WEBVTT - Dumas and Napoleon 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:05.080 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:15.400 and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener Discretion advised it looked 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.960 like they would be facing another winter with too little 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:24.480 bread and not enough firewood for French peasants. In October 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.640 seventeen ninety five, it turned out that the recent revolution 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:34.600 hadn't actually changed all that much. Those who starved under 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:39.000 King Louis the sixteenth were starving still, and the government 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:44.800 that had replaced the royal family was by turns corrupt, unstable, 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:51.400 and impotent. Pro Royalists wanted a constitutional monarchy, and when 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.840 the governing body at the time passed an extremely unpopular 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:01.520 law limiting the pro Royalist party's power, the French did 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:06.919 what they do best. Riot. Tens of thousands of pro 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.600 Royalists marched on Paris. They gathered in front of the 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:17.320 Tullery Palace, where the representatives of the National Convention government sat. 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.959 The rioters didn't have much by way of artillery, but 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.920 they outnumbered the National Guard four to one. The National 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.640 Guard was led by a general who wasn't savvy enough 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.680 for the job. When he met with the rebel leaders, 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.920 they promised that they would disarm and He happily retreated, 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.560 believing them, but the rebels did not disarm and the 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.920 general was replaced. The new general would need to be 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:52.800 someone ruthless. The Thermidorian leader on the ground remembered a 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:57.600 brilliant young officer who might just be the man for 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:03.760 the job. Send for Bonaparte, he said. Napoleon Bonaparte had 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:09.040 been idling away his twenties at the topographical Bureau after 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.520 making a wrong career move, and he was practically salivating 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.400 at the chance to lead an army again. He would 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.560 remind his country that he was a leader to be 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.800 reckoned with. Bonaparte instructed his men to go to a 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.919 nearby military camp and bring back every cannon they could 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.920 get their hands on. If someone stands in your way, 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:37.400 kill them, he instructed. His men. Soon returned with forty cannons, 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:42.200 which they packed with grape shot, small metal rounds in 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:47.120 canvas bags that exploded upon firing, which could rip through 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.600 a dozen bodies in a dozen directions at the same time. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.560 Not even in the bloodiest battles of the revolution did 0:02:55.639 --> 0:03:00.480 anyone think to use this weapon on civilians. And again, 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:05.720 no one ever thought like Napoleon. The young commander spent 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:11.080 the morning riding from station to station, inspecting every cannon 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:16.160 to make sure it was equipped for maximum damage. He 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.959 had just been given his first part in the pun 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:25.360 shot at victory. In years, defeat was not an option. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.160 He didn't tell the troops to fire until it was 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:34.200 absolutely clear there would be no peaceful surrender. But once 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:39.000 he gave the order, the damage was brutal. Riders who 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:43.680 weren't screaming in pain were screaming in fear, accompanied by 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:48.800 the staccato boom of cannons. Historians would write that Napoleon 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:53.880 gave the pro royalists quote a whiff of grape shot, 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:59.240 but that day Paris smelled only of blood. In the end, 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:04.800 around three hundred civilians died, and the Republican Guard under 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:10.720 Napoleon only lost around thirty men. For his efforts, Napoleon 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.760 was awarded a salary of forty eight thousand francs, given 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.480 command of the French Army of Italy, and even negotiated 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.839 a plumb gig in the diplomatic service for his brother Joseph. 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.599 Little did the Convention know what it had just set 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:33.120 into motion. This was the beginning of the end of 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:37.160 the French Revolution. The beginning of the beginning of the 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:42.880 Napoleonic Age. In terms of the history of Europe, Napoleon 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.599 was a great man in the capital g sense of 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.920 the word. Greatness only rises to its full heights when 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:57.280 challenged by arrival. Serena has Venus, Rocky had Apollo, and 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.120 after putting down his rebellion in Paris, there was only 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:06.320 one man that Napoleon thought of as his adversary. His 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:11.320 rival would be the undisputed star of the French military, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.640 the Black Count, the Angel of Death, a man whose 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:21.359 son would go on to write stories still celebrated in 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.279 the canon of literature, but whose own name would make 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:30.680 a mark on the world. The man Napoleon feared Toma 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:37.840 Alexandra Duma Davy. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.960 Flashback to seventeen eighty nine years before Napoleon put down 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.360 the pro royalist sympathizers in the streets, the bloody French 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:58.400 Revolution and equally bloody bred Riot had already made Paris 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:03.000 a place of chaos. Toma Alexander Duma, a young private, 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.200 and his unit had been called to the hunting town 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.080 of Ville Coterret, a few hours outside of Paris to 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.919 keep the peace there in case the violence spread. As 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.960 the town had no barracks, the soldiers stayed among the people, 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:22.320 and Duma was personally invited by a man named Claude 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.640 Lebret to stay at his inn and even to dine 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.800 with his family. That night. At dinner, Duma sang for 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:34.159 his supper, so to speak, charming the Lebret with stories 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.320 from his youth spent in a sugar colony in what 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:41.200 is now Haiti, telling the tale of how his father, 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.279 the son of a marquis, had briefly sold Alex into 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.960 slavery in order to afford passage for both of them 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.920 back to France, and how when they arrived, his father 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.159 had enrolled him in the finest school in the city, 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:00.799 where Alex learned how to ride and duel. He actually 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.960 learned the dueling from the greatest swordsman in France, the 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.839 Chevalier de Saint George, who we covered in a two 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:12.880 part episode in June. The Chevalier was also an accomplished violinist, 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.360 and perhaps it was he the Chevalier, who confirmed in 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.880 the young Alex Dumas's mind the notion that anyone of 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:26.920 any color could aspire to greatness in whatever endeavor they chose. 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:32.440 Because Toma Alexander Dumat was black, he had been born 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.760 to an enslaved woman that his father had owned as property. 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.320 Before Dumas's father left the French colony where Alex was born, 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:46.160 he sold Alex's mother and Alex's siblings. I think it's 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.120 important to stop and think for a minute here about 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:54.680 that cruelty, that dehumanization. It was only Alex who was 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.360 brought back to France. Alexander was temporarily sold into slavery 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:03.600 himself for his father to pay for that passage. When 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:09.560 Alex arrived, his father repurchased him and then officially freed him. 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:14.239 Given the unique opportunity presented to him, Duma was able 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.360 to spend the early part of his twenties as a 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:22.040 Parisian socialite. But when his father married their housekeeper and 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.800 cut off his allowance, alex did what all young men 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.680 of his station did joined the military. Typically well to 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.600 do boys with noble pedigree would have been able to 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.440 enlist as officers, but for Duma, the color of his 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:43.280 skin made that a little challenging. There weren't rules against it, really, 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.080 but it was a no man's land, and it would 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.800 have been hard for Duma to receive the position he 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:53.040 was entitled to. Screw it, he thought, he enlisted in 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:58.080 the Queen's dragoons as a mere private. Dumas's father was 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:02.800 infuriated and war that he wouldn't let his son drag 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:07.920 their family name Davy through the mud. Fine alex reasoned, 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.839 I'll take my mother's surname, and so he dropped his 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:17.920 father's last name Davy and became a Duma. Particularly taken 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:22.000 with Alexander's stories at the La Beret's dinner table was 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.560 the innkeeper's pretty daughter, Marie Louise. She wrote to a 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.000 friend the night that she first met Duma, he is 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.040 a fine figure of a man. The fact that she 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.280 was white and he was black, well by Rachel, was 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.560 for Marie Louise and her family no issue at all. 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.520 That Alex's mother had been enslaved wasn't a knock on 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.240 his character, and it actually explained much of his committed 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.280 zeal to the French Revolution. To zoom out a little bit, 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:58.320 this was a very complex time for race relations in France. 