CHAPTER II

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 Richelieu acts as second for my father--My father enlists as a private soldier--He changes his name--Death of my grandfather--His death certificate.

My father, who has already been mentioned twice in the beginning of this history--first with reference to my birth certificate and later in connection with his own marriage contract--was the Republican General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie.

As already stated in the documents quoted by us, he was himself the son of the marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, colonel and commissary-general of artillery, and he inherited the estate of la Pailleterie, which had been raised to a marquisate by Louis XIV., in 1707.

The arms of the family were three eagles _azure_ with wings spread _or_, two wings across one, one with a ring _argent_ in the middle; clasped left and right by the talons of the eagles at the head of the escutcheon and reposing on the crest of the remaining eagle.

To these arms, my father, when enlisting as a private, added a motto, or rather, he took it in place of his arms when he renounced his title: this was "_Deus dedit, Deus dabit_"; a device which would have been presumptuous had not Providence countersigned it.

I am unaware what Court quarrel or speculative motive decided my grandfather to leave France, about the year 1760, and to sell his property and to go and establish himself in St. Domingo.

With this end in view he had purchased a large tract of land at the eastern side of the island, close to Cape Rose, and known under the name of la Guinodée, near Trou-Jérémie.

Here, on March 25th, 1762, my father was born--the son of Louise-Cessette Dumas and of the marquis de la Pailleterie.

The marquis de la Pailleterie, born in 1710, was then fifty-two years old.

My father's eyes opened on the most beautiful scenery of that glorious island, the queen of the gulf in which it lies, the air of which is so pure that it is said no venomous reptile can live there.

A general, sent to re-conquer the island, when we had lost it, hit upon the ingenious idea of importing from Jamaica into St. Domingo a whole cargo of the deadliest reptiles that could be found, as auxiliaries. Negro snake-charmers were commissioned to take them up at the one island and to set them free on the other.

Tradition has it that a month afterwards every one of the snakes had perished.

St. Domingo, then, possesses neither the black snake of Java, nor the rattlesnake of North America, nor the hooded cobra of the Cape; but St. Domingo has alligators.

I recollect hearing my father relate--when I must have been quite a young child, since he died in 1806 and I was born in 1802--I recollect, I say, hearing my father relate, that one day, when he was ten years old, and was returning from the town to his home, when he saw to his great surprise an object that looked like a tree-trunk lying on the sea-shore. He had not noticed it when he passed the same place two hours before; and he amused himself by picking up pebbles and throwing them at the log; when, suddenly, at the touch of the pebbles, the log woke up.

The log was an alligator dozing in the sun. Now alligators, it seems, wake up in most unpleasant tempers; this one spied my father and started to run after him. My father was a true son of the Colonies, a son of the seashores and of the savannas, and knew how to run fast; but it would seem that the alligator ran or rather jumped still faster than he, and this adventure bid fair to have left me for ever in limbo, had not a negro, who was sitting astride a wall eating sweet potatoes, noticed what was happening, and cried out to my already breathless father:

"Run to the right, little sah; run to the left, little sah."

Which, translated, meant, "Run zigzag, young gentleman," a style of locomotion entirely repugnant to the alligator's mechanism, who can only run straight ahead of him, or leap lizard-wise.

Thanks to this advice, my father reached home safe and sound; but, when there, he fell, panting and breathless, like the Greek from Marathon, and, like him, was very nearly past getting up again.

This race, wherein the beast was hunter and the human being the hunted, left a deep impression on my father's mind.

My grandfather, brought up in the aristocratic circle of Versailles, had little taste for a colonist's mode of life: moreover, his wife, to whom he had been warmly attached, had died in 1772; and as she managed the estate it deteriorated in value daily after her death. The marquis leased the estate for a rent to be paid him regularly, and returned to France.

This return took place about the year 1780, when my father was eighteen years of age.

In the midst of the gilded youth of that period, the Fayettes, the Lameths, the Dillons, the Lazuns, who were all his companions, my father lived in the style of a gentleman's son. Handsome in looks, although his mulatto complexion gave him a curiously foreign appearance; as graceful as a Creole, with a good figure at a time when a well-set-up figure was thought much of, and with hands and feet like a woman's; amazingly agile at all physical exercises, and one of the most promising pupils of the first fencing-master of his time--Laboissière; struggling for supremacy in dexterity and agility with St. Georges, who, although forty-eight years old, laid claim to be still a young man and fully justified his pretensions, it was to be expected that my father would have a host of adventures, and he had: we will only repeat one, which deserves that distinction on account of its original character.

Moreover, a celebrated name is connected with it, and this name appears so often in my dramas or in my novels that it seems almost my duty to explain to the public how I came to have such a predilection for it.

The marquis de la Pailleterie had been a comrade of the duc de Richelieu, and was, at the time of this anecdote, his senior by fourteen years; he commanded a brigade at the siege of Philipsbourg in 1738, under the marquis d'Asfeld.

My grandfather was then first gentleman to the prince de Conti.

