Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener Discretion advised it looked
Speaker 1: like they would be facing another winter with too little
Speaker 1: bread and not enough firewood for French peasants. In October
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety five, it turned out that the recent revolution
Speaker 1: hadn't actually changed all that much. Those who starved under
Speaker 1: King Louis the sixteenth were starving still, and the government
Speaker 1: that had replaced the royal family was by turns corrupt, unstable,
Speaker 1: and impotent. Pro Royalists wanted a constitutional monarchy, and when
Speaker 1: the governing body at the time passed an extremely unpopular
Speaker 1: law limiting the pro Royalist party's power, the French did
Speaker 1: what they do best. Riot. Tens of thousands of pro
Speaker 1: Royalists marched on Paris. They gathered in front of the
Speaker 1: Tullery Palace, where the representatives of the National Convention government sat.
Speaker 1: The rioters didn't have much by way of artillery, but
Speaker 1: they outnumbered the National Guard four to one. The National
Speaker 1: Guard was led by a general who wasn't savvy enough
Speaker 1: for the job. When he met with the rebel leaders,
Speaker 1: they promised that they would disarm and He happily retreated,
Speaker 1: believing them, but the rebels did not disarm and the
Speaker 1: general was replaced. The new general would need to be
Speaker 1: someone ruthless. The Thermidorian leader on the ground remembered a
Speaker 1: brilliant young officer who might just be the man for
Speaker 1: the job. Send for Bonaparte, he said. Napoleon Bonaparte had
Speaker 1: been idling away his twenties at the topographical Bureau after
Speaker 1: making a wrong career move, and he was practically salivating
Speaker 1: at the chance to lead an army again. He would
Speaker 1: remind his country that he was a leader to be
Speaker 1: reckoned with. Bonaparte instructed his men to go to a
Speaker 1: nearby military camp and bring back every cannon they could
Speaker 1: get their hands on. If someone stands in your way,
Speaker 1: kill them, he instructed. His men. Soon returned with forty cannons,
Speaker 1: which they packed with grape shot, small metal rounds in
Speaker 1: canvas bags that exploded upon firing, which could rip through
Speaker 1: a dozen bodies in a dozen directions at the same time.
Speaker 1: Not even in the bloodiest battles of the revolution did
Speaker 1: anyone think to use this weapon on civilians. And again,
Speaker 1: no one ever thought like Napoleon. The young commander spent
Speaker 1: the morning riding from station to station, inspecting every cannon
Speaker 1: to make sure it was equipped for maximum damage. He
Speaker 1: had just been given his first part in the pun
Speaker 1: shot at victory. In years, defeat was not an option.
Speaker 1: He didn't tell the troops to fire until it was
Speaker 1: absolutely clear there would be no peaceful surrender. But once
Speaker 1: he gave the order, the damage was brutal. Riders who
Speaker 1: weren't screaming in pain were screaming in fear, accompanied by
Speaker 1: the staccato boom of cannons. Historians would write that Napoleon
Speaker 1: gave the pro royalists quote a whiff of grape shot,
Speaker 1: but that day Paris smelled only of blood. In the end,
Speaker 1: around three hundred civilians died, and the Republican Guard under
Speaker 1: Napoleon only lost around thirty men. For his efforts, Napoleon
Speaker 1: was awarded a salary of forty eight thousand francs, given
Speaker 1: command of the French Army of Italy, and even negotiated
Speaker 1: a plumb gig in the diplomatic service for his brother Joseph.
Speaker 1: Little did the Convention know what it had just set
Speaker 1: into motion. This was the beginning of the end of
Speaker 1: the French Revolution. The beginning of the beginning of the
Speaker 1: Napoleonic Age. In terms of the history of Europe, Napoleon
Speaker 1: was a great man in the capital g sense of
Speaker 1: the word. Greatness only rises to its full heights when
Speaker 1: challenged by arrival. Serena has Venus, Rocky had Apollo, and
Speaker 1: after putting down his rebellion in Paris, there was only
Speaker 1: one man that Napoleon thought of as his adversary. His
Speaker 1: rival would be the undisputed star of the French military,
Speaker 1: the Black Count, the Angel of Death, a man whose
Speaker 1: son would go on to write stories still celebrated in
Speaker 1: the canon of literature, but whose own name would make
Speaker 1: a mark on the world. The man Napoleon feared Toma
Speaker 1: Alexandra Duma Davy. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood.
Speaker 1: Flashback to seventeen eighty nine years before Napoleon put down
Speaker 1: the pro royalist sympathizers in the streets, the bloody French
Speaker 1: Revolution and equally bloody bred Riot had already made Paris
Speaker 1: a place of chaos. Toma Alexander Duma, a young private,
Speaker 1: and his unit had been called to the hunting town
Speaker 1: of Ville Coterret, a few hours outside of Paris to
Speaker 1: keep the peace there in case the violence spread. As
Speaker 1: the town had no barracks, the soldiers stayed among the people,
Speaker 1: and Duma was personally invited by a man named Claude
Speaker 1: Lebret to stay at his inn and even to dine
Speaker 1: with his family. That night. At dinner, Duma sang for
Speaker 1: his supper, so to speak, charming the Lebret with stories
Speaker 1: from his youth spent in a sugar colony in what
Speaker 1: is now Haiti, telling the tale of how his father,
Speaker 1: the son of a marquis, had briefly sold Alex into
Speaker 1: slavery in order to afford passage for both of them
Speaker 1: back to France, and how when they arrived, his father
Speaker 1: had enrolled him in the finest school in the city,
Speaker 1: where Alex learned how to ride and duel. He actually
Speaker 1: learned the dueling from the greatest swordsman in France, the
Speaker 1: Chevalier de Saint George, who we covered in a two
Speaker 1: part episode in June. The Chevalier was also an accomplished violinist,
Speaker 1: and perhaps it was he the Chevalier, who confirmed in
Speaker 1: the young Alex Dumas's mind the notion that anyone of
Speaker 1: any color could aspire to greatness in whatever endeavor they chose.
