Thomas - Alexandre Dumas General Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie , also known as Alexandre Dumas , ( 25 March 1762 – 26 February 1806 ) was the famous African European general in French history and remains the highest - ranking person of color of all time in a continental European army . He was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general , the first to become divisional general , and the first to become general - in - chief of a French army . Dumas shared the status of the highest - ranking black officer in the Western world only with Toussaint Louverture ( who in May 1797 became the second black general - in - chief in the French military ) until 1989 , when the American Colin Powell became a four - star general , the closest United States equivalent of Général d ' Armée , Dumas ' s highest rank . Born in Saint - Domingue , Alexandre Dumas was of mixed race , the son of a white French nobleman and a black slave mother . He was born into slavery because of his mother ' s status but was also born into nobility because of his father ' s . His father took the boy with him to France in 1776 and had him educated . Slavery was illegal in metropolitan France and thus any slave would be freed de facto by being in the country . He helped him enter the French military . Dumas played a pivotal role in the French Revolutionary Wars . Entering the military as a private at age 24 , Dumas rose by age 31 to command 53 , 000 troops as the General - in - Chief of the French Army of the Alps . Dumas ' s strategic victory in opening the high Alps passes enabled the French to initiate their Second Italian Campaign against the Austrian Empire . During the battles in Italy , Austrian troops nicknamed Dumas as the " Schwarzer Teufel " ( " Black Devil , " " Diable Noir " in French ) . The French – notably Napoleon – nicknamed him " the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol " ( after a hero who had saved ancient Rome ) for single - handedly defeating a squadron of enemy troops at a bridge over the Eisack River in Clausen ( today Klausen , or Chiusa , Italy ) . Dumas served as commander of the French cavalry forces on the " Expédition d ' Égypte " , a failed French attempt to conquer Egypt and the Levant . On the march from Alexandria to Cairo , he clashed verbally with the Expedition ' s supreme commander Napoleon Bonaparte , under whom he had served in the Italian campaigns . In March 1799 , Dumas left Egypt on an unsound vessel , which was forced to put aground in the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples , where he was taken prisoner and thrown into a dungeon . He languished there until the spring of 1801 . Returning to France after his release , he had a son with his wife : Alexandre Dumas , who became one of France ' s most widely - read authors of all time . The novelist Dumas ' most famous characters were inspired by the life of General Dumas . The general ' s grandson , Alexandre Dumas , " fils " , would become one of France ' s most celebrated playwrights of the second half of the nineteenth century . Another grandson , , who was never recognized by the novelist Dumas , was a prominent left - leaning theater critic in the same period . The General ' s great - grandson , , son of Henry Bauër , was also an accomplished writer , in the twentieth century . A great - great - grandson , Alexandre Lippmann ( grandson of the playwright Dumas fils ) , was a two - time gold medalist in fencing at the 1908 and 1924 Olympic games ( he won silver in 1920 ) . Ancestry . Born 25 March 1762 in Jérémie , Saint - Domingue ( today Haiti ) , Thomas - Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie was the son of a French nobleman , the Marquis ( 20 June 1714 , Belleville - en - Caux – 15 June 1786 , Saint - Germain - en - Laye ) and Marie - Cessette Dumas ( birth date unknown ; d . 1772 , La Guinodée , Saint - Domingue ) , his black African slave . Father . Noble pedigree . , born 1714 , was the oldest of three sons of the Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie ( 1674 - 1758 ) and Jeanne - Françoise Paultre , ( or Pautre ) de Dominon ( died 1757 ) . The Davy de la Pailleteries were provincial Norman aristocrats whose wealth was in decline . The family had acquired the title of " lords " ( " seigneurs " ) by 1632 . The French kingdom granted the title " marquis " to the family by 1708 . Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie ( " Antoine " ) had two younger brothers , Charles Anne Edouard ( Charles ) born in 1716 , and Louis François Thérèse ( Louis ) born in 1718 . All three were educated at a military school and pursued careers as officers in the French military . They first served during the War of Polish Succession . Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie , who reached the rank of colonel , notably saw action at the Siege of Philippsburg in 1734 . Career in Saint - Domingue . In 1732 , the younger Antoine ' s brother Charles had been given a military posting in Saint - Domingue , a French colony in the Caribbean that generated high revenues from its sugar cane plantations , worked by African slave labor . In 1738 , Charles left the military to become a sugar planter in that colony ; he married Anne - Marie Tuffé , a rich local French Creole widow , and took over her estate . That year Antoine also left the Army and joined his brother and his wife in Saint - Domingue . He lived with them and worked at the plantation until 1748 . After the two brothers quarreled violently , Antoine left Charles ' s plantation , taking his three personal slaves . At that point Antoine broke off contact with his brother and his family for a period of thirty years . During that time , Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie purchased the slave woman Marie - Cessette " for an exorbitant price " and took her as a concubine . In 1762 , she gave birth to their mixed - race son Thomas - Alexandre . During her time with Antoine , she also had three daughters with him . ( Some accounts say two . ) The French colonist made a living in Jérémie , Saint - Domingue as a coffee and cacao planter , under the assumed name of " Antoine de l ' Isle . " When the brothers ' parents , the Marquise Jeanne - Françoise and the Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie , died in 1757 and 1758 , respectively , Charles returned to Normandy to claim the title Marquis and the family château . The British blockade of French shipping during the Seven Years ' War reduced Charles ' income from sugar exports , so he tried to smuggle the commodity out of Saint - Domingue from his plantation . He used a wharf in the neutral border territory ( and tiny island ) of Monte Cristo ( today Monte Christi , Dominican Republic ) . ( Some historians argue that this Monte Cristo was the " real " island that inspired Alexandre Dumas ' " The Count of Monte Cristo . " ) Charles died of gout in 1773 ; Louis , the youngest of the Davy de la Pailleterie brothers , died three months later . He had served a 15 - day sentence for being involved in selling defective weapons to the French military ( a famous scandal at the time known as the Invalides Trial ( " le procès des Invalides " ) . Mother . Marie - Cessette Dumas — described as a " great matriarch to a saga of distinguished men " was a slave and concubine of African descent owned by the Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie . They resided together at a plantation called La Guinaudée ( or Guinodée ) , near Jérémie ( formerly in the French colony of Saint - Domingue , now Haiti ) until shortly before Antoine ' s departure in 1775 . He sold Marie - Cessette Dumas , their other two children , and her daughter by another man to a baron from Nantes before leaving Saint - Domingue . The only source for her full name , " Marie - Cessette Dumas , " with that spelling , is General Thomas - Alexandre Dumas ' s later marriage certificate and contract . Her grandson ' s memoir gave her name as Louise , and another source recorded Cécile . Sources have spelling variations of her name , as standardization was not common at the time . Some scholars have suggested that " Dumas " was not a surname for Marie - Cessette , but , meaning " of the farm " ( " du mas " ) , was added to her first names to signify that she belonged to the property . Others have suggested African origins of the names Cessette and Dumas , including Gabon , Yoruba or Dahomey . The two extant primary documents that state a racial identity for Marie - Cessette Dumas refer to her as a “ négresse ” ( a black female ) as opposed to a “ mulâtresse ” ( a female of mixed race ) . Secondary sources on General Thomas - Alexandre Dumas , dating back to 1822 , almost always describe his mother as a black African ( “ " femme africaine " ” , “ " négresse " , ” “ " négresse africaine " , ” “ " noire " , ” or “ pure black African ” ) . Death . Sources differ on the date and circumstance of her death . Two documents signed by Alexandre Dumas – his contract and certificate of marriage to Marie - Louise Labouret – state that Marie - Cessette died in La Guinaudée , near Trou Jérémie , Saint - Domingue , in 1772 . Based on this death date , Victor Emmanuel Roberto Wilson speculates that she may have died in the mass outbreak of dysentery following a hurricane that struck principally the Grand Anse region of Saint - Domingue that year . Two other documents attest that Marie - Cessette was alive after 1772 : a letter recounting her sale in 1775 and an 1801 document signed by Dumas , saying that “ Marie - Cezette ” will be in charge of General Dumas ’ s properties in Saint - Domingue . Thomas - Alexandre Dumas may have earlier claimed that she had died in order to avoid having to get her approval before marriage and revealing her slave status . In addition , he was in a hurry to leave for the military front . Names . Dumas used several names in his life : Thomas - Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie , Thomas Rethoré ( or Retoré ) , Alexandre Dumas , Alex Dumas , and finally Thomas - Alexandre Dumas - Davy de la Pailleterie . " Davy de la Pailleterie " is his father ' s family name . He used the name " Retoré " ( sometimes spelled Rethoré ) during and for some years after the period in which his father sold him and then re - purchased him ( 1775 - 1776 ) . According to the biographer Tom Reiss , the name Retoré " was