You're Dead to Me - Alexandre Dumas: author of The Three Musketeers

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Greg Jenner is joined in nineteenth-century France by historian Professor Olivette Otele and comedian Celya AB to learn about acclaimed novelist Alexandre Dumas. Alexandre was born to an innkeeper’s daughter and a legendary Black general who fought for Napoleon. After his father’s death the family grew up in rural poverty, but after a visit to Paris as a teenager, Dumas fell in love with the city and its theatre. Using his father’s connections he found a job there and was soon a successful playwright, before turning his attention to novels. He was a prolific author, writing such blockbusters as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo. But amidst the writing, Dumas also found plenty of time for romantic dalliances, political entanglements, and global travel. This episode explores his extraordinary life and the incredible works of literature he created, set against the turbulent background of French politics in the years after the Napoleonic wars. If you’re a fan of French revolutionary politics, trailblazing Black figures and the messy personal lives of best-selling authors, you’ll love our episode on Alexandre Dumas.If you want more Black history with Professor Olivette Otele, check out our episode on the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. And for more figures from French history, listen to our episodes on Josephine Baker, Young Napoleon and Catherine de’Medici.You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Emma Bentley Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

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This is History's heroes, people with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Greg here. Just a reminder, before we get going, that episodes of Your Dead to Me are released on Fridays

wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First, on BBC Sounds. Hello, and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public history.

story and author and broadcaster. And today we are packing our book bags and traveling back to 19th century France to learn all about the acclaimed novelist and playwright Alexandra Dumas. And to help complete our trio of musketeers, we have two very special guests. In History Corner, she's distinguished research professor of the legacies and memory of slavery at Soas, University of London. He may have read her wonderful book, African Europeans, an untold history. And you will remember her for my episode on the Chevalier de Saint-George. It's Professor Olivette Ottele. Welcome back, Olivette. Oh, hello, Greg. Lovely to be back.

We're delighted to have you back. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning rising star who won the Chortle Best Newcomer Award in 2022. Maybe you've seen one of her sold-out live runs at the Edinburgh Fringe or Soho Theatre, I certainly have, or watched her on TV on Live at the Apollo or heard her on all kinds of podcasts, including Off Menu and the Guilty Feminist. It's Celia AB. Welcome to the show Celia. Hello, thank you for having me. Oh, it's lovely to have you in.

Your first time on the show, which feels like a booking error. We should have had you on ages ago. I've been trying to get you on for ages. I will say, like, the difference between your intro and my intro is so funny. And it's like, you're clear like a genius. And then it's like, and Celia's a clown. But a very respected clown. Respected clown.

Yes, it is I. It is like, me, wow. So Celia, you are your French Algerian. You grew up in Paris. How do you feel about history, French history? Did you do it at school? I didn't really like history at school. Oh.

I like it a bit more now, but my, I would say the bit of history I know the most about is the Algerian War. It's not the funniest. No, but it's, but I like it. I like history also when it's like more specific. So like, they have the life of someone who lived there. Okay, social history. Yeah, that's what I meant to. Good stuff.

And Alexandra Dumas, did you do him at school? Is he kind of like the French dickens? Do you have to read him? So the only thing I remember about Alexander Dumas is that the first boy I was, in love we've lived on Dreamer Street. That's a good anecdote. Well, take it. I'm going to sound like, yeah, just for the listeners, I just got back from Australia.

I'm a bit of a dumbdom today. I just find out he's a playwright just now. Just now. I thought he was a street. Yes, we wouldn't really do an episode on a street, but it's nice to know that there's a romantic link there for you because he was a romantic writer. I'm excited to find out about this guy. Hey, he's a great... I want to know what makes him tick.

I mean, he loved the ladies. Did he? He did. So, we'll get into a bit of romance. But also, he wrote some serious books. Oh, exciting. Not to get through. Okay.

So, what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And I imagine some of you will know Dumas' work. Maybe you've read The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo or watch many of the film or TV adaptations. of them. Perhaps you enjoyed a baby-faced Leo DiCaprio in the Man in the Iron Mask, or you've seen the romantic and bloody Larenne Margot, a French cinema classic.

And if you've been to Paris, you may have gone to the street named after him, or used a metro station named after Dumas. But who was the real man behind the stories? Was he as swashbuckling as his literary heroes, what life events inspired his epic novels, and just how many mistresses can one man have? Let's find out. Right, we shall begin the beginning. Celia, give us a guess on where you think the story starts. March 2020. No, I'm going to say... The COVID pandemic, you think.

The COVID pandemic, yeah. I think, okay, so I'm going to say it's beginning of the 1800s. Does that sound good? That sounds great. It sounds lovely. Olivet, more specificity, please. Yes, of course. She wasn't far off.

Oh, there we go. I mean, he was born Alexandre Dumas, David de la Paetri. On the 24th of July, 1802 in Villar Cotrette. Okay. And he was the second son of General Toma, Alexander Dumas, David de la Paetrieree, and Marie-Louise-Elizabeth Laburet, an innkeeper's daughter. Okay. So the father has a fantastic name. Yes, he did.

And mum is an innkeeper's daughter, perhaps slightly less fancy. Less fancy. Still, they made a baby. They managed, yeah. So Toma Alexander, the dad, was. was of dual heritage of mixed race and he was born in Haiti to a minor nobleman and an enslaved woman

but the Dumas decided to go by his mother's name Dumas Alexandre's father brought him to France freedom because he was born an enslaved person gave him a French education

including sosmanship lessons with Chevalier de Saint-Gente Ah! We're harking back to a previous episode. So Celia, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges was a... You don't need to tell me. No, please, please, I need it. Please, please, I need it. He was an incredible swordsman in France, but also amazing classical composer. So he was the French Mozart, and he was an extraordinary character.

And there's a movie that you worked on, Olivet. Yes, I did. People can watch about the Chevalier. And he was a biracial composer, born in Guadalupe and became a French celebrity. The dad was involved in the revolution, but on the Napoleonic side. Ah, okay. Oh, okay. Okay, so that's interesting. So Thomas Alexander is this army general.