Speaker 1: Because Toma Alexander Dumat was black, he had been born
Speaker 1: to an enslaved woman that his father had owned as property.
Speaker 1: Before Dumas's father left the French colony where Alex was born,
Speaker 1: he sold Alex's mother and Alex's siblings. I think it's
Speaker 1: important to stop and think for a minute here about
Speaker 1: that cruelty, that dehumanization. It was only Alex who was
Speaker 1: brought back to France. Alexander was temporarily sold into slavery
Speaker 1: himself for his father to pay for that passage. When
Speaker 1: Alex arrived, his father repurchased him and then officially freed him.
Speaker 1: Given the unique opportunity presented to him, Duma was able
Speaker 1: to spend the early part of his twenties as a
Speaker 1: Parisian socialite. But when his father married their housekeeper and
Speaker 1: cut off his allowance, alex did what all young men
Speaker 1: of his station did joined the military. Typically well to
Speaker 1: do boys with noble pedigree would have been able to
Speaker 1: enlist as officers, but for Duma, the color of his
Speaker 1: skin made that a little challenging. There weren't rules against it, really,
Speaker 1: but it was a no man's land, and it would
Speaker 1: have been hard for Duma to receive the position he
Speaker 1: was entitled to. Screw it, he thought, he enlisted in
Speaker 1: the Queen's dragoons as a mere private. Dumas's father was
Speaker 1: infuriated and war that he wouldn't let his son drag
Speaker 1: their family name Davy through the mud. Fine alex reasoned,
Speaker 1: I'll take my mother's surname, and so he dropped his
Speaker 1: father's last name Davy and became a Duma. Particularly taken
Speaker 1: with Alexander's stories at the La Beret's dinner table was
Speaker 1: the innkeeper's pretty daughter, Marie Louise. She wrote to a
Speaker 1: friend the night that she first met Duma, he is
Speaker 1: a fine figure of a man. The fact that she
Speaker 1: was white and he was black, well by Rachel, was
Speaker 1: for Marie Louise and her family no issue at all.
Speaker 1: That Alex's mother had been enslaved wasn't a knock on
Speaker 1: his character, and it actually explained much of his committed
Speaker 1: zeal to the French Revolution. To zoom out a little bit,
Speaker 1: this was a very complex time for race relations in France.
Speaker 1: Revolutionary idea deals at the time were challenging long held
Speaker 1: assumptions about equality, or rather inequality. Those of mixed race,
Speaker 1: like Duma, were actually considered a unique class, separate from
Speaker 1: both whites and blacks. Many were rich, some even owned
Speaker 1: their own slaves. There was then, as today, widespread racism,
Speaker 1: and the ever changing government occasionally passed laws to limit
Speaker 1: the rights of non white people, dictating what they could
Speaker 1: wear and what names and titles they could use. Laws
Speaker 1: like these spoke to an attitude of supremacy, but did
Speaker 1: not in themselves make life considerably harder for free non
Speaker 1: white people. They simply wore other clothes. There were more
Speaker 1: pernicious laws, like an attempt to round up and register
Speaker 1: all non white people in France, but the government was
Speaker 1: far to disorganize to ever actually follow through on the plan.
Speaker 1: In some circles, it was actually considered fashionable to be
Speaker 1: not quite white. A quote exotic heritage made you more interesting,
Speaker 1: and even the most hardened racists in France liked to
Speaker 1: see Duma as an quote exception. It was simply an
Speaker 1: accepted fact. He was the strongest soldier in the army.
Speaker 1: Legend had it he could hang from a ceiling beam
Speaker 1: and lift a horse with his legs. Would anyone dare
Speaker 1: to make a belittling remark to the man who won
Speaker 1: three duels in a single day at six foot one
Speaker 1: in an era when the average height for a man
Speaker 1: was five foot eight. Alex Dumas cut a very imposing figure,
Speaker 1: and he became the sort of Chuck Norris character of
Speaker 1: the French army. To Marie Louise, the innkeeper's daughter, and
Speaker 1: to others, he was quite literally, tall, dark and handsome,
Speaker 1: and she was thrilled when her father agreed to an engagement.
Speaker 1: But like any protective dad, the innkeeper wanted to know
Speaker 1: that his daughter would be taken care of and told
Speaker 1: Duma that they couldn't wed until he had risen to
Speaker 1: the rank of sergeant. In the fall of seventeen ninety two,
Speaker 1: Duma returned from the front lines to claim his bride.
Speaker 1: But he was no sergeant. He was a war hero
Speaker 1: and lieutenant colonel of an entire unit of men like himself,
Speaker 1: known as the Black Legion. Duma was a shooting star
Speaker 1: in the military, and soon the government was assigning him
Speaker 1: a series of herculean challenges. It's almost comical how he
Speaker 1: was dispatched to fix any problem that had stymied others.