perhaps picked up from a neighbor in Jérémie ( where the name can be found on official records of the period ) . " The name Dumas is from his mother . The first record of his use of the name " Alexandre Dumas " is his entry in the registry book of the Queen ' s Dragoons , which he joined on June 2 , 1786 . ( It was known in his platoon that this was " not his real name . " ) He used the simple form " Alex Dumas " starting in 1794 . General Dumas used the full name " Thomas - Alexandre Dumas - Davy de la Pailleterie " on his son ' s birth certificate Appearance . The enlistment roll - book for the 6th Regiment of the Queen ' s Dragoons , which Dumas joined in 1786 , described him as " 6 feet tall , with frizzy black hair and eyebrows . . . oval face , and brown skinned , small mouth , thick lips . " According to the earliest known published description of him ( 1797 ) , he was “ one of the handsomest men you could ever meet . [ . . . ] His frizzy hair recalls the curls of the Greeks and Romans . ” It described his face as " something closer to ebony " than to " bronze . " ” Elsewhere General Dumas has been described as “ dark — very dark . ” Early life . Thomas - Alexandre had two siblings by his parents : Adolphe and Jeannette . They also had an older half - sister , Marie - Rose , born to Marie - Cessette before Davy de la Pailleterie purchased her and began their relationship . His father sold Marie - Cessette and her other three children before arranging to take Thomas - Alexandre with him to France . In 1776 when Alexandre was fourteen years old , his father sold the boy for 800 French livres in Port - au - Prince , officially to a Lieutenant Jacques - Louis Roussel ( but unofficially to a Captain Langlois ) . This sale ( with right of redemption ) provided both a legal way to have Alexandre taken to France with Langlois and a temporary loan to pay for his father ' s passage . The boy accompanied Captain Langlois to Le Havre , France , arriving on August 30 , 1776 , where his father bought him back and freed him . From his arrival in France until Autumn 1778 , Alexandre ( then using the name Thomas Retoré ) first lived with his father at the Davy de la Pailleterie family estate in Belleville - en - Caux , Normandy . After his father sold that estate in 1777 , they moved to a townhouse on the rue de l ' Aigle d ' Or in the Parisian suburb of Saint - Germain - en - Laye . There , Alexandre studied at the academy of , where he was given the higher education of a young nobleman of the time . At this school , he learned swordsmanship from the Chevalier de Saint - George , another mixed - race man from the French Caribbean . Flush with cash from the sale of his family estate , Davy de la Pailleterie for many years spent lavishly on Dumas . His notary said wrote that the boy " cost him enormously . " From 1777 to 1786 , from age 15 to 24 , thanks to his father ' s wealth and generosity , Dumas lived a life of considerable leisure . In 1784 , at age 22 , Alexandre moved to an apartment on Rue Etienne , near the Louvre Palace in Paris , socializing at venues such as the Palais - Royal and Nicolet ' s Theater . In September 1784 , while seated at Nicolet ' s Theater in the company of " a beautiful Creole " woman , he and his companion were harassed by a white colonial naval officer , Jean - Pierre Titon de Saint - Lamain , and one or two others . Following Dumas ' s verbal protests , the men " tried to force him to kneel before his attacker and beg for his freedom . " The police report on the incident shows that Titon chose not to press charges as he might have , and all participants were released . Military career . Enlistment and service in the Queen ' s Dragoons . In February 1786 his father Davy de la Pailleterie married Françoise Retou , a domestic servant from the Davy de la Pailleterie estate . Dumas did not sign as witness to the marriage contract . According to his son ' s memoir , the marriage precipitated a " cooling off " which led the father to tighten Dumas ' s allowance . Soon after , Dumas decided to join the French Army , a common occupation for gentlemen . Unlike his noble peers , who took arms as commissioned officers , Dumas enlisted as a private . A 1781 rule enabled men who could show four generations of nobility on their father ' s side to qualify to be commissioned as officers . Dumas had this , but the French race laws " made it hard for a man of mixed race to claim his rightful title or noble status . " ) According to the novelist Dumas ' s account , on hearing of Alexandre ' s plan , his father insisted that his son take a " " nom de guerre " " in order that he not drag the noble name " through the lowest ranks of the army . " He signed up for the 6th Regiment of the Queen ' s Dragoons as " Alexandre Dumas " on June 2 , 1786 ; 13 days later , his father died . Dumas spent his first years in the Queen ' s Dragoons in the provincial town of Laon , Picardy , close to the border with the Austrian Netherlands . On August 15 , 1789 , following the beginning of the French Revolution , his unit was sent to the small town of Villers - Cotterêts . The town ' s newly formed National Guard leader , innkeeper Claude Labouret , had