(Signed) Alexandre Dumas.
A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.
(RENE BESSON.)
CHAPTER I.
CONCERNING HIS PARENTAGE AND EARLY YOUTH.
I was born in the village of Islettes, on the banks of a little river called the Biesme, in the Forest of Argonne, situated between St. Menehould and Clermont, on the 14th of July, in the year 1775.
I never had the happiness to experience a mother’s love; she survived but a few days after my birth. My father, who was a poor carpenter, out-stayed her loss but five years.
At five years of age, therefore, I was an orphan, without a friend in the world.