I taught La Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves) year after year for several decades and told my students who the characters were, including their ancestry. It was easy then, but eighteen years later, it is no longer so easy. I remember the main names, but a few names confused me. Some characters have several titles and some characters have the same title. These are hereditary, so it is a matter of lineage.
The Prince of Cleves’ father is the Duke of Nevers, but he remains a Clèves (See List of Counts of Dukes of Vendôme, Wikipedia.) Clèves/Kleve is a comté (county) in Germany. Le Chevalier de Guise, the Prince de Clèves’ rival, has abrother who is Cardinal of Lorraine, but Cardinal de Lorraine is a title. He remains a Guise. Individuals, mostly aristocrats, can have several titles. Moreover, a Marguerite de Navarre may follow a Marguerite de Navarre. Each generation may have a Marguerite who is born a Valois, but marries a King of Navarre. Our Margarets are an aunt, a sister and a daughter to Henri II. By birth, they are Valois princesses, but two married the King of Navarre.
Were it not for our first Marguerite, finding a legitimate heir to the throne of France after the death of Henri III of France would be difficult. Henri II, King of France, and Catherine de’ Medici had three sons who reigned, but no heir was born to these three Kings. However, because Marguerite de Valois-Angoulême was a Queen consort of Navarre, Henri III of Navarre had Bourbon ancestry. He was the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme and Jeanne d’Albret, the Queen of Navarre.
This Marguerite de Navarre is the author of an collection of 72 novellas (unfinished) entitled the Heptaméron. She found her inspiration in Giovanni Boccaccio‘s Decameron (1313–1375), a compendium of novellas told by young people who have fled the plague. L’Heptaméron exerted influence on Madame de La Fayette. Both l’Heptaméron and La Princesse de Clèves describe intrigues at the Court of France.
Portrait of Marguerite de Valois-Angoulême by Jean Clouet, ca. 1527
Marguerite de Valois, duchesse de Berry (1523-1574)
Portrait of Marguerite de Valois, Duchesse de Berry par François Clouet
Portrait of Princess Margaret of Valois by François Clouet, 16th century. Margaret was considered in her time beautiful, cultured, refined and flirtatious: for this, she was called the “pearl of the Valois.” (Wikipedia)
So, there are two Marguerite de Navarre, both of whom were initially Marguerite de France, of the House of Valois. “France” is the name given to the children of the King of France. Marguerite de Valois, the second Marguerite de Navarre, could not have children, so her marriage to Henri IV was annulled in 1599. She then lived in Paris and befriended Henri IV and his wife, Marie de’ Medici. She lived comfortably and had a castle built. Marguerite loved literature and enjoyed entertaining artists and writers.
In short, there are three Marguerites de Valois, an aunt, a sister and a daughter of Henri II King of France. They belong to three generations. However, only two of our Marguerites were Queens consort of Navarre. Marguerite de Valois, Sœur du Roi, and Marguerite de Valois who married Henri III of Navarre, the future Henri IV, King of France and Navarre. All three are featured or mentioned in La Princesse de Clèves.
Alexandre Dumas, père (24 July 1802 at Villers-Cotterêts – 5 December 1870, at Puy, near Dieppe), the legitimate son of Marie-Louise Labouret;
Alexandre Dumas, fils (Paris 27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) the illegitimate son of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay, a dressmaker.
The List
The above list is quite impressive. The descendants of French marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a colonel andgénéral commissaire in the artillery of the colony, include a famous general who played a significant role in Napoleon’s early military victories, between 1795 and 1799, the Directoire FR period of French history, or the first Republic.
Not only was Thomas-Alexandre a general but he was:
“the highest-ranking person of color of all time in a continental European army [and he is] 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.” (See Thomas-Alexandre Dumas , Wikipedia.)
In fact, “Dumas [Thomas Alexandre] 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 1975[.]” (See Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Wikipedia.)
However, Thomas-Alexandre lived at a very difficulty time in the history of France, Revolutionary France. So did Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George, the “black Mozart,” a swordsman, an equestrian and Thomas-Alexandre’s life-long friend. They were members of the aristocracy, yet could ill-afford to oppose the notion of equality promoted in Revolutionary France. The two were mulattos, born to freed slaves in the Carribeans: Saint-Domingue (the current Haiti) with respect to Thomas-Alexandre (25 March 1762,- 26 February 1806) and Guadeloupe, in the case of Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George (approximately 1745 – 1799).
