Alexandre Dumas: author of The Three Musketeers

Summary

Podcast Summary: "You're Dead to Me" Episode on Alexandre Dumas: Author of The Three Musketeers

Podcast Information:

• Title: You're Dead to Me
• Host/Author: BBC Radio 4
• Episode: Alexandre Dumas: Author of The Three Musketeers
• Release Date: August 15, 2025

Overview: In this engaging and informative episode of BBC Radio 4's You're Dead to Me, host Greg Jenner delves into the fascinating life of Alexandre Dumas, the renowned 19th-century French novelist best known for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Joined by historian Professor Olivette Otele and comedian Celia A.B., the episode intertwines historical insights with humor, making the complex life of Dumas accessible and entertaining for listeners.

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1. Introduction and Guests (00:00 – 02:45)

Greg Jenner introduces the episode, setting the stage for a deep dive into Alexandre Dumas's life. He welcomes two special guests:

• Professor Olivette Otele: A distinguished researcher specializing in the legacies and memory of slavery, known for her work on African Europeans and Untold History.
• Celia A.B.: An award-winning comedian recognized for her performances at the Edinburgh Fringe and appearances on TV shows like Live @ the Apollo.

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2. Early Life and Family Background (02:45 – 09:54)

The discussion begins with Alexandre Dumas's origins:

• Birth and Heritage: Dumas was born Alexandre Dumas David de la Palletrie on July 24, 1802, in Villers-Cotterêts, France. His father, General Thomas Alexandre Dumas, hailed from Haiti and was of mixed race, being the son of a minor nobleman and an enslaved woman.
• Father’s Influence: General Dumas was a prominent figure in Napoleon's army, commanding 50,000 troops during the French Revolution. Despite his heroic status, he faced tragic circumstances, including imprisonment and eventual death from stomach cancer when Alexandre was just three years old, plunging the family into poverty.

Notable Quote:

Celia A.B. (03:30): "So the only thing I remember about Alexandre Dumas is that the first boy I was in love with lived on Dumas Street."

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3. Education and Early Career (09:54 – 19:00)

• Childhood Struggles: After his father's death, young Dumas was raised by his maternal grandparents in their hotel. At age 10, a generous cousin left him money to join seminary school, but Dumas showed little interest in becoming a priest.
• Academic Pursuits: Despite being an inattentive student, Dumas was an avid reader, delving into classics like Arabian Nights, Robinson Crusoe, and classical mythology. His education was further influenced by Abbe Gregoire, a famed abolitionist.

Notable Quote:

Professor Olivette Otele (06:00): "He's a great... soldier in charge of a vast army."

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4. Literary Career and Works (19:00 – 37:32)

• Theatrical Beginnings: Encouraged by his name and heritage, Dumas ventured into playwriting. He collaborated with Adolphe de Leven, an exiled Swedish count, producing successful comedies that earned him significant acclaim.
• Novelist Success: Transitioning to novels, Dumas mastered serialization, publishing works like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, which captivated audiences and solidified his status as a literary superstar.

Notable Quote:

Celia A.B. (14:10): "But there's a tragic twist in the tale. This heroic father... died when Alexandre was very young."

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5. Personal Life and Relationships (32:10 – 34:34)

• Marriages and Affairs: Dumas married his mistress, Ida Ferrier, in 1840, but their marriage was short-lived, ending in separation by 1844. Renowned for his numerous affairs, Dumas claimed to have fathered 40 mistresses and 500 children, though he officially recognized only a handful.
• Humorous Banter: The conversation humorously explores the improbability of having such a vast number of children, highlighting the blend of historical facts with light-hearted commentary.

Notable Quote:

Celia A.B. (32:26): "Dumas himself said, I don't want to exaggerate, but I really believe that up and down the world. I have more than 500 children."

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6. Challenges and Later Years (37:32 – 48:04)

• Financial Troubles: Despite his success, Dumas faced significant financial difficulties, exacerbated by extravagant spending and numerous creditors. He sold his opulent Château de Monte Cristo at a loss.
• Continued Travels and Adventures: Dumas's restless spirit led him to numerous travels across Europe, including trips to Algeria, Russia, and Italy, often intertwining his movements with political upheavals like the Italian unification.
• Illness and Death: In ill health, possibly suffering from dropsy, Dumas's later years were marked by continued financial strain. He passed away on December 5, 1870, at the age of 67, in his son's home. His remains were later honored in the Pantheon in 2002, cementing his legacy.

Notable Quote:

Celia A.B. (44:03): "Chateau de Monte Cristo. That was the bell when you guys."

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7. Legacy and Conclusion (48:04 – 58:15)

• Cultural Impact: Dumas's works remain timeless, frequently adapted into films and TV series, continuing to inspire generations.
• Racial and Social Navigation: As a biracial man in a racially prejudiced society, Dumas navigated his dual heritage with charm and resilience, breaking barriers in the literary world.
• Final Remarks: The episode concludes with a playful quiz to Celia A.B., reinforcing the key points discussed and celebrating the rich, albeit tumultuous, life of Alexandre Dumas.

Notable Quote:

Professor Olivette Otele (52:19): "Alexandre Dumas was a dual heritage man who had to navigate a cruel and profoundly racist society. He did it with panache and charm."

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Key Takeaways:

• Multifaceted Genius: Alexandre Dumas's prolific output in both theater and novels showcases his exceptional talent and ability to captivate audiences across genres.
• Personal Turmoil: Despite his success, Dumas's personal life was fraught with financial woes, numerous relationships, and the shadows of his father's legacy.
• Cultural Pioneer: As one of the most prominent mixed-race figures in 19th-century Europe, Dumas broke racial barriers and left an indelible mark on literature and society.

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Conclusion: This episode of You're Dead to Me masterfully blends historical analysis with comedic elements, offering listeners a comprehensive and entertaining exploration of Alexandre Dumas's life. Through insightful discussions and engaging interactions, Greg Jenner, Professor Olivette Otele, and Celia A.B. bring to life the complexities and triumphs of one of history's most beloved authors.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution:

1. Greg Jenner (03:30):

   "So the only thing I remember about Alexandre Dumas is that the first boy I was in love with lived on Dumas Street."

2. Celia A.B. (32:26):

   "Dumas himself said, I don't want to exaggerate, but I really believe that up and down the world. I have more than 500 children."

3. Professor Olivette Otele (52:19):

   "Alexandre Dumas was a dual heritage man who had to navigate a cruel and profoundly racist society. He did it with panache and charm."

These quotes highlight the blend of personal anecdotes, historical facts, and humor that make the episode both informative and entertaining.

Transcript

[Greg Jenner]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Celia A.B.]

Mmm.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Mmm.

[Celia A.B.]

Ooh, whatcha eating?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

The new banana split cookie from AM pm.

[Greg Jenner]

All freshly baked with real butter with banana, chocolate and strawberry flavors.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Wow, that sounds amazing. Can I have a bite?