Speaker 1: Oh this Spanish fleet had defeated the last two generals
Speaker 1: we sent in try Duma, and after that, would you
Speaker 1: mind capturing Oh, I don't know the Alps, even though
Speaker 1: you've never seen, let alone fought in the snow. By
Speaker 1: the age of thirty two, he was equivalent to a
Speaker 1: four star general. He would be the first person of
Speaker 1: color to achieve the ranks of brigadier general, division general,
Speaker 1: and General in chief. Duma was a ferocious soldier on
Speaker 1: his own, once single handedly taking twelve enemies prisoner, but
Speaker 1: much of his success could also be attributed to his
Speaker 1: style as a leader. Armies in those days weren't particularly
Speaker 1: well trained or organized. They often didn't have enough equipment,
Speaker 1: and instead of being paid by their government, they just
Speaker 1: stole from whatever place they were invading. Raping the local
Speaker 1: women was another common occurrence. Duma was having none of
Speaker 1: that isuted order and stability, and he was unfailingly fair
Speaker 1: to citizens, earning him the somewhat derisive nickname mister Humanity.
Speaker 1: In return for his men's loyalty, he advocated for them,
Speaker 1: writing a letter after letter to Paris to secure payment, boots, rations,
Speaker 1: and horses for his men. Not only was looting not allowed,
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessary. There was seemingly no sealing on his career,
Speaker 1: regardless of his race. In seventeen ninety four, France officially
Speaker 1: abolished slavery throughout the Empire. Black and mixed race legislators
Speaker 1: joined the governing body, the Council of the Five hundred.
Speaker 1: The first integrated secondary school in Europe opened in Paris,
Speaker 1: the National Colonial Institute, a world class academy educating both
Speaker 1: children of the elite and scholarship students from the colonies.
Speaker 1: But just as true greatness was seemingly within Dumas's grasp,
Speaker 1: did the unstoppable force of his career run into the
Speaker 1: immovable object of Napoleon Bonaparte. By seventeen ninety six, both
Speaker 1: were generals. Napoleon was put in charge of the French
Speaker 1: Army of Italy, and Dumas was assigned to work just
Speaker 1: under him. The two men almost immediately did not like
Speaker 1: each other. Dumas was one of the last officers to
Speaker 1: arrive in Italy, and he was dismayed by what he saw.
Speaker 1: Deference to Napoleon was based not on his admirable qualities,
Speaker 1: but on the fact that he promised his ally's riches
Speaker 1: Napoleon allowed looting, even arranged it and elevated it. His
Speaker 1: soldiers didn't just steal food from the Italian towns they invaded,
Speaker 1: they made the Italians cook feasts for them. Duma once
Speaker 1: had to intervene to keep an entire towns women from
Speaker 1: getting trapped on a bridge by soldiers where they would
Speaker 1: have surely been assaulted. Under these circumstances, how could Duma
Speaker 1: be expected to implement his more gentlemanly style of conduct.
Speaker 1: The soldiers were in a position not unlike a kid
Speaker 1: playing their parents off one another. Oh, Mommy, Alex says,
Speaker 1: I can't pillage, well, Daddy, Napoleon said it was okay.
Speaker 1: Napoleon took pillaging to a new and sophisticated level. He
Speaker 1: made a project of identifying the most valuable treasures and
Speaker 1: artworks from each region and shipped them back to France.
Speaker 1: He brought experts on his expeditions just for that purpose.
Speaker 1: He also charged Milan twenty million francs cash for having
Speaker 1: been liberated from Austria, and he repeated that pattern everywhere
Speaker 1: his army went. Duma did what he could to limit
Speaker 1: Napoleon's damage, but if it was all in the service
Speaker 1: of spreading the ideals of the French Revolution far and wide, well,
Speaker 1: he'd mostly follow his orders. He played a pivotal role
Speaker 1: in the Siege of Mantua and was understandably angry when
Speaker 1: he found out that Napoleon's aid had written to the
Speaker 1: general that Duma had stayed out of the action. Alex
Speaker 1: composed his own letter explaining the situation to Napoleon. General,
Speaker 1: I have learned that the jackass whose business it is
Speaker 1: to report to you upon the Battle of the twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: stated that I stayed in observation throughout that battle. I
Speaker 1: don't wish any such observation on him, since he would
Speaker 1: have shit in his pants. Saluta and brotherhood Alex do end.
Speaker 1: Alex's reputation continued to grow. Taking small groups of soldiers
Speaker 1: on strategic missions, Duma easily recognizable scared the living daylights
Speaker 1: out of the Austrian army. They began to call him
Speaker 1: d Schwartze Chuffel, or the black Devil. Just as Duma
Speaker 1: was too smart to fight Napoleon directly, Napoleon was too
Speaker 1: smart to let go of Duma. He praised his general's
Speaker 1: victories and gave him the nickname the Horacious cocolos of
Speaker 1: the Tyrol, as well as ordering him a new set
Speaker 1: of pistols after he lost his In seventeen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: Duma received a letter from his wife informing him that
Speaker 1: their second daughter, a toddler named Louise, had died. He
Speaker 1: went home to be with his family for a few
Speaker 1: months before being called back into service once again to
Speaker 1: serve Napoleon, as he had a tempted to conquer a
Speaker 1: foreign land. But this time it wasn't Italy they were after,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't that classic French enemy England either. No.
