My Memoirs, Vol. I, 1802 to 1821

There is no real biography of Alexandre Dumas. Nobody has collected and sifted all his correspondence, tracked his every movement, and pursued him through newspapers and legal d...

"We left the port of Alexandria on the evening of the 17th Ventôse, year VII, on board the _Belle Maltaise_, with General Manscourt, citizen Dolomieu and many other French milit...

Mademoiselle Pivert--I make her read the _Thousand and One Nights_, or, rather, one story in that collection--Old Hiraux, my music-master--The little worries of his life--He tak...

Now let Dermoncourt speak; from his version we shall really see what my father's deeds were; for my father always effaced himself in his own reports, above all when speaking of...

The despatch is sent to Bonaparte--Dermoncourt's reception--Berthier's open response--Military movements in consequence of the despatch--Correspondence between my father and Ser...

Joubert's loyalty towards my father--"Send me Dumas"--The Horatius Codes of the Tyrol--My father is appointed-Governor of the Trévisan--The agent of the Directory--My father fêt...

The return to Villers-Cotterets, and what we met on the way--The box with the thirty louis in it--The leather-bag--The mole--Our departure--The journey--The arrival at Mesnil an...

My father is appointed General-in-Chief of the Army of the West--His report on the state of La Vendée--My father is sent to the Army of the Alps as General-in-Chief--State of th...

My father at Villers-Cotterets--He is called to Paris to carry out the 13th Vendémiaire--Bonaparte takes his place--He arrives the next day--_Buonaparte's_ attestation--My fathe...

The result of a sword-stroke across the head--St. Georges and the remounts--The quarrel he sought with my father--My father is transferred to the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse--He han...

My father rejoins his regiment--His portrait--His strength--His skill--The Nile serpent--The regiment of the King and the regiment of the Queen--Early days of the Revolution--De...

My mother and I conspire--The secret--M. Richard_--La pistole_ and the pistols--The offer made to the brothers Lallemand in order to save them--They refuse--I meet one of them,...

It may perhaps be thought that my father's ill-humour, his vexation at not having the command of a division and his Republican spirit, all combined to jaundice his views. Very w...

School life is not remarkable for variety of incident; a country school certainly is not, and ours was no exception to the rule! I have recounted my entry because of this trait...

But I was now ten years old, and it was time to take my mental education seriously in hand. My physical training was proceeding fast enough. I could throw stones like David, I c...

MY father was the more exasperated because he knew that with all the will in the world it was impossible for Bonaparte to have believed for one instant those words _looked on_,...

The single-barrelled gun--_Quiot Biche_--Biche and Boudoux compared--I become a poacher--It is proposed to issue a writ against me--Madame Darcourt as plenipotentiary--How it ha...

The voyage--The landing--The taking of Alexandria--The _Chant du Départ_ and the Arabian concert--The respited prisoners--The march on Cairo--Rum and biscuit--My father's melons...

Of course not a single keeper failed to ask Bobino for news of his boar; but he had heard nothing about the matter, and he had the good sense still to wear its tail from his but...

We went along the promenade taken by all the townsfolk and by every stranger who came to visit the town: we walked under the grand, magnificent avenue of Spanish chestnut trees,...

My birth--My name is disputed--Extracts from the official registers of Villers-Cotterets--Corbeil Club--My father's marriage certificate--My mother--My maternal grandfather--Lou...

Am I to be called Davy de la Pailleterie or Alexandre Dumas?--_Deus dedit, Deus dabit_--The tobacco-shop--The cause of the Emperor Napoleon's fall, as it appeared to my writing-...

My love for my father--His love for me--I am taken away to my cousin Marianne's--Plan of the house--The forge--The apparition--I learn the death of my father--I wish to go to he...

My father--His birth--The arms of the family--The serpents of Jamaica--The alligators of St. Domingo--My grandfather--A young man's adventure--A first duel--M. le duc de Richeli...

My grandfather reserved rooms at the hôtel de _l'Épée_, where my father had died. We took possession of his chamber of death, and lived in it surrounded by all his belongings.

I believe I was the first to say that Waterloo was not only a great political disaster, but a great blessing for humanity. Waterloo, like Marengo, was a providential event; only...

It was arranged that I should go to the Abbé Grégoire's college in Villers-Cotterets instead of to the Seminary. They styled the Abbé Grégoire's school a _College_, just as in E...

My father is sent to join Kléber--He is nominated General-in-Chief in the Western Pyrenees--Bouchotte's letters--Instructions of the Convention--The Representatives of the Peopl...

The month of May, the favourite month of the year, which is abundant in beauty and in promise everywhere, is even more beautiful and resplendent at Villers-Cotterets than anywhe...

The want of money, complained of by Bonaparte, was being felt increasingly. There seemed to be no means of paying the troops without having recourse to advances, a miserable met...

It would be indeed too preposterous of me to take up public attention with the feats and performances of an urchin of twelve, when, for two years, we were to pass through such g...

M. Moquet de Brassoire--The ambuscade--Three hares charge me--What prevents me from being the king of the battue--Because I did not take the bull by the horns, I just escape bei...

We have now introduced our new actors. The Thursday had come; and it was half-past eight in the morning when we filed out--M. Deviolaine, my brother-in-law, myself, and a dozen...

My mother realises that I am fifteen years old, and that _la marette_ and _la pipée_ will not lead to a brilliant future for me--I enter the office of Me. Mennesson, notary, as...

The body was taken to the hospital, where it was exposed to view, as neither the justice of peace, the mayor, nor the chief constable recognised it. I very naturally wished to g...

While all these things that we have related were happening, my mother experienced two fresh sorrows, quite as great as her first: she lost both her father and her mother.

