THESE MEMOIRS ARE DEDICATED TO
THE HONOURABLE
COUNT ALFRED D'ORSAY
MY FELLOW-CRAFTSMAN
AND MY BOSOM FRIEND
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
CONTENTS
My birth—My name is disputed—Extracts from the official registers of Villers-Cotterets—Corbeil Club—My father's marriage certificate—My mother—My maternal grandfather—Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, father of Philippe-Égalité—Madame de Montesson—M. de Noailles and the Academy—A morganatic marriage [1]
My father—His birth—The arms of the family—The serpents of Jamaica—The alligators of St. Domingo—My grandfather—A young man's adventure—A first duel—M. le duc de Richelieu acts as second for my father—My father enlists as a private soldier—He changes his name—Death of my grandfather—His death certificate [11]
My father rejoins his regiment—His portrait—His strength—His skill—The Nile serpent—The regiment of the King and the regiment of the Queen—Early days of the Revolution—Declaration of Pilnitz—The camp at Maulde—The thirteen Tyrolean chasseurs—My father's name is mentioned in the order of the day—France under Providence—Voluntary enlistments—St.-Georges and Boyer—My father lieutenant-colonel—The camp of the Madeleine—The pistols of Lepage—My father General of Brigade in the Army of the North [21]
My father is sent to join Kléber—He is nominated General-in-Chief in the Western Pyrenees—Bouchotte's letters—Instructions of the Convention—The Representatives of the People who sat at Bayonne—Their proclamation—In spite of this proclamation my father remains at Bayonne—Monsieur de l'Humanité [33]
My father is appointed General-in-Chief of the Army of the West—His report on the state of La Vendée—My father is sent to the Army of the Alps as General-in-Chief—State of the army—Capture of Mont Valaisan and of the Little Saint-Bernard—Capture of Mont Cenis—My father is recalled to render an account of his conduct—What he had done—He is acquitted [43]
The result of a sword-stroke across the head—St. Georges and the remounts—The quarrel he sought with my father—My father is transferred to the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse—He hands in his resignation and returns to Villers-Cotterets—A retrospect over what had happened at home and abroad during the four years that had just elapsed [56]
My father at Villers-Cotterets—He is called to Paris to carry out the 13th Vendémiaire—Bonaparte takes his place—He arrives the next day—Buonaparte's attestation—My father is sent into the district of Bouillon—He goes to the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse and to the Army of the Rhine, and is appointed Commandant at Landau—He returns as Divisional General in the Army of the Alps, of which he had been Commander-in-Chief—English blood and honour—Bonaparte's plan—Bonaparte appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy—The campaign of 1796 [69]
My father in the Army of Italy—He is received at Milan by Bonaparte and Joséphine—Bonaparte's troubles in Italy—Scurvy—The campaign is resumed—Discouragement—Battle of Arcole [82]
The despatch is sent to Bonaparte—Dermoncourt's reception—Berthier's open response—Military movements in consequence of the despatch—Correspondence between my father and Serrurier and Dallemagne—Battle of St.-Georges and La Favorite—Capture of Mantua—My father as a looker-on [90]
My father's first breeze with Bonaparte—My father is sent to Masséna's army corps—He shares Joubert's command in the Tyrol—Joubert—The campaign in the Tyrol [109]
The bridge of Clausen—Dermoncourt's reports—Prisoners on parole—Lepage's pistols—Three generals-in-chief at the same table [119]
Joubert's loyalty towards my father—"Send me Dumas"—The Horatius Codes of the Tyrol—My father is appointed Governor of the Trévisan—The agent of the Directory—My father fêted at his departure—The treaty of Campo-Formio—The return to Paris—The flag of the Army of Italy—The charnel-house of Morat—Charles the Bold—Bonaparte is elected a member of the Institute—First thoughts of the expedition to Egypt—Toulon—Bonaparte and Joséphine—What was going to happen in Egypt [135]