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:02.600 Revolutionary idea deals at the time were challenging long held 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:08.079 assumptions about equality, or rather inequality. Those of mixed race, 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:13.600 like Duma, were actually considered a unique class, separate from 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:18.920 both whites and blacks. Many were rich, some even owned 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:25.119 their own slaves. There was then, as today, widespread racism, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:30.560 and the ever changing government occasionally passed laws to limit 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.840 the rights of non white people, dictating what they could 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:38.080 wear and what names and titles they could use. Laws 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.960 like these spoke to an attitude of supremacy, but did 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.920 not in themselves make life considerably harder for free non 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.920 white people. They simply wore other clothes. There were more 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.040 pernicious laws, like an attempt to round up and register 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.760 all non white people in France, but the government was 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.040 far to disorganize to ever actually follow through on the plan. 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:09.080 In some circles, it was actually considered fashionable to be 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:15.720 not quite white. A quote exotic heritage made you more interesting, 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:21.080 and even the most hardened racists in France liked to 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:26.120 see Duma as an quote exception. It was simply an 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.839 accepted fact. He was the strongest soldier in the army. 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.520 Legend had it he could hang from a ceiling beam 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:39.080 and lift a horse with his legs. Would anyone dare 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.840 to make a belittling remark to the man who won 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.720 three duels in a single day at six foot one 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.160 in an era when the average height for a man 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:53.640 was five foot eight. Alex Dumas cut a very imposing figure, 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.560 and he became the sort of Chuck Norris character of 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:03.000 the French army. To Marie Louise, the innkeeper's daughter, and 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.880 to others, he was quite literally, tall, dark and handsome, 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.360 and she was thrilled when her father agreed to an engagement. 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.800 But like any protective dad, the innkeeper wanted to know 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.760 that his daughter would be taken care of and told 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.320 Duma that they couldn't wed until he had risen to 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.520 the rank of sergeant. In the fall of seventeen ninety two, 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.920 Duma returned from the front lines to claim his bride. 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.040 But he was no sergeant. He was a war hero 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:39.319 and lieutenant colonel of an entire unit of men like himself, 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:44.280 known as the Black Legion. Duma was a shooting star 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.560 in the military, and soon the government was assigning him 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:52.600 a series of herculean challenges. It's almost comical how he 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.120 was dispatched to fix any problem that had stymied others. 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.119 Oh this Spanish fleet had defeated the last two generals 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.320 we sent in try Duma, and after that, would you 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.800 mind capturing Oh, I don't know the Alps, even though 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.520 you've never seen, let alone fought in the snow. By 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.720 the age of thirty two, he was equivalent to a 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.520 four star general. He would be the first person of 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.720 color to achieve the ranks of brigadier general, division general, 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:26.679 and General in chief. Duma was a ferocious soldier on 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:32.040 his own, once single handedly taking twelve enemies prisoner, but 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.320 much of his success could also be attributed to his 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:40.079 style as a leader. Armies in those days weren't particularly 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:45.440 well trained or organized. They often didn't have enough equipment, 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.360 and instead of being paid by their government, they just 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.880 stole from whatever place they were invading. Raping the local 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:58.920 women was another common occurrence. Duma was having none of 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:04.720 that isuted order and stability, and he was unfailingly fair 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:10.479 to citizens, earning him the somewhat derisive nickname mister Humanity. 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.040 In return for his men's loyalty, he advocated for them, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:20.960 writing a letter after letter to Paris to secure payment, boots, rations, 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.359 and horses for his men. Not only was looting not allowed, 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:30.920 it wasn't necessary. There was seemingly no sealing on his career, 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:36.840 regardless of his race. In seventeen ninety four, France officially 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:42.800 abolished slavery throughout the Empire. Black and mixed race legislators 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.680 joined the governing body, the Council of the Five hundred. 