Speaker 1: General Bonaparte was taking his men on a much more
Speaker 1: perilous journey, and he wouldn't tell anybody where as if
Speaker 1: to remind everyone of the pecking order, Napoleon installed himself
Speaker 1: on a ship called the Orient, which was at the
Speaker 1: time the largest on earth, and he put Duma on
Speaker 1: the mid sized ship called William Tell. Because Napoleon could
Speaker 1: not earn his men's respect as Duma had, he once
Speaker 1: again tried to buy it, promising every soldier six acres
Speaker 1: of land once they got to wherever they were going.
Speaker 1: He didn't say, which must have made it hard to pack.
Speaker 1: First stop, Malta, a Mediterranean island that had been ruled
Speaker 1: by knights whose income came from their estates back in France.
Speaker 1: When the French Revolution did away with feudal dues, the
Speaker 1: richest Maltens suffered and weren't exactly friendly to the revolutionary
Speaker 1: government's army that came knocking at their port. But Napoleon
Speaker 1: had a plan. He promised to pay whatever price they
Speaker 1: wanted once he and his fleet got inside the harbor,
Speaker 1: and as a sweetener, the Grand Master could have a
Speaker 1: principality in Germany. Why not. Once Napoleon's fleet was inside,
Speaker 1: Napoleon gave the Maltens three days to get the hell out.
Speaker 1: What he lacked in honor, he more than made up
Speaker 1: for in savvy. In Malta, Dumas saw for the first
Speaker 1: time when Napoleon would look like, not just as a leader,
Speaker 1: but as a ruler. Napoleon declared declared religious freedom for all,
Speaker 1: protecting Jews from persecution and abolishing torture. He freed two
Speaker 1: thousand enslaved people and set about modernizing the infrastructure. He
Speaker 1: planned hospitals, schools, post offices, and street lights. He instituted
Speaker 1: rent control and passed into law the early version of
Speaker 1: what would become the Napoleonic Code, and he made all
Speaker 1: of these progressive changes without going through any kind of
Speaker 1: red tape or bureaucracy or democracy. Napoleon was ruling like
Speaker 1: a dictator. But there was no time for alex to
Speaker 1: dwell too much on that, because Napoleon had finally revealed
Speaker 1: what their final destination would be, Egypt. It had long
Speaker 1: been Napoleon's ambition to conquer Egypt, as Alexander the Great
Speaker 1: once did. The cities were ancient, even compared to Rome,
Speaker 1: and they were believed to hold great treasures, not to
Speaker 1: mention the incredible Pyramids, and it was in a highly
Speaker 1: covetable strategic position, given Britain's reliance on trade with India.
Speaker 1: Taking Egypt in the name of France and liberating its
Speaker 1: people from the Mamelukes who controlled the region was a
Speaker 1: grand and romantic notion. It was also, as everyone would
Speaker 1: soon see, a pretty dumb idea. In the wee hours
Speaker 1: of July second, four thousand frenchmen stepped ashore, led by
Speaker 1: Napoleon and Dumont. Napoleon had put Duma in charge of
Speaker 1: the cavalry. The problem was there wasn't much cavalry to
Speaker 1: speak of the plan was to get most of their
Speaker 1: horses once they arrived, but horses were hard to come by,
Speaker 1: and it was one hundred and ten degrees outside quote unquote.
Speaker 1: Liberating Italy had involved bloodshed, yes, but also feasting. There
Speaker 1: was no feasting when the army showed up to seize Alexandria.
Speaker 1: The citizens weren't particularly happy to see them, and the
Speaker 1: soldiers kept getting attacked by Bedouin tribes. Napoleon's army took
Speaker 1: Alexandria easily enough, but there was no reward, just the
Speaker 1: prospect of a long, very hot march to Cairo. To
Speaker 1: call it a suicide mission is both insensitive and correct.
Speaker 1: The men were in dark wool uniforms carrying forty pound packs.
Speaker 1: They were starving, and so so thirsty that many preferred
Speaker 1: a bullet to the long, slow agony that had taken
Speaker 1: their brothers. They were marching alongside. If a man became
Speaker 1: weak and fell behind, he would be picked off by
Speaker 1: a Bedouin tribe. Many men caught an eye infection that
Speaker 1: burned and hussed and rendered them partially blind. Others suffered dysentery.
Speaker 1: At the smaller cities they stopped at soldiers standing guard
Speaker 1: had their throats slit in the night, not by an
Speaker 1: enemy army, but by the very citizens they'd assumed would
Speaker 1: greet them with cheers as liberators. It was clear whose
Speaker 1: mistake this was. The man who decided to surprise the
Speaker 1: enemy by attacking in the summer, the man who hadn't
Speaker 1: made any arrangements for a way to carry water around Napoleon,
Speaker 1: and who wanted to conquer six acres of desert anyway.
Speaker 1: But they were either too loyal or too tired to mutiny,
Speaker 1: so onward they marched. But Duma always had the energy
Speaker 1: to take Napoleon down a peg. One night, he scrounged
Speaker 1: up a few of these delicious novel fruits they called watermelons,
Speaker 1: and he invited the other generals back to his tent
Speaker 1: for a chet. They kicked around the question of why
Speaker 1: they were even there, what their commander's plan even was.
Speaker 1: Was Napoleon doing his best with an impossible task, or
Speaker 1: at Paris used this as an excuse to get rid
Speaker 1: of him once they reached Cairo, Should they the other
Speaker 1: generals make a plan to stop One of Napoleon's informants
Speaker 1: overheard the chatter. These men who doubted their leader, who
Speaker 1: would refuse to march past their next destination. There's a
Speaker 1: word for that in the military coup. Things came to
Speaker 1: a head after the French finally took Cairo. Napoleon confronted
Speaker 1: Duma about what he'd heard, making it clear that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't tolerate criticism or questioning from anyone, even a fellow general.
