind of I like having them somewhat together. 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.879 Today's classic on Toma Alexandre Duma originally came out on 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:47.519 February twenty fifth, twenty nineteen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:57.640 Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.520 welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracey V. Wilson and I'm 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.040 Holly Frye. If you've listened to the show for a while, 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.080 you've heard us periodically talk about the accidental two parters 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.039 where we got into an episode that we did not 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.640 intend to stretch into two parts, but it was so 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.479 fascinating or so involved that it did. In today's show 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.440 is not exactly an accidental two parter. It's more like 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:24.920 an accidental duology. Because Alexandra Dumat is probably a familiar 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.600 name to most of our listeners. There are actually two 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.759 of those. There's Alexander Duma Pere, the father who wrote 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.560 things like The Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo, 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.560 and then his son Alexander Duma Fieu. People call him 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.520 that to try to differentiate between the two of them. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.440 He wrote the play that became the basis for Verdi's 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:49.600 opera La Traviata. So Alexandra Duma Pere had been on 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:51.480 my list for a really long time, and I had 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.880 toyed with the idea of doing kind of a father 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.560 son duo package, especially when we started to plan our 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:02.000 upcoming trip to France this June. It seemed particularly appropriate 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:03.880 to get into their stories when we have that on 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.320 the horizon. But as I got into this research, I 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.519 started to realize that I did not really so much 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:14.200 want to talk about the father son pair of Alexandra's Duma. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.920 I wanted to talk about the elder Alexander and his father, 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.640 General Tooma Alexander Duma. Both of their stories are fascinating 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.959 and incredibly dramatic and basically the general sounds like a 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.680 character out of one of his son's books, because he 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:33.160 pretty much was. And he's even more appropriate to talk 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.120 about in connection to this trip that we're taking to Paris, 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.079 because a lot of that trip is based around the 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.720 French Revolution, which took place while the general was in 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.880 the French Army. This episode and the forthcoming one on 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.120 his son are there really standalone episodes. You don't need 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.040 to listen to one to be able to understand the other, 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.800 but there will be some points of interconnectivity between them. 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.799 Toma Alexandre Duma was born to Toma Alexandro Davis de 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:04.160 la Payetrie. His father was Antoine Alexandle de vill Marquis 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.000 de la Pietrie, who went by Antoine. Antoine had moved 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.799 from France to the French colony of San Damongue which 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.880 is now Haiti in the late seventeen thirties. After moving 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.800 to the island, Antoine had spent the next decade more 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.960 or less freeloading off of his younger brother, who had 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.240 married into a family of wealthy sugar planters. That in 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.040 seventeen forty eight there was some kind of argument between 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.720 the two of them. That prompted Antoine to take three 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.880 of his brothers, enslaved laborers, one of whom was a 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.520 young woman, and leave that plantation in the middle of 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.240 the night. The details are a mystery, but it seems 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.200 like there was some sort of family rift of a 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.480 major nature at work here or else. Antoine was just 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.520 trying to shirk his responsibilities. He did not tell anyone 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.080 where he was going, and when his mother and father 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.400 died in seventeen fifty seven. In seventeen fifty eight, no 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.840 one could find any trace of him. He was the eldest, 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:01.400 so they were looking for him pretty hard. It was 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.400 later determined that he had moved to the parish of 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.360 Jeremie in the southwestern part of the island and had 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.800 started going by the name Antoine Delille or Antoine of 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.600 the Island. He also had four children there with a 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:19.800 woman named Marie Cassette Duma. One of them was Toma Alexander, 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.240 who went by alex and was born on March twenty fifth, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.120 seventeen sixty two. It's clear from the colonial record that 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.560 Marie Cassette was enslaved, and that other people thought the 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.839 amount of money that Antoine paid for her was excessive. 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.760 What isn't clear is whether she and Antoine were later married. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.360 To discourage the births of biracial children, colonial law imposed 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.640 fines on white men who fathered children with enslaved women, 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.479 regardless of who was enslaving them at the time, but 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.440 this fee was waived and the mother and her children 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:57.400 were freed if the father married her. Alex's son, Alexandre Duma, 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.600 would later write that his grandparents had been married, but 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.160 there is no written documentation of that marriage ever happening. 