As is generally known, the duc de Richelieu was, on his grandfather's side (whose name was Vignerot), of quite low descent.

He had foolishly changed the _t_ of the ending of his name to _d_, to confute pedigree hunters by making them think it was of English origin. These heraldic grubbers claimed that the name Vignerot with a _t_ and not with a _d_ at the end of it had originally sprung from a lute player, who had seduced the great Cardinal's niece, as did Abelard the niece of Canon Fulbert; but, more lucky than Abelard, he finished his course by marrying her after he had seduced her.

The marshal--who at this time was not yet made a marshal--was, by his father, a Vignerot, and only on his grandmother's side a Richelieu. This did not, however, prevent him from taking for his first wife Mademoiselle de Noailles, and for his second Mademoiselle de Guise, the latter alliance connecting him with the imperial house of Austria, and making him cousin to the prince de Pont and the prince de Lixen.

Now it fell out one day that the duc de Richelieu had an attack of colic, and therefore had not taken the usual pains with his toilet; it fell out, I say, that he returned to the camp with my grandfather, and went out hunting, covered with sweat and mud all over.

The princes de Pont and de Lixen were hunting at the same time, and the duke, who was in haste to return home to change his clothes, passed by them at a gallop and saluted them.

"Oh! oh!" said the prince de Lixen, "is that you, cousin? How muddy you are! But perhaps you are a little bit cleaner since you married my cousin."

M. de Richelieu pulled up his horse and leapt to the ground, motioning to my grandfather to do the same, and he advanced to the prince de Lixen:

"Sir," said he, "you did me the honour to address me."

"Yes, M. le duc," replied the prince.

"I am afraid I misunderstood the words you did me the honour to address to me. Will you have the goodness to repeat them to me exactly as you said them?"

The prince de Lixen bowed his head in the affirmative, and repeated word for word the phrase he had uttered.

It was so insolently done that there was no way out of it. M. de Richelieu bowed to the prince de Lixen and clapped his hand to his sword.

The prince followed suit.

The prince de Pont naturally was obliged to be his brother's second, and my grandfather Richelieu's.

A minute later M. de Richelieu plunged his sword through the body of the prince de Lixen, who fell back stone dead into the arms of the prince de Pont.[1]

Fifty-five years had gone by since this event. M. de Richelieu, the oldest of the marshals of France, had been in 1781 appointed president of the Tribunal of Affairs of Honour, in his eighty-fifth year.

He would therefore be eighty-seven when the anecdote we are about to relate took place.

My father would be twenty-two.

My father was one night at the theatre of la Montansier in undress, in the box of a very beautiful Creole who was the rage at the time. Whether on account of the lady's immense popularity or because of his imperfect toilet, he kept at the back of the box.

A musketeer, who had recognised the lady from the orchestra, opened the box door and, without in any way asking leave, seated himself by her and began to enter into conversation.

"Pardon me, monsieur," said the lady, interrupting him at the first words he uttered, "but I think you are not sufficiently aware that I am not alone."

"Who, then, is with you?" asked the musketeer.

"Why, that gentleman, of course," replied the lady, indicating my father.

"Oh! pardon me!" said the young man; "I took monsieur for your lackey."

This piece of impertinence was no sooner uttered than the ill-mannered musketeer was shot forth as from a catapult into the middle of the pit.

This unexpected descent produced a great sensation.

It was a matter of interest both to the falling body and to the people on whom he fell.

In those days people had to stand in the pit, therefore there was no need for them to rise up; they turned to the box from which the musketeer had been hurled, and hooted loudly.

At the same time my father, who naturally expected the usual sequel to such a proceeding, left the box to meet his enemy in the corridor. But instead he found a police constable, who touched him with an ivory-headed ebony baton and informed him that by order of the marshals of France he was attached to his person.

It was the first time my father had encountered the arm of the law. Brought up in St. Domingo, where there was no marshals' tribunal, he was not versed in the practices of that institution.

"Pardon me, monsieur," he said to the guard, "am I right in assuming that you are going to stick to me?"

"I have that honour, monsieur," replied the guard.

"Will you have the kindness to explain to me what that will mean?"

"It means, monsieur, that from this moment until the Tribunal of Affairs of Honour shall have settled your case, I shall not leave your side."

"You will not leave me?"

"No, monsieur."

"What! you will follow me?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Everywhere I go?"

"Everywhere."

"Even to madame's house?"

The guard bowed with exquisite politeness.

"Even to madame's house," he replied.

"Even to my own?" continued my father.

"Even to your house."

"Into my bedroom?"

"Into your bedroom."

"Oh! this is too much!"

"It is even so, monsieur."

And the guard bowed with the same politeness as at first.

My father felt a strong inclination to disengage himself of the constable as he had of the musketeer; but the whole of the replies and injunctions we have above reported were made so courteously he had no reasonable excuse for taking offence.

My father escorted the lady to her door, saluted her as respectfully as the constable had saluted him, and took home with him the representative of the marshals of France.

