56 APPENDICES
THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS
Alexandre Dumas (1802-70) was a contemporary of another great French
novelist, Victor Hugo (1802-85). While Hugos chosen genre was humanistic
romanticism. Among his works are his three novel about d’Artagnan, The Count
of Monte Cristo and The Corsican Brorthers. He is best known for the first
d’Artagnan story The Three Musketeers (1844). D’Artagnan is not actually one of
the musketeer at the end of the story. Together with his musketeer friends
Porthos, Athos and Aramis, they experience swashbuckling and rollickling
adventures which captured the imagination of a wide readership not only in
France, but worldwide. The three novels are set in seventeenth-century France and
often described as cloak and sword in style.
Dumas was of mixed racial ancestry – his grandmother was Crole (of
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died the authorities delivered a final insult by only allowing him to be buried in
his place of birth, Villers-Cotterets, despite his great success and fame. In 2002,
he remains were eventually inttered in the Pantheon in Paris, alongside Hugo and
other luminaries.
The Man in the Iron Mask (1850) was inspired by the true tale of a
mysterious prisoner who was held captive during the reign of King Louis XIV of
France – otherwise known as the sun king. The man was incarcerated for 34 years
and always wore a mask whenever visited relocated. The general consensus is that
the man was related to the king in such a way that he presented a threat to the
monarchy, which is why he had to be kept under lock and key. In the novel
Dumas has him as Philipe, the twin brother of the king, with equal right to the
throne. The musketeer Aramis plots to substitute Phillipe for Louis as part of a
plan he has hatched to further his ambition to become complicated and do not go
the way Aramis intended.
Dumas died on December 5, 1870, at his son's home in Puys, France. He
was buried in the cemetery of Villers-Cotterets. In 2002, his body was moved to
the Pantheon in Paris, where Dumas rests among such other French literary greats