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.800 The first integrated secondary school in Europe opened in Paris, 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:58.360 the National Colonial Institute, a world class academy educating both 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.800 children of the elite and scholarship students from the colonies. 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:07.760 But just as true greatness was seemingly within Dumas's grasp, 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.400 did the unstoppable force of his career run into the 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:20.120 immovable object of Napoleon Bonaparte. By seventeen ninety six, both 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.440 were generals. Napoleon was put in charge of the French 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:29.040 Army of Italy, and Dumas was assigned to work just 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:37.040 under him. The two men almost immediately did not like 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.480 each other. Dumas was one of the last officers to 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.280 arrive in Italy, and he was dismayed by what he saw. 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.840 Deference to Napoleon was based not on his admirable qualities, 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.120 but on the fact that he promised his ally's riches 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:58.200 Napoleon allowed looting, even arranged it and elevated it. His 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.600 soldiers didn't just steal food from the Italian towns they invaded, 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.320 they made the Italians cook feasts for them. Duma once 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.320 had to intervene to keep an entire towns women from 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.600 getting trapped on a bridge by soldiers where they would 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.520 have surely been assaulted. Under these circumstances, how could Duma 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:24.120 be expected to implement his more gentlemanly style of conduct. 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.240 The soldiers were in a position not unlike a kid 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.920 playing their parents off one another. Oh, Mommy, Alex says, 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.640 I can't pillage, well, Daddy, Napoleon said it was okay. 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:43.360 Napoleon took pillaging to a new and sophisticated level. He 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:47.680 made a project of identifying the most valuable treasures and 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.960 artworks from each region and shipped them back to France. 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.800 He brought experts on his expeditions just for that purpose. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:02.720 He also charged Milan twenty million francs cash for having 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:07.360 been liberated from Austria, and he repeated that pattern everywhere 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.399 his army went. Duma did what he could to limit 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.960 Napoleon's damage, but if it was all in the service 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.879 of spreading the ideals of the French Revolution far and wide, well, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:24.320 he'd mostly follow his orders. He played a pivotal role 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.760 in the Siege of Mantua and was understandably angry when 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.960 he found out that Napoleon's aid had written to the 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.640 general that Duma had stayed out of the action. Alex 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:40.760 composed his own letter explaining the situation to Napoleon. General, 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.000 I have learned that the jackass whose business it is 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.160 to report to you upon the Battle of the twenty seventh, 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.720 stated that I stayed in observation throughout that battle. I 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.680 don't wish any such observation on him, since he would 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:00.840 have shit in his pants. Saluta and brotherhood Alex do end. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:07.639 Alex's reputation continued to grow. Taking small groups of soldiers 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:14.160 on strategic missions, Duma easily recognizable scared the living daylights 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.640 out of the Austrian army. They began to call him 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.439 d Schwartze Chuffel, or the black Devil. Just as Duma 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:27.200 was too smart to fight Napoleon directly, Napoleon was too 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:31.119 smart to let go of Duma. He praised his general's 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:35.399 victories and gave him the nickname the Horacious cocolos of 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.600 the Tyrol, as well as ordering him a new set 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:43.280 of pistols after he lost his In seventeen ninety seven, 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.320 Duma received a letter from his wife informing him that 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.960 their second daughter, a toddler named Louise, had died. He 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.280 went home to be with his family for a few 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.040 months before being called back into service once again to 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.280 serve Napoleon, as he had a tempted to conquer a 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.879 foreign land. But this time it wasn't Italy they were after, 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:11.200 and it wasn't that classic French enemy England either. No. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:16.080 General Bonaparte was taking his men on a much more 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:25.120 perilous journey, and he wouldn't tell anybody where as if 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.840 to remind everyone of the pecking order, Napoleon installed himself 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.600 on a ship called the Orient, which was at the 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:36.520 time the largest on earth, and he put Duma on 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:41.760 the mid sized ship called William Tell. Because Napoleon could 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.680 not earn his men's respect as Duma had, he once 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:50.280 again tried to buy it, promising every soldier six acres 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.600 of land once they got to wherever they were going. 