This gentleman installed himself in his apartment, went out with him, came back with him, and followed him as faithfully as his shadow.

Three days later my father was summoned to appear before the duc de Richelieu, who then lived at the famous pavilion de Hanovre.

This was the name by which the Parisians had dubbed the mansion Richelieu had built at the corner of the boulevard and of the rue Choiseul (Louis-le-Grand), thereby hinting, and perhaps not without some show of reason, that the war with Hanover had supplied the requisite funds.

My father then styled himself the comte de la Pailleterie; we shall soon relate the reason for his renouncing this name and title. It was under this name and title, therefore, that my father was introduced to the marshal.

The name awoke a recollection alike in the mind and in the heart of the conqueror of Mahon.

"Oh! oh!" he exclaimed, as he turned round in his armchair, "are you by any chance son of the marquis de la Pailleterie, one of my old friends, who was my second in a duel in which I had the misfortune to kill the prince of Lixen during the siege of Philipsbourg?"

"Yes, monseigneur."

"Then, m'sieur (this was the way the duc de Richelieu pronounced the word _monsieur_), you are the son of a brave gentleman and ought to have a fair hearing; relate your case to me."

My father told what had happened just as I have given it.

There was too close a resemblance between this affair and the one the duc de Richelieu had had with his cousin for the marshal not to be struck with it.

"Oh! oh!" he said, "and you swear that was exactly what occurred, m'sieur?"

"Upon my word of honour, monseigneur."

"You must have reparation, then, and if you will to-day accept me as a second, I shall be delighted to render the same service to you that your father rendered me forty-six or forty-seven years ago."

As may well be imagined, my father accepted the offer, which was thoroughly characteristic of Richelieu.

The meeting took place in the very garden of the pavilion de Hanovre, and my father's adversary received a sword-cut across the shoulder.

This event reunited the two old friends; the duc de Richelieu asked news of the father from his son, and learnt that the marquis de Pailleterie, after having lived in St. Domingo nearly twenty years, had returned to France, and now lived at Saint-Germain en Laye.

An invitation was sent to the marquis de la Pailleterie to come and visit the duke at the pavillon de Hanovre.

Of course my grandfather accepted willingly enough. The two heroes of the Regency held long conversations over their campaigns and their love-affairs. Then over dessert the talk fell on my father; and the marshal proposed to take the first opportunity that offered to place his old friend's son in the army.

It was decreed that my father's military career should begin under less illustrious auspices.

About this time my grandfather married again, and took his housekeeper to wife, Marie-Françoise Retou; he was then seventy-four years of age.

This marriage caused an estrangement between father and son.

The result of this estrangement was that the father tied up his money bags tighter than ever, and the son soon discovered that life in Paris without money is a sorry life.

He then had an interview with the marquis, and told him he had made up his mind to a course of action.

"What is that?" asked the marquis.

"To enlist."

"As what?"

"As a private."

"In what regiment?"

"In the first regiment I come across."

"That is all very fine," replied my grandfather, "but as I am the marquis de la Pailleterie, a colonel and commissary-general of artillery, I will not allow you to drag my name in the mire of the lowest ranks of the army."

"Then you object to my enlisting?"

"No; but you must enlist under an assumed name."

"That is quite fair," replied my father. "I will enlist under the name of Dumas."

"Very well."

And the marquis, who had never in any sense been a very tender parent, turned his back on his son and left him free to go his own gait.

So my father enlisted under the name of Alexandre Dumas, as had been agreed.

He enlisted in a regiment of the Queen's Dragoons, 6th of the Army, as Number 429, on June 2nd, 1786.

It was the duc de Grammont, grandfather of my friend the real duc de Guiche, who entered his enlistment under the name of Alexandre Dumas; and, as a verification of this enlistment, a certificate was drawn up which the duc de Guiche brought me only two years since as a souvenir of his father the duc de Grammont.

It was signed by four noblemen belonging to Saint-Germain en Laye, and stated that although enlisting under the name of Alexandre Dumas the new recruit was really the son of the marquis de la Pailleterie.

As for the marquis, he died thirteen days after his son's enlistment in the Queen's Dragoons, as became an old aristocrat who could not endure to see the fall of the Bastille.

I give his death certificate from the civil registers of Saint-Germain en Laye.

"On Friday, June 16th, 1786, the body of the high and mighty Seigneur Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, knight, seigneur and patron of Bielleville, whose death took place the preceding day, aged about 76, husband of Marie-Françoise Retou, was interred in the cemetery, and mass was sung in the presence of the clergy, of sieur Denis Nivarrat, citizen, and of sieur Louis Regnault, also citizen; friends of the deceased, who have signed this at Saint-Germain en Laye."

By this death the last tie that bound my father to the aristocracy was severed.

[Footnote 1: There are different versions of this anecdote, but I give it as I found it related among my father's papers, where this note is added in another handwriting: _The general had this story from the duc de Richelieu himself._ I cannot, then, do other than adopt or rather retain this version of it.]