Dumas Family: The Incredible Story of the Statue of France's First Black General

He was the first Black general in the French army. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, father of the famous writer, "is a major republican figure, whose memory is now forgotten ," laments the Society of Friends of Alexandre Dumas. With the support of the Paris City Hall and the Fondation du Patrimoine, the association has launched a national fundraising campaign to rebuild his statue, destroyed by the Vichy regime in 1942, on Place du Général-Catroux. As of Wednesday, July 23, 2025, nearly €22,000 had already been collected.

Born in 1762 in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), Thomas Alexandre was the son of Marie-Cessette Dumas, a slave, and a Norman nobleman, Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie. The latter sold his illegitimate children before returning to mainland France, but bought back Thomas-Alexandre, his favorite, thus restoring his freedom and his name.

Placed in a boarding school, the adolescent received an aristocratic education, learning the arts, horsemanship, and the handling of foil and sabre. He was said to be handsome, richly dressed… Described as a colossus, he caused a sensation. After a disagreement with his father, who cut off his funding, he enlisted in the Queen's Dragoons as a cavalier in 1786, before the Revolution broke out. A staunch Republican, he rose through the ranks at lightning speed, becoming a general in seven years.

In August 1789, the young man was sent with his troops to secure Villers-Cotterêts. There he met Marie Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper. Engaged four months later, they married in 1792.

The sequel took the form of a succession of exploits. While the young Republic was besieged by a coalition of European monarchies, he distinguished himself by his remarkable feats of arms. During the capture of the Mont-Cenis pass and the siege of Mantua, he earned the nickname "Black Devil." Commander of the Army of the Alps, then of the West at Nantes, he refused the brutal repression against the Vendéens, which earned him the republican gibe. of "Mr. Humanity."

In 1798, he took part in the Egyptian campaign alongside Napoleon , commanding the cavalry. Committed to the well-being of his men, he came into conflict with Bonaparte – an affront for which he would not be forgiven. In his Memoirs , Alexandre Dumas reports a tense exchange between the future emperor and his father, in which the latter is said to have declared: " I do not accept dictatorships, no more than that of Sulla than that of Caesar ."

Following this confrontation, Dumas left Egypt, but his ship was shipwrecked. Taken prisoner in Naples, he was held there for two years in terrible conditions. He emerged in 1801, severely weakened: deaf in one ear, paralyzed in one cheek, almost blind and with a crippled leg. Bonaparte, resentful, dismissed him from his duties and sent him from the army without a pension. He died four years later in Villers-Cotterêts , in total destitution and anonymity.

His son, Alexandre Dumas, pays homage by drawing inspiration from his exploits in his works and launching a project for a statue in his memory in 1838. He then launched a subscription " among men of color, whatever part of the world they inhabit ."

After him, Alexandre Dumas fils took up the torch, but the monument was not inaugurated until 1913, after the latter's death. The statue was installed in Place Malesherbes (today Place du Général-Catroux, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris and nicknamed the "Place des trois Dumas"), near those of Alexandre Dumas père and fils. Long kept under a veil, it was clandestinely inaugurated by the satirical newspaper Comœdia.

In 1942, the Vichy regime, in collaboration with the Nazi occupiers, melted down the statue and salvaged the metal. This metal would later be used to make munitions for the German army and... a giant Nazi eagle for Berlin. In the late 1970s, Alain Decaux, then president of the Society of Friends of Alexandre Dumas, wrote to the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, requesting action to be taken on behalf of the missing statue.

However, it will take until 2021 for the Paris Council to vote for its identical reconstruction. Created by sculptor Sabine Cherki and founder Sacha Gabriel Y Galana, the statue will be made of bronze, weighing an estimated 400 kg and measuring 230 cm high. The fundraising campaign is now seeking to raise €135,000 to allow the "third Dumas" to regain his place alongside his son and grandson.