Aristocrats: Thomas A. Dumas & Saint-George
Both would be in the military during Revolutionary France and would do so as aristocrats. Just how Joseph Boulogne became an aristocrat is not entirely clear in my mind. His father Georges Bologne was ennobled in 1757 and, after completing his studies, Joseph Boulogne was appointed Gendarme de la Garde du Roi (Gendarme of the King’s Guard). In fact, Georges Bologne may have been the descendant of Italian aristocrats, but Joseph was born out-of-wedlock.
Marie-Cessette Dumas
Be that as it may, Thomas-Alexandre, was born to an aristocrat, marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Antoine had joined his brother Charles, in Saint-Domingue, but he disappeared probably to escape his creditors. He took three slaves with him and started to live under a pseudonym: Alexandre Delisle. He sold his three slaves so he could buy a small sugar plantation at Jérémie, Saint-Domingue and then purchased “for an exorbitant price,” black slave Marie-Césette (Dumas).
Marie-Césette was not a mulâtresse.[i] It appears she was from Gabón and is the mother of three children: two sons and a daughter or two daughters and a son, by Antoine. Sources differ. But a fourth child, a daughter, was also born to Marie-Césette, or Cessette[ii] before she was bought.
Antoine’s Family Sold à réméré
Thomas-Alexandre and his sisters were sold, with an option to be bought back or the “right of redemption.” This sort of transaction was called à réméré. Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie became rich as a slave-trader and also sold various properties in France. He therefore repurchased Thomas-Alexandre who lived in France.
The name Dumas means “from the farm,” but the name could be Dûma,[iii]a name originating from an ethnic group called Fang. Thomas-Alexandre adopted his mother’s surname and it became the name of his very famous son, Alexandre Dumas, père (father) and grandson, Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). Both were very popular writers who were elected to the Académie française.
The most famous Dumas, Alexandre Dumas, père had three illegimate children, one of whom is Alexandre Dumas, fils, born to Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay, a dressmaker. Dumas, fils, was an illegitimate child. He is the author of La Dame aux Camélias, or The Lady of the Camellias.
Antoine Returns to France
Alexandre Dumas, père, by Nadar(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Antoine was presumed dead and his brother Charles had returned to France, playing Marquis. However, Antoine also returned to France and reclaimed his real identity, that of Antoine Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie. That story was fictionalized as The Count of Monte-Cristo(1944), by Dumas, père and his ghost writer Auguste Maquet. Auguste Maquet also co-wrote The Three Musketeers(1844). Getting money out of Saint-Domingue was difficult and therefore perfect material for Dumas, père, a passionate writer. The Three Musketeersfeatures d’Artagnan who arrested Nicolas Fouquet.
“D’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos” by Maurice Leloir (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Saint-George and Thomas-Alexandre connection
La Boëssière’s Academy
It would appear that marquis Antoine Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie returned to France in c. 1775 and died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in 1786, just short of the French Revolution (1789 – 1796). He had bought back his son Thomas-Alexandre who met the above-mentioned mulatto and aristocrat Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George (25 December 1745 – 10 June 1799) when both studied under fencing master La Boëssière, at La Boëssière’s Academy. That friendship ended with the death of Saint-George who did not find employment after the Revolution and was weakened by a two-year stay in a jail. He may have died of gangrene.
Along with Saint-George, Thomas-Alexandre was an illustrious man of colour in Europe. Thomas-Alexandre entered the military in 1786, at the age of 24. By the age of 31, Dumas was in command of 53,000 troops as the General-in-Chief of the French Army of the Alps. According to Wikipedia, “Dumas’ strategic victory in opening the high Alps passes enabled the French to initiate their Second Italian Campaign against the Austrian Empire.” (See Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Wikipedia)
Thomas-Alexandre’s Demise
Thomas-Alexandre also served in Egypt where he had a verbal disagreement with Napoleon Bonaparte himself. He therefore left on an unsafe ship and was taken prisoner in the Kingdom of Naples and thrown in a dungeon where he was imprisoned from 1799 to 1802.
