Noble Blood - Dumas and Napoleon

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Alexander Dumas is famous for his swashbuckling novel The Count of Monte Cristo, but more thrilling than fiction is the real-life story of his father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Born the son of an enslaved woman, Dumas would become one of the most celebrated soldiers in the French army, and would end up on a collision course with another young general: Napoleon Bonaparte. For more information, please read Tom Reiss's excellent book, The Black Count. Sign up for Dana's history writing course! Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch! — Order Dana's book,  'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. It looked like they would be facing another winter with too little bread and not enough firewood. For French peasants, in October 1795, it turned out that the recent revolution hadn't actually changed all that much. Those who starved under King Louis XVIth were starving still, and the government that had replaced the royal family was by turns corrupt, unstable, and impotent.

Pro-royalists wanted a constitutional monarchy, and when the governing body at the time passed, an extremely unpopular law limiting the pro-royalist party's power, the French did what they do best. Riot. Tens of thousands of pro-royalists marched on Paris. They gathered in front of the Tullery Palace, where the representatives of the National Convention government sat. The rioters didn't have much by way of artillery,

but they outnumbered the National Guard four to one. The National Guard was led by a general who wasn't savvy enough for the job. When he met with the rebel leaders, they promised that they would disarm, and he happily retreated, believing them. But the rebels did not disarm, and the general was replaced. The new general would need to be someone ruthless. The Thermidorian leader on the ground, remembered a brilliant young officer who might just be the man for the job.

Send for Bonaparte, he said. Napoleon Bonaparte had been idling away his 20s at the topographical bureau after making a wrong career move, and he was practically salivating at the chance to lead an army again. He would remind his country that he was a leader to be reckoned with. Bonaparte instructed his men to go to a nearby military camp and bring back every cannon they could get their hands on. If someone stands in your way, kill them, he instructed. His men soon returned with 40 cannons, which they packed with grape shot,

small metal rounds in canvas bags that exploded upon firing, which could rip through a dozen bodies in a dozen directions at the same time. Not even in the bloodiest battles of the revolution, did anyone think to use this weapon on civilians. But then again, no one ever thought like Napoleon. The young commander spent the morning riding from station to station, inspecting every cannon to make sure it was equipped for maximum damage. He had just been given his first, pardon the pun, shot at... victory in years. Defeat was not an option. He didn't tell the troops to fire until it was

absolutely clear there would be no peaceful surrender. But once he gave the order, the damage was brutal. Rioters who aren't screaming in pain were screaming in fear, accompanied by the staccato boom of cannons. Historians would write that Napoleon gave the pro-royalists, quote, a whiff of grape shot. But that day, Paris smelled only of blood. In the end, around 300 civilians died, and the Republican Guard under Napoleon only lost around 30 men.

For his efforts, Napoleon was awarded a salary of 48,000 francs, given command of the French army of Italy, and even negotiated a plum gig in the diplomatic, service for his brother Joseph. Little did the convention know what it had just set into motion. This was the beginning of the end of the French Revolution, the beginning of the beginning of the Napoleonic age. In terms of the history of Europe, Napoleon was a great man in the capital G sense of the word. Greatness only rises to its full heights when challenging. by a rival. Serena has Venus. Rocky had Apollo. And after putting down his rebellion in Paris,

there was only one man that Napoleon thought of as his adversary. His rival would be the undisputed star of the French military, the Black Count, the angel of death. A man whose son would go on to write stories still celebrated in the canon of literature, but whose own name would make a mark on the world. The man Napoleon feared. Toma Alexander, Dumas Davy. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Flashback to 1789.