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.919 He didn't say, which must have made it hard to pack. 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.760 First stop, Malta, a Mediterranean island that had been ruled 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:07.040 by knights whose income came from their estates back in France. 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.520 When the French Revolution did away with feudal dues, the 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:17.240 richest Maltens suffered and weren't exactly friendly to the revolutionary 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:21.840 government's army that came knocking at their port. But Napoleon 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.920 had a plan. He promised to pay whatever price they 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.720 wanted once he and his fleet got inside the harbor, 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.800 and as a sweetener, the Grand Master could have a 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:39.600 principality in Germany. Why not. Once Napoleon's fleet was inside, 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:44.160 Napoleon gave the Maltens three days to get the hell out. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.560 What he lacked in honor, he more than made up 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:52.040 for in savvy. In Malta, Dumas saw for the first 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:56.439 time when Napoleon would look like, not just as a leader, 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:01.880 but as a ruler. Napoleon declared declared religious freedom for all, 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:07.359 protecting Jews from persecution and abolishing torture. He freed two 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:12.199 thousand enslaved people and set about modernizing the infrastructure. He 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:17.480 planned hospitals, schools, post offices, and street lights. He instituted 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:21.399 rent control and passed into law the early version of 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.360 what would become the Napoleonic Code, and he made all 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.280 of these progressive changes without going through any kind of 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:36.199 red tape or bureaucracy or democracy. Napoleon was ruling like 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.679 a dictator. But there was no time for alex to 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:44.000 dwell too much on that, because Napoleon had finally revealed 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:49.800 what their final destination would be, Egypt. It had long 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:54.359 been Napoleon's ambition to conquer Egypt, as Alexander the Great 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:58.320 once did. The cities were ancient, even compared to Rome, 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.560 and they were believed to hold great treasures, not to 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:07.000 mention the incredible Pyramids, and it was in a highly 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:13.160 covetable strategic position, given Britain's reliance on trade with India. 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:18.000 Taking Egypt in the name of France and liberating its 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:22.280 people from the Mamelukes who controlled the region was a 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:27.680 grand and romantic notion. It was also, as everyone would 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:32.600 soon see, a pretty dumb idea. In the wee hours 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:37.800 of July second, four thousand frenchmen stepped ashore, led by 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:42.359 Napoleon and Dumont. Napoleon had put Duma in charge of 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:47.119 the cavalry. The problem was there wasn't much cavalry to 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.960 speak of the plan was to get most of their 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:55.840 horses once they arrived, but horses were hard to come by, 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:01.520 and it was one hundred and ten degrees outside quote unquote. 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:08.360 Liberating Italy had involved bloodshed, yes, but also feasting. There 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:12.880 was no feasting when the army showed up to seize Alexandria. 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:18.000 The citizens weren't particularly happy to see them, and the 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:23.760 soldiers kept getting attacked by Bedouin tribes. Napoleon's army took 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:28.760 Alexandria easily enough, but there was no reward, just the 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:35.560 prospect of a long, very hot march to Cairo. To 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:40.760 call it a suicide mission is both insensitive and correct. 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:47.600 The men were in dark wool uniforms carrying forty pound packs. 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:53.960 They were starving, and so so thirsty that many preferred 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:58.320 a bullet to the long, slow agony that had taken 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:02.679 their brothers. They were marching alongside. If a man became 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:06.280 weak and fell behind, he would be picked off by 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:10.919 a Bedouin tribe. Many men caught an eye infection that 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:17.760 burned and hussed and rendered them partially blind. Others suffered dysentery. 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:23.080 At the smaller cities they stopped at soldiers standing guard 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:26.840 had their throats slit in the night, not by an 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:30.760 enemy army, but by the very citizens they'd assumed would 0:24:30.760 --> 0:24:35.600 greet them with cheers as liberators. It was clear whose 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:39.600 mistake this was. The man who decided to surprise the 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:44.159 enemy by attacking in the summer, the man who hadn't 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:50.080 made any arrangements for a way to carry water around Napoleon, 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:55.080 and who wanted to conquer six acres of desert anyway. 