[Greg Jenner]

I'm sorry but no.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

But you can't split the banana split. Not even a little? Not even a crumb. What if. No, please mine when it's too legit to split. That's cravenience. Get a 3 pack for 99 cents with our app ampm. Too much good stuff plus tax where applicable. Prices and participation may vary in terms of conditions apply. Lowe's knows to bring your vision to life, it's important to find the right color. That's why Mylo's Rewards members get a free Valspar paint or exterior stain sample to test your look to confidently refresh your space. Offer Valid in store only 87 through 8 20. Limit one per customer while supplies last. Discount taken at time of purchase. See Associate for details. Rewards program subject to terms and conditions. Details@lowe's.com Terms subject to change. BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello, Greg here. Just a reminder before we get going that episodes of youf're Dead to Me are released on Fridays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are packing our book bags and Traveling back to 19th century France to learn all about the acclaimed novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas. And to help complete our trio of musketeers, we have two very special guests in History Corner. She's distinguished Research professor of the Legacies and Memory of Slavery at so University of London. You may have read her wonderful book African Europeans and Untold History and you will remember her from our episode on the Chevalier de St. Georges. It's Professor Olivette Otole. Welcome back Olivet.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh hello Greg. Lovely to be back.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

We're delighted to have you back. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award winning rising star who won the Chortle Best Newcomer Award in 2022. Maybe you've seen one of her sold out live runs at the Edinburgh Fringe or Soho Theatre. I certainly have. Or watched her on TV on Live @ the Apollo. Or heard her on all kinds of podcasts including Off Menu and the Guilty feminist. It's Celia A.V. welcome to the show. Celia, hello.

[Celia A.B.]

Thank you for having me.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, it's lovely to have you in your first time on the show. Which feels like a booking error. We should have had you on ages ago. I've been trying to get you on for ages.

[Celia A.B.]

I will say like the. The difference between your intro and my intro is so funny. You're clear like a genius. And then it's like I'm Sally as.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

A clown, but a very respected clown.

[Celia A.B.]

Respected clown, yes. It is I. It is I.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So Celia, you are. You're French. French Algerian. You grew up in Par. How do you feel about history? French history. Did you do it at school?

[Celia A.B.]

I didn't really like history at school. I like it a bit more now. But my. I would say the bit of history I know the most about is the Algerian War.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It's not the funniest.

[Celia A.B.]

No, but it's. But I like it. I like history also when it's like more specific. So like day of the life of someone who lived in period social history. Yeah, that's what I'm into.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Good stuff. And Alexandre Dumas, did you do him at school? Is he kind of like the French Dickens? Do you have to read him?

[Celia A.B.]

So the only thing I remember about Alexandre Dumas is that the first boy I was in love with lived on Dumas Street.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That's a good anecdote. We'll take it.

[Celia A.B.]

I'm going to sound like just for the listeners. I just got back from Australia. I'm a bit of a dum dum today. I just found out he's a playwright. Just now? Just now I thought he was a street.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yes. We wouldn't really do an episode on the street, but. But it's nice to know that there's a romantic link there for you because he was a romantic writer.

[Celia A.B.]

I'm excited to find out about this guy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He's a great.

[Celia A.B.]

I want to know what makes him tick.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I mean, he loved the ladies.

[Celia A.B.]

Did he?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He did. So we will get into a bit of romance. But also he wrote some serious books, so. Oh. Exciting lot to get through. Okay, so what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you our lovely list might know about today's subject. And I imagine some of you will know Dumas work. Maybe you've read the Three Musketeers or the Count of Monte Cristo, or watched many of the film or TV adaptations of them. Perhaps you enjoyed a baby faced Leo DiCaprio in the man in the Iron Mask. Or you've seen the romantic and Bloody La Reine Margaux, a French cinema classic. And if you've been to Paris, you may have gone to the street named after him or used the metro station named after Dumas. But who was the real man behind the stories? Was he as swashbuckling as his literary heroes? What life events inspired his epic novels? Just how many mistresses can one man have? Let's find out. Right. We shall begin the beginning. Celia, give us a guess on where we think. You think the story starts March 2020? No, I'm gonna say the COVID pandemic.

[Celia A.B.]

You think the COVID pandemic? I think. Okay, so I'm gonna say it's beginning of the 1800s. Does that sound good?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That sounds great. It sounds lovely. Olivet, more specificity. Police.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, of course. She wasn't far off.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, there we go.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean. He was born Alexandre Dumas David de la Palletrie on the 24th of July, 1802 in Villers Courtrai. And he was the second son of General Thomas Alexandre Dumas David de la Paetrie and Marie Louise Elisabeth Labouret, an innkeeper's daughter.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, so the father has a fantastic name.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, he did.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

And mum is an innkeeper's daughter. Perhaps slightly less fancy.

[Greg Jenner]

Less fancy still. They made a baby, so they managed.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

So Thomas Alexandre, the dad, was of dual heritage or mixed race. And he was born in Haiti to a minor nobleman and an enslaved woman. But the Dumas decided to go by his mother's name. Dumas, Thomas Alexandre's father, brought him to France. Freedom because he was born an enslaved person, gave him a French education, including swordsmanship lessons with Chevalier de St. Georges.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Ah, we're harking back to a previous episode. So, Cellier, The Chevalier de St. Georges was a.

[Celia A.B.]

You don't need to tell me. Please, I need you.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Please, please do tell me. Yeah, he was an incredible swordsman in France, but also amazing classical composer. So he was the French Mozart. And he was an extraordinary character. And there's a movie that you worked on, Olivet. Yes, I do watch about the Chevalier. And he was a biracial composer born in Guadeloupe and became a French celebrity.

[Greg Jenner]

The dad was involved in the revolution, but on the Napoleonic side.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Ah, okay. Okay, so that's interesting. So Thomas Alexandre is this army general. So he's the sword. Fighting lessons with the Chevalier have paid off. So tell us about his military career. This is the father of Alexandre Dumas, Thomas Alexandre.

[Celia A.B.]

Say all of his names.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I mean, I can't. What was it? Payeterie. It was a proper.

[Greg Jenner]

David Thomas Alexandre David de la Palletrie.

[Celia A.B.]

To my son, David de la Palatri.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, he joined the Queen's Dragoons in 1786 and quite quickly, by 1793, he was General in chief of the army of the alps and commanded 50,000 troops.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Wow. So this is during the French Revolution. Absolutely. He's in charge of 50,000. That's a football stadium of troops.

[Celia A.B.]

Wow.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

What's the most responsibility you've had, Celia?

[Celia A.B.]

I used to manage a photography studio.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay.

[Celia A.B.]

And I was 19 and he was really small and. And I was. I wanted to be like a cool boss, but I went straight into David Brett. Like I went straight into like office boss. Like I was like, so embarrassing.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh dear.

[Celia A.B.]

Me and Thomas are not that far off.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You're also a leader of men. Yes. Okay. So see, he's in this kind of. This kind of elite regiment. He's in charge of 50,000. 53,000 troops.

[Greg Jenner]

53,000 troops.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay. He's in charge of Tyrol, which is in the Alps. So is that Austria, Italy, Switzerland. That's kind of that part of the world, Italy, isn't it?

[Greg Jenner]

Exactly. Yeah. And thanks to Napoleon actually. And even richest Prussian soldier referred to him as the best soldier in the world. So he was admired by people who didn't like people like him. He was involved in many other things. I mean, he was involved in Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. He helped allegedly quelled the revolt in. In Cairo in 1798. I mean, so he. He was admired.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So I'm immediately getting a sense that kind of Musketeers book is basically fan fiction for Alexandra's own dad.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. Must be so hard to have a dad this impressive. I'm very lucky.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

But there's a tragic twist in the tale. This. His heroic father, this. This soldier in charge of a vast army. He, you know, he'd gone to the. Gone to Egypt with Napoleon. We did an episode on young Napoleon, if people listen. But there is a tragic twist. The father passes away when Alexandre is very young.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, he was captured in Egypt, imprisoned for two years, freed, but came back partially paralyzed, almost blind in one eye, deaf in one ear. And he tried desperately and repeatedly to petition Napoleon for compensation. He was not successful really. And eventually he died of stomach cancer in 1806, when Alexandre was just three years old. In that really plunged the family into poverty. The thing was that Alexandre actually worshiped his father.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

How do you imagine his childhood going from that point? That's a pretty rough start to life, isn't it, Celia?