Speaker 1: War makes strange bedfellows. Until this point, the two men
Speaker 1: had been fair weather friends. They were always in a
Speaker 1: kind of cold war, but put their differences aside for
Speaker 1: the sake of their missions, and when things were good,
Speaker 1: they even got along. Napoleon's wife, Josephine, who was white
Speaker 1: but had herself been born in the French colony of Martinique,
Speaker 1: genuinely liked Duma. If either she or Dumas's wife, Marie
Speaker 1: Louise ever had a boy, both families had promised to
Speaker 1: be godparents to the other's son, and, whether begrudgingly or not,
Speaker 1: Napoleon had praised Dumas's skill on the battlefield, which Duma
Speaker 1: perhaps naively took to heart. But the bright Egyptian sun
Speaker 1: shed a new light on their fundamental incompatibilities. Napoleon resented
Speaker 1: Duma everywhere they went. The Egyptians marveled at the sight
Speaker 1: of a black man leading a white army, and he
Speaker 1: was so tall and imposing, they just assumed he was
Speaker 1: in charge. When Duma put down an uprising by riding
Speaker 1: into a mosque, rebels screamed, the Angel, the Angel. They
Speaker 1: thought he was the angel of death. You can imagine
Speaker 1: how little Napoleon liked that. Even if the whole Napoleon
Speaker 1: complex insecure about being short is an English bit of propaganda,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he didn't love everyone praising this tall, handsome,
Speaker 1: gallant soldier. Actually, you don't have to imagine how Napoleon felt,
Speaker 1: because years later Napoleon commissioned a painting of this incident,
Speaker 1: and he replaced Duma in the painting with a nameless
Speaker 1: white cavalry man. In another painting, it was Napoleon himself
Speaker 1: who saved the day during that rebellion. Here we have
Speaker 1: to wonder how much of Napoleon's antipathy towards Duma was racial.
Speaker 1: It's likely Napoleon would have hated anyone of any color
Speaker 1: who was as impressive a rival as Duma, but to
Speaker 1: ignore race would be completely naive. If Duma had been white,
Speaker 1: perhaps Napoleon would have tried harder to recruit him as
Speaker 1: an ally. How did Duma feel about Napoleon. In one
Speaker 1: potentially revealing incident, Duma discovered a stash of treasure while
Speaker 1: excavating a home that had apparently been abandoned. Since the
Speaker 1: goods had no owner, he could have kept them for himself,
Speaker 1: but he turned them over to Napoleon, writing quote, the
Speaker 1: leopard cannot change his spots, nor can I change my
Speaker 1: character and principles. As an honest man, I must concede
Speaker 1: to you the fact of a treasure I have just discovered.
Speaker 1: I abandon it to your disposition, reminding you only that
Speaker 1: I am a father and without fortune. End quote. On
Speaker 1: its surface, a straightforward thing to do, but I detect
Speaker 1: two possibly passive, aggressive digs in that letter. One, he
Speaker 1: reminded Napoleon that he was an honest man. They both
Speaker 1: knew that Napoleon would have stashed the stuff if he
Speaker 1: had been the one to find it. Second, he had
Speaker 1: every right to note that as a dad, he needed money,
Speaker 1: but Napoleon hadn't fathered any children at the time, so
Speaker 1: it's possible that's another bit of a one up, and
Speaker 1: we can pretty safely assume Duma was not a fan
Speaker 1: of what Napoleon was doing with the enslaved population of Cairo,
Speaker 1: which was nothing sure. Napoleon had liberated thousands in Malta,
Speaker 1: but that had been a pragmatic decision on Napoleon's part
Speaker 1: to bring the island into the fold of the French Revolution.
Speaker 1: It hadn't been an ethical decision. Egypt was more of
Speaker 1: an outpost, and the more hierarchical its society, the more
Speaker 1: firmly Napoleon could establish himself at the top of it.
Speaker 1: For Duma, the son of a slave who had briefly
Speaker 1: been enslaved himself, it must have been maddening. At least,
Speaker 1: the two men agreed on one thing. Duma should leave
Speaker 1: Egypt as soon as possible. The two men would never
Speaker 1: see or speak to each other again. Duma hopped aboard
Speaker 1: a malten ship bound for home, but it was a leaky,
Speaker 1: rickety thing, and when they hit a storm, Duma tossed
Speaker 1: anything that weighed anything overboard, the horses he'd purchased, the
Speaker 1: Arabian coffee that he'd planned to resell, all of their cannonballs,
Speaker 1: all their food, water. It was just enough to get
Speaker 1: them safely to the nearest port, which happened to be Toronto.
Speaker 1: In Naples, Duma sent the governor a letter explaining their
Speaker 1: situation and asking for assistance while they made the necessary
Speaker 1: repairs and arrangements. The governor said, sure, come on in,
Speaker 1: but if you don't mind a short quarantine, just in case,
Speaker 1: so you don't spread disease. This was a common practice
Speaker 1: at the time, and Duma thought nothing of it, But
Speaker 1: then he had an experience that I think many of
Speaker 1: us can relate to. What he thought would be a
Speaker 1: short quarantine turned into two years, two years of life
Speaker 1: ruining imprisonment. While Duma had been in Egypt, news that
Speaker 1: the French army conquered Naples had reached his camp, and
Speaker 1: so when his rickety ship had managed to dock there,
Speaker 1: he had every reason to expect friendly faces on the shore.