called for them to come in response to a wave of rural violence known as the Great Fear . Dumas lodged at the Labourets ' Hôtel de l ' Ecu for four months , during which time he became engaged to Claude Labouret ' s daughter Marie - Louise . Dumas ' regiment was in Paris on July 17 , 1791 , where they served as riot police along with National Guard units under the Marquis de Lafayette during the Champ de Mars Massacre of the French Revolution . Troops killed between 12 and 50 people when a large crowd gathered to sign a petition calling for the removal of the French king . When , two years later , someone denounced Dumas to the Committee of Public Safety , he claimed that his intervention in the conflict had saved as many as 2 , 000 people from massacre . A corporal by 1792 , Dumas had his first combat experience was in a French attack on the Austrian Netherlands in April of that year . He was one of 10 , 000 men under the command of the General Biron . Stationed on the Belgian frontier in the town of Maulde , on August 18 , 1792 Dumas captured 12 enemy soldiers while leading a small scouting party of 4 to 8 horsemen . Second - in - command of the Black Legion . In October 1792 , Dumas accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel in ( and second - in - command of ) the , founded a month earlier by Julien Raimond . This was a " free legion " ( i . e . , formed separately from the regular army ) composed of free men of color ( " gens du couleur libre " ) . It was variously called the " American Legion , " the " Black Legion , " or the Saint - George Legion , after its commanding officer , the Chevalier de Saint - George , Dumas ' former instructor in swordsmanship . The young officer Dumas frequently commanded the legion , as Saint - George was often absent from duty . In April 1793 , General Dumouriez attempted a coup d ' état ; Saint - George and Dumas refused to join it and defended the city of Lille from coup supporters . In the summer of 1793 , Saint - George was accused of misusing government funds , and the Legion was disbanded . Commander - in - chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees . On July 30 , 1793 , he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Army of the North . One month later , he was promoted again , to general of division . In September , he was made commander - in - chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees . In this brief assignment ( September – December 1793 ) , Dumas ' headquarters were in Bayonne , France , where ( according to his son ' s memoirs ) , he was nicknamed " Mr . Humanity " ( " Monsieur de l ' Humanité " ) by local " sans - culottes ; " they wanted to intimidate him to conform to their political line at a time when French generals were extremely vulnerable to accusations of treason that often led to execution . Commander - in - chief of the Army of the Alps . On December 22 , 1793 , Dumas was given command of the Army of the Alps . His campaign in the Alps centered on defeating Austrian and Piedmontese troops defending the glacier - covered Little Saint Bernard Pass at Mont Cenis , on the French - Piedmont border . After months of planning and reconnaissance from his base in Grenoble , he had to wait for snow conditions to be favorable to his troops ' passage . In April and May 1794 , Dumas launched several assaults on Mont Cenis . In the final attack , Dumas ' s army , equipped with ice crampons , took the mountain by scaling ice cliffs and captured between 900 and 1 , 700 prisoners . Though his victory won Dumas praise from political leaders in Paris , he was called before the Committee of Public Safety in the June of 1794 , for reasons unspecified but probably to face charges of treason , as this was the period of the " Great Terror , " a period of accelerated political executions in the final months of the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution . Dumas delayed his arrival in Paris until mid - July , and was lucky enough not to be seen by the Committee before the Terror ended with the execution of Robespierre on July 27 , 1794 . Commander - in - chief of the Army of the West in the Vendée . In early August 1794 Dumas was briefly assigned ( for two weeks ) to command the Ecole de Mars military school ( ) at Neuilly - sur - Seine near Paris . He was reassigned to lead the Army of the West from August to October 1794 . In this position , he was responsible for consolidating the recent government victory over a massive insurgency in the region of the Vendée against the French revolutionary government . He focused on increasing military discipline and eliminating soldiers ' abuses of the local population . One historian , despite or because of his pro - royalist sentiments , would characterize Dumas in this command as " fearless and irreproachable , " a leader who " deserves to pass into posterity and makes a favorable contrast with the executioners , his contemporaries , whom public indignation will always nail to the pillory of History ! ” General in the Army of the Rhine . In September 1795 Dumas served under General Jean Baptiste Kléber in the Army of the Rhine . He participated in the French attack on Düsseldorf , where he was