The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
By Tom Reiss
Crown, $27, 414 pp.
By Tom Reiss
Crown, $27, 414 pp.
Review by David Forsmark of PJMedia.com:
It sounds like one of those goofy Black History Month blog posts put
out by an activist — hey, did you know the inspiration for the Count of
Monte Cristo was really black … and his name was Alexandre Dumas?
The first thought that crossed my mind while reading The Black Count
— the fascinating new book by Tom Reiss — was why the heck hadn’t
anyone written a major biography of General Alex Dumas before 2012? This
was immediately followed by “Why the heck do we have Black History
Month if it’s not going to uncover and publicize this man’s story?”
First, to avoid any confusion, the book’s subject is not the 19th Century author who penned such adventure classics as The Three Musketeers, The Corsican Brothers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Rather, this is the tale of the writer’s father, who is not nearly as well known as he deserves to be.
Reiss, author of The Orientalist,
presents the story of the son of a French aristocrat and a Dominican
slave who rose through the ranks of the French army through feats of
incredible valor, only to be betrayed by racist backlash. In the
process, Reiss offers a unique look at the first modern-style
totalitarian government to be born of revolution.
The Black Count begins in the slave-trading world of
colonial France, an oddly hybrid system where French legal protections
for people of mixed race clashed with perhaps the most brutal form of
European-sponsored slavery in the New World.
Alex enters the historical record at the age of 14, when his father, a
rebellious French nobleman who disappeared into the Haitian wilds with
his slave mistress, returns after a years-long absence to reclaim his
inheritance. Alex, however, is his father’s sole companion when they
return to France; his mother and sisters were sold off by his father
before the journey. Alex, in fact, was recorded as his father’s slave
upon their return.
Alex, however, was brought up as a nobleman’s son and grew into an
intellectually and physically imposing figure. Still, he entered the
French army as an enlisted dragoon, rather than taking advantage of his
titles.
He was such an impressive young man that, even though only a private, he
married the daughter of his well-to-do landlord. It was a marriage that
would last as a love match through distance, deprivation, political
disfavor and betrayal.
An avid believer in the stated egalitarian views of the French
Revolution, Dumas was the kind of revolutionary who captured the
imaginations of such American Founders as Thomas Jefferson. He
distinguished himself in conflict and quickly moved up the ranks.
But even the man who should have been the propaganda poster boy for
the proclaimed value of égalité was not immune from the Reign of Terror
that eventually gripped France. Dumas’ refusal to engage in systematic
and unnecessary brutality put him constantly under suspicion from the
infamous Committee of Public Safety, and his well-connected superiors
often were writing to assure Paris of Dumas’s fidelity to the
Revolution.
But it was his brilliant service in the brutal campaign in the Alps
that nearly earned him a visit to Madame Guillotine. After the
Revolution, France invaded most of its neighbors to “liberate” their
citizens. Dumas, who commanded the Army of the Alps, was constantly sent
impossible and suicidal orders from the Committee about the speed with
which he must attack the fortresses of the Piedmont.
Although he eventually succeeded against all odds, Alex was called
back to Paris to face the Committee, generally the first step before
losing one’s head. But before he could make his obligatory appearance,
Robespierre was overthrown in a counter-revolution, and Dumas was
spared… for the moment.
The fall of the Jacobins at first seemed to fulfill the promise of
the Revolution, but it soon gave rise to Napoleon Bonaparte, who would
combine revolutionary and patriotic rhetoric with a cult of personality
that would serve as model for Hitler, Lenin, Mao and other totalitarian
dictators of the 20th Century.
Dumas fell in and out of favor with the general, who appreciated his
military skill but sometimes resented his charisma and the loyalty shown
him by his troops. Napoleon wrote glowingly of one of Dumas’s most
extraordinary feats, however, an act of heroism that led to a statue
being erected in Paris of the only non-white general in France’s
history.
Napoleon dubbed Dumas the Horatius of France after he single-handedly
defeated a squadron of Austrian troops crossing a vital bridge over a
river.
The general made Dumas the commander of his cavalry in the Army of
Egypt, but Alex’s sharp tongue (often in the pursuit of good sense)
caused him to fall out of favor again with the egomaniacal dictator.
Napoleon abruptly abandoned the ill-fated Egyptian mission after a few
years of occupation, when Admiral Nelson’s victory in the Nile made the
French position untenable.
Dumas was forced to find his own way back to France, but the
unseaworthy craft he and his men chartered forced them to land in the
Kingdom of Naples, which they believed to be a friendly haven. Instead,
Dumas was thrown into prison and left to languish while his health
deteriorated, and Napoleon mysteriously made no effort to rescue him.
Interestingly, Naples felt safe from French retaliation largely
because Lord Nelson’s torrid affair with the wife of a prominent citizen
kept the Royal Navy close at hand, a distraction from duty that makes
General Petraeus look pretty tame.
Dumas later wrote an account of his imprisonment that would form the basis for his son’s celebrated novel, The Count of Monte Cristo.
The Nazis destroyed the statue of the Black Count during World War
II, leaving no current monument in France to one of its great heroes. In
an ironic and bitter denouement, Reiss notes that a determined
historian attempted to create a new memorial for Dumas, but the effort
was hijacked in the spirit of racial political correctness and devolved
into a monument for all French slaves. What was to have been a
celebration of great valor became a tribute to victimhood in the form of
a giant pair of shackles.
French elites chose to remember
Alex Dumas not for his valor, but for his victimhood status.
Once again, French radicals denied Alex Dumas his rightful glory.
The Black Count
is a fascinating and compelling read, though not as novelistic as many
recent bestselling historical biographies. A meticulous researcher and
historian, Reiss takes far less literary license than has become the
norm. This leaves his subject still shrouded in mystery and somewhat
remote.
However, history buffs will devour this unique look at a turbulent and
violent time in European history, and its lessons about radicals and
revolution still apply today.
No comments:
Post a Comment