The voyage—The landing—The taking of Alexandria—The Chant du Départ and the Arabian concert—The respited prisoners—The march on Cairo—Rum and biscuit—My father's melons—The Scientific Institute—Battle of the Pyramids—Scene of the victory—My father's letter establishing the truth [151]
Admissions of General Dupuis and Adjutant-General Boyer—The malcontents—Final discussion between Bonaparte and my father—Battle of Aboukir—My father finds treasure—His letter on this subject [161]
Revolt at Cairo—My father enters the Grand Mosque on horseback—His home-sickness—He leaves Egypt and lands at Naples—Ferdinand and Caroline of Naples—Emma Lyon and Nelson—Ferdinand's manifesto—Comments of his minister, Belmonte-Pignatelli [172]
Report presented to the French Government by Divisional-General Alexandre Dumas, on his captivity at Taranto and at Brindisi, ports in the Kingdom of Naples [181]
My father is exchanged for General Mack—Events during his captivity—He asks in vain for a share in the distribution of the 500,000 francs indemnity granted to the prisoners—The arrears of his pay also refused him—He is placed on the retired list, in spite of his energetic protests [197]
Letter from my father to General Brune on my birth—The postscript—My godfather and godmother—First recollections of infancy—Topography of the château des Fossés and sketches of some of its inhabitants—The snake and the frog—Why I asked Pierre if he could swim—Continuation of Jocrisse [204]
Mocquet's nightmare—His pipe—Mother Durand—Les bêtes fausses et le pierge—M. Collard—My father's remedy—Radical cure of Mocquet [212]
Who was Berlick?—The fête of Villers-Cotterets—Faust and Polichinelle—The sabots—Journey to Paris—Dollé—Manette—Madame de Mauclerc's pension—Madame de Montesson—Paul and Virginia—Madame de Saint-Aubin [218]
Brune and Murat—The return to Villers-Cotterets—L'hôtel de l'Épée—Princess Pauline—The chase—The chief forester's permission—My father takes to his bed never to rise again—Delirium—The gold-headed cane—Death [225]
My love for my father—His love for me—I am taken away to my cousin Marianne's—Plan of the house—The forge—The apparition—I learn the death of my father—I wish to go to heaven to kill God—Our situation at the death of my father—Hatred of Bonaparte [232]
My mother and I take refuge with my grandfather—Madame Darcourt's house—My first books and my first terrors—The park at Villers-Cotterets—M. Deviolaine and his family—The swarm of bees—The old cloister [243]
The two snakes—M. de Valence and Madame de Montesson—Who little Hermine was—Garnier the wheelwright and Madame de Valence—Madame Lafarge—Fantastic apparition of Madame de Genlis [253]
Mademoiselle Pivert—I make her read the Thousand and One Nights, or, rather, one story in that collection—Old Hiraux, my music-master—The little worries of his life—He takes his revenge on his persecutors after the fashion of the Maréchal de Montluc—He is condemned to be flogged, and nearly loses the sight of his eyes—What happened on Easter Day in the organ-loft at the monastery—He becomes a grocer's lad—His vocation leads him to the study of music—I have little aptitude for the violin [259]
The dog lantern-bearer—Demoustier's epitaph—My first fencing-master—"The king drinks"—The fourth terror of my life—The tub of honey [277]
My horror of great heights—The Abbé Conseil—My opening at the Seminary—My mother, much pressed, decides to enter me there—The horn inkstand—Cécile at the grocer's—My flight [285]
The Abbé Grégoire's College—The reception I got there—The fountains play to celebrate my arrival—The conspiracy against me—Bligny challenges me to single combat—I win [295]