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. That would have been, like, also in terms of, like, romanticizing your dad. Like, we all growing up think that our dads are, like, heroes, but his dad was actually very impressive.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. Literally a hero.

[Celia A.B.]

And to try and cling on to the last memory you have of him, that would be really hard. And the mum as well. Oh, my God.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. It's a really sad start. So you say they were plunged into poverty. When we're talking Les Miserables, sort of on the streets, begging for scraps type, you know. Is he singing like Anne Hathaway? What kind of poverty are we talking?

[Celia A.B.]

Is he as poor as Anne Hathaway?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Was he as beautiful as Anne Hathaway, crying in the street?

[Greg Jenner]

Not quite. He moved into with his maternal grandparents in their hotel in Villa Courtraire. So not quite that level of poverty. He was educated at home by his mother and older sister. And when he was 10 years old, a cousin died and left him money to join the seminary. But Dumas wasn't keen on being a priest, really.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Right. How would you get out of going to seminary school if you were Alexandra, Celia?

[Celia A.B.]

So let's say. Okay, let's do an act out. Tell me I have to go to a priest school.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Celia, I am your grandmother and I am sending you to priest.

[Celia A.B.]

So I think. Do you know what? I think I would go, but, like, I would. Is this called skiving?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You'd Skype? That's okay.

[Celia A.B.]

I would Skype. It would be like. What's that film? Bueller.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Ferris Bueller. Duma. Duma. Duma.

[Celia A.B.]

I think I would. Yeah. I would be like. I would go just because I like structure, but I would be like. I think I'd be a cool priest. Like, do you know the little white, like, thing there? Oh, probably wouldn't wear that.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay.

[Celia A.B.]

Probably would.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Like, you'd be a hip priest.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, I'd leave it open.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You'd wear Nikes.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. I quite like the idea of confession. That's like a podcast.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, all right. Alexandra did not go. He went on the run.

[Greg Jenner]

No, he didn't, actually. He lied to his mama. He said he wanted money to buy an ink well, and he went on spend it on bread and sausage and escaped to the forest, you know? But his mother, I mean, as all mothers, quickly forgive him. And the seminary idea was dropped.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It's not quite Count of Monte Cristo level escape, is it? Sort of buying a sausage and running to the woods.

[Celia A.B.]

You went camping, you went to Glastonbury.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

This sausage roll just like, bye. I don't want to be a priest.

[Celia A.B.]

Went to Gregg's, went to the woods.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay. All right. So he doesn't go to seminary school. Where does he go instead? Does he get an education? You said he got an education, but what level of education?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, he does. I mean, he attended parish school, where he was t by the very famous abolitionist Labb Gregoire. But he was not a very attentive student. So he learned little French literature and history. But he did read the Bible, Le Baron Buffon, Arabian Nights, Robinson Crusoe and classical mythology.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, so he wasn't paying attention to class, but he was reading. He was diving into the classics. Okay, so he's taught by this famous abolitionist, Abbe Gregoire, who's a sort of great intellectual and campaigner against slavery, which is hugely important thing happening at the time, because, of course, Napoleon reintroduced this slavery. But we should talk about Napoleon, because this is peak Napoleon era. Right. Napoleon makes himself emperor. He crowns himself emperor in 1804, which is the most Napoleonic thing you can do. And presumably that influences Alexandre's childhood, the Napoleonic wars, all the kind of drama. How does that affect him?

[Greg Jenner]

Quite strongly, because the wars lasted throughout his childhood. 1803, 1813. So you have various coalitions of European countries against the First French Empire under Napoleon. 1814, for example, the Cossacks marched through Villa Cotray. And Dumas mother tried to move the family around several times, but they kept running into different foreign troops. Young Alexandre even saw Napoleon twice, and he described him as pale, sickly and impassive.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, that's a pretty brutal review, Celia.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, Napoleon is probably like.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Didn't say short, actually average height for my age. So. So Cossack troops were literally in his town. I mean, that must be scary, right, to have foreign troops marching through your town as you as a little boy.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, it was. But he also found his place because he was carrying water to sergeants after the battle. So he was. They were trying to make a. You know, make a space for themselves in that environment. And then we learn that a Prussian officer informed them Napoleon had surrendered. And you have. Louis XVIII was named king.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

And just to give you some background, the Bourbon dynasty, he was part of. Bourbon dynasty.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. The Bourbon dynasty is sort of. They're put back on the throne right after the battle.

[Greg Jenner]

Exactly, exactly. The brother, Louis xvi had been guillotined during the revolution, so the king is there. Even after the Restoration, Alexandre kept the name Dumas, despite the fact that it was actually linked. It was a link between the father and Napoleon. So he could have used that link. He didn't. He chose Dumas as a name to.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Then say, I'm still going to be Dumas, even though my dad fought for Napoleon, who's now the bad guy. That's quite a. It's quite a gamble, Celia.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. I have nothing funny to say about that. I'm just really touched, like, about hearing about his life and stuff.

[Greg Jenner]

You know, the fact he chose the name. I was really intrigued by that. It's like a form of militancy.

[Celia A.B.]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Very young already. I'm gonna, you know, take my mother, and not just because she was an enslaved. And I mean, the. The. You know, all that, but also because it's a woman. You know, you don't take the woman's name. At the time, it was really something. I mean, something really striking.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Definitely.

[Celia A.B.]

I find it really touching.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful.

[Celia A.B.]

I bet his mum was, like, got emotional about it as well.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. And she's keeping him safe, you know, Cossacks are in the village. She's keeping him safe. It's an extraordinary story where the mum is perhaps quietly sort of in the background, just going, just. Just hide over there. And we'll just wait for the troops to go. And meanwhile, Napoleon, pale, sickly and impassive. Do you think the books would have sold as well if he'd been Alexandre Dumas de la. What's it? Alexandre Dumas David de la Paitie. You know, that's quite a mouthful.

[Celia A.B.]

That can't fit on a book cover, can it?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

No. Do you have a stage name? Yeah, I do, yeah. Was it hard to choose that? Did you. Was that a decision that it was.

[Celia A.B.]

Kind of, like, natural? Because the first time I did stand up, I used my real name, and my real name is quite like. It sounds really Arabic. And the first gig I did was in Birmingham, and people can't say those words in Birmingham. So when they introduced me on stage, it was like word soup. And I was like, I'm going to make it easier for the whites. And also, I quite like the separation also. I just thought, I'll just change it for, like, a couple gigs. And then eight years later, I'm stuck. Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

But after the Napoleonic wars, Olivet, the Bourbon monarchs up. You know, they're trying to restore calm to France, which, you know, they're doing their best. So does that mean that Alexandre's sort of teenage years are a bit more chill? There's no more troops in the streets.