Years before Napoleon put down the pro-royalist sympathizers in the streets, The bloody French Revolution and equally bloody bread riots had already made Paris a place of chaos. Toma Alexander Dumas, a young private and his unit had been called to the hunting town of Ville Couture, a few hours outside of Paris, to keep the peace there in case the violence spread. As the town had no barracks, the soldiers stayed among the people, and Dumas was personally invited by a man named

Claude Lebre to stay at his inn and even to dine with his family. That night at dinner, Dumas sang for his supper, so to speak, charming the Lebray with stories from his youth spent in a sugar colony in what is now Haiti, telling the tale of how his father, the son of a Marquis, had briefly sold Alex into slavery in order to afford passage for both of them back to France, and how when they arrived, his father had enrolled him in the finest school in the city, where Alex learned how to ride and duel. He actually learned the dueling from the greatest swordsman in France, the Chevalier de Saint-George, who we covered in a two-part episode in June.

The Chevalier was also an accomplished violinist, and perhaps it was he, the chevalier, who confirmed in the young Alex Dumaz's mind the notion that anyone of any color could aspire to greatness in whatever endeavor they chose. Because Tomah Alexander Dumas was black. He had been born to an enslaved woman that his father had owned as property. Before Dumas's father left the French colony where Alex was born, he sold Alex's mother and Alex's siblings. I think it's important to stop and think for a minute here about that, cruelty, that dehumanization. It was only Alex who was brought back to France.

Alexander was temporarily sold into slavery himself for his father to pay for that passage. When Alex arrived, his father repurchased him and then officially freed him. Given the unique opportunity presented to him, Dumas was able to spend the early part of his 20s as a Parisian socialite. But when his father married their housekeeper and cut off his allowance, Alex did what all young men of his station did, joined the military. Typically, well-to-do boys with noble pedigree would have been able to enlist as officers. But for Dumas, the color of his skin, made that a little challenging. There weren't rules against it, really, but it was a no man's land, and it would have been hard for Dumas to receive the position he was entitled to.

Screw it, he thought. He enlisted in the Queen's dragoons as a mere private. Dumas's father was infuriated and swore that he wouldn't let his son drag their family name Davy through the mud. Fine, Alex reasoned, I'll take my mother's surname. And so he dropped his father's last name, Davy, and became a duke. Maw. Particularly taken with Alexander's stories at the La Barre's dinner table was the innkeeper's pretty daughter, Marie Louise. She wrote to a friend the night that she first met Dumas, he is a fine

figure of a man. The fact that she was white and he was black, well, biracial, was for Marie Louise and her family, no issue at all. That Alex's mother had been enslaved wasn't a knock on his character, and it actually explained much of his committed zeal to the French Revolution. To zoom out a little bit, this was a very complex time for race relations in France. Revolutionary ideals at the time were challenging long-held assumptions about equality, or rather inequality. Those of mixed race, like Dumas, were actually considered a unique class, separate from both whites and blacks. Many were rich.

Some even owned their own slaves. There was then, as today, widespread racism and the ever-changing government occasionally passed laws to limit the rights of non-white people, dictating what they could wear and what names and titles they could use. Laws like these spoke to an attitude of supremacy, but did not in themselves make life considerably harder for free non-white people. They simply wore other clothes.

There were more pernicious laws, like an attempt to round up and register all non-white people in France, but the government was far too disorganized to ever actually follow through on the plan. In some circles, it was actually considered fashionable to be not quite white. a, quote, exotic heritage made you more interesting. And even the most hardened racists in France liked to see Dumas as an, quote, exception. It was simply an accepted fact. He was the strongest soldier in the army. Legend had it he could hang from a ceiling beam and lift a horse with his legs.

Would anyone dare to make a belittling remark? to the man who won three duels in a single day? At six foot one in an era when the average height for a man was five foot eight, Alex Dumas cut a very imposing figure, and he became the sort of Chuck Norris character of the French army. To Marie Louise, the innkeeper's daughter, and to others, he was quite literally tall, dark, and handsome, and she was thrilled when her father agreed to an engagement. But like any protective dad, the innkeeper wanted to know that his daughter would be taken care of and told Dumas that they couldn't wed until he had risen to the rank of sergeant. In the fall of 1792, Dumas returned from the front lines to claim his bride.