The Abbé Fortier—The jealous husband and the viaticum—A pleasant visit—Victor Letellier—The pocket-pistol—I terrify the population—Tournemolle is requisitioned—He disarms me [304]
A political chronology—Trouble follows trouble—The fire at the farm at None—Death of Stanislas Picot—The hiding-place for the louis d'or—The Cossacks—The haricot mutton [315]
The quarry—Frenchmen eat the haricot cooked for the Cossacks—The Duc de Treviso—He allows himself to be surprised—Ducoudray the hosier—Terrors [324]
The return to Villers-Cotterets, and what we met on the way—The box with the thirty louis in it—The leather-bag—The mole—Our departure—The journey—The arrival at Mensal and our sojourn their—King Joseph—The King of Rome—We leave Mensal—Our visit to Crispy in Valois—The dead and wounded—The surrender of Paris—The isle of Elba [331]
Am I to be called Davy de La Pailleterie or Alexandre Dumas?—Deus dedit, Deus dabit—The tobacco-shop—The cause of the Emperor Napoleon's fall, as it appeared to my writing-master—My first communion—How I prepared for it [345]
BOOK IV
Auguste Lafarge—Bird-snaring on a large scale—A wonderful catch—An epigram—I wish to write French verses—My method of translating Virgil and Tacitus—Montanan—My political opinions [355]
The single-barrelled gun—Quiot Biche—Biche and Boudoux compared—I become a poacher—It is proposed to issue a writ against me—Madame Darcourt as plenipotentiary—How it happened that Cretan's writ caused me no bother [363]
Bonaparte's landing at the Gulf of Juan—Proclamations and Ordonnances—Louis XVIII. and M. de Vitrolles—Cornu the hatter—Newspaper information [374]
General Exelmans—His trial—The two brothers Lallemand—Their conspiracy—They are arrested and led through Villers-Cotterets—The affronts to which they were subjected [382]
My mother and I conspire—The secret—M. Richard—La pistole and the pistols—The offer made to the brothers Lallemand in order to save them—They refuse—I meet one of them, twenty-eight years later, at the house of M. le duc de Cazes [389]
Napoleon and the Allies—The French army and the Emperor pass through Villers-Cotterets—Bearers of ill tidings [402]
Waterloo—The Élysée—La Malmaison [411]
Cæsar—Charlemagne—Napoleon [421]
The rout—The haricot mutton reappears—M. Picot the lawyer—By diplomatic means, he persuades my mother to let me go shooting with him—I despise sleep, food and drink [427]
Trapping larks—I wax strong in the matter of my compositions—The wounded partridge—I take the consequences whatever they are—The farm at Brassoire—M. Deviolaine's sally at the accouchement of his wife [435]
M. Moquet de Brassoire—The ambuscade—Three hares charge me—What prevents me from being the king of the battue—Because I did not take the bull by the horns, I just escape being disembowelled by it—Sabine and her puppies [441]
The second period of my youth—Forest-keepers and sailors—Choron, Moinat, Mildet, Berthelin—La Maison-Neuve [449]
Choron and the mad dog—Niquet, otherwise called Bobino—His mistress—The boar-hunt—The kill—Bobino's triumph—He is decorated—The boar which he had killed rises again [456]
Boars and keepers—The bullet of Robin-des-Bois—The pork-butcher [464]
A wolf-hunt—Small towns—Choron's tragic death [474]
My mother realises that I am fifteen years old, and that la marette and la pipée will not lead to a brilliant future for me—I enter the office of Me. Mennesson, notary, as errand-boy, otherwise guttersnipe—Me. Mennesson and his clerks—La Fontaine-Eau-Claire [483]
Who the assassin was and who the assassinated—Auguste Picot—Equality before the law—Last exploits of Marot—His execution [491]
Spring at Villers-Cotterets—Whitsuntide—The Abbé Grégoire invites me to dance with his niece—Red books—The Chevalier de Faublas—Laurence and Vittoria—A dandy of 1818 [499]
I leap the Haha—A slit follows—The two pairs of gloves—The quadrille—Fourcade's triumph—I pick up the crumbs—The waltz—The child becomes a man [508]