[Greg Jenner]

Chilled. I'm not sure. I mean, he became.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It's still France. So no.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, he still became an ender clerk at 14 and worked for a solicitor in Crepy. So while he was working as an under clerk, he skipped work and went to Paris one day and fell in love with the city and the theatre. And he eventually moved to the city in 1823 when he was 20.

[Celia A.B.]

Oh, lovely.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He had a big day out as a teenager and went, oh, it's so exciting. And then he moved to the city.

[Celia A.B.]

In his 20s to be 20 in Paris.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

If only.

[Celia A.B.]

Where was he before again?

[Greg Jenner]

He was in Villers. Kind of bourgeois little place. Protected little place. And Paris is much more exciting.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, of course. And he also. He's a bit of a Paul Shark. He plays billiards. He's really good at billiards, Celia. In fact, he's so good, he won a quite impressive prize. Do you want to guess what the prize was?

[Celia A.B.]

So we're in the 1800.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yep.

[Celia A.B.]

A Samsung LED TV and a brand new car. No, he was probably a bottle of beer.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

More than one bottle of beer.

[Celia A.B.]

A hundred bottles of beer.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

600 glasses of absinthe, which is so much absinthe. We don't know if he drank it. We don't know if he tried to stick it in the bus and bring it home. 600 glasses of absinthe.

[Celia A.B.]

Surely there's a better transportation method.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I don't know.

[Celia A.B.]

With bottles? Not a thing.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I don't know. I don't know. That's all we know. 600 glasses. So we don't know if he tried to ship it home, if he tried to drink it all in one evening and poison himself. I don't know. But There we go.

[Celia A.B.]

600 glasses of absinthe.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

And what happened after Alexandre moved to Paris and drank all his absinthe? Did he wake up one morning in a bush and then think, I'm moving to Paris?

[Greg Jenner]

No, actually, he continued his career. Two generals his father knew recommended him for Secretariat.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, so Daddy's friends.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Of baby.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

Duke d', Orleon, no less. The assistant director of the office, Lasagne. A man called Lasagne advised him, though, to educate himself further and to read people like Froissart, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine. So he needed to further his education.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He's reading the classics. He's reading the. So Francois is a great, what, 14th century medieval historian of France who wrote about Joan of Arc. Or not Joan of Arc just before Joan of Arc, but all these sort of great, great writers. But I'm gonna have to stop you there because you said Monsieur Lasagne.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, there's a lot of layers to this guy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Hey. Hello. You said you were jet lag, so that's an excellent joke.

[Celia A.B.]

I wrote that before coming in.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Monsieur Lasagna. I'd love to be called Monsieur Lasagna.

[Celia A.B.]

Is there a Mrs. Liza? He sleeps under lots of her.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, so Monsieur Lausanne is telling him, read the classics, educate yourself. And then by 18. 18, 18, 19. Alexandre's what, 16, 17. He's a young guy, but he's, you know, he's approaching adulthood. Does he start to write? Does he?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, I mean, he's fascinated by literature. He met somebody called Adolphe de Leven, a well educated son of a count, as you do, who'd been exiled from Sweden for complicity in the king's murder.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, excellent, Good.

[Greg Jenner]

So a bit of an edge. Oh, he sounds.

[Celia A.B.]

Wow. How do they meet?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, he sounds quite sexy.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

An exiled Swedish count who's been implicated in the murder of a king. That's quite Dumas, isn't it? It's quite romantic novel. Yeah.

[Celia A.B.]

Is he seeing anyone? So you have.

[Greg Jenner]

Levain and Dumas started to collaborate on act and plays in verse, comedies. I mean, it was a fruitful collaboration because they wrote Late into the night, fueled by wine and hot punch.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

But he was also writing solo, though not very successfully. His first kind of verse strategy, Les Graques, wasn't that good. I mean, according to himself. He said he gave it its due by burning it.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, have you ever burned anything you've written? And have it ever gone that intense?

[Celia A.B.]

I think everyone is, like a bit embarrassed by the first thing that you write instead of burning it. I performed it every day at the Edinburgh Festival. That was my way of doing it. And thank you so much for coming.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Hey, you know, it's. It's burned into my memory.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, no, I've definitely, like, deleted stuff that I was embarrassed, but I also, for some reason, I have a video of my phone of the first time I really bombed and it's seven minutes long and I cannot delete it.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Really?

[Celia A.B.]

I can't watch it. I can't delete it. I don't know why it's there.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Is it sort of motivational for you?

[Celia A.B.]

I don't know. I think it's because I'm like, really into, like, ego death. Do you know ego death?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Sure.

[Celia A.B.]

If something good happens to you, you shouldn't, like, let it feed your ego. But if something bad happens to you, you shouldn't let it impact your ego. And that video, I think, is the One thing keeping me stable.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay.

[Celia A.B.]

Like, I could always be humbled by watching me bomb in Birmingham in 2017.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay.

[Celia A.B.]

There's an awful bit in the video where there was one woman in the front row who was kind of, like, still smiling. And I go, she gets it. And she just, like, shook her head, like.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So Dumas burned it, and, Celia, you digitally recorded it forever. So in 1830, Dumas was again. I mean, France again, thrown into. You know, we talk about the French Revolution, we get another French revolution. Yes, the 1813 July Revolution. Do you know this one, Celia?

[Celia A.B.]

The 14th of July 18th. Oh, no, that was a different one.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Celia A.B.]

I love Revolutions in July.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. Well, it's sun, it's sunny, you're out on the streets, you know, barbecue weather. You think? Actually, I don't really like the king.

[Celia A.B.]

You know, I don't know.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

This revolution, this is the 1830s. It's called the Three Day Revolution. It's basically the Glastonbury of revolutions. Do you want to tell us about it, Olivet?

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, it's not supposed to be funny, though. Sorry, sorry. Try and stop us.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

So you have Charles X, who is the brother of Louis xviii, deposed and replaced with the Duke d'. Orleans. And in a letter, Dumas claimed that he was sent by Marquis de Lafayette and the Duke on the mission to acquire gunpowder. I mean, he probably exaggerated, but he did approach Lafayette about forming a national guard in the Vendee region. But the king told Dumas to return to poetry.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, stick to poetry is quite the burn.

[Celia A.B.]

So sa.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Isn't it?

[Celia A.B.]

You know, the more I learn about the King, the more I side with the Swedish guy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Leuven. Yeah. Okay. Well, luckily for literature lovers, Dumas obeyed the royal decree of sticking to poetry. And he started banging out plays.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely. I mean, between 1829 and 51, quite a long time. He started a new play on the Parisian stage every year, except one. He pioneered two new genres, Romantic historical drama and modern drama. And the plays often featured illegitimate or poor heroes struggling against societal obstacles and heroines who become victims to their lovers. We have 18 of his plays staged at the Comedie Francaise, which is huge. Which used to be huge at the time, but many of those plays were also in the theater Theatre des Boulevards. So he was basically writing for kind of bourgeois theater going public.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So kind of middle class audiences.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely.

[Celia A.B.]

Did he get a lot of people copying him after that?

[Greg Jenner]

I think so. At some point, the. The genre kind of people lost interest. So it came back in the 20th century.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Mid 20th century, rather.

[Celia A.B.]

But he invented it. He did.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, that's what they say. I'm always wary about that.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It's always hard to know who invents a genre, isn't it? Yeah. But I suppose what's interesting is that he's living through extraordinary historical times, but he's writing about the past so he can talk about the present without anyone getting in trouble. So it's that sort of thing of. You're kind of holding up a mirror to now by going, oh, no, it's the 17th century, actually.