But he was no sergeant. He was a war hero and lieutenant colonel of an entire unit of men like himself, known as the Black Legion. Dumas was a shooting star in the military, and soon the government was assigning him a series of Herculane challenges. It's almost comical how he was dispatched to fix any problem that had stymied others. Oh, the Spanish fleet had defeated the last two generals we sent in? Try Dumas! And after that, would you mind capturing... Oh, I don't know, the Alps? Even though you've never seen, let alone fought in the snow? By the age of 32, he was equivalent to a four-star general. He would be the first person of color

to achieve the ranks of Brigadier General, Division General, and General-in-Chief. Dumas was a ferocious soldier on his own, once single-handedly taking 12 enemies prisoner, but much of his success could also be attributed to his style as a leader. armies in those days weren't particularly well-trained or organized. They often didn't have enough equipment and, instead of being paid by their government,

they just stole from whatever place they were invading. Raping the local women was another common occurrence. Dumas was having none of that. He instituted order and stability, and he was unfailingly fair to citizens, earning him the somewhat derisive nickname, Mr. Humanity. In return for his men's loyalty, he advocated for them, writing letter after letter to Paris to secure payment, boots, rations, and horses for his men. Not only was looting not allowed, it wasn't necessary.

There was seemingly no ceiling on his career, regardless of his race. In 1794, France officially abolished slavery throughout the empire. Black and mixed-race legislators joined the governing body, the Council of the 500. The first integrated secondary school in Europe opened in Paris, the National Colonial Institute, a world-class academy educating both children of the elite and scholarship students from the colonies. But just as true greatness was seemingly within Dumas' grasp, did the unstoppable force of his career run into the immovable object of Napoleon Bonaparte. By 1796, both were generals.

Napoleon was put in charge of the French army of Italy, and Dumas was assigned to work just under him. The two men almost immediately did not like each other. Dumas was one of the last officers to arrive in Italy, and he was dismayed by what he saw. Deference to Napoleon was based not on his admirable qualities, but on the fact that he promised his allies' riches. Napoleon allowed looting, even arranged it and elevated it.

His soldiers didn't just steal food from the Italian towns they invaded, they made the Italians cook feasts for them. Dumas once had to intervene to keep an entire town's women from getting trapped on a bridge by soldiers where they would have surely been assaulted. Under these circumstances, how could Dumas be expected to implement his more gentlemanly style of conduct? The soldiers were in a position not unlike a kid playing their parents off one another. Oh, Mommy Alex says I can't pillage? Well, Daddy Napoleon said it was okay. Napoleon took pillaging to a new and sophisticated level.

He made a project of identifying the most valuable treasures and artworks from each region and shipped them back to France. He brought experts on his expeditions just for that purpose. He also charged Milan 20 million. in Frank's cash for having been liberated from Austria, and he repeated that pattern everywhere his army went. Dumas did what he could to limit Napoleon's damage, but if it was all in the service of spreading the ideals of the French Revolution far and wide, well, he'd mostly follow his orders. He played a pivotal role in the siege of Mantua and was understandably angry when he found out that

Napoleon's aid had written to the general that Dumas had stayed out of the action. Alex composed his own letter explaining the situation to Napoleon. General, I have learned that the jackass whose business it is to report to you upon the battle of the 27th stated that I stayed in observation throughout that battle. I don't wish any such observation on him since he would have shit in his pants. Salute in Brotherhood, Alex Dumas, end quote. Alex's reputation continued to grow, taking small groups of soldiers on strategic missions,

Dumas easily recognizable, scared the living daylights out of the Austrian army. They began to call him DeSvartse Chufel, or the Black Devil. Just as Dumas was too smart to fight Napoleon directly, Napoleon was too smart to let go of Dumas. He praised his generals' victories and gave him the nickname the Horatious Coquels of the Tyrol, as well as ordering him a new set of pistols after he lost his.