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:59.880 But they were either too loyal or too tired to mutiny, 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:05.320 so onward they marched. But Duma always had the energy 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:09.480 to take Napoleon down a peg. One night, he scrounged 0:25:09.560 --> 0:25:13.919 up a few of these delicious novel fruits they called watermelons, 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:17.120 and he invited the other generals back to his tent 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:21.440 for a chet. They kicked around the question of why 0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:25.840 they were even there, what their commander's plan even was. 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:30.119 Was Napoleon doing his best with an impossible task, or 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:33.840 at Paris used this as an excuse to get rid 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:37.880 of him once they reached Cairo, Should they the other 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:44.320 generals make a plan to stop One of Napoleon's informants 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:49.640 overheard the chatter. These men who doubted their leader, who 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:54.800 would refuse to march past their next destination. There's a 0:25:54.800 --> 0:26:00.159 word for that in the military coup. Things came to 0:26:00.200 --> 0:26:05.440 a head after the French finally took Cairo. Napoleon confronted 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:09.119 Duma about what he'd heard, making it clear that he 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:14.840 wouldn't tolerate criticism or questioning from anyone, even a fellow general. 0:26:16.000 --> 0:26:20.640 War makes strange bedfellows. Until this point, the two men 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:24.720 had been fair weather friends. They were always in a 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:28.520 kind of cold war, but put their differences aside for 0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:31.720 the sake of their missions, and when things were good, 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:36.639 they even got along. Napoleon's wife, Josephine, who was white 0:26:36.720 --> 0:26:40.440 but had herself been born in the French colony of Martinique, 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:45.600 genuinely liked Duma. If either she or Dumas's wife, Marie 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:49.320 Louise ever had a boy, both families had promised to 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:54.320 be godparents to the other's son, and, whether begrudgingly or not, 0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:59.960 Napoleon had praised Dumas's skill on the battlefield, which Duma 0:27:00.000 --> 0:27:05.160 perhaps naively took to heart. But the bright Egyptian sun 0:27:05.400 --> 0:27:12.040 shed a new light on their fundamental incompatibilities. Napoleon resented 0:27:12.240 --> 0:27:16.880 Duma everywhere they went. The Egyptians marveled at the sight 0:27:17.000 --> 0:27:20.720 of a black man leading a white army, and he 0:27:20.840 --> 0:27:24.879 was so tall and imposing, they just assumed he was 0:27:24.920 --> 0:27:29.600 in charge. When Duma put down an uprising by riding 0:27:29.680 --> 0:27:34.600 into a mosque, rebels screamed, the Angel, the Angel. They 0:27:34.680 --> 0:27:38.720 thought he was the angel of death. You can imagine 0:27:38.840 --> 0:27:44.080 how little Napoleon liked that. Even if the whole Napoleon 0:27:44.200 --> 0:27:49.320 complex insecure about being short is an English bit of propaganda, 0:27:49.800 --> 0:27:54.639 I'm sure he didn't love everyone praising this tall, handsome, 0:27:55.080 --> 0:27:59.880 gallant soldier. Actually, you don't have to imagine how Napoleon felt, 0:28:00.320 --> 0:28:04.400 because years later Napoleon commissioned a painting of this incident, 0:28:04.920 --> 0:28:08.919 and he replaced Duma in the painting with a nameless 0:28:09.119 --> 0:28:14.399 white cavalry man. In another painting, it was Napoleon himself 0:28:14.600 --> 0:28:19.040 who saved the day during that rebellion. Here we have 0:28:19.160 --> 0:28:24.200 to wonder how much of Napoleon's antipathy towards Duma was racial. 0:28:25.040 --> 0:28:28.919 It's likely Napoleon would have hated anyone of any color 0:28:29.320 --> 0:28:33.320 who was as impressive a rival as Duma, but to 0:28:33.440 --> 0:28:38.440 ignore race would be completely naive. If Duma had been white, 0:28:38.840 --> 0:28:42.360 perhaps Napoleon would have tried harder to recruit him as 0:28:42.440 --> 0:28:47.600 an ally. How did Duma feel about Napoleon. In one 0:28:47.880 --> 0:28:53.360 potentially revealing incident, Duma discovered a stash of treasure while 0:28:53.400 --> 0:28:58.080 excavating a home that had apparently been abandoned. Since the 0:28:58.120 --> 0:29:01.640 goods had no owner, he could have kept them for himself, 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:06.200 but he turned them over to Napoleon, writing quote, the 0:29:06.320 --> 0:29:09.960 leopard cannot change his spots, nor can I change my 0:29:10.160 --> 0:29:14.720 character and principles. As an honest man, I must concede 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:17.680 to you the fact of a treasure I have just discovered. 0:29:18.320 --> 0:29:22.000 I abandon it to your disposition, reminding you only that 0:29:22.160 --> 0:29:27.040 I am a father and without fortune. End quote. On 0:29:27.120 --> 0:29:31.880 its surface, a straightforward thing to do, but I detect 0:29:32.200 --> 0:29:37.120 two possibly passive, aggressive digs in that letter. One, he 0:29:37.280 --> 0:29:40.880 reminded Napoleon that he was an honest man. They both 0:29:40.960 --> 0:29:43.720 knew that Napoleon would have stashed the stuff if he 0:29:43.800 --> 0:29:46.520 had been the one to find it. Second, he had 0:29:46.560 --> 0:29:50.080 every right to note that as a dad, he needed money, 0:29:50.280 --> 0:29:54.840 but Napoleon hadn't fathered any children at the time, so 0:29:54.920 --> 0:29:59.040 it's possible that's another bit of a one up, and 0:29:59.240 --> 0:30:02.600 we can pretty safely assume Duma was not a fan 0:30:02.760 --> 0:30:07.400 of what Napoleon was doing with the enslaved population of Cairo, 0:30:08.320 --> 0:30:14.520 which was nothing sure. Napoleon had liberated thousands in Malta, 0:30:15.040 --> 0:30:18.560 but that had been a pragmatic decision on Napoleon's part 0:30:18.920 --> 0:30:22.080 to bring the island into the fold of the French Revolution. 0:30:22.760 --> 0:30:26.680 It hadn't been an ethical decision. Egypt was more of 0:30:26.720 --> 0:30:31.240 an outpost, and the more hierarchical its society, the more 0:30:31.360 --> 0:30:35.280 firmly Napoleon could establish himself at the top of it. 0:30:36.080 --> 0:30:39.240 For Duma, the son of a slave who had briefly 0:30:39.280 --> 0:30:44.320 been enslaved himself, it must have been maddening. At least, 0:30:44.440 --> 0:30:48.840 the two men agreed on one thing. Duma should leave 0:30:48.960 --> 0:30:53.640 Egypt as soon as possible. The two men would never 0:30:53.800 --> 0:30:59.240