When he was released, Thomas-Alexandre “was partially paralyzed, almost blind in one eye, had been deaf in one ear but recovered; his physique was broken.”A broken gentleman, Thomas-Alexandre, fathered Alexandre Dumas, père (born 1802)on his return to Villers-Cotterêts. However, Thomas-Alexandre was sick and he was poor, and Napoleon Bonaparte did not help him. He died of a stomach cancer in February of 1806.
Conclusion
The Dumas story is a success story. Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie had a gifted and prominent son, and equally accomplished grandson and great-grandson. In fact, there would be more prominent descendants of Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie and Marie-Cessette Dumas. However, our mulatto heroes, the Chevalier de Saint-George and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas were victims. One was the victim of the French Revolution, the other, Thomas-Alexandre, the victim of a heartless Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte did not have a conscience.
To a person who found fault with his lineage, Alexandre Dumas, père said:
My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends. [iv]
[ii] Reports vary concerning Marie Céseste or Cessette. Some biographers and historians claim she was of mixed ancestry. Some also claim she was not married to Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Antoine Alexandre did sell his family à réméré, i.e. with an option to buy then back but he did not claim Marie-Cessette back. It may be that she had died of dysentery c 1772 to 1774.
I mentioned a few notable Créoles[i] in my last post, but did not include Beyoncé, who was born in Houston. Nor did I include General Russel T. Honoré, who was born in Lakeland, in Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana. Their case is somewhat problematical because they were not born in a French colony. It may be best to look upon them as descendants of Créoles. Despite his nickname, ‘the Ragin’ Cajun,’ retired US army General Russel T. Honoré is the descendant of a Créole family. To my knowledge, Honoré is not an Acadian name. (See Famous Créoles & Cajuns of today, Wikipedia.)
Créole in a Red Turban, by Jacques Amans(Photo credit: Wikimedia)
Michel Douradou Bringier, 1843, by Jacques Amans(Photo credit: Wikimedia)
The Cajuns[ii]
The arrival in Louisiana of deported[iii] Acadians (1755 – 1763), known as Cajuns, increased the number of Louisiana citizens originating from France. Their arrival may also have affected Louisiana créole. However, there were few marriages [iv] between Cajuns and Créoles incolonial Louisiana, or before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
Matters may have changed. “Louisiana French dialects are now considered to have largely merged with the original Cajun dialects.” (See Cajun French, Wikipedia). I believe, however, that, initially, the Créole and the Cajun cultures differed substantially, as did the creole language and Cajun French. The Cajun language is rooted in Acadian French whereas Louisiana creole contains foreign linguistic elements, or elements that do not stem from the French language. (See Louisiana Creole French, Wikipedia.)
Moreover, Cajuns were not plantation owners. Plantation owners could purchase slaves, but the Cajuns were deportees who had been torn away from family members and betrothed, and shipped in different directions without any of their belongings.
Some ships sailed to England and France. As for Acadians herded into ships heading south along the coast of the Thirteen Colonies, they were not allowed to leave their ships until they reached Georgia (US). As Catholics, they were unwanted neighbours. Moreover, when the deported Acadians reached Georgia, chances are the deportees socialized with black and mulattos slaves, rather than their white owners. They were the down-and-outs.
Br’er Rabbit and Tar-Baby(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Joel Chandler Harris
In an earlier post, I suggested that Joel Chandler Harris‘ tales of Uncle Remus may have been brought to Georgia by deported Acadians. In the Uncle Remus stories, Renart the fox, the European trickster, is replaced by Bre’r Rabbit, but the cast is basically the same as in the medieval Reynard the Fox literary cycle, fabliaux and Æsopic fables.
So it could be that Acadians told their stories to black and mulatto slaves, some of whom may have been familiar with Louisiana créole, based on French. However, in all likelihood, Uncle Remus‘ stories would also be rooted, to a certain extent, in African tales.
In other words, the stories would be of mixed origin, as are the Louisiana créole language and the gullah language, a créole English, spoken by African-Americans. Joel Chandler Harris wrote in an eye dialect, nonstandard spelling that replicates, more or less, a gullah pronunciation, br’er for brother.[v] The tales of Uncle Remus are not easy to read.