In 1797, Dumas received a letter from his wife informing him that their second daughter, a toddler named Louise, had died. He went home to be with his family for a few months before being called back into service, once again to serve Napoleon, as he attempted to conquer a foreign land. But this time, it wasn't Italy they were after, and it wasn't that classic French enemy England either. No, General Bonaparte was taking his men on a much more perilous journey, and he wouldn't tell anybody where. As if to remind everyone of the pecking order, Napoleon installed himself on a ship called the Orient, which was at the time the largest on earth,

and he put Dumas on the mid-sized ship called William Tell. Because Napoleon could not earn his men's respect as Dumas had, he once again tried to buy it, promising every soldier six acres of land once they got to wherever they were going. He didn't say, which must have made it hard to pass. First up, Malta, a Mediterranean island that had been ruled by knights whose income came from their estates back in France. When the French Revolution did away with feudal dues, the richest Maltax suffered, and weren't exactly friendly to the revolutionary government's army that came knocking at their port. But Napoleon had a plan. He promised to pay whatever price they wanted once he and his fleet got inside the harbor.

And as a sweetener, the Grandmaster could have a principality in Germany. Why not? Once Napoleon's fleet was inside, Napoleon gave the Maltons three days to get the hell out. What he lacked in honor he more than made up for in Savvy. In Malta, Dumas saw for the first time what Napoleon would look like, not just as a leader, but as a ruler. Napoleon declared religious freedom for all, protecting Jews from persecution and abolishing torture. He freed 2,000 enslaved people and set about modernizing the infrastructure. He planned hospitals, schools, post offices, and streetlights.

He instituted rent control and pass. into law the early version of what would become the Napoleonic code, and he made all of these progressive changes without going through any kind of red tape or bureaucracy, or democracy. Napoleon was ruling like a dictator. But there was no time for Alex to dwell too much on that because Napoleon had finally revealed what their final destination would be.

Egypt. It had long been Napoleon's ambition to conquer Egypt as Alexander the Great once did. The cities were ancient even compared to Rome, and they were believed to hold great treasures, not to mention the incredible pyramids, and it was in a highly covetable strategic position, given Britain's reliance on trade with India, taking Egypt in the name of France and liberating its people from the Mamelukes who controlled the region was a grand and romantic notion. It was also, as everyone would soon see, a pretty dumb idea. In the wee hours of July 2nd, 4,000 Frenchmen stepped ashore, led by Napoleon and Dumas. Napoleon had put Dumas in charge

of the cavalry. The problem was there wasn't much cavalry to speak of. of. The plan was to get most of their horses once they arrived, but horses were hard to come by, and it was 110 degrees outside. Quote-unquote, liberating Italy had involved bloodshed, yes, but also feasting. There was no feasting when the army showed up to seize Alexandria. The citizens weren't particularly happy to see them, and the soldiers kept getting attacked by Bedouin tribes. Napoleon's army took Alexandria easily enough, but there was no reward,

just the prospect of a long, very hot march to Cairo. To call it a suicide mission is both insensitive and correct. The men were in charge. dark wool uniforms carrying 40-pound packs. They were starving and so, so thirsty, that many preferred a bullet to the long, slow agony that had taken their brothers they were marching alongside. If a man became weak and fell behind,

he would be picked off by a Bedouin tribe. Many men caught an eye infection that burned and hussed, and rendered them partially blind. Others suffered dysentery. At the smaller cities they stopped at, soldiers standing guard had their throats slit in the night, not by an enemy army, but by the very citizens they'd assumed

would greet them with cheers as liberators. It was clear whose mistake this was, the man who decided to surprise the enemy by attacking in the summer. the man who hadn't made any arrangements for a way to carry water around. Napoleon. And who wanted to conquer six acres of desert anyway? But they were either too loyal or too tired to mutiny, so onward they marched.

But Dumas always had the energy to take Napoleon down a peg. One night he scrounged up a few of these delicious novel fruits. called watermelons, and he invited the other generals back to his tent for a chat. They kicked around the question of why they were even there, what their commander's plan even was. Was Napoleon doing his best with an impossible task, or had Paris used this as an excuse to get rid of him? Once they reached Cairo, should they, the other generals, make a plan to stop? One of Napoleon's informants overheard the chatter.