Speaker 1: What he didn't know is that a pro royalist faction
Speaker 1: led by the Cardinal Fabrizio Rufo, had recently retaken control
Speaker 1: of Naples. The group called themselves the Holy Faith Army,
Speaker 1: and they had managed to overtake the revolutionary French government.
Speaker 1: Almost everyone on Dumas's ship was allowed to return to
Speaker 1: their home country after signing a pledge that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: take up arms against the Holy Faith Army for two years.
Speaker 1: But Duma and his fellow general, Jean Baptiste Moncourt, were
Speaker 1: locked up with no real long term plan for what
Speaker 1: was to become of them. The two generals slept on
Speaker 1: beds of straw atop stone benches, and they had little
Speaker 1: to eat or drink. They could meet up once a
Speaker 1: day in an enclosed courtyard, but other than that they
Speaker 1: had no one to talk to except the guards, who
Speaker 1: mocked them. But in other ways things were sort of chivalrous.
Speaker 1: Duma was allowed to keep all of the money he'd
Speaker 1: brought with him, which he would use to pay for
Speaker 1: food and other items throughout his imprisonment. At the start
Speaker 1: he even had a servant, and they let him keep
Speaker 1: a small goat he'd picked up in Egypt, I think
Speaker 1: as a pet. Duma wrote again and again to the
Speaker 1: cardinal asking for a meeting, but the only visitor he
Speaker 1: got was a young man who introduced himself as Crown
Speaker 1: Prince Francis, son of King Ferdinand the Fourth of the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of Naples, ignoring Dumas's pleas for a meeting with
Speaker 1: the French ambassador, the quote unquote crown Prince asked a
Speaker 1: few questions about Egypt, and then left. He was actually
Speaker 1: not a crown prince at all, but an impostor trying
Speaker 1: to gather information to fight against the French. But although
Speaker 1: he was a fake prince, he was actually a decent
Speaker 1: military leader, at least decent enough to round up an army,
Speaker 1: which he took north, where he was promptly captured by
Speaker 1: the French. Well, great, now they could do a prisoner
Speaker 1: swap and Duma could go home, except there had been
Speaker 1: a miscommunication that fake prince hadn't actually been captured by
Speaker 1: the French. He was killed, there was no chance of
Speaker 1: a prisoner swap. Imagine the psychological torture Duma must have
Speaker 1: been suffering. Every path to freedom to a twist and
Speaker 1: a turn, then led to a dead end, and his
Speaker 1: only visitor was a guy lying about his identity who
Speaker 1: then seemed like he would be a getaway car and
Speaker 1: then ended up being nothing at all. Dumas's mental and
Speaker 1: physical help declined precipitously shortly after being locked up. He
Speaker 1: suffered a quote strange paralysis in his face. A few
Speaker 1: months after arriving, he was having a biscuit and a
Speaker 1: glass of wine while taking a bath. When he doubled
Speaker 1: over in pain, his servant found him a mobile sweating
Speaker 1: in a pool of his own vomit. A doctor was summoned,
Speaker 1: and when he arrived, the doctor looked so scared and
Speaker 1: to Duma, so surprised to see that Duma was alive
Speaker 1: that Duma immediately hit upon the idea that he had
Speaker 1: been poisoned and the doctor was actually in on it.
Speaker 1: Instead of listening to whatever remedies his maybe would be
Speaker 1: killer prescribed, Dumas preferred the treatment of his friend Manscore,
Speaker 1: who had also come to hell. He fed Duma olive
Speaker 1: oil and lemon juice and gave him enema. After enema,
Speaker 1: which was the treatment for parasites at the time, the
Speaker 1: possibly murderous doctor would return to give Duma blisters and
Speaker 1: ear injections that may be contributed to Dumas's partial deafness.
Speaker 1: Later on, Dumas would claim in his recollections of this
Speaker 1: period that the doctor tried to have a secret meeting
Speaker 1: with him, but he was so weak and strained that
Speaker 1: he never got a clear idea on what exactly the
Speaker 1: conspiracy was. When the doctor dropped dead A few days later.
Speaker 1: Dumas ascribed it to a cover up, and his pet
Speaker 1: goat also died. Dumas's knew doctor was kind enough, but
Speaker 1: Dumas still became half blind, half deaf and facial paralysis.
Speaker 1: Remained scared and alone. He couldn't sleep and became weak,
Speaker 1: later saying he suffered quote an abundant and continuous loss
Speaker 1: of sperm, which maybe a euphemism or maybe just a
Speaker 1: problem that he had. I don't know, but if there
Speaker 1: was a conspiracy within the fortress, there was also definitely
Speaker 1: a conspiracy without an underground society. Friends of the French
Speaker 1: smuggled a medical textbook to Duma with the section on
Speaker 1: poisonings underlined. This gesture of solidarity and the seeming confirmation
Speaker 1: that he wasn't being crazy, bolstered his spirits. A few
Speaker 1: nights later, the Friends of the French gave Duma another gift,
Speaker 1: lowering a package into his cell on a string. Inside
Speaker 1: the plain paper was bark containing the medicinal herb quinine
Speaker 1: and possibly the best present you can give an imprisoned
Speaker 1: frenchman a hunk of chocolate. Back in France, Dumas's wife,
Speaker 1: Marie Louise was trying to find out why her husband
Speaker 1: had seemingly disappeared into thin air. Alex had written her
Speaker 1: that he was about to head home. Then she got
Speaker 1: no more letters, and more importantly, no Alex. She wrote
Speaker 1: to his fellow military leaders, the war ministry, and every
Speaker 1: government official she could think of. Many of her pleas
Speaker 1: got no response. When she did hear back, it was
Speaker 1: with a cold, perfunctory we're looking into it and will
Speaker 1: let you know when we know. She had no income
Speaker 1: and no idea when she would see the father of
Speaker 1: her child again. I imagine that she was going a
Speaker 1: little crazy too. You would think that the French government
Speaker 1: would be keen to get one of its most effective
Speaker 1: generals back, but they were distracted by a series of
Speaker 1: military defeats as other European nations formed an alliance against them.