The first Dumas to be taken to France was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Dumas père’s father. Thomas-Alexandre was a mulatto born in Saint-Domingue, the current Haiti, to black slave concubine, Marie-Cessette Dumas and her owner, French aristocrat and plantation owner Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Mulatto Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Alexandre Dumas, père‘s father, would become a general in Revolutionary France and befriend Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George, the “Black Mozart,” the swordsman, and a legend in his own time. At any rate, I will end here and treat this post as an in-between post. But we are leaving the United States and travelling to Saint-Domingue, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
The Louisiana Purchase (Photo credit: Google Images)
Alexandre Dumas, père, by Félix Nadar*(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Félix Nadar* was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1 April 1820, Paris – 23 March 1910), a very famous photographer.
From Alexandre Dumas père to Marguerite de Valois
As I mentioned in my post on John James Audubon (16 April 1785 – 27 January 1851), there is kinship between the artist-ornithologist and Alexandre Dumas père. John James Audubon was born in Saint-Domingue, the current Haiti, to a French father and a Creole woman. As for Alexandre Dumas père, he was born in Villers-Cotterêts on 24 July 1802 and died near Dieppe, on 5 December 1870. But there is a Saint-Domingue connection.
Indeed, Dumas père’s father was the son of the “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 and African ancestry.” (Wikipedia) Therefore, Alexandre was métissé. Let me quote what he said to a person who found fault with his lineage:
My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends.
Moreover, both were extremely productive. They were in fact passionate about what they did.
Imagine the hours Dumas spent at his desk writing The Three Musketeers,The Count of Monte Cristo and several other historical novels one of which is La Reine Margot, whose story is linked with the growth of absolutism and the related persecution of the Huguenots or French Calvinist Protestants. You may remember that Marguerite did not want to marry Henri IV, king of Navarre and a protestant who became Henri IV of France after he converted to Catholicism.
Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615)
Dumas’s La Reine Margot (1845)
In La Reine Margot (Queen Margot), Dumas focusses on Marguerite’s wedding to Henri IV, kin of Navarre, which took place on 18 August 1572, five days before the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Again you may remember that her marriage to Henri IV was an arranged marriage and that, because he was a Huguenot, Henri IV stood outside Notre-Dame de Paris while he was wedded. It appears she had a liaison with Henri, duc de Guise, a leader among Catholics.
By extension, Dumas also focusses on the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre which took place in the early morning hours of 24 August 1572, six days after Marguerite was unwillingly wedded to Henri IV. Huguenots had come to Paris for the wedding, which meant they were trapped. So not only was the marriage an arranged marriage, but Catherine de’ Medici took advantage of favorable circumstances to manipulate her son Charles IX into ordering the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Although she had been compelled to marry Henri IV, king of Navarre, Marguerite protected him.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Dumas focusses on Marguerite’s subsequent affair with Count Joseph Boniface de La Môle (c. 1526 – 30 April 1574), a nobleman who had befriended François d’Alençon, a prince of the blood and brother to Charles IX, Henri III (duc d’Anjou). La Môle was accused of having participated in the Malcontent’s conspiracy of 1574 and, specifically, of having tried to murder king Charles IX. Despite Marguerite’s pleas, La Môle was tortured and beheaded, place de Grève, in Paris.
However, I am reflecting that, although she lived a dissolute life, going from lover to lover and plotting, Marguerite de Valois was Marguerite de France and, the last of the Valois line. She ended a dynasty. Had it not been for the Salic law, commissioned by the first king of all the Franks, Clovis I (c. 466–511), she would have been queen of France after her brother Henri III died. Instead, the man she married unwillingly and who would not have anything to do with her, became king of France and king of Navarre. But she refused to have their marriage annulled while his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, was alive.
Marguerite was forced into a marriage. She was a helpless witness to the torture and decapitation of La Môle and, in 1586, her brother Henri III banished her for eighteen years to the inaccessible castle of Usson, in Auvergne.
Yes, Marguerite lived a rather dissolute life, but she was an exceptionally well-educated woman whose Mémoires, written in comfy detention, thanks to Guise, have literary merit. Moreover, when she was free to return to Paris, in 1605, she had a castle built where she was a hostess to writers, artists, intellectuals and, perhaps, lovers. I was taught that she was a “nymphomanic.”
However, she continued to write not only her Mémoires, published in 1658, but also poetry. As the French would say, “elle avait des lettres” or she was well-educated.
After her release, she cultivated a friendly relationship with her former husband, Marie de’ Medici, his wife, and their children.
I am not about to attempt a rehabilitation of Marguerite de Valois, but let’s just say that, somehow, I understand.