[Celia A.B.]

Well, it's like the rhinoceros book. Do you know that one?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

No, tell me.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, okay.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You're regretting opening your mouth now, aren't you?

[Celia A.B.]

Okay, just for the listeners, I would know this normally, but again, I'm a dum dum today. It's an absurdist book about everyone turning into rhinoceroses.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Rhinocero. Rhinocerou.

[Celia A.B.]

But it was actually about the rise of fascism.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, it's always the Nazis, isn't it? It's always the Nazis.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Lovely. I don't know that book. I'll have to look that up.

[Celia A.B.]

Thank you.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Alexandre Dumas is writing these. These kind of impressive stories set in the past. Right. See, there's a. There's one called Henry III and His Court, or Henri Trois. There's one called Anthony. What's the general theme of his work?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, he wrote henri trois et cer set in July 1578, exactly in the past at the court of Henry III, the last Valois monarch. And he received 6,000 francs for the sale of the manuscripts.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That's good money.

[Greg Jenner]

Anthony, 1831 was about an illegitimate hero who's unable to marry his love because of social position. And in the end, she begs him to kill her.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, yeah, you said he was funny, Oliver. That doesn't sound very funny. Okay. Anything else? That's about Sharia.

[Greg Jenner]

Another one. La Tour de Nelle, 1832. That was his most successful romantic drama, and it was about Margaret of Burgundy who killed her lovers.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, I'm sensing a theme.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. I mean, he was very successful, though, because you have 800 consecutive performances. That. That's absolutely.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay. That is amazing. That's extraordinary. That's like mousetrap level, isn't it, of having a play that just runs and runs and runs.

[Greg Jenner]

Exactly.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

But you said he's funny, but so far I'm hearing everyone dies.

[Greg Jenner]

He was having a go at a genre that seemed to be working, so he kept writing those ones. I mean, throughout the 1830s, romantic drama started to be less popular. So he had to shift his focus as well to something slightly different. That is still into the romantic kind of aspect of things, though.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, in 1832, Celia, we get another French Revolution. This one's more famous. This one's the Anne Hathaway Revolution. This is Les Miserables.

[Celia A.B.]

I like to call that Dance Dance Revolution.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So we have the barricades in the streets.

[Celia A.B.]

Yes.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

This time, Dumas. He has to leave France. He's in trouble, this.

[Celia A.B.]

How old is he around this time?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He's about 29. He's late 20s.

[Celia A.B.]

So he's written. He's done all of this before.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

29, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Very prolific.

[Celia A.B.]

Well, nepotism will get you anything. No, that's really. There was no phones back there.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That's it, right. He's just not on Instagram. The rest of us are just scrolling.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, I could have an 800 day run of my Beautiful plate, but I'm too busy watching recipes. So he has to run away, he has to flee.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He gets in trouble with the King.

[Celia A.B.]

What happened, Olivet?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Why is the King annoyed at this sort of young upstart?

[Greg Jenner]

Well, for some reason, he decided to officiate the funeral of a Bonapartist general. Something you shouldn't just do. We don't know why. Anyway, the King considered his arrest.

[Celia A.B.]

We've all done culprits, all right? Tax bills in January. Do you know what I mean? Check the date. But that was November. December.

[Greg Jenner]

The problem is that he had to leave, though. He had to leave Paris and so he went to the south of France and then to Switzerland. Yeah, sure, it wasn't too bad. And winter time, 1832, 33. He published the accounts of his Swiss travel. So monetizing the thing.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, okay, so he's a travel writer now.

[Celia A.B.]

First person in the world to publish their Swiss accounts.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Hello. He traveled to Italy as well. I mean, he meets the Pope.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, he allegedly met the Pope.

[Celia A.B.]

Allegedly.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. Because, I mean, he was arrested by papal police, so thanks to his revolutionary kind of reputation. So we're not quite sure he met him.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

The Swiss Guards in their silly pyjamas arrested him.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, absolutely. But he had to leave eventually. I mean, after his mother's death in 1836, he went on another journey, but this time through Brussels in Germany.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Right. I mean, Celia, you're a touring comedian. Does travel inspire or does it tire?

[Celia A.B.]

I think, like, it's nice for your eyes to see different things. Sorry, I'm a poet. Write this down. So I think I feel like monotony. Of like, staying in the same city can kind of get your brain stuck in the same patterns. I think it inspires, I think. Yeah, definitely. I think it's also quite stressful because, like, you do need, like, something to anchor yourself. But it sounds like even looking back at his childhood, it feels like he's had to run away from different places and bumping into most more and more impressive people.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, I mean, he knows the Duke de Leon. He's met the King. He's now hanging out with the Pope. We're being arrested by the Pope. This is a quite well connected guy.

[Greg Jenner]

Very well connected. I mean, he, again, his father was a general and he's coming from La Paltrie. I mean, aristocracy, but we should say.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Again, he's mixed race. Right. So he's moving through Europe, through France, but he's a mixed race man with a slightly combative, difficult relationship with his father, who was a Napoleonist general. So these countries have been invaded by Napoleon. Napoleon's not necessarily everyone's best favorite friend. So it's kind of interesting being the son of a guy who invaded Italy and then going, hello. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, that's why he chose Dumas. To kind of perhaps.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, right, okay. Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Be a bit further away from that as well.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Right, okay. Okay, that makes sense.

[Greg Jenner]

This is history's heroes.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

People with purpose, brave ideas, and the.

[Greg Jenner]

Courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Well, let's break from politics and plays. Let's talk about the other big P. Let's talk about his big P.

[Greg Jenner]

His passion.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

His passion. His. His passion for the ladies. Alexandre Dumas was a player. I mean, actually. I mean, Alexandre's love life was as saucy as Monsieur Lasagne's reading list.

[Greg Jenner]

Even more.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Even more saucy.

[Celia A.B.]

The sauce was bechamel. That was so stupid.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, he married, right, Alexander. He found a wife. He settled down, he married her. And that was the love of his life. Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

No, not right. 1840, he married his mistress, Ida Ferrier, who is an actress. They soon separated. She moved to Florence in 1844. They never saw each other again.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Great.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. But he didn't stop there, though. He had. Well, allegedly, he had 40 mistresses throughout his life. 4, 040, and claimed 40 mistresses. But that's not it. Dumas himself said, I don't want to exaggerate, but I really believe that up and down the world. I have more than 500 children.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

How do you even.

[Celia A.B.]

What's the math? I mean, can anyone do quick maths?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

No.

[Celia A.B.]

500 divided by 40.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I mean, yeah, that's.

[Celia A.B.]

Can we get. Oh, no, but you can. You can say anything, can't you?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I mean, sure.

[Celia A.B.]

No one's gonna be like, all right, bring them.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Producer Steve tells me that's 12 and a half kids per mistress. So. Wow, that's. Oh, my God. Which statistically means that some of Those probably had 20 kids. Because, you know, law of averages, bell curves.

[Celia A.B.]

I find it so funny. Like the idea of a man bragging about how many kids they've got, like, now they're trying to hide them.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yes. It's the opposite Boris Johnson effect, isn't it? But he's going around, going, 500 kids.

[Celia A.B.]

Why is he going for 50,000?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He's building his own army. Like, Daddy, I should have my own Dumas army.

[Celia A.B.]