So he's, the sword-fighting lessons with the Chevalier have paid off. So tell us about his military careers. This is the father of Alexander Dumas, Thomas Alexandra. Say all of his names. I mean, I can't, I mean, what was it, pailleterie? It was a proper big old long. Thomas, Alexander Davy de la pailletri. Toma, Alexander, David, de la pailletri.

Well, he joined the Queen's Dragons in 1786, and quite quickly by 1793, he was general-in-chief of the army of the Alps and commanded 50,000 troops. Wow. So this is during the French Revolution. Yeah, absolutely. He's in charge of 50,000. That's a football stadium of troops.

Wow. Yes. What's the most responsibility you've had, Celia? I used to manage a photography studio. Okay. And I was 19 and he was really small. And I wanted to be like a cool boss. but I went straight into

David Brent I went straight into like office bus I was like so embarrassing Oh dear So me and Thomas I'm not that far off You're also a leader of men

Yes okay So see he's in this kind of This kind of elite regiment He's in charge of 53,000 troops Wow He's in charge of It's Tyrol which is in the Alps So is that Austria

Italy Switzerland That's kind of that part of the world Italy isn't it? Exactly yeah And thanks to Napoleon, actually. And even racist Prussian soldier referred to him as the best soldier in the world. So he was admired by people who didn't like people like him.

He was involved in many other things. I mean, he was involved in Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. He helped allegedly quell the revolt in Cairo in 1798. I mean, so he was admired. So I'm immediately getting a sense that the kind of Musketeer's book is basically fan fiction for Alexandra's own. dad. Yeah. It must be so hard to have a dad this impressive. I'm very lucky. But there's a tragic twist in the tale. His heroic father, this soldier in charge of a vast

army. He'd gone to Egypt and Napoleon. We did an episode on young Napoleon if people don't listen. But there is a tragic twist. The father passes away when Alexander is very young. Yes, absolutely. I mean, he was captured in Egypt, in prison for two years, freed, but came back partially paralyzed, almost blind in one eye, death in one ear. And he tried desperately and repeatedly to petition Napoleon for compensation. He was not successful, really. And eventually he died of stomach cancer in 1806 when Alexandre was just three years old. And that really plunged a family into poverty.

The thing was that Alexandre actually worshipped his father. How do you imagine his childhood going from that point? It's a pretty rough start to life, isn't it, Celia? Yeah, that would have been, like, also in terms of, like, romanticising your dad's, like, we all growing up think that our dads are, like, heroes, but his dad was actually very impressive. Yeah, literally a hero. And to try and cling on to the last memory you have of him, that would be really hard.

And the mom as well. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a really sad start. So you say they were plunged into poverty. I mean we talking Les Miserables, sort of on the streets, begging for scraps type? You know, is he singing like Anne Hathaway? What kind of poverty are we talking? Is he as poor as Anne Hathaway?

Was he as beautiful as Anne Hathaway, crying in a street? Not quite. He moved into, with his maternal grandparents in their hotel in Villar Cotret. Okay. So not quite that level of poverty. He was educated at home by his mother and older sister. And when he was 10 years old, a cousin died

and left him money to join the seminary. But Dumas wasn't keen on being approved. priest really. Right. How would you get out of going to seminary school if you were Alexandra, Celia? So let's say, okay, let's do an act out. Tell me I have to go to a priest school. Celia, I am your grandmother and I'm sending you to priest school. Sorry. I think, do you know what? I think I would go, but like I would, is this called scyving? You'd skyve. I would Skype. It would be like, um, uh, what's that film, Bueller? Ferris Bueller. Yeah, Ferris Bueller. Duma, Duma. I think I would, yeah, I would be like, I would go just because I like structure,

but I would be like, I think I'd be a cool priest. Like, do you know the little white, like, thing there? Oh. Probably wouldn't wear that. Okay. Probably would like. You'd be a hip priest. Yeah, I'd leave it open. You'd wear Nikes. Yeah. I quite like the idea of confession. That's like a podcast. Okay. All right. Alexander did not go. He went on the run. No, he didn't, actually. He lied to his mama. He said he wanted money to buy an inkwell and he went on spend it on bread and sausage and escaped to the forest. You know, but his mother, I mean, as all mothers, quickly forgive him.

And the seminary idea was dropped. It's not quite counter-Montecristo level escape, is it, sort of buying a sausage and running to the woods? You went camping. You went to Glastonbury This sausage roll Just like Bye, I don't want to be a priest Went to Gregs

Went to the woods Okay All right So he doesn't go to seminary school Where does he go instead Does he get an education You said he got an education But what level of education

Yeah he does I mean he attended Paris school Where he was taught by The very famous abolitionist Babigreiguer But he was not a very attentive student So he learned little French literature

history, but he did read the Bible, Le Baron Bufon, Arabianites, Robinson Crusoe, and classical mythology. Okay, so he wasn't paying attention to class, but he was reading. He was diving into the classics. Wow. Okay, so he's taught by this famous abolitionist,

Abbe Grigua, who's a sort of great intellectual and campaigner against slavery, which is a hugely important thing happening at the time because, of course, Napoleon reintroduced his slavery. But we should talk about Napoleon, because this is peak Napoleon. Napoleon makes himself, he crowns himself emperor in 1804, which is the most Napoleonic thing you can do. And presumably that influences Alexandra's childhood, Napoleonic wars, all the kind of drama.

How does that affect him? Quite strongly because the wars lasted throughout his childhood, 1803, 1813. So you have various coalitions of European countries against the first French empire and Napoleon. 1814, for example, the Cossacks marched through Villa Cotrette. And Dumas' mother tried to move the family around several times, but they kept running into different foreign troops. Young Alexandre even saw Napoleon twice. Wow.