These men who doubted their leader, who would refuse to march past their next destination. There's a word for that in the military. Coup. Things came to a head after the French finally took Cairo. Napoleon confronted Dumas about what he'd heard, making it clear that he wouldn't talk. tolerate criticism or questioning from anyone, even a fellow general.

War makes strange bedfellows. Until this point, the two men had been fairweather friends. They were always in a kind of cold war, but put their differences aside for the sake of their missions. And when things were good, they even got along. Napoleon's wife, Josephine, who was white, but had herself been born in the French colony of Martinique, genuinely liked Dumas. If either she or Dumas' wife, Marie-Louise, ever had a boy, both families had promised to be godparents to the other's son. And whether begrudgingly

or not, Napoleon had praised Dumas's skill on the battlefield, which Dumas, perhaps naively, took to heart. But the bright Egyptian sun shed a new light on their fundamental incompateline. Impatibilities. Napoleon resented Dumas. Everywhere they went, the Egyptians marveled at the sight of a black man leading a white army, and he was so tall and imposing, they just assumed he was in charge. When Dumas put down an uprising by riding into a mosque, rebels screamed, the angel, the angel! They thought he was the angel of death. You can imagine how little Napoleon liked that. Even if the whole Napoleon complex insecure about being short is an English bit of propaganda, I'm sure he didn't love everyone praising this tall, handsome, gallant soldier.

Actually, you don't have to imagine how Napoleon felt, because years later, Napoleon commissioned a painting of this incident, and he replaced Dumas in the painting with a nameless white cavalry man. In another painting, it was Napoleon himself who saved the day during that rebellion. Here we have to wonder how much of Napoleon's antipathy toward Dumas was racial. It's likely Napoleon would have hated anyone of any color, who was as impressive arrival as Dumas, but to ignore race would be completely naive. If Dumas had been white,

perhaps Napoleon would have tried harder to recruit him as an ally. How did Dumas feel about Napoleon? In one potentially revealing incident, Dumas discovered a stash of treasure while excavating a home that had apparently been abandoned. Since the goods had no owner, he could have kept them for himself, but he turned them over to Napoleon, writing,

quote, The leopard cannot change his spots, nor can I change my character and principles. As an honest man, I must concede to you the fact of a treasure I have just discovered. I abandon it to your disposition, reminding you only that I am a father and without fortune, end quote.

On its surface, a straightforward thing to do. But I detainee. two possibly passive-aggressive digs in that letter. One, he reminded Napoleon that he was an honest man. They both knew that Napoleon would have stashed the stuff if he had been the one to find it. Second, he had every right to note that, as a dad, he needed money. But Napoleon hadn't fathered any children at the time,

so it's possible that's another bit of a one-up. And we can pretty safely assume Dumas was not a fan of what Napoleon was doing with the enslaved population of Cairo, which was nothing. Sure, Napoleon had liberated thousands in Malta, but that had been a pragmatic decision on Napoleon's part to bring the island into the fold of the French Revolution. It hadn't been an ethical decision. Egypt was more of an outpost. and the more hierarchical in society,

the more firmly Napoleon could establish himself at the top of it. For Dumas, the son of a slave who had briefly been enslaved himself, it must have been maddening. At least the two men agreed on one thing. Dumas should leave Egypt as soon as possible. The two men would never see or speak to each other again. Dumas hopped aboard a molten ship bound for home, but it was a leaky, rickety thing, and when they hit a storm, Dumas tossed anything that weighed anything overboard,

the horses he'd purchased, the Arabian coffee that he'd planned to resell, all of their cannonballs, all their food, water. It was just enough to get them safely to the nearest port, which happened to be Toronto in Naples. Dumas sent the governor a letter explaining their situation and asking for assistance while they made the necessary repairs and arrangements. The governor said, sure, come on in. But if you don't mind a short quarantine just in case so you don't spread disease. This was a common practice at the time and Dumas thought nothing of it. But then he had an experience that I think many of us can relate to.

what he thought would be a short quarantine turned into two years, two years of life-ruining imprisonment. While Dumas had been in Egypt, news that the French army conquered Naples had reached his camp, and so when his rickety ship had managed to dock there, he had every reason to expect friendly faces on the shore. What he didn't know is that a pro-royalist faction, led by the Cardinal Fabrizio Rufo had recently retaken control of Naples. The group called themselves the Holy Faith Army, and they had managed to overtake the revolutionary French government. Almost everyone on Dumas' ship was allowed to return to their home country

after signing a pledge that they wouldn't take up arms against the Holy Faith Army for two years. But Dumas and his fellow general, Jean-Baptiste Mon, Concord were locked up with no real long-term plan for what was to become of them. The two generals slept on beds of straw atop stone benches, and they had little to eat or drink. They could meet up once a day in an enclosed courtyard, but other than that, they had no one to talk to except the guards who mocked them. But in other ways, things were sort of chivalrous. Dumas was allowed to keep all of the money he'd brought with him,

which he would use to pay for food and other items throughout his imprisonment. At the start, he even had a servant, and they let him keep a small goat he'd picked up in Egypt, I think, as a pet. Dumas wrote again and again to the cardinal asking for a meeting, but the only visitor he got was a young man who introduced himself as Crown Prince Francis, son of King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples. Ignoring Dumas' pleas for a meeting with the French ambassador, the quote-unquote crown prince, asked a few questions about Egypt and then left.

He was, actually, not a crown prince at all, but an imposter trying to gather information to fight against the French. But although he was a fake prince, he was actually a decent military leader, at least decent enough to round up an army, which he took north, where he was promptly captured by the French. Well, great. Now they could do a prisoner swap and Dumas could go home, except there had been a miscommunication that fake prince hadn't actually been captured by the French.

He was killed. There was no chance of a prisoner swap. Imagine the psychological torture Dumas must have been suffering. Every path to freedom took a twist and a turn, then led to a dead end, and his only visitor was a guy lying about his identity, who then seemed like he would be a getaway car and then ended up being nothing at all.

Dumas's mental and physical help declined precipitously. Shortly after being locked up, he suffered a, quote, strange paralysis in his face. A few months after arriving, he was having a biscuit and a glass of wine while taking a bath when he doubled over in pain. His servant found him immobile, sweating in a pool of his own vomit. A doctor was summoned, and when he arrived, the doctor looked so scared and to Dumas, so surprised to see that Dumas was alive, that Dumas immediately hit upon the idea

that he had been poisoned and the doctor was actually in on it. Instead of listening to whatever remedies his maybe-would-be killer prescribed, Dumas preferred the treatment of his friend Manscourt, who had also come to hell. He fed Dumas olive oil and lemon juice and gave him enema after enema,

which was the treatment for pain. parasites at the time. The possibly murderous doctor would return to give Dumas blisters and ear injections that may be contributed to Dumas's partial deafness later on. Dumas would claim in his recollections of this period that the doctor tried to have a secret meeting with him, but he was so weak and strained that he never got a clear idea on what exactly the conspiracy was. When the doctor dropped dead a few days later, Dumascribed it to a cover-up, and his pet goat also died. Dumas' new doctor was kind enough, but Dumas still became half-blind, half-death, and facial paralysis remained. Scared and alone, he couldn't sleep and became weak, later saying he suffered, quote, an abundant and content.

loss of sperm, which may be a euphemism or maybe just a problem that he had. I don't know. But if there was a conspiracy within the fortress, there was also definitely a conspiracy without. An underground society, friends of the French, smuggled a medical textbook to Dumas with the section on poisonings underlined. This gesture of solidarity and the seeming confirmation that he wasn't being crazy, bolstered his spirits. A few nights later, the Friends of the French, gave Dumas another gift, lowering a package into his cell on a string. Inside the plain paper was bark containing the medicinal herb quinine, and possibly the best present you can give an imprisoned Frenchmen, a hunk of chocolate. Back in France, Dumas's wife, Marie-Louise, was trying to find out

why her husband had seemingly disappeared into thin air. Alex had written her that he was about to head home. Then she got no more letters, and more importantly, no Alex. She wrote to his fellow military leaders, the war ministry, and every government official she could think of. Many of her pleas got no response. When she did hear back, it was with a cold perfunctory, we're looking into it and we'll let you know when we know. She had no income and no idea when she would see the father of her child again. I imagine that she was going a little crazy too.