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.440 After Antoine absconded to Jeremi, his younger brother, Charles, went 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.120 back to France. He maintained that he was the oldest 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.960 of his late parents surviving children, and he took control 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:19.160 of the family's estates, and he started a smuggling operation 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.040 back on the island of Espaniola, moving sugar and enslaved 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.640 people through a port that was known as Monte Cristo 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.880 on the border between Spanish and French territory. In seventeen 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.320 seventy five, after both of Antoine's brothers had ruined most 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.919 of their own investments and died, Antoine returned to France 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.640 with his birth certificate as proof of who he was 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.600 ready to take control of his family estates and start 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.880 up a series of legal fights with his surviving family members. 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.400 To finance the trip, he had sold his children and 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.080 their mother when it came to Tolmin Alexandle, though he 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.080 made the sale conditional so that he could buy him 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.760 back once he had access to his money in France. 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.520 He never saw his other children again. So Alex was 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.240 fourteen when this happened, and he arrived in France on 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.120 August thirtieth, seventeen seventy six. He was listed on the 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:15.000 ship's manifest as the slave Alexandra, but once he was 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.680 reunited with his father, he was treated more like the 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:22.000 teenage son of an aristocrat. His father legally recognized him 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.359 as his own and started giving him the kind of 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.040 education that was expected of somebody of his station. Alex 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.239 hadn't had much formal education at all in Santa Manga, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.839 so he was way behind his peers. He started spending 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.680 his days with tutors and fencing instructors in the like, 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:42.880 learning everything from classical languages to European style hunting. They 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.560 learned very quickly, though, and he seemed to become quite 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.480 skilled at whatever he put his mind to. He also 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.440 started adjusting to French society. Back in Santamang, they had 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.080 been in a community in which a lot of the 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.359 people around them were black or multiracial, but in France, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.760 most of the people around them were white. Was not 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.520 the only free person of color in France's more affluent society, 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.520 though many had come to France in much the same 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.560 way that Alex had. They were the children of affluent 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.400 frenchmen who had spent time in the Caribbean colonies and 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.680 fathered children with enslaved or free women of color. This 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:19.720 was in spite of the sorts of laws that we 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.960 mentioned before, which attempted to discourage into racial marriages and 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.840 the births of multi racial children, either in or out 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.920 of wedlock. Some of these people of color had also 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:34.520 become quite prominent. For example, Joseph Boulong, the Chevalier de 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.400 Saint George, had been born in Guadalupe to a white 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.160 father and a free black woman in seventeen forty five. 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.440 The Chevalier was reportedly the best swordsman in all of France, 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.520 and he was also a composer who was nicknamed Black Mozart. 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.440 He would also play a part in Alex's military life 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.000 later on, which we will get to. Alex and his 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.800 father had an extravagant and lavish lifestyle, and as he 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.280 got older, Alex increasingly traveled to pay, which was about 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.400 a three hour trip from their estate. He moved there 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:06.760 in the spring of seventeen eighty four at the age 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.480 of twenty two. The free black community in Paris was 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.960 often viewed with this combination of derision and curiosity. They 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:20.280 simultaneously faced discrimination and also were almost admired as kind 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.280 of exotic and unique. In Alex's case in particular, he 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.360 was frequently described as having an extremely handsome face, an 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.720 excellent build, and a lovely skin color. But he was also, 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:36.000 as one example, arrested at a theater in September of 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.680 seventeen eighty four after a naval officer and his companions 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.680 started harassing the woman that Alex was escorting. When Alex 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.880 tried to warn them off, they called him her lackey 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:51.559 and then started hurling racist taunts at him. On February thirteenth, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.200 seventeen eighty six, Alex's father, who was in his seventies, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.120 married his thirty three year old housekeeper, Marie Francois Friteu, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.840 the marquis started focusing his money on his new wife 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:05.840 rather than on his son. Alex had no way to 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.880 support himself, so about two weeks after the wedding, which 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.040 he appears not to have attended, he decided to join 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.600 the army. We'll talk about that more after a sponsor break. 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.680 Becoming an army officer was a very common employment for 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.880 young men in the French nobility in the eighteenth century. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.640 As long as they could prove that they had four 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.280 generations of nobility on their father's side, they were entitled 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.120 to become commissioned officers, and Alex had that, but France 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.240 also had discriminatory race laws that made it a lot 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.080 harder for him to actually claim it. So he told 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.040 his father that he was just going to enlist as 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.240 a private, and it did not even matter to him 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.559 which unit he enlisted in. He was just going to 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.040 go join whichever one he found first. According to his 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.080 son's memoirs, the marquis told him quote, that is all 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.120 very fine, but as I am the Marquis de la Pietrie, 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.680 a colonel and Commissary General of Artillery, I will not 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.360 allow you to drag my name in the mire of 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.679 the lowest ranks of the army. His father was kind 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:19.240 of a jerk, that was not clear. So Alex joined 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.480 the army under his mother's name, describing himself as quote 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:28.800 son of Antoine and Sissette Duma, which is just the 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.920 shadiest way to do that in terms of the way 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.199 he was talking about his father. And from that point 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:38.080 on he was just known as Alexandra Duma, also dropping 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.120 the Toma part of his name for the most part. 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.080 He joined the Queen's Dragoons on June second, seventeen eighty six, 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.679 and this was not at all a prestigious unit. They 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.040 were often on the front lines and the dirtiest and 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.960 most dangerous parts of battle, basically treated as cannon fodder. 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.559 So not only had he become a private, he had 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:57.960 become a private in a unit that his father would 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.080 not have approved of at all. Then just a couple 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:05.000 of weeks later, on June fifteenth, his father died. It 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.600 does not appear that Alex was there, and he wasn't 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:12.319 one of the signatures on the death certificate. I find 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:17.640 it like I have this little bit of gleefulness about 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:19.760 the fact that his father was so concerned about the 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:24.040 family name and then almost immediately died, had not really 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.040 needing to have worried about it. Soon though, Alex was 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.160 developing quite the reputation as a soldier, and he was 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.199 also reportedly very strong and very fond of doing strongman 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.880 style stunts, like hopping across a room while carrying two 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.400 other men, or grabbing an overhead bar while he was 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.960 on horseback and then lifting the horse up with his legs, 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.520 or do not do this ever, please, putting each of 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.040 his fingers into the mouth of a musket and then 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.240 lifting them all up by flattening out his hand. And 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.720 he was also extremely fond of dueling, which was illegal 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.040 among civilians in France at this point, but tolerated within 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:05.079 the army. At one point he reportedly fought three duels 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.360 in one day while injured from the first of them. 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.400 Unsurprisingly given his fondness for dueling, he was also known 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.720 for having a very hot temper and for speaking very 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.360 freely when he was angry. This is the kind of 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.080 thing where I read this list of crazy things he 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.920 did and I just want to go, what is wrong 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:31.160 with you? Well, especially the horse thing that was probably 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.600 some kind of a stunt. But yeah, especially the musket thing. 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.880 Why would you do that? What is wrong with you? 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:43.280 What is wrong with you? Like I suddenly become I 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.280 don't know somebody's mom. What is wrong with you? Has 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.000 has your brain been damaged? Why would you do this? 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.680 But anyway, Duma joined the army during the prelude to 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:00.120 the French Revolution so quick recamp in the late eighteenth century. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.600 Among France's three estates, which were the clergy, the nobility, 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.200 and the commoners, the clergy and nobility held all the power, 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.880 even though the commoners vastly outnumbered them. The nation was 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.320 nearly bankrupt and the common people were facing food shortages, 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:19.400 and the food that was available was astronomically expensive. Violence 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.600 and unrest grew during this time as the commoners pushed 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.880 back against poverty and oppression. The sixth Dragoons spent most 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.720 of this time stationed in the countryside north of Paris, 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.720 fairly removed from all of the things that were happening 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.959 just to the south. Yeah, this was definitely not confined 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.760 only to Paris, but they just were in a place 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.640 that was a little bit off the beaten path from 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.560 what was happening. The revolution really got going in seventeen 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.040 eighty nine, and the face of ongoing unrest, King Louis 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:52.440 the sixteenth summoned the Estates in General, which represented all 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:54.840 three Estates, for a meeting that was to be held 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.360 on May fifth, seventeen eighty nine, and then that June, 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:01.840 after negotiations failed to get anywhere, the Third Estate, which 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.559 represented the commoners, formed the National Assembly. They avowed to 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:10.320 work on constitutional reforms. Revolutionaries stormed the Bastille on July 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.920 fourteenth and October fifth, women march on Versailles to demand 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.920 relief for the ongoing food shortages and to demand that 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.520 the King and the Queen returned to Paris. We have 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.440 an episode on that in the archive. In the weeks 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.120 between the storming of the Bastille and the women's march 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.520 on Versailles, alex Duma was finally called into action. In 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.720 August seventeen eighty nine, a detachment from the six Dragoons 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.120 were summoned to the defense of the town of Ville 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.400 Cotre in northern France, which was being threatened by rioters. 