40 mistresses.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay, Olivet, from a legal point of view, in terms of inheritance law, how many of those 500 kids does he actually recognize legally and say, this is my son. This is my daughter?

[Greg Jenner]

Well, he recognize five of them.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, my God. So 99% of his kids, he's like, you're dead to me.

[Greg Jenner]

Or maybe four. Four or five. Yes.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Wow. Okay. Who are the kids he recognizes? Do you know? Do we have a kind of roll call of, like, official Dumas heirs?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, we do. I mean, we have Alexandre Dumas Fils.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

With the dressmaker Catherine or Catherine Labet. And Dumas Fils went on to become famous because he wrote the novel La Dame Camellia.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. The Ladies and the Camellias. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

And then you have Marie Alexandrine Dumas with Belle Krel Sammer. Henry Bauer with Anna Bauer, who was the wife of an Austrian merchant in Paris.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Great. So his wives, his mistresses, are cheating on their husbands. Great. That's also lovely.

[Greg Jenner]

Michaela, clearly. Josepha Elisabeth Cordier with Emily Cordier, who was 19 at the time, when Dumas was 57.

[Celia A.B.]

What do they talk about?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. You pulled a face there, Celia, that we could best be described as Smell the fart. Yes. It was an absolute.

[Celia A.B.]

She was 19, he was 57.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

They probably didn't talk, right?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

No. Okay. Whatever did they get up to? I think we know. We found the 12 and a half kids. Statistical.

[Greg Jenner]

Even worse than that. In his later years, his son and him would sometimes have the same mistresses.

[Celia A.B.]

Sorry, say that again.

[Greg Jenner]

His son would have this.

[Celia A.B.]

They would share mistresses.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. So Alexander Feast Jr. All for one and one for all. Right. That's. That's what the musketeers.

[Celia A.B.]

You know what's crazy is, like, I know so much about. It's like. I mean, I know so much about him now. So, like, I get it. Like, I think, like, it sounds really charming. He's had a lot of stuff. Interesting things happen to him in his life.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

At the start of the episode Olivet, I listed some of the novels that have been turned into movies and TV shows. We haven't talked about novels yet, so we've talked about plays so far. He writes a lot of novels, and we will know some of the big ones. Can you talk us through the novels? Is he pivoting to novel because it's a new genre? Is it just that he wants to tell longer stories?

[Greg Jenner]

What he does is writing things that can be serialized and that can be put into magazines. Just to give you an example, Le Capitaine Paul earned the magazine siecle 5,000 subscribers in just three weeks.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

When you say serialized, this is what Dickens was doing, too. He's writing chapters per week, like a new chapter each week in the magazine. So you have to subscribe to the magazine to read the novel?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So it's like a sort of serialized story. It's like a soap opera.

[Celia A.B.]

And he got him 5,000 subscribers.

[Greg Jenner]

So amazingly, he's doing amazingly. So he carries on. He writes a novel called Georges, about a biracial dual heritage, son of a planter, possibly drawing on his own life. But his greatest success is, of course, with the d' Artagnan romances, including the Three Musketeers, serialized for six years, and the Count of Monte Cristo, serialized for two years in 1844. 46. So it's working. It's a type that is working. He also wrote popular series about the Valois monarchs and including the very famous La Reine Margaux, if you remember the movie.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

It's a wonderful Elizabeth.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. I mean, that's the Queen Marguerite, I suppose. And for listeners, that's. We've done an episode on Catherine de Medici. She is the baddie in that novel. She is the villain. Right. She's. She's kind of conspiring and poisonous and sinister. I mean, the Three Musketeers stories are so famous now from Hollywood, we all know. All for one and one for all the men in floppy hats. But they're set in the 17th century, so they're set in the time of Louis XIV and Charles ii. And they're really popular, aren't they? He's writing about a kind of romantic past.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, romantic past. And people, at a time where people need to. Wanted to dream about an imagined past. So it's working well for him, probably making him a lot of money and the way. And more popularity as well.

[Celia A.B.]

It gets big blockbuster, would you say?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, absolutely. At the time it was.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

And yes, Monte Cristo is probably his biggest hit, do you think? I mean, it's. That's the one. I mean, that's the one that Hollywood keeps remaking, doesn't it? Have you read Canto Monte Cristo?

[Celia A.B.]

I did at school. And actually, the more I'm here, the more I remember that I have read all of these things in school. But, yeah, it keeps being remade. There's an amazing one with Pianina that's come out that's, like, gone massive now.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, a big French one, isn't it?

[Celia A.B.]

It's kind of amazing. I've put in his life experience into different voices. Like, do you know. I mean, like, everything kind of is the same thread, but like, in different. You know, it's kind of.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You're right, because Georges is about, as you said, a biracial son of a planter. So that's about his family story. The Musketeers is sort of about his dad as a sort of great soldier. And then the Valois monarch is about kind of the political intrigues that he's sort of been involved with, all the revolutions happening around him. La Reine Margot. So it. It's. He's. He's drawing on his own life, but he's kind of putting it behind a veil so that he doesn't get in trouble.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely. And you have the women's stories and characters. La Reine Margaux. I mean, with all the nuances that you can have in a character like that. I'm just thinking about something, you know. I sent you a picture. I was in Marseille.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

And I sent you a picture of Chateau d'.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

If.

[Greg Jenner]

Because I kept thinking about this place, this tiny place that is really almost oppressive in the south of France. And to think that he based his novel on this place. I was just. I mean, I've been there many times, but I was just moved and excited.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That's it. A lot of his stories are based on real historical events. D' Artagnan was a real Guy, was it? Yeah. And the musketeers were real and Dante was real. We should mention, however, the ghost writer, Auguste Mackay.

[Celia A.B.]

Who?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

No one. But we're not doing a podcast about this guy. He had a kind of secret co writer.

[Greg Jenner]

He did. He was really criticized about that. Maquette helped him with development and ideas. But Dumas wrote the novels. He wasn't like a director.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That's interesting. So as a stand up, you have. You write your own shows, but you have a director who sometimes.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, you can. I think some stand up will have directors like. But directors take on different roles. So like the way I've used them is more like architectural. Just because I'm too much of a silly billy for structure. And that's medical.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You have a diagnosis of whimsical.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, exactly.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So Olivet Mackay is the ideas guy, but Dumas is doing the typing. He's actually there with quill in hand writing these serialized novels. These huge. I mean, Monte Cristo's a massive novel.

[Greg Jenner]

It seems to me that it was a collaboration between the two development ideas. It's a bit like they're brainstorming and then Dumas is the one writing the novel. The problem is that not everyone liked that. For example, in 1845 there's a journalist who accused him of running a quote, novel factory because he's producing so much. People are starting to say that can't be him and it can't be possible. The journalist also used the term, he's using a negre, which has a double meaning. It means a black enslaved person from the colonies and a ghost writer in mainland France.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, really?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Right. So there's a sort of allusion there to his mixed race heritage, do you think?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, definitely. And the fact that he's not doing the work himself. But Dumas answered quite rightly by saying that he had research assistants in the same way Napoleon had generals that sued the journalists. And he won.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That's quite a comeback, isn't it?

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. The more popular he got, it probably had more and more people trying to be contrarian as well. I imagine journalists wanting to.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. Take sort of shots at him.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. Which is often the thing with like mixed race people. Like, there's often accusations of like, you.

[Greg Jenner]

Can'T do it yourself, you can't do it yourself.

[Celia A.B.]