You would think that the French government would be keen to get one of its most effective generals back, but they were distracted by a series of military defeats as other European nations formed an alliance against them. All the progress Dumas had made wiped away. Jews were back in ghettos, republics dismantled in weeks. And once again in the chaos, opportunity. Napoleon's brother, Joseph, had maneuvered his way to the top of politics

as president of the Council of the 500. The older Bonaparte returned from the desert with tales only of his successes. Together, the brothers conspired to stage a good old-fashioned coup d'etat. How handy that an intimidating general who would certainly have opposed such a maneuver was safely tucked away in a Neapolitan fortress.

Out of sight, out of mind. Napoleon discovered that he didn't need Dumas to fight his battles with other countries, and in fact, he preferred to be the only star in the sky. Napoleon used his absolute power to achieve goals that Dumas would have opposed even more strongly than Napoleon's despotism. He began to roll back the tide of emancipation. Once in power, Napoleon aligned himself with power. pro-slavery groups. And while he wouldn't instate the practice at home, he passed laws with the

goal of bringing slavery back in the French colonies. In 1802, he drew up a law stating, quote, beyond the Cape of Good Hope, slavery would be continued in conformity with the laws and regulations of before 1789 and the trade of blacks on behalf of those above-mentioned colonies could begin again. and quote. Self-serving as ever, Napoleon had previously used the threat of slavery to get free blacks to fall in line under his rule. A few years before he reinstated slavery, Napoleon had told the people of Dumas's hometown, San Doming, quote, remember brave Negroes that the French people alone recognize your liberty and your equal rights. End quote.

As Napoleon was crossing at the Alps, the same mountains that Dumas had once climbed, Dumas found out that, once again, his captors in Naples were trying to kill him. Why, if that were true, didn't they just slit his throat, is not a question that he seems to have ever addressed. But he was sure that his upcoming move to another fortress was secretly cover for his murder. The night he was to be moved, the prison governor burst into the prison with a pack of armed men. He told Dumas and Mascoor to pack their things. Dumas said no.

The governor drew his sword. Dumas was weak. He was a prisoner. He was unarmed. He was outnumbered. But he was still Alex Dumas, and he never backed down from a fight. He brandished his walking stick and drew himself up to his full height. Miraculously, it worked, and the guards backed down, at least temporarily.

He was later moved to the other fortress, and news of his standoff with the governor reached King Ferdinand, who was appalled at the insubordination and decreed that Dumas and Mansecourt would be kept in solitary confinement. But he gave that order to a man named Bianchi, who had a different view of the events, and he found the walking stick incident humorous and a little admirable, and he decided to disregard his majesty's note. By the turn of the 19th century, the nations of Europe were lining up to cut deals with Emperor Napoleon, one of Napoleon's generals Mara, who had served alongside Dumas and knew what had happened to him, negotiated a release of all French prisoners into Naples' surrender. In June 1801, Dumas finally came home. He'd somehow held on to a

couple souvenirs from Egypt, which he gave to his daughter, Amy, now eight years old. The reunion was joyous. Marie-Louise was pregnant again in a matter of months. But there were certain inescapable facts that marred the homecoming. The first was Alex's health, which would never fully recover. He was plagued by headaches and tinnitus in addition to the partial loss of vision and hearing. And then there was the state of his family, bankrupt. When he was well enough to ride again, Dumas begged to be given another command in the army. No one would give him the time of day.