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.760 The person who called for this aid was Claude Laboret, 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.200 who was the innkeeper of Lutel de le Queue in 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:49.520 Ville Cottre. He had just been elected the head of 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:53.440 the town's national guard, and since the town had no barracks, 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:55.880 the dragoons who came to help had to be billeted 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.880 in the homes of various people around the town. La 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.840 Beret was so impressed with Duma that he invited him 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.240 to stay at the inn, and that first night Dumat 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:10.000 met Labrey's daughter, Marie Louise. She described him as quote 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.880 a fine figure of a man, and they were engaged 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.560 on December sixth, seventeen eighty nine, with her father giving 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.360 his approval as long as they waited until Duma was 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:23.680 promoted to sergeant to actually marry, and that promotion happened 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.600 in seventeen ninety two, and they married on November twenty 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.280 eighth of that year. In the intervening years, Duma remained 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.160 stationed in northern France or across the border in what 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.680 was then the Austrian Empire after France declared war on 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:41.120 Austria in April of seventeen ninety two. During those years, 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.280 Duma really made a name for himself through dramatic and 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.880 daring exploits, including, for example, cutting off a group of 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.280 Austrian soldiers that were on horseback and taking them prisoner 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.160 without firing a single shot, and then donating his share 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.120 of the prize from that capture to the Nation of France. 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.000 He had a reputation for being a really exceptional soldier 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.760 and leader, always on the side of justice and freedom. 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.840 His upbringing in Sandomange probably served him really well in 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.400 all of this. He had become quite the stereotypical aristocrat 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.400 after moving to France with his father, but as French 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.920 society reformed itself during the Revolution, he was able to 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.120 drop a lot of those more aristocratic traits, draw on 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.200 his more humble upbringing, and keep the respect of the 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.680 soldiers from the lower and middle classes. Starting in late 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.280 seventeen ninety two, Dumal was promoted up through the ranks 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:37.000 incredibly quickly, being commissioned as a second lieutenant, then promoted 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.040 to first lieutenant, then brigadier, all in a matter of months. 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.200 And as that was happening, France was also expanding its 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.280 military might. The Republic of France had been conquering neighboring 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.600 territory and had also offered its support to other nations 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.520 that wanted to fight for their own freedom, but the 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.800 existing French military and the mercenaries that had been hired 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.160 to supplement it weren't big enough to support all of this, 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.040 so the nation had allowed the establishment of free legions, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.760 which were separate from the regular French army. One of 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.080 these was the Free Legion of Americans and of the South, 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.439 which was made up entirely of freemen of color. At 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.240 this point in French history, people of color in France 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.480 were generally referred to as Americans, whether they were from 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:26.560 the Americas or not, and then often American colonists, regardless 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.560 of their race, were also called Americans. It was a 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:32.800 little confusing. This would later be nicknamed La le jon 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.320 noir or the Black Legion. La le Genoir was started 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.560 by Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint George, who naturally wanted 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.480 Dumas as one of his officers. However, Dumas was already 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.600 spoken for. He had joined another free legion, the Hussars 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.520 of Liberty and Equality, started by Colonel Joseph Boyer, and 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.200 the colonel and the Chevalier basically had a bidding war 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.800 as each of them tried to lure Dumas away from 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.520 the other. Dumas finally joined the lesson Noir after the 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.040 chevalier promised him the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:09.119 commissioned in that legion on January tenth, seventeen ninety three, 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.119 and even though Duma was technically second in command, the 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.919 Chevalier wasn't all that interested in actually running things, so 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.399 he mostly just left Duma to it. This legion didn't 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.280 last very long, though, it was chronically underfunded, really short 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.960 on supplies, and the Chevalier was suspected of some criminal activity. 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.959 The legion was disbanded just a few months after Dumad 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.840 joined it, But on July thirtieth, seventeen ninety three, he 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.119 was made brigadier general of the French Army of the North, 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.320 and then five days after that he was made the 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.240 general commander in chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees. 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.439 This made him the highest ranking black man in the 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.120 French Army, with tens of thousands of mostly white soldiers 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.199 under his command, something that would not happen again for 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:57.119 hundreds of years afterward. But in seventeen ninety four, Duma's 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.200 fortunes started to shift. And we'll get to that after 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:11.920 we first have a sponsor break in the seventeen nineties, 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.320 alex Dema was described as the finest soldier in the 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.800 world as the French Revolution morphed into the reign of Terror. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.800 He was also nicknamed Mister Humanity for pushing back against 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.239 senseless violence and slaughter, and for ordering his men not 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.520 to take unfair advantage of the people in the towns 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:32.159 that they captured. He had a reputation for integrity and 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.840 for making wise decisions rather than rash ones, and for 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.320 being merciful as much as possible in the role of 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.240 a military commander. But he was also still very stubborn. 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:43.520 He still had a hot headed streak, and he was 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.000 still pretty vocal about his opinions. In seventeen ninety four, 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.879 these traits were nearly his undoing. While fighting in the 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.520 Alps that January, he was ordered to capture two mountain passes, 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.200 which were at that time totally impassable due to heavy 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.360 snow and ice. Oh I thought this was a foolish 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.720 and probably fatal course of action, so he refused to 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.200 do it until the weather improved. There were also reports 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.920 that he destroyed a guillotine and used it as firewood 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.560 for his men, who had no other way to keep warm, 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.600 and all of this raised suspicion that he was a 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.440 counter revolutionary. This was in spite of the fact that 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.199 his very vocal opinions had been the opposite of that 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.040 the entire time. But soon he had been denounced by 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.080 the local Jacobin Club, which was one of the French 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:33.840 revolutions more radical organizations. The Committee of Public Safety, which 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.200 acted as France's executive government during the Reign of Terror, 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.760 summoned Dumat back to Paris, and he probably would have 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.919 faced execution if he had gotten there. But before he 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.280 could go, Maximilian Robespierre, who was the head of the committee, 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:51.760 was himself beheaded. Eventually, Duma was cleared of all the 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.919 charges against him, in part because he did go capture 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.480 those passes once he thought it was prudent to do so. 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:01.800 But he was moved to a lesser prestigious posting, given 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.080 command of the Army of the West, where he was 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.120 sent to fight against a royalist uprising. When he got there, though, 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.720 he was horrified to discover that the Army of the 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:15.320 West had shifted from fighting and uprising to terrorizing ordinary 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.439 people for its own gain. It was also full of 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.560 new recruits who had no military training at all and 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:25.520 seemed to be fighting just for sport. So Duma fired 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.840 the chief of staff and started reorganizing the army, training 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.280 all the new recruits and trying to shape the Army 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.160 of the West into an organized and efficient unit and, 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.639 in his words quote remind the rank and file of 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:42.720 a love of justice and upstanding comportment. In seventeen ninety six, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:47.320 Duma met Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife Josephine. Napoleon had 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.879 taken command of the Army of Italy, and Duma served 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:53.920 under him during Napoleon's Italian campaign, and although there are 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.919 documents in which Napoleon described Duma with respect and admiration, 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.560 almost immediately, the two two men did not get along. 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:04.360 The central issue was one of the things that had 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.880 gotten Duma into trouble during the Reign of Terror. Duma 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:11.280 believed in fighting for liberty, not for conquest, and thought 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:15.560 that civilians should be actively protected during warfare, but Napoleon's 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:20.480 outlook was increasingly focused on conquest and dominance. During the 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:24.200 Italian campaign, Duma was part of the successful siege of Mantua, 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.200 but when Napoleon rode up his report after it was 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:31.080 all over, he praised every other officer involved except for Duma. 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.560 Duma was really angry about this, and angry that instead 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.120 of being given a division of his own to command, 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:40.000 he was placed under another officer that he didn't get 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:42.439 along with. In spite of all of that, as the 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.520 French army tried to drive the Austrians out of Italy 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:48.600 in the early months of seventeen ninety seven, Dumat was 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.440 so persistent and so effective that the Austrians nicknamed him 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.199 the Black Devil. In March of that year, he was 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.520 injured in battle after his horse was shot out from 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.760 under him. He was given leave to go home and recover, 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:04.879 and he stayed at Ville Cotree with his wife and 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:07.800 their daughter. He'd been able to make trips home over 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:10.400 the years, and they had had two children by this point, 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.560 but one had died of an illness or accident. While 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:18.080 Duma was fighting in the Italian campaign. In seventeen ninety eight, 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:21.359 Duma once again joined Napoleon's army, this time to fight 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:25.600 in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. This was Napoleon's attempt to cut 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:28.920 off Britain from its colonies in India during the Napoleonic Wars, 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:33.200 by taking control of Egypt, and during this campaign, Napoleon 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.800