The Black Count, Reiss - B

                                          This Pulitzer Prize winning biography is subtitled 'Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, And The Real Count of Monte Cristo'. It tells the truly remarkable story of the son of a Haitian slave mother and a dissolute French Marquis, who grew up to be a General of the Army in Revolutionary France.  Antoine de la Pailleterie brought his fourteen-year-old son to France from Haiti in 1776, after selling the boys' mother and three older sisters back into slavery.  The boy, known as Alex Dumas (his mothers name), was over six feet tall at a time when the average European was about 5'6" and was  immensely strong and a skilled horseman.   Although the French Empire was predicated on slavery, particularly in the sugar colonies of Martinique and Haiti, the influence of the Enlightenment led to a law establishing that once a person was present in the kingdom, their status was forever changed and they were free Frenchmen. After falling out with his father and abandoning his name, Alex enlisted in the army as a common soldier at the age of 26. Because of his physical endowments and the turmoil caused by the  Revolution, he was promoted from corporal to general two years later. Throughout France, full citizenship was extended to all persons of color and slavery was abolished in the Empire.  He achieved the highpoint of his career in 1794 as commander of The Army of the Alps, when he defeated a Piedmont force at Mt. Cenis and opened up Italy to French invasion. Against overwhelming odds, he later halted an Austrian invasion at Mantua in northern Italy. Unfortunately, he disagreed with the style of one of his fellow generals, his eventual superior from Corsica, and belittled the egomaniacal Napoleon. Although Napoleon personally disliked Dumas, he recognized his talents and made him General of the Cavalry for the ill-fated French invasion of Egypt.  Dumas was captured by  anti-revolutionary forces of the Kingdom of Naples when his ship floundered near their shores while trying to return to France.  Two years of captivity broke his health and he returned to Paris in 1800 to find his beloved  country in the hands of a dictator.  Napoleon had been supported by the colonial aristocracy and he re-established slavery and banned black officers from the Army. Dumas would never serve in the Army again, was refused any compensation for his time of imprisonment, and died in 1806, forgotten and impoverished.  However, he was adored by his son Alexandre, who wrote an unpublished biography of his father, upon whom he modelled his most famous character, Edmond Dantes.