or even back pay for all the time he'd been in prison. He was promised half a million francs for his ordeal. He would never see a penny of it. Finally, there was what Napoleon had done to the country. A divided people are more easily oppressed, and race was an easy enough way to split everyone up. Napoleon made interracial marriage illegal and expelled all non-white people

from his sham government. He kicked the scholarship students out of the National Colonial Institute, and the school soon closed. All veterans of color were banned from living in or around Paris. Dumas had to get special dispensation just to keep his house,

but other non-white men who had served in the army were not so lucky. But even if they were poor outcasts, Alex and Marie, Louise had each other. They had their daughter and in July 1802, their son Alexander. Father and son adored each other and though they only had a few years together, Alexander would retain core memories of his father. Dumas was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1805 and soon took to bed in constant pain. He couldn't bear any noise or movement,

but little Alexander was allowed to visit. Alex Dumas died at the end of February 1806, though in some ways he had been dead since Egypt, stripped of the freedom and glory that had always defined him. But in another way, perhaps Napoleon in his indifference did Dumas one tiny favor in keeping him out of the army during his final years. In four decades, Dumas had been a slave, an aristocrat, a student, a commander, a hero, a prisoner.

He had seen every climate and many countries. Finally, after his release from prison, because he wasn't granted command again, he finally had time just to be a dad. After her husband died, Marie Louise took a job in a tobacconist shop, while she begged for the pension that she was rightfully owed as a military widow. She'd never get it. She knew very well why. Napoleon hated her whole family.

When one general made the mistake of inquiring about the remaining Dumasas to Napoleon, the emperor apparently stamped his foot and yelled, quote, I forbid you ever to speak to me of that man. But fortune would have one more reversal yet. Napoleon would die in exile and be remembered as a despot. Marie-Louise would live long enough to see her son restore the family to glory and fortune as a novelist. And though racists in the literary community would seek to exclude the author of the Count of Monte Cristo based on his color,

he never for a moment doubted his talent. He was, after all, the son of Alex Dumas. This episode wouldn't have been possible without the incredible book by Tom Rice, The Black Count, Glory, Revolution Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo. And if you were interested in this episode, you should absolutely pick up a copy of that book because it's fascinating. That's our story of Toma Alexander's, Duma and his rise in the military and running afoul of Napoleon. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about the cultural legacy of the French in Egypt. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom.

My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day. And I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent.

He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and The Big Money Players Network.

It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come look for up-and-coming talent. said if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.

Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Is the pen mightier than the sword? In July 1799, Napoleon's Egypt expedition made its most lasting contribution to society. But it wasn't military men like Napoleon or Dumas who led the way. It was Pierre Francois Boucher, an army engineer and a army engineer. a member of Napoleon's Arts and Sciences Society, who'd been recruited not for his prowess on the battlefield,

but for his cultural and scientific knowledge. Napoleon had brought along a delegation of what were called savants. Like the art experts he had brought to Italy to identify the most valuable paintings, these savants were supposed to impress and educate the locals with their technology and collect. important cultural artifacts to bring back to Paris. They also established the Egyptian Scientific Institute, which still exists today, and which was the oldest European building in Egypt, until it was partially destroyed in the Arab Spring. But on this afternoon, Bouchard was supervising a group of workers

as they tore down a wall. While digging, his men encountered a rock too heavy to move. move, and while a soldier might have simply moved on, Bouchard took a closer look. It wasn't a boulder, but a slab inscribed with hieroglyphics, which no one on earth could read, but also Greek, which Bouchard knew, and what's more, part of the Greek texts explicitly stated that its message was also written in hieroglyphics. in a very real way, the discovery of what's now known as the Rosetta Stone unlocked our understanding of ancient Egypt, and therefore the world. Is it too corny to say that this text brought society closer together than any empire ever could?

The actual text of the stone, which now sits at the British Museum, is about the king at the time it was inscribed. Ptolemy the Fifth, and how he reduced taxes and put down rebellions. Sounds like someone Dumas and Napoleon might have gotten along with, or tried to kill. Sometimes it's hard to tell with men like that. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio, and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me, Dana Schwartz,

with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Noami Griffin and Rima Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Everyone, I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. It would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.