was born in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne , in Picardy , France. Dumas' paternal grandparents were Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and Général commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of Saint-Domingue  — now Haiti  — and Marie-Cesette Dumas, an Afro-Caribbean Creole of mixed French