Speaker 1: All the progress Duma had made wiped away. Jews were
Speaker 1: back in ghettos, republics dismantled in weeks, and once again
Speaker 1: in the chaos opportunity. Napoleon's brother Joseph had maneuvered his
Speaker 1: way to the top of politics as President of the
Speaker 1: Council of the Five hundred. The older Buonaparte returned from
Speaker 1: the desert with tales only of his successes. Together, the
Speaker 1: brothers conspired to stage a good old fashioned coups de'tat
Speaker 1: how handy that an intimidating general who would certainly have
Speaker 1: opposed such a maneuver, was safely tucked away in a
Speaker 1: Neapolitan fortress, out of sight, out of mind. Napoleon discovered
Speaker 1: that he didn't need Duma to fight his battles with
Speaker 1: other countries, and in fact, he preferred to be the
Speaker 1: only star in the sky. Napoleon used his absolute power
Speaker 1: to achieve goals that Duma would have opposed. Even more
Speaker 1: strongly than Napoleon's despotism. He began to roll back the
Speaker 1: tide of emancipation. Once in power, Napoleon aligned himself with
Speaker 1: pro slavery groups, and while he wouldn't instate the practice
Speaker 1: at home, he passed laws with the goal of bringing
Speaker 1: slavery back in the French colonies. In eighteen o two,
Speaker 1: he drew up a law stating quote beyond the Cape
Speaker 1: of Good Hope, slavery would be continued in conformity with
Speaker 1: the laws and regulations of before seventeen eighty nine, and
Speaker 1: the trade of blacks on behalf of those above mentioned
Speaker 1: colonies could begin again end quote self serving as ever,
Speaker 1: Napoleon had previously used the threat of slavery to get
Speaker 1: free blacks to fall in line under his rule. A
Speaker 1: few years before he reinstated slavery, Napoleon had told the
Speaker 1: people of Dumas's hometown, San do Ming quote remember brave Negroes,
Speaker 1: that the French people alone recognize your liberty and your
Speaker 1: equal rights. End quote. As Napoleon was crossing at the Alps,
Speaker 1: the same mountains that Duma had once climbed, Duma found
Speaker 1: out that once again his captors in Naples were trying
Speaker 1: to kill him. Why if that were true, didn't they
Speaker 1: just slit his throat is not a question that he
Speaker 1: seems to have ever addressed. But he was sure that
Speaker 1: his upcoming move to another fortress was secretly cover for
Speaker 1: his murder. The night he was to be moved, the
Speaker 1: prison governor burst into the prison with a pack of
Speaker 1: armed men. He told Duma and Mascort to pack their things.
Speaker 1: Duma said no. The governor drew his sword. Duma was weak,
Speaker 1: he was a prisoner, he was unarmed, he was outnumbered,
Speaker 1: but he was still alex. Duma and he never backed
Speaker 1: down from a fight. He brandished his walking stick and
Speaker 1: drew himself up to his full height. Miraculously, it worked
Speaker 1: and the guards backed down, at least temporarily. He was
Speaker 1: later moved to the other fortress, and news of his
Speaker 1: standoff with the governor reached King Furdokand, who was appalled
Speaker 1: at the insubordination and decreed that Duma and man's cork
Speaker 1: would be kept in solitary confinement. But he gave that
Speaker 1: order to a man named Biancei, who had a different
Speaker 1: view of the events, and he found the walking stick
Speaker 1: incident humorous and a little admirable, and he decided to
Speaker 1: disregard his Majesty's note. By the turn of the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: the nations of Europe were lining up to cut deals
Speaker 1: with Emperor Napoleon. One of Napoleon's generals, Mara, who had
Speaker 1: served alongside Duma and knew what had happened to him,
Speaker 1: negotiated a release of all French prisoners into Naples surrender.
Speaker 1: In June eighteen oh one, Duma finally came home. He'd
Speaker 1: somehow held on to a couple souvenirs from Egypt, which
Speaker 1: he gave to his daughter Amy, now eight years old.
Speaker 1: The reunion was joyous. Marie Louise was pregnant again in
Speaker 1: a matter of months, But there were certain inescapable facts
Speaker 1: that marred the homecoming. The first was Alex's health, which
Speaker 1: would never fully recover. He was plagued by headaches and
Speaker 1: tonightas in addition to the partial loss of vision and hearing.
Speaker 1: And then there was the state of his family, bankrupt.