And he described him as pale, sickly and impassive. Oh! That's a pretty brutal review, Celia. Yeah, Napoleon is probably like, didn't say short though. actually average height from my age so So Cossack troops were literally in his town I mean that must be scary right

To have foreign troops marching through your town As you as a little boy Yes it was But he also found his place Because he was carrying water To surgeons after the battle So they were trying to make a You know

Make a space for themselves in that environment And then we learned that a Prussian officer so informed that Napoleon had surrender. And you have Louis the 18th was named king. Yes. And just to give you some background, the Bourbon dynasty, he was part of Bourbon dynasty. Yeah, the Bourbon dynasty is sort of they're put back on the throne, right?

Exactly. Exactly. The brother, Luis, the 16, had been guillotined during the revolution. So the king is there. Even after the restoration, Alexandre kept the name Dumas, despite the fact that it was actually linked, it was a link between the father and Napoleon.

So he could have used that link. He didn't. He chose Dumas as a name. So then, say, I'm still going to be Dumas, even though my dad fought for Napoleon, who's now the bad guy. It's quite a gamble, Celia. Yeah. I'll have nothing funny to tell you about that. I'm just really touched, like, about him and about his life and stuff. You know, the fact he chose the name, I was really intrigued by that. It's like a form of militancy.

Yes. Very young already. I'm going to, you know, take my mother. And not just because she was an enslaved. I mean, you know, all that. But also, because it's a woman, you know, you don't take the woman's name at the time. It was really something, I mean, something really striking. Yeah. I find it really touching.

Yeah, it's beautiful. I bet his mom got emotional about it as well. Yeah, and she's keeping him safe. You know, Cossacks are in the village. She's keeping him safe. It's an extraordinary story where the mum is perhaps quietly sort of in the background. It's just going, just hide over there and we'll just wait for the troops to go. And meanwhile, Napoleon pale, sickly and impassive.

Do you think the books would have sold as well if he'd been Alexandre Dumas de la... What's it? Alexander Dumas, David de la Paity. You know, that's quite a mouthful. I can't fit on a book cover, can I? No. Do you have a stage name?

Yeah, I do. Yeah. Was it hard to choose that? Did you... Was that a decision that... It was kind of like a natural because the first time I did stand-up, I used my real name,

and my real name is quite like... It sounds really Arabic, and the first gig I did was in Birmingham. And people can't say those words in Birmingham. So when they introduced me on stage, it was like word soup and I was like I want to make it easier for the whites and also I quite like the separation

also I just thought I'll just change it for like a couple gigs and then eight years later I'm stuck yeah but after the Napoleonic Wars Olivet the Bourbon monarchs are you know they're trying to restore calm to France which you know they're doing their best so is that does that mean that Alexander's sort of teenage years

are a bit more chill there's no more troops in the streets Oh, chilled, I'm not sure. I mean, he became... It's still France, so no. Yeah. He still became an underclerc at 14 and worked for a solicitor in Crepe. So while he was working as an underclerc, he skipped work and went to Paris one day and fell in love with the city in the theatre.

And he eventually moved to the city in 1823 when he was 20. Wow, 20. He had a big day out as a teenager and went, oh, it's so exciting. And then he moved to the city in his 20s. To be 20 in Paris. Oh, if only. Where was he before again? He was in Villar Cotrette,

in a kind of bourgeois little place, protected little place. And Paris is much more exciting. Yeah, of course. And he also, he's a bit of a pole shark. He plays billiards. He's really good at billiards, Celia. In fact, he's so good.

He won a quite impressive prize. Do you want to guess what the prize was? So we're in 1800. Yeah. A Samsung LED TV and a brand new car. No, it was probably a bottle of beer. More than one bottle of beer. A hundred bottles of beer.

600 glasses of absinth. Which is so much absinth. We don't know if he drank it. We don't know if he tried to stick it in the bus and bring it home. 600 glasses of absinth. Surely there's a better transportation method. We're bottles not, I think. I don't know. I don't know.

That's all we know. 600 glasses. So we don't know if he tried to ship it home, if he tried to drink it all in one evening and, you know, poison himself. I don't know. But there we go. 600 glasses of absinth.

And what happened after Alexander moved to Paris and drank all his absinth? Did he wake up one morning in a bush and then think, I'm moving to Paris? No, actually. He continued his career. Two generals, his father knew, recommended him for secretariat.

Oh, so dad. his friends. Yeah, of Duke of Baby. Nepot Baby, yeah, okay. Duke of Orleans, you know, no less. The assistant director of the office, Lazzagne, a man called Lazzagne, advise him, though, to educate himself further

and to read people like Frasas, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Byron, Hugo, La Martín. So he needed to further his education. So he's reading the classics. He's reading the... So Frossois is a great, what, 14th century medieval historian of France, who wrote about Joan of Arc before Joan of Arc, but all these sort of great, great writers.

But I'm going to have to stop you there because you said Monsieur Lazzagna. Yeah, there's a lot of layers to discuss. Hey, hello. You said you were jet lagged, so that's an excellent joke. I wrote that before coming in. Monsieur Lazzania. That's a great, I'd love to be called Monsieur Lazzania.

Is there a Mrs. Lazzani? He sleeps under lots of... Okay. So Monsieur Lezanne is telling him, read the classics, educate yourself. And then by 18 and 18, 18, 18, 19, Alexander's what, 16, 17? He's a young guy, but he's, you know, he's approaching adulthood. Does he start to write? Does he? Yes, I mean, he's fascinated by literature. He met somebody called Adolf de Levin, a well-educated son of a count, as you do,

who'd been exiled from Sweden for complicity in the King's Murder. Oh, excellent. Good. So a bit of an edge there. Wow. How do they meet? Yeah, he sounds quite sexy. Yeah.

An exiled Swedish count who's been implicated in the murder of a king. That's quite, it's quite Dumas, isn't it? It's quite romantic novel, yeah? Is he seeing anyone? So you have Levin and Dumas started to collaborate on act and plays and verse comedies. I mean, it was a fruitful collaboration

because they wrote late into the night, fuel by one. wine and hot punch. Okay. But he was also writing solo though, not very successfully. His first kind of verse strategy, Legrak, wasn't that good. I mean, according to himself, he said he gave it its due by burning it. Oh, have you ever burned anything you've written and have ever gone that intense?