Five or six years had flown by since the events we have just related. I had left Villers-Cotterets, and I had returned there to spend a few days with my good mother.

Whilst these wonders were being performed in Upper Italy my father was still commanding a division of the Army of the Alps: as we have pointed out, since it was a post of observ...

As the courier had said, His Majesty the Emperor and King had re-entered the Tuileries on the 20th March at eight o'clock in the evening, the birthday of the King of Rome.

Had any doubt remained in the minds of the most obstinate of sceptics concerning the disaster at Waterloo, which had been announced at Villers-Cotterets by the fugitives whom we...

It would seem as though in response to this outburst of my spirit towards God He rewarded my mother by giving her the only thing she had ever been able to obtain in return for h...

Letter from my father to General Brune on my birth--The postscript--My godfather and godmother--First recollections of infancy--Topography of the château des Fossés and sketches...

As I have now entered upon the second period of my youth, and put off the boy's toga to don that of adolescence, I must make my readers acquainted with the individuals who peopl...

People of another generation, who were not alive at that period, can form no idea of the effect this news produced when on the morning of the 7th March we read the following lin...

While my mother was _enceinte_ the usual Whitsuntide fête took place at Villers-Cotterets; a delightful fête it was, to which I shall again refer. It took place at the time of t...

Five or six hundred steps from the farmhouse at home, in the middle of open country, scattered over with dwarf juniper trees, where the rocks jutted out of the earth all round,...

He next day Murat and Brune lunched with us. Luncheon was served in a room on the first floor; from the window of this room Montmartre could be seen, and I remember that I was w...

My father is exchanged for General Mack--Events during his captivity--He asks in vain for a share in the distribution of the 500,000 francs indemnity granted to the prisoners--T...

May we be permitted to go back a little further, since our dramatic training has accustomed us always and in every detail to prefer the clearest and most lucid style of presenta...

I wonder what learned ornithologist first discovered the vanity of larks? What profound philosopher guessed that by means of moving surfaces of bright metal or of glass larks wo...

It now remains for us to explain why it was that this man was both so strong at the beginning of his career and so weak at its close; why, at a given hour, in the prime of life,...

I had a great fright one day in that beautiful garden. At one corner stood a kind of ruined and roofless tower; in August, the sun's rays concentrated inside this tower and made...

Mocquet's nightmare was no monkey with big eyes, or fantastic monster of Hugo's imagination reproduced by the brush of Delacroix, by the pencil of Boulanger, or by the chisel of...

My father at Villers-Cotterets--He is called to Paris to carry out the 13th Vendémiaire--Bonaparte takes his place--He arrives the next day--_Buonaparte's_ attestation--My fathe...

Mademoiselle Pivert--I make her read the _Thousand and One Nights_, or, rather, one story in that collection--Old Hiraux, my music-master--The little worries of his life--He tak...

Joubert's loyalty towards my father--"Send me Dumas"--The Horatius Codes of the Tyrol--My father is appointed Governor of the Trévisan--The agent of the Directory--My father fêt...

My father rejoins his regiment--His portrait--His strength--His skill--The Nile serpent--The regiment of the King and the regiment of the Queen--Early days of the Revolution--De...

My father is appointed General-in-Chief of the Army of the West--His report on the state of La Vendée--My father is sent to the Army of the Alps as General-in-Chief--State of th...

The result of a sword-stroke across the head--St. Georges and the remounts--The quarrel he sought with my father--My father is transferred to the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse--He han...

The return to Villers-Cotterets, and what we met on the way--The box with the thirty louis in it--The leather-bag--The mole--Our departure--The journey--The arrival at Mensal an...

My father is exchanged for General Mack--Events during his captivity--He asks in vain for a share in the distribution of the 500,000 francs indemnity granted to the prisoners--T...

My father--His birth--The arms of the family--The serpents of Jamaica--The alligators of St. Domingo--My grandfather--A young man's adventure--A first duel--M. le duc de Richeli...

My love for my father--His love for me--I am taken away to my cousin Marianne's--Plan of the house--The forge--The apparition--I learn the death of my father--I wish to go to he...

Letter from my father to General Brune on my birth--The postscript--My godfather and godmother--First recollections of infancy--Topography of the château des Fossés and sketches...

My father is sent to join Kléber--He is nominated General-in-Chief in the Western Pyrenees--Bouchotte's letters--Instructions of the Convention--The Representatives of the Peopl...

My mother and I conspire--The secret--M. Richard--_La pistole_ and the pistols--The offer made to the brothers Lallemand in order to save them--They refuse--I meet one of them,...

My mother realises that I am fifteen years old, and that _la marette_ and _la pipée_ will not lead to a brilliant future for me--I enter the office of Me. Mennesson, notary, as...

M. Moquet de Brassoire--The ambuscade--Three hares charge me--What prevents me from being the king of the battue--Because I did not take the bull by the horns, I just escape bei...

The despatch is sent to Bonaparte--Dermoncourt's reception--Berthier's open response--Military movements in consequence of the despatch--Correspondence between my father and Ser...

The voyage--The landing--The taking of Alexandria--The _Chant du Départ_ and the Arabian concert--The respited prisoners--The march on Cairo--Rum and biscuit--My father's melons...

Am I to be called Davy de La Pailleterie or Alexandre Dumas?--_Deus dedit, Deus dabit_--The tobacco-shop--The cause of the Emperor Napoleon's fall, as it appeared to my writing-...

My birth--My name is disputed--Extracts from the official registers of Villers-Cotterets--Corbeil Club--My father's marriage certificate--My mother--My maternal grandfather--Lou...

The single-barrelled gun--_Quiot Biche_--Biche and Boudoux compared--I become a poacher--It is proposed to issue a writ against me--Madame Darcourt as plenipotentiary--How it ha...