wounded . General in the Army of Italy . Siege of Mantua . General Dumas joined the Army of Italy in Milan in November 1796 , serving under the orders of its commander - in - chief , Napoleon Bonaparte . Tension between the two generals began in this period , as Dumas resisted Napoleon ' s policy of allowing French troops indiscriminately to expropriate local property . In December 1796 , Dumas was put in charge of a division besieging Austrian troops at the city of Mantua . By Christmas he had intercepted a spy carrying a message to the Austrian commander with important tactical information . On January 16 , 1797 , Dumas and his division halted an Austrian attempt to break out of the besieged city and prevented Austrian reinforcements from reaching Mantua . The French were thereby able to maintain the siege until French reinforcements could arrive , leading to the city ' s capitulation on February 2 , 1797 . Campaign in Northern Italy . Following the January 16 fighting , Dumas felt insulted by the description of his actions in a battle report by General Berthier , Bonaparte ' s aide - de - camp , and wrote a letter to Napoleon cursing Berthier . Dumas was subsequently omitted from mention in Napoleon ' s battle report to the Directory , France ' s government at the time . He was then given a command well beneath his rank , leading a subdivision under General Masséna , despite a petition from Dumas ' troops attesting to his valor . Under General Masséna in February 1797 , Dumas helped French troops push the Austrians northward , capturing thousands of them . It was in this period that Austrian troops began calling him the " Schwarze Teufel " ( " Black Devil " , or " Diable Noir " in French ) . In late February 1797 , Dumas was transferred to a division commanded by General Joubert , who specifically requested Dumas out of admiration for his republicanism . Under Joubert , Dumas led a small force that defeated several enemy positions along the Adige River . Dumas ' crowning achievement in this period came on March 23 , when the general single - handedly drove back an entire squadron of Austrian troops at a bridge over the Eisack River in Clausen ( today Klausen , or Chiusa , Italy ) . It was this feat for which the French began referring to Dumas as " the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol " ( after a hero who had saved ancient Rome ) . Napoleon called Dumas by this nickname , and rewarded him by making him cavalry commander of all French troops in the Tyrol ; he also sent Dumas a pair of pistols . Dumas spent much of 1797 as military governor , administering the province of Treviso , north of Venice . Commander of Cavalry in the French Campaign in Egypt . Dumas was ordered to report to Toulon , France in March 1798 for an unspecified assignment . He joined an enormous French armada massing there in preparation for departure to a secret destination . The armada departed on May 10 , 1798 , destination still unannounced . It was only on June 23 , after the fleet had conquered Malta , that Napoleon announced that the mission ' s main purpose : to conquer Egypt . Aboard the " Guillaume Tell " , in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea , Dumas learned that he had been appointed as commander of all cavalry in the Army of the Orient . The armada arrived in the port of Alexandria at the end of June , and on July 3 Dumas led the Fourth Light Grenadiers over the walls as the French conquered the city . After the fighting , Napoleon sent Dumas to pay ransom to some Bedouins who had kidnapped French soldiers . The expedition ' s chief medical officer recounted in a memoir that local Egyptians , judging Dumas ' height and build versus Napoleon ' s , believed Dumas to be in command . Seeing " him ride his horse over the trenches , going to ransom the prisoners , all of them believed that he was the leader of the Expedition . " From July 7 to 21 , Dumas commanded the invading army ' s cavalry as it marched south from Alexandria to Cairo . Conditions of heat , thirst , fatigue , and lack of supplies for the troops on the desert march were harsh ; there were a number of suicides . While camped in Damanhour , General Dumas met over watermelons with several other generals ( Lannes , Desaix , and Murat ) . They vented criticisms of Napoleon ' s leadership and discussed the possibility of refusing to march beyond Cairo . Dumas soon participated in the Battle of the Pyramids ( following which he chased retreating Mameluke horsemen ) and the occupation of Cairo . At some point during the occupation , Napoleon learned of the earlier mutinous talk , and confronted Dumas . In his memoirs , Napoleon remembered threatening to shoot Dumas for sedition . Dumas requested leave to return to France , and Napoleon did not oppose it . Napoleon was reported to have said : " I can easily replace him with a brigadier . " Following the destruction of the French armada by a British fleet led by Horatio Nelson , however , Dumas was unable to get out of Egypt until March of the following year . In August 1798 , Dumas discovered a significant cache of gold and jewels beneath a house in French - occupied Cairo , which he turned over to Napoleon . In October , he was instrumental in putting down an anti - French revolt in Cairo by charging into the Al - Azhar Mosque on horseback . Afterward ( according to his son ' s account , drawn largely from the memories of Dumas ' s aide - de - camp Dermoncourt ) , Napoleon told him : " I shall have a painting made of the taking of the Grand Mosque . Dumas , you have already posed as the central figure . " The Girodet painting , however , which Napoleon commissioned eleven years later , shows a white man charging into the mosque . On March 7 , 1799 , Dumas boarded a small ship called the " Belle Maltaise " in the company of his fellow General , the geologist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu , forty wounded French soldiers , and a number of Maltese and Genoan civilians . Dumas had sold the furnishings of his quarters in Cairo , and purchased 4 , 000 pounds of " moka " coffee ; eleven Arabian horses ( two stallions and nine mares ) to establish breeding stock in France ; and hired the ship . While returning to France , the ship began to sink , and Dumas had to jettison much of his cargo . The ship was forced by storms to land at Taranto , in the Kingdom of Naples . Dumas and his companions expected to get a friendly reception , having heard that the Kingdom had been overthrown by the Parthenopean Republic . But that short - lived republic had succumbed to an internal uprising by a local force known as the Holy Faith Army , led by Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo , in alliance with King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples . He was at war with France . Imprisonment in the Kingdom of Naples . The Holy Faith Army imprisoned Dumas and the rest of the passengers and confiscated most of their belongings . Early on in the captivity , Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo tried to trade Dumas for a Corsican adventurer named Boccheciampe , an imposter posing as Prince Francis , son of Ferdinand IV , in order to aid the Holy Faith movement . Boccheciampe had been captured by French forces north of the Neapolitan kingdom , shortly after he had visited the prisoners in Taranto , but Ruffo lost interest in a trade when he learned Boccheciampe had been killed by the French . Dumas was malnourished and kept incommunicado for two years . By the time of his release , he was partially paralyzed , almost blind in one eye , had been deaf in one ear but recovered ; his physique was broken . He believed his illnesses were caused by poisoning . During his imprisonment , he was aided by a secret local pro - French group , which brought him medicine and a book of remedies . In November 1799 , Napoleon had returned to Paris and seized power . Dumas ' wife lobbied his government for assistance in finding and rescuing her husband , to little result . Napoleon ' s forces , under the command of Dumas ' fellow general Joachim Murat , eventually defeated Ferdinand IV ' s army and secured Dumas ' s release in March 1801 . Political views . Dumas made few political statements , but those he made suggest deeply felt republican beliefs . One month after the French National Convention abolished slavery ( February 4 , 1794 ) , Dumas sent a message to troops under his command in the Army of the Alps : " Your comrade , a soldier and General - in - Chief . . . . was born in a climate and among men for whom liberty also had charms , and who fought for it first . Sincere lover of liberty and equality , convinced that all free men are equals , he will be proud to march out before you , to aid you in your efforts , and the coalition of tyrants will learn that they are loathed equally by men of all colors . " Marriage and family . In November 1792 , stationed with the Black Legion in Amiens , Dumas married Marie - Louise Labouret in Villers - Cotterêts . She stayed in Villers - Cotterêts with her family during his military campaigns . Dumas bought a farm of 30 acres there . They had daughters Marie - Alexandrine ( born September 10 , 1794 ) , Louise - Alexandrine ( born 1796 , died 1797 ) , and a son , Alexandre Dumas , who became a prolific and notable author , with numerous successes in plays and especially adventure novels . Later years and death . After he finally gained release in 1801 , Dumas was not awarded " the pension normally allocated to the widows of generals " by the French government and he struggled to support his family after his return to France . He repeatedly wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte , seeking back - pay for his time lost in Taranto and a new commission in the military . He died of stomach cancer on 26 February 1806 in Villers - Cotterêts . At his death his son Alexandre was three years and seven months old . The boy , his sister , and his widowed mother were plunged into deeper poverty . Marie - Louise Labouret Dumas worked in a tobacconist ' s shop to make ends meet . For lack of funds , the young Alexandre Dumas was unable to get even a basic secondary education . Marie - Louise persistently lobbied the French government to be paid her military widow ' s pension . Marie - Louise and the young Alexandre blamed Napoleon Bonaparte ' s " implacable hatred " for their poverty .