I think everyone is like a bit embarrassed by the first thing that you write. Instead of burning it, I performed it every day. idea and Brooklyn Festival. That was my way of doing it. And thank you so much for coming. Hey, you know, it's burned into my memory. Yeah, it's, no, I've definitely, like, deleted stuff that I was embarrassed. But I also, for some reason, I have a video of my phone of the first time I really bombed.

And it's seven minutes long, and I cannot delete it. Really? I can't watch it. I can't delete it. I don't know why it's there. Is it sort of motivational for you? I don't know. I think it's, um,

Because I'm, like, reading to, like, ego death. Do you know, ego death? Sure. If something good happens to you, you shouldn't, like, let it fit your ego, but if something bad happens to you, you shouldn't let it impact your ego. And that video, I think, is the one thing keeping me stable. Okay. Like, I can always be humbled by watching me bomb in Birmingham in 2017.

Okay. There's an awful bit in the video where there was one woman in the front row who was kind of, like, still smiling. And I go, she gets it, and she just, like, shook her head. Like, I'm like. So Dumas burned it, and Celia, you digitally recorded it forever. So in 1830, Dumas was again, I mean, France again, thrown into, you know, we talk about the French Revolution. We get another French Revolution, the 1813 July Revolution.

Do you know this one, Celia? The 14th of July. Oh, no, that was a different one. Yeah, I love revolutions in July. Yeah, well, it's sunny. You're out in the street, you know, barbecue weather, you think. Actually, I don't really like the king. I don't know this revolution.

This is the 1830. It's called the three-day revolution. It's basically the Glastonbury of revolutions. Do you want to tell us about it, Olivet? I mean, it's not supposed to be funny, though. Sorry, sorry. Try and stop us. Yes.

So you have Charles the 10th, whose brother of Louis X, the 18th, deposed and replaced with the Duke of Orleans. And in a letter of Ma, claim that he was sent by Marquis de Lafayette and the duke on the mission to acquire gunpowder. I mean, he probably exaggerated, but he did approach Lafayette and about forming a national guard in the Vandé region,

but the king told Juma to return to poetry. Oh, stick to poetry. It's quite the burn. So sassy. Isn't it? You know, the more I learn about the king, the more I side with the Swedish guy. Louven, yeah.

Okay, well, luckily for literature lovers, Dumas obeyed the royal decree of sticking to poetry, and he started banging out plays. Absolutely. I mean, between 1829 and 51, quite a long time, he started a new play on the Parisian stage every year, except one. He pioneered two new genres, romantic historical drama and modern drama.

And the plays often featured illegitimate or poor heroes, struggling against societal obstacles and heroians who become victims to their lovers. We have 18 of his plays stage at the Comédie Francaise, which is huge, which is huge at the time. But many of those plays were also in the theatre, Theatres de Boulevard. So he was basically writing for kind of bourgeois,

theatre-going public. So kind of middle-class audiences? Absolutely. Did he get a lot of people copying him after that? I think so. At some point, The genre kind of people lost interest. So it came back in the 20th century,

mid-20th century rather. But he invented it, he did. I mean, that's what they say. I'm always wary about that. It's always hard to know who invented genre, isn't it? Yeah. But I suppose what's interesting is he's living through extraordinary historical times, but he's writing about the past so he can talk about the present

without anyone getting in trouble. So it's that sort of thing of you're kind of holding up a mirror to now by going, no, it's the 17th century, actually. What is like the rhinoceros book? Do you know that one? No, tell me, yeah. Okay. You're regretting opening your mouth now, aren't you?

Okay, just for the listeners, I would know this normally. But again, I'm a dumb dumb today. It's an absurdist book about everyone turning into rhinoceroses. Rhinocerai, rhinoceru. Yeah. But it was actually. about the rise of fascism. Oh, it's always the Nazis, isn't it?

It's always the Nazis. Lovely. I don't know that book. I have to look at that up. Thank you. Alexander Dumais is writing these kind of impressive stories set in the past, right? See, there's one called Henry III and his court, Henri Trois.

There's one called Anthony. What's the general theme of his work? Yes, he wrote Henri Trois and Sarkour, set in July 1578, exactly in the past, at the Court of Henry the Third, the last Valois, Monarch, and he received 6,000 francs for the sale of the manuscript. That's good money.

Anthony, 1831, was about an illegitimate hero, who was unable to marry his love because of social position. Right, okay. And in the end, she begs him to kill her. Oh. Yeah. You said he was funny, Oliver. That doesn't sound very funny.

No. Okay. Anything else? Yeah. Another one, La Tour de Nelle, 1832. That was his most. successful romantic drama, and it was about Margaret of Burgundy, who killed her lovers. Okay.

I'm sensing a theme. Yes. I mean, he was very successful, though, because you have 800 consecutive performances. That's absolutely huge. Okay, that is amazing. That's extraordinary. That's like mousetrap level, isn't it, of having a play that just runs and runs and runs. Exactly.

But you said he's funny, but so far I'm hearing everyone dies. He was having a go at a genre that. seemed to be working, so he kept writing those ones. I mean, throughout the 1830s, romantic dramas started to be less popular, so he had to shift his focus as well. To something slightly different, it's still into the romantic kind of aspect of things, though. Okay. In 1832, Celia, we get another French Revolution.

This one's more famous. This one's the Anne Hathaway Revolution. This is Les Miserables. I like to call that Dance Dance Revolution. So we have the barricades in the streets. Yes. This time, Dumas, he has to leave France. He's in trouble.

How old is he around this time? He's about 29. He's late 20s. So he's written, he's done all of this before 29. Yeah. Very prolific. Well, nepotism will get you anything. No, that's really, there was no phones back there.

That's it, right? He's just not an Instagram. The rest of us are just scrolling. Yeah, I could have an 800 day run of my beautiful play. I'm too busy watching recipes So he has to run away He has to flee He gets in trouble with the king

What happened Olivet Why is the king annoyed At this sort of young upstart writer Well For some reason He decided to officiate The funeral of a Bonapartist

General Something you shouldn't just do We don't know why Anyway the king considered his arrest We've all done corporates All right tax bills in January you know what I mean

check the date but that was November December The problem is that he had to leave though He had to leave Paris And so he went to the south of France And then to Switzerland So it wasn't too bad And winter time 1830 to 33

He published the accounts of his Swiss travel So monetising the thing Oh okay so he's a travel writer now The first person in the world to publish their Swiss accounts. Hello. He travelled to Italy as well. Yes. He means the Pope.

I mean, he allegedly met the Pope. Allegedly? Yeah, because, I mean, he was arrested by a papal police. So thanks to his revolutionary kind of reputation. So we're not quite sure he meant. The Swiss guards in their silly pyjamas arrested him. Yeah, absolutely. But he had to leave eventually.

I mean, after his mother's death in 1836, he went on another journey. Yeah. But this time, through Brussels in Germany. Right. I mean, Celia, you're a touring comedian. Does travel inspire or does it tire? I think, like, it's nice for your eyes to see different things. Sorry, I'm a poet.

Write this down. So I think it is, I feel like monotony of, like, staying in the same city can kind of get your brain stuck in the same patterns. I think it inspires I think yeah definitely I think it's also quite stressful because you do need like something to anchor yourself

but it sounds like even looking back at his childhood it feels like he's hard to run away from different places and bumping into most more and more impressive people yeah I mean he knows Duke du Leone

he's met the king he's now hanging out with the we're being arrested by the Pope this is a quite well connected guy very well connected I mean he again he's he's father was a general and he's coming from La Paetri, I mean, aristocracy.

But we should say again, he's mixed race, right? So he's moving through Europe, through France, but he's a mixed race man with a slightly combative, difficult relationship with his father who was a Napoleonist general. So these countries have been invaded by Napoleon. Napoleon's not necessarily everyone's best favorite friends. So it's kind of interesting being the son of a guy who invaded Italy and then going, hello! Yeah.

I mean, that's why he chose Dumas to kind of perhaps. Yes. Be a bit further away from that as well. Right, okay. Okay, that makes sense. This is History's heroes, people with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.

You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes, wherever you get your podcasts. Well, let's break from politics and plays. Let's talk about the other big P. Let's talk about his big P. His passion.

His passion for the ladies. Alexander Dumas was a player. I mean, actually, I mean, Alexander's love life. Was it as saucy as Monsieur Lazzania's reading list? Even more. Even more saucy. The sauce was bechamel. That was so stupid.

Okay. He married, right? Exander, he found a wife, he settled down, he married her, and that was the love of his life, yes? No, not white. 1840, he married his mistress. Ida Ferrier, who was an actress. They soon separated.

She moved to Florence in 1844. They never saw each other again. Great. Okay. But he didn't stop there, though. He had, oh, well, Allegedly he had 40 mistresses throughout his life. 4-0?

4-0 and claimed... 40 mistresses. Yeah, but that's not it. Juma himself said, I don't want to exaggerate, but I really believe that up and down the world, I have more than 500 children. How do you even...

What's the math? I mean... Can anyone do quick mass? No. It's 500 devised by 40? I mean, yeah. Can we get... Oh, no.

But you can say anything, can't you? I mean, sure. No one's going to be like, all right, bring them. Producer Steve tells me that's 12 and half kids per mistress. Wow. That's... Oh, my God. Which statistically means that some of those probably had 20 kids.

Because, you know, law of averages, bell curves. I find it so funny, like, the idea of a man bragging about how many kids they've got. Like, now they try and hide them. Yes, it's the opposite Boris Johnson effect, isn't it? But he's going around going, 500 kids. Where's he going for 50,000? He's building his own army. Like daddy.

I should have my own do my army. 40 mistresses. Okay, Olivet, from a legal point of view in terms of inheritance law, how many of those 500 kids does he actually recognise legally and say, this is my son, this is my daughter? Well, he recognises five of them. Oh my God. So 99% of his kids, he's like,

you're dead to me. Or maybe four, four or five. Yes. Wow. Okay, who are the kids he recognises? Do we have a kind of role call of like official Dumas airs? Yes, we do. I mean, we have Alexandre Dumas Fis.

Yes. With the dressmaker Catherine or Catherine Labet. And Dumas Fis went on to become famous because he wrote the novel, The Dame O Camelia. Yeah, the ladies in the camellias. And then you have Marie Alexandrine Dumas with Belle Krell-Sameur, Henry Bauer with Anna Bauer. who was the wife of an Austrian merchant in Paris.

Great, so his wife's, his mistresses are cheating on their husbands. Great, that's all so lovely. Mikhaila, Clely, Josefa, Elizabeth Cordier, with Emily Cordier, who was 19 at the time when Dumas was 57. When they were in a relationship. What did they talk about? Yeah. You pull the face there, Celia, that we could best be described

to smell the fart. Yes. It was an absolute. She was nine. He was 57. Yeah. They probably didn't talk, right? No, okay.

Whatever did they get up to? I think we know. We found the 12 and a half kids. It's the statistical bell curve there. Even worse than that, in his later years, his son and him would sometimes have the same mistresses. Sorry, say that again? His son.

They would share mistresses. Yeah. So Alexander Fis, Jr. All for one and one for all, right? That's what the musketeers would say. You know what's crazy? I know so much about it's like, I know so much about him now.

So, like, I get it. Like, I think, like, it sounds really charming. He's had a lot of stuff. Interesting things happen to him in his life. At the start of the episode, Oliver, I listed some of the novels that have been turned into movies and TV shows. We haven't talked about novels yet, so we've talked about plays so far.

He writes a lot of novels, but we'll know some of the big ones. Can you talk us through the novels? Is he pivoting to novel because it's a new genre? Is it just that he wants to tell longer stories? stories that, you know. What he does is writing things that can be serialized and that can be put into magazines. Just to give you an example, Le Capitaine Paul, earned the magazine Cieckle 5,000 subscribers in just three weeks. When you say serialized, this is what Dickens was doing too. He's writing chapters per week, like a new chapter each week in the magazine. So you have to subscribe to the magazine to read the

novel. Yes. So it's like a sort of serialized story. It's like a soap opera. And he got him 5,000 and subscribers. So amazingly, he's doing amazingly. So he carries on, he writes a novel called George about a biracial dual heritage son of a planter, possibly drawing on his own life. But his greatest success is, of course, with the D'Artagnan romances. Yeah. So including the three musketeers serialized for six years and the Count of Monte Cristo serialized for two years in 1844-46. So it's working. It's a type that is working. He also wrote popular series about the Valois monarchs and including the very famous Larenne Margot. Yeah. If you remember the movie. Yeah, yeah, it's a wonderful movie.

Elisabella Janie. Yeah, I mean, that's the Queen Margarita, I suppose. And for listeners, that's, we've done an episode on Catherine de Medici. She is the baddie in that novel. She is the villain, right? She's, she's kind of conspiring and poisonous and sinister. I mean, the Three Musketeers stories are so famous now from Hollywood. We all know all for one and one for all the men in floppy hats. But they're set in the 17th century, so they're set in the time of Louis XIV, and Charles II. And they're really popular, aren't they?

He's writing about a kind of romantic past. Yes, a romantic past. And at a time where people need to want it to dream about an imagined past, so it's working well for him, probably making him a lot of money and the way in more popularity as well. Well, that's a big blogbuster, would you say? Yes, absolutely. at the time it was

and yes Monte Cristo is probably his biggest hit do you think I mean that's the one I mean that's the one that's the one that's the one that's the one I did at school and actually the more I'm here

the more I remember that I have read all of these things in school but yeah it keeps being remade there's an amazing one with Pianina that's come out that's like gone massive now

yeah a big French one isn't it yeah he's kind of amazing I've put in his life experience into different voices like do I mean like everything kind of, it's the same thread, but like in different, you know, it's kind of You're right, because George is about, as you said,

a biracial son of a planter, so that's about his family story. The musketeers is sort of about his dad as a sort of great soldier, and then the Valois Monique is about kind of political intrigues, that he's sort of been involved with all the revolutions happening around him, La Ren Margot, so it's he's drawing on his own life, but he's kind of

putting it behind a veil so that he doesn't get in trouble. Absolutely, and you have the women's stories and characters, La Ren Margot, I mean, with all the nuances that you can have in a character like that. I'm just thinking about something. You know, I sent you a picture. I was in Marseille. Yeah.

And I sent you a picture of Chateau d'if. Yeah. Because I kept thinking about this place, this tiny place that is really almost oppressive in the south of France. And to think that he based his novel on this place. I was just, I mean, I've been there many times, but I was just moved and excited. A lot of his stories are based on real historical events, aren't it? Dantagnan was a real guy. Was it?

Yeah, and the musketeers were real and Dantino was real. That's so cool. We should mention, however, the ghost writer, August Mackay, who no one, we're not doing a podcast about this guy. He had a kind of secret co-writer. He did. He was really criticised about that. Miquet helped him with development and ideas, but Duma wrote the novels.

He was accused. He was like a director. And that's interesting. So as a stand-up, you have, you write your own shows, but you have a director who... Sometimes, yeah, you can, like, I think some stand-up will have directors, like, directors take on different roles. So, like, the way I've used them is more like architectural, just because I'm too much of a silly belief of structure. And that's medical. You have a diagnosis of whimsical.

Yeah, exactly. So, Olivet, Mackey is the ideas guy, but Dumas doing the typing. He's actually there with quill in hand writing these serialized novels. These huge, I mean, Monte Cristo is a massive novel. It seems to me that it was a collaboration between the two. Development ideas, it's a bit like they're brainstorming. And then Dumas is the one writing the novel. The problem is that not everyone like that.

For example, in 1845, there's a journalist who accused him of running a, quote, a novel factory and yeah because he's producing so much people are starting to say that can't be him and it can't be possible the journalist also used the term he's using a negre which has a double meaning

it means a black enslaved person from the colonies and a ghost writer in mainland France oh really? Yeah right so there's a sort of allusion there to his mixed race heritage do you think? Yeah definitely and the fact that he's not doing the work himself

But you might answer quite rightly by saying that he had research assistants in the same way Napoleon had generals. Oh, that's sick. And he sued a journalist and he won. That's quite a comeback, isn't it? Yeah. The more popular he got, it probably had more and more people trying to be contrarian as well. I imagine journalists wanting to. Yeah, taking, take sort of shots at him.

Yeah, which is often the thing with, like, mixed-rise people. Like, there's often accusations of, like, you can't do it yourself. You can't do it yourself. Who's really doing this? Yeah. And it's interesting because they even accused him of plagiarism. It can't come from your brain. So you're using young writers to do the work again.

But the thing is, he never covered up the names of the collaborations. He was really open about it. And when other writers' names were not included, it wasn't his decision. It was the publisher's decision. Now, we can argue that he could have fought it, but we don't know what actually happened. And it's probably like, there were probably a lot of writers doing that, like, using ghost writers and stuff at a time and that's why, like,

that's where these accusations came from, just couldn't believe that he didn't. But it's funny to think of like journalism being like kind of the same as it is now. Like, do you know what I mean? Something's never changed. Welcome to history, Selia. First day. First day. Yeah, first day.

So Dumas is an incredible superstar of writing and, you know, saying he's doing a play every year for those 30 years. He's writing these vast novels, you know, co-creating them with MacA. And, of course, he's incredibly rich now. He's laughing all the way to La Bonk. And he builds himself a fancy little chateau. Celia, what do you think he calls it?