Speaker 1: When he was well enough to ride again, Duma begged
Speaker 1: to be given another command in the army. No one
Speaker 1: would give him the time of day or even back
Speaker 1: pay for all the time he'd been in prison. He
Speaker 1: was promised half a million francs for his ordeal. He
Speaker 1: would never see a penny of it. Finally, there was
Speaker 1: what Napoleon had done to the country. A divided people
Speaker 1: are more easily oppressed, and race was an easy enough
Speaker 1: way to split everyone up, made interracial marriage illegal, and
Speaker 1: expelled all non white people from his sham government. He
Speaker 1: kicked the scholarship students out of the National Colonial Institute
Speaker 1: and the school soon closed. All veterans of color were
Speaker 1: banned from living in or around Paris. Duma had to
Speaker 1: get special dispensation just to keep his house, but other
Speaker 1: non white men who had served in the army were
Speaker 1: not so lucky. But even if they were poor outcasts,
Speaker 1: alex and Marie Louise had each other. They had their daughter,
Speaker 1: and in July eighteen oh two, their son, Alexander. Father
Speaker 1: and son adored each other, and though they only had
Speaker 1: a few years together, Alexander would retain core memories of
Speaker 1: his father. Duma was diagnosed with stomach cancer in eighteen
Speaker 1: oh five and soon took to bed in constant pain.
Speaker 1: He couldn't bear any noise or movement, but little Alexander
Speaker 1: was allowed to visit alex Dumat died at the end
Speaker 1: of February eighteen o six, though in some ways he
Speaker 1: had been dead since Egypt, stripped of the freedom and
Speaker 1: glory that had always defined him. But in another way,
Speaker 1: perhaps Napoleon, in his indifference, did Duma one tiny favor
Speaker 1: in keeping him out of the army during his final years.
Speaker 1: In four decades, Duma had been a slave, an aristocrat,
Speaker 1: a student, a commander, a hero, a prisoner. He had
Speaker 1: seen every climate and many countries. Finally, after his release
Speaker 1: from prison, because he wasn't granted command again, he finally
Speaker 1: had time just to be a dad. After her husband died,
Speaker 1: Marie Louise took a job in a tobacconist shop. While
Speaker 1: she begged for the pension that she was rightfully owed
Speaker 1: as a military widow, she'd never get it. She knew
Speaker 1: very well why Napoleon hated her whole family. When one
Speaker 1: general made the mistake of inquiring about the remaining dumases
Speaker 1: to Napoleon, the Emperor apparently stamped his foot and yelled, quote,
Speaker 1: I forbid you ever to speak to me of that man.
Speaker 1: But fortune would have one more reversal. Yet Napoleon would
Speaker 1: die in exile and be remembered as a despot. Marie
Speaker 1: Louise would live long enough to see her son restore
Speaker 1: the family to glory and fortune as a novelist. And
Speaker 1: though racists in the literary community would seek to exclude
Speaker 1: the author of the Count of Monte Cristo based on
Speaker 1: his color, he never for a moment doubted his talent.
Speaker 1: He was, after all, the son of Alex Duma. This
Speaker 1: episode wouldn't have been possible without the incredible book by
Speaker 1: Tom Rice, The Black Count, Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the
Speaker 1: Real Count of Monte Cristo and if you were interested
Speaker 1: in this episode, you should absolutely pick up a copy
Speaker 1: of that book because it's fascinating. That's our story of
Speaker 1: Toma Alexander Duma and his rise in the military and
Speaker 1: running a foul of Napoleon. But keep listening after a
Speaker 1: brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the cultural legacy of the French in Egypt. Is the
Speaker 1: pen Mightier than the Sword? In July seventeen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: Napoleon's Egypt expedition made its most lasting contribution to society.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't military men like Napoleon or Duma who
Speaker 1: led the way. It was Pierre Francois Bouchard, an army
Speaker 1: engineer and a member of Napoleon's Arts and Sciences Society,
Speaker 1: who had been recruited not for his prowess on the battlefield,
Speaker 1: but for his cultural and scientific knowledge. Napoleon had brought
Speaker 1: along a delegation of what were called savants, like the
Speaker 1: art experts he had brought to Italy to identify the
Speaker 1: most valuable paintings. These savants were supposed to impress and
Speaker 1: educate the locals with their technology and collect important cultural
Speaker 1: artifacts to bring back to Paris. They also establish the
Speaker 1: Egyptian Scientific Institute, which still exists today and which was
Speaker 1: the oldest European building in Egypt until it was partially
Speaker 1: destroyed in the Arab Spring. But on this afternoon, Bouchard
Speaker 1: was supervising a group of workers as they tore down
Speaker 1: a wall. While digging, his men encountered a rock too
Speaker 1: heavy to move, and while a soldier might have simply
Speaker 1: moved on, Bouchard took a closer look. It wasn't a boulder,
Speaker 1: but a slab inscribed with hieroglyphics which no one on
Speaker 1: earth could read, but also Greek, which Bouchard knew. And
Speaker 1: what's more, part of the Greek texts explicitly stated that
Speaker 1: its message was also written in hieroglyphics. In a very
Speaker 1: real way, the discovery of what's now known as the
Speaker 1: row Zetta Stone unlocked our understanding of ancient Egypt and
Speaker 1: therefore the world. Is it too corny to say that
Speaker 1: this text brought society closer together than any empire ever could.
Speaker 1: The actual text of the stone, which now sits at
Speaker 1: the British Museum, is about the king at the time
Speaker 1: it was inscribed, Ptolemy the Fifth, and how he reduced
Speaker 1: taxes and put down rebellions. Sounds like someone Duma and
Speaker 1: Napoleon might have gotten along with or tried to kill.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's hard to tell with men like that. Noble
Speaker 1: Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild
Speaker 1: from Aaron. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 1: Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The
Speaker 1: show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima
Speaker 1: Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers
Speaker 1: Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.