Who's really doing this?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

And it's interesting because they even accused him of plagiarism. It can't come from your brain. So you're using young writers to do the work again. But the thing is he never covered up the names of the collaborations. He was really open about it. And when other writers names were not included, it wasn't his decision, it was the publisher's decision. Now, we can argue that he could have fought it, but we don't know what actually happened.

[Celia A.B.]

And it's probably, like, there were probably a lot of writers doing that, like, using ghost writers and stuff at the time. And that's why, like, that's where these accusations came from. But they just couldn't believe that he didn't. But it's funny to think of, like, journalism being, like, kind of the same as it is now. Like, do you know what I mean?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Something's never changed. Welcome to history, Celia.

[Celia A.B.]

First day.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

First day. First day. So Duma is an incredible superstar of writing. And, you know, saying he's doing a play every year for those 30 years. He's writing these vast novels, co creating them with mackay. And of course, he's incredibly rich now. He's laughing all the way to La Bongue. And he builds himself a fancy little chateau. Celia. What do you think he calls it? What would you call it?

[Celia A.B.]

Where is the chateau, please?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Where is the chateau? It's in northern France, isn't it?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, it's in the outskirt.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. So outside Paris.

[Celia A.B.]

D Town.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Bring all the ladies to D Town. Okay. For his 500 kids, he calls it the Chateau de Monte Cristo.

[Celia A.B.]

That's sweet.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Is it sweet or is it cringe? I can't tell.

[Celia A.B.]

That's his inner child work.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

As you think.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I don't know. I can't. It's a bit like Shakespeare having a house called, like, Hamlet House. Hello. Welcome to Hamlet House. I don't know. I feel like it's slightly. It's slightly bordering on.

[Greg Jenner]

No, fanfiction. Something made you have so much money.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

You want to celebrate it?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

All right. It cost him an absolute fortune.

[Celia A.B.]

And it had to be big for all of the absence.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, exactly. But he didn't relax long Olivetti. He was off traveling again. You know, he's already toured Europe or whatever. But off he went again. In 1846, he did.

[Greg Jenner]

He was offered 10,000 francs to. By the Minister for Public Information to travel to Algeria.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Ah, represent.

[Celia A.B.]

Was it to write that you had to go to Algeria?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. To observe. Right. Represent, as you said.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

To tell the French people about Algeria or to tell the Algerian people about Algeria. Like, who's it for? What's the.

[Greg Jenner]

I think, given the colonial context, to try and tell them how it was and how it should be.

[Celia A.B.]

What year was this?

[Greg Jenner]

1846.

[Celia A.B.]

1846, yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

And Mackay, his co writer, went with him and so did his son, Alexander Viss. You know, Junior. I'm gonna call him Junior, sorry. They went as well. And they went on a. They went to a royal wedding on the way in Spain, which.

[Greg Jenner]

Which shows that, you know, he had his connections to the elite of the country. And not just the country, actually, to across Europe.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

To be invited to those places.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It's properly connected. But the following year, Celia. Uh oh. The creditors came in and turned out Alexandre Dumas did not have as much money as he thought he had. And he had to pay an awful lot of money to his ex wife.

[Celia A.B.]

Which one?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

The one that lasted like four years and then was gone. Ida, was it? Yeah. So he's in trouble financially. He has to sell his chateau, doesn't he? For a pittance of what he'd spent building it.

[Celia A.B.]

That's a shame.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That's a real shame.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. The name would feel so sad.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, exactly. That's devastating, isn't it? You're right, actually. I take it back. It's not cringe, it's sad. He had to sell the chateau that was.

[Celia A.B.]

It's like if you had a house called Chateau de Greg Jeanner. So he has to sell his house.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. And then there's a coup in France, another revolution. The coup of Louis Napoleon, 1851.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Where the president of France says, actually, I'm basically emperor.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, yes, obey me from now on.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

French history's fun, isn't it?

[Celia A.B.]

Just about who's the most confident.

[Greg Jenner]

But, you know, he used that as an excuse to kind of evade his creditors.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, good. So he's on the run. Okay, he's on the run. Where did he go?

[Greg Jenner]

He went to Belgium.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Excellent.

[Greg Jenner]

Stay there for two years. But he didn't stop his lifestyle because he was living in luxurious. Luxurious lifestyle. On credit over there. Yes.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Good. He's got his credit card. Yep.

[Celia A.B.]

Amazing.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

I mean, you know, extraordinary guy. He wouldn't have made a great sort of financial columnist or even a dating guru, but he is a great writer. 1858, he travels to Russia.

[Greg Jenner]

He did. He even. He traveled to Russia. He made another investment. He bought a small boat that he called Emma. He landed in Genoa. He learned that Garibaldi was trying to unite Italy. So he's involved in politics again.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

So this is Restorgimento. This is the unification of Italy.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He's getting involved in other people's politics.

[Greg Jenner]

He's saying, well, let me help you. Let me Stay and help.

[Celia A.B.]

Because he's, like, on the run, but he can't stay away from, like, the action. He cannot. Like, I've never seen someone on the run. Just, like, meeting different leaders.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah. Just showing up to royal weddings and just, like, oh, there's an Italian civil war. So I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna help out. So he's got 5,000. He's got 5,000 francs being given to him by Garibaldi to carry soldiers on his new yacht.

[Greg Jenner]

That he's just Gary Baldy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, he gave money. Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

He gave money in exchange kind of return. They gave him the king's summer residence in Naples. Lovely. He spent a few years there, and he returned to Paris in 1864.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Great.

[Celia A.B.]

I'm fascinated by this guy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah.

[Celia A.B.]

I don't know if I like him. I can't figure it out. Yeah. I can't figure out if I like the guy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

There's a roguish charm.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

But, yes. You know, on the run from his creditors.

[Celia A.B.]

I just. It's so funny how many times he's been on the run. Like, it's just like, every few minutes. That's, like, the chorus in all of this. And now he's on the run again.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Is a callback. I mean, we need to talk very quickly. Olivet, about the end of his life. I mean, we could do so many podcasts on his writing career, but the end of his life. Ill health caught up with him, didn't it?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. I mean, he had an illness, possibly dropsy. He had. He ran into financial difficulties, and eventually he died on 5th December, 1870 in his son's home. It would take the French state over a hundred years to recognize him as a literary figure, but almost as a state person. Because his remains were transferred to the pantheon in 2002, his popularity grew, but his importance as a national figure came much later.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Gotcha. And dropsy, we should say, I think, is an illness where you have swelling of the body. It's not very nice. So he was quite poorly in life. He just missed the Franco Prussian War. I think he just missed the invasion of France by the Prussian army. So he so nearly got another bit of history in there, but he just missed it, I think so. So it's quite the life, Celia.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. How old was he when he died?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He died in 1873. To be about 67, give or take.

[Celia A.B.]

That's quite a long life.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, some stuff.

[Celia A.B.]

Do you know what the problem is that you've now started a thing where I feel like I just don't know enough. So I'm going to go home and just read his whole Wikipedia page.

[Greg Jenner]

I thought, does it resonate with you? I mean, he's. His life. Are they things that resonates with you?

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah, I think there's like. There's quite a few things in it.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

That like you're flicking through your notebook. You've got quite a lot of notes there.

[Celia A.B.]