What would you call it? Where is the chateau, please? Where is the chate? It's in northern France, isn't it? Yes, it's in the outskirt. Yeah, so outside Paris. D-town. Bring all the ladies to D-Town.

Okay, for his 500 kids. He calls it the... chateau de Montecristo That's sweet Is it sweet or is it cringe? I can't tell No, that's his inner child work As you think?

I don't know I can't, it's a bit like Shakespeare having a house called like Hamlet House Hello, welcome to Hamlet House I don't know I feel like it's slightly It's slightly bordering on

Fanfiction of it Something made you have so much money You want to celebrate it All right I would It cost him an absolute fortune But it had to be big For all of the absin

Yeah exactly But he didn't relax long, Olivet. He was off travelling again. You know, he's already toured Europe or whatever. But off he went again in 1846. He did. He was offered 10,000 francs by the Minister for Public Information to travel to Algeria. Ah.

Represent. Was it to write that you had to go to Algeria? Yeah, to observe right, represent, as you said. Yeah. To tell the French people about Algeria or to tell the Algerian people about Algeria. Like, who's it for? What's the... I think, given the...

colonial context to try and tell them how it was and how it should be. What year was this? 1846. 1846. Yeah. And Mackay, his co-writer, went with him, and so did his son, Alexander Fis, you know, Junior, I'm going to call him Junior, sorry. They went as well. And they went on a, they went to a royal wedding on the way in Spain. Which shows that, you know, he had his connections to the elite of the country. And not just the country, actually, across Europe to be invited to those places

properly connected but the following year Celia uh oh the creditors came in and turned out Alexander Dumas did not have as much money

as he thought he had and he had to pay an awful lot of money to his ex-wife which one the one that lasted like four years

and then was gone Ida was it Iddaferrier so he's in trouble financially he has to sell his chateau doesn't he for a pittance

of what he'd spent building it that's a shame that's a real shame Yeah, it's also a name. Yeah, the name would feel so sad. Yeah, exactly. That's devastating, isn't it? You're right, actually. I take you back. It's not cringe. It's sad.

He had to sell the chateau that was... It's like if you had a house called Chateau de Greg Jenet. So he has to set his house. Yeah, and then there's a coup in France, another revolution, the coup of Louis Napoleon, 1851, where the president of France says, actually, I'm basically emperor now. Yes, yes. Obey me from now on.

French history's fun, isn't it? just about who's the most confident but you know he used that as an excuse to kind of evade his creditors oh good so he's on the run okay where did he go

he went to Belgium excellent tax exile but he didn't stop his lifestyle because he was living in luxurious luxurious lifestyle on credit over there yes

good so he's got his credit card yeah amazing I mean you know extraordinary guy he wouldn't have made a great sort of financial columnist or even a dating guru. But he is a great writer.

1858, he travels to Russia. He did. He even, he traveled to Russia. He made another investment. He bought a small boat that he called Emma. He landed in Genoa. He learned that Garibaldi was trying to unite Italy. So he's involved in politics again.

So this is Resortumento. This is the unification of Italy. Absolutely. He's getting involved in other people's politics. He's saying, oh, let me help. It's so funny. Let me stay and help. Because he's like on the run, but he can't stay away from, like, the action. You cannot.

Like, I've never seen someone on the run just like meeting different leaders. Yeah, just showing up to royal weddings and just like, oh, there's an Italian Civil War. So I'm just going to help out. Yeah, I did. So he's got 5,000, he's got 5,000 francs being given to him by Garibaldi to carry soldiers on his new yacht that he's just built. He gave Garibaldi. Oh, he gave money. Oh, he gave money.

Yeah. In exchange, kind of return, they gave him. the King's Summer residence in Naples, where he spent a few years there, and he returned to Paris in 1864. Great. I'm fascinated by this guy. Yeah.

I don't know if I like him. I can't figure out. Yeah, I can't figure out if I like the guy. There's a roguish charm. Yeah. But yes, I hit the, you know, on the run from his credit as high. That's one thing. I just, it's so funny how many times it's been on the run.

Like, it's just, like, every few minutes, that's like the chorus in all of this. And now he's on the run. one again. There's a callback. I mean, we need to talk very quickly, Olyvette,

about the end of his life. I mean, we could do so many podcasts on his writing career. But the end of his life, ill health caught up with him, didn't it? Yes.

I mean, he had an illness, possibly drop C. He had, he ran into financial difficulties and eventually he died on the 5th of December, 1817, and he sends home.

It would take the French state over 100 years to recognize him as a little literary figure, but almost as a state person, because his remains were transferred to the Pantheon in 2002. His popularity grew, but his importance as a national figure came much later. Gotcha. And Dropsy, we should say, I think, is an illness where you have swelling of the body. It's not very nice. So he was quite poorly in his life. He just missed

the Franco-Prussian War, I think. He just missed the invasion of France by the Prussian army. So he so nearly got another bit of history in there. But, you know, but. He just missed it, I think. So it's quite a life, Celia. Yeah, how old was he when he died? He died in 1870s, so he'd have been about 67, give or take. That's quite a long life. Yeah, he sought some stuff.

Do you know what the problem is, is that you've, like, now started a thing where I feel like I just don't know enough. So I'm going to go home and just read his whole Wikipedia page. I thought, does it resonate with you? I mean, his life, are there things that resonate with you? Yeah, I think there's, like, there's quite a few things in it. that like... You're flicking through your notebook. You've got quite a lot of notes there.

I've got so many notes. But like from the street of the boy are fancy. There we go. To an entire man. The nuance window! It's time now for the nuance window. This is where Celia and I sit quietly for two minutes and make a start on reading the Count of Monte Cristo

while Professor Olivet steps into the literary salon to tell us something we need to know about Alexander Dumas. So my stopwatches, Ready, Olivet, take it away. I'd like to talk about Jima and prejudice against people of African descent in the 19th century, and in particular how life was like for Juma.

He was the son of a minor aristocrat and the descendant of an enslaved person. The first point is that it wasn't unusual at all throughout the 18th and 19th century where you have a number of people of African descent from aristocratic families across Europe. However, the way they were treated depended on whether they were wealthy

and protected by the country's leader, or not. Alexandre was attacked because of his ethnic background, but in many ways he was also protected by his class and his father's reputation as a respected general. He was not wealthy enough to just be a man of leisure, as we have seen, but he made a very decent life with his writings and could afford to live in very bourgeois houses in and outside Paris.

However, racism against him was evident in many ways. His popularity with readers and theatre goods made him very well, known as a literary figure. In other words, he was a celeb in the 19th century. He was the symbol of what white middle and upper class France dreaded, a racially ambiguous man whose identity crossed several boundaries, especially at the time when so-called racial purity was advocated by the fathers of eugenics and race science. It was also the time when French Parliament voted for an act abolishing slavery, and that was in 1848. We have the government expecting and demanding actually former enslaved people forget about centuries of discrimination

as they had officially been granted citizenship and that was very important. They were expected to get on with the order of things, for example, the white men on top of the social and cultural ladder and them at the bottom, in other words, accept to be officially, accept to be second-class citizens and forget about the past almost overnight. So behind the prolific author and love interest,

we should also bear in mind that Alexandre Dumas was a dual heritage man who had to navigate a cruel and profoundly racist society. He did it with panache and charm. Amazing, Olivia. Thank you so much. Selya, any thoughts? No. Olive bit said it all.

Yeah, I could have listened to you talk for like an hour. It resonates with French society, though. Yeah. That where you have to, as a dual heritage, you have to be always charming. otherwise it just doesn't work. One thing that I was thinking about is, sorry to interrupt you, is the report to class.

Because in my experience in France, obviously there's quite a lot of racism in France. But we'll talk about racism but not classism in France. That's my experience. And like, I think that the position that he was in where he could be in with the higher societies because of his dad, but like still be a biracial man and suffering from that.

Do you know what I mean? Like the, it must have been quite a confusing place to be in for him. And quite like heartbreaking at times to kind of like be sitting at the top with all of these generals but still being made to feel small because of the rampant racism.

If that makes sense. Absolutely. That must have been really difficult. You know, you said that you don't know if you like him, you see? There's something there. Yeah. You're coming around to him.

Amazing. So what do you know now? Great. It's time now for the So What Do You Know Now? This is our quick fire quiz for Celia to see how much she has learned. Celia, are you feeling confident? You've taken many notes. I've taken so many notes, but most of them are all drawings.

Oh. And for some reason, the 2002 has been written a million times. So we'll see. I'm excited. Okay, okay, great. I'm excited. Lovely. Okay, well, we've got ten questions. We'll start question one. Here we go.

Question one. What was Dumas' father's occupation? He was a general. He was. He was a general in Napoleon's army. Question two, how did a young Alexander Dumas avoid becoming a priest. He ran away and took a sausage and some bread into the woods.

He said, very good. Question three, what did the king tell Dumas to do after the July 1830 revolution? That's when he was sassy, right? Yeah. I think he said, like, give up, don't do this, queen. He was very sassy. He told him to give up. He said, yeah, stick to poetry.

Stick to the army stuff, yeah, that's right. Question four, in what literary medium did Dumas first make his name? Oh, that was plays. It was, theater. But he was working with another guy at first, and then he was bad, like, when he started working by himself. Well done. Well remembered. Question five. Can you name two of the countries that Alexander Dumas travel to on his many adventures? Belgium and Russia. Very good. Yeah. You could have Algeria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland. Yeah. He got around.

Question six. How many children did Alexander Dumas claim to have? 500 children, 40 mistresses. One guy. Question seven. Who was Dumas' most famous son? who he apparently shared mistresses with. Oh, that's the Fis, and he wrote a book, and he was also a writer. He was, yeah, La Dame Alé Camille. Yeah, that's a lovely one. That's good.

You're doing very well. Question eight, can you name two of Dumas novels? Count of Monte Cristo. Beautiful. And, of course, how could I forget about Larenne Mago? Excellent, well done. You could have had the Captain Paul, Georges, and Three Musketeers, Which are sort of several novels.

They're very big. Question nine. What was the name of the opulent chateau? Dumas built for himself using his writing income. Chateau de Monte Cristo. That was the bell when you guys. Oh, we should have a Dumasme musical. That would be great, wouldn't it?

And this for a perfect 10 out of 10. And I feel like you might get this one right, because you wrote it several times. In what year was Dumas re-buried in the Pantheon in Paris? 2002. 10 out of 10, Celia A.B. Well done. Thank you, everyone. You are the Duma experts.

Thank you, Olivet, for a wonderful history lesson. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much, Olivet. Thank you so much, Celia. And if you want more, Professor Olivet, listener, check out episode on the Chevalier de Saint-George. We've also got episodes on the Haitian Revolution, Napoleon, Catherine Medici. And, of course, episodes on Josephine Baker,

who is also buried in the Pantheon. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner, Olivet Odele from Soas University of London. Thank you, Olivet. Thank you, Olibert. Thank you, Sen.

And in Comedy Corner, we have the superb Celia A-B. Thank you, Celia. Thank you so much for having me. That was so fun. It was fun. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we turn the pages of another forgotten historical epic. But for now, I'm off to go and rename my daughter Greg Jenner Fee, and encourage her to write history books for kids.

So I get to be rich and build a castle called the Chateau de Greg Jenner. Bye! Your Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4. From BBC Radio 4. The Russians will be launching a satellite sometime in the next three weeks. I'm Kim Katrall, back with a new series of Central Intelligence. This is a CIA covert op, top secret. The drama podcast that tells the history of the CIA from the inside out,

Starring Ed Harris, Johnny Flynn, and me, Kim Cottrell. Miss Page, such a pleasure to meet a real American. Listen to Central Intelligence Series 2 first on BBC Sounds. This is history's heroes, people with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny. You'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunselman, for History's Heroes.

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