I've got some. So many notes. But like from the street of the Boy, I fancy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

There we go to an entire man. The nuance window. It's time now for the Nuance window. This is where Celia and I sit quietly for two minutes and make a start on reading the Count of Monte Cristo. While Professor Olivet steps into the literary salon to tell us something we need to know about Alexandre Dumas. So my stopwatch is ready, Olivet. Take it away.

[Greg Jenner]

I like to talk about Dumas and prejudice against people of African descent in the 19th century. And in particular, how life was like for Dumas. He was the son of a minor aristocrat and the descendant of an enslaved person. The first point is that it wasn't unusual at all. Throughout the 18th and 19th century we have a number of people of African descent from aristocratic families across Europe. However, the way they were treated depended on whether they were wealthy and protected by the country's leaders or not. Alexandre was attacked because of his ethnic background, but in many ways he was also protected by his class and his father's reputation as a respected general. He was not wealthy enough to just be a man of leisure, as we have seen, but he made a very decent life with his writings and could afford to live in very bourgeois houses in and outside Paris. However, racism against him was evident in many ways. His popularity with readers and theatre goers made him very well known as a literary figure. In other words, he was a celeb in the 19th century. He was the symbol of world white, middle and upper class France dreaded a racially ambiguous man whose identity crossed several boundaries. Especially at a time when so called racial purity was advocated by the fathers of eugenics and race science. It was also the time when French parliament voted for an act abolishing slavery. And that was in 1848. We have the government expecting and demanding. Actually former enslaved people forget about centuries of discrimination as they had officially been granted citizenship. And that was very important. They were expected to get on with the order of things. For example, the white men on top of the social and cultural ladder and them at the bottom. In other words, officially accept to be second class citizens and forget about the past almost overnight. So behind the prolific author and love interest, we should also bear in mind that Alexandre Dumas was a dual heritage man who had to navigate a cruel and profoundly racist society. He did it with panache and charm.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Amazing. Olivier, thank you so much. Celia, any thoughts?

[Celia A.B.]

No.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

What if it said it all?

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah. I could have listened to you talk for like an hour.

[Greg Jenner]

It resonates with French society though.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

That where you have to as a jewel heritage, you have to be always charming. Otherwise it just doesn't work.

[Celia A.B.]

One thing that I was thinking about is this. Sorry to interrupt you is the report to class because in my experience in France, obviously there's quite a lot of racism in France, but we'll talk about racism but not classism in France. That's my experience. And like, I think that the position that he was in where he could be in with the higher societies because of his dad, but like still be a biracial man and suffering from that. Do you know what I mean? Like, it must have been quite a confusing place to be in for him and quite like heartbreaking at times to kind of like be sitting at the top with all of these generals but still being made to feel small because of the rampant racism. If that makes sense.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely.

[Celia A.B.]

That must have been really difficult.

[Greg Jenner]

You know, you said that you don't. If you like him, you see there's something there.

[Celia A.B.]

Yeah.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You're coming around to him. Amazing. So what do you know now? Great. It's time now for the so what do you know now? This is our quick fire quiz for Celia to see how much she has learned. Celia, are you feeling confident? You've taken many notes.

[Celia A.B.]

I've taken so many notes, but most of them are little drawings.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh.

[Celia A.B.]

And for Some reason the 2002 has been written a million times. So we'll see. I'm excited.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Okay. Okay, great.

[Celia A.B.]

I'm excited.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Lovely. Okay, well we've got 10 questions. We'll start question one. Here we go. Question one. What was Dumas father's occupation?

[Celia A.B.]

He was a general.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He was. He was a general in Napoleon's army. Question 2. How did a young Alexandre Dumas avoid becoming a priest?

[Celia A.B.]

He ran away and took a sausage and some bread into the woods.

[Greg Jenner]

He did.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Very good. Question 3. What did the King tell Dumas to do after the July 1830 revolution?

[Celia A.B.]

That's when he was sassy, right?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah.

[Celia A.B.]

I think he said like, give up, don't do this, Queen. He was very sassy to give up.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He said. Yeah. Stick to poetry. Don't do the army stuff. Yeah, that's right. Question 4. In what literary medium did Dumas first make his name?

[Celia A.B.]

Oh, that was plays.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It was theater.

[Celia A.B.]

But he was working with another guy at first, and then he was bad, like when he started working by himself.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Well done. Well remembered. Question 5. Can you name two of the countries that Alexandre Dumas traveled to on his many adventures?

[Celia A.B.]

Belgium and Russia.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Very good. Yeah, Good. Of Algeria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland. Yeah, he got around. How many children did Alexandre Dumas claim to have?

[Celia A.B.]

500 children. 40 mistresses. One guy.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Question 7. Who was Dumas most famous son, who he apparently shared mistresses with?

[Celia A.B.]

Oh, that's the. And he wrote a book. And he was also a writer.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

He was, yeah. La Dame La Camille.

[Celia A.B.]

La Dame le Camille.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Yeah, that's a lovely one. That's good. You're doing very well. Question 8. Can you name two of Dumas novels?

[Celia A.B.]

Comte de Monte Cristo.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Beautiful.

[Celia A.B.]

And, of course, how could I forget about La Reine Magot?

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Excellent. Well done. You could have had Captain Paul Georges and Three Musketeers Romances, which are sort of several novels.

[Celia A.B.]

They're very big.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Question 9. What was the name of the opulent chateau Dumas built for himself using his writing income?

[Celia A.B.]

Chateau de Monte Cristo. That was the bell when you guys.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Oh, we should have a Dumas musical. That'd be great, wouldn't it? And this for a perfect 10 out of 10. And I feel like you might get this one right because you wrote it several times. In what year was Dumas reburied in the pantheon in Paris?

[Celia A.B.]

2002.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

10 out of 10. Celia AB well done.

[Celia A.B.]

Thank you, everyone.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

You are the Dumas expert. Thank you, Olivet, for a wonderful history lesson.

[Greg Jenner]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Thank you so much, Olivet. Thank you so much, Celia. And if you want more Professor Olivet listener, check out our episode on the Chevalier de St. Georges. We've also got episodes on the Haitian Revolution, Napoleon and Catherine Medici, and of course, episodes on Josephine Baker, who is also buried in the Pantheon. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner, we have the outstanding Professor Olivet Otelet from SOAS University of London. Thank you, Olivet.

[Greg Jenner]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It's been a pleasure.

[Greg Jenner]

Thank you.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

And in Comedy Corner, we have the superb Celia A.B. thank you, Celia.

[Celia A.B.]

Thank you so much for having me. That was so fun.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

It was fun. And to you lovely listener. Join me next time as we turn the pages of another forgotten historical epic. But for now, I'm off to go and rename my daughter Greg Jennifer and encourage her to write history books for kids. So I get to be rich and build a castle called the Chateau de Greg Jenner. Bye. You're Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4. From BBC Radio 4, the Russians will be launching a satellite sometime in the next three weeks. I'm Kim Cattrall, back with new series of Central Intelligence. This is a CIA covert op, Top Secret, the drama podcast that tells the history of the CIA from the inside out. Starring Ed Harris, Johnny Flynn, and me, Kim Cattrall. Ms. Page, such a pleasure to meet a real American. Listen to Central Intelligence Series 2, first on BBC Sound.

[Greg Jenner]

This is history's heroes.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

People with purpose, brave ideas, and the.

[Greg Jenner]

Courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the first World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.

[Professor Olivette Otele]

Join me, Alex von Tunzelman for History's Heroes.

[Greg Jenner]

Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcast.