The very next day he made a list which went: 'Things to do: Stop milk, pay papers, sell female family members to slave traders' which is exactly what he did and he raised enough money to take him and me back to France.
Being a black man in 18th-century France wasn't easy but being part of the aristocracy meant i went to a decent school and studied philosophy, fencing and equestrianism and it all looked good until my dad wanted to marry a domestic servant and i refused to sign as a witness so he cut off my allowance.
With no money i had to join the army and the nobility would generally go in as Officers but as a black man i had to start at the bottom rank and found myself posted to a small, backwater town but that was where i met and married my wife.
She announced her pregnancy just as the French Revolution kicked off and i got called to defend the capital and got caught up in the Champs de Mars Massacre where 50 peasants were shot and killed and as the black man i was the only one stood before the notorious Committee of Public Safety who bought my claim that i acted to prevent even more bloodshed of the Officers and was cleared but still sent away to join France's Black Legion, a group of freed slaves.
I rose through the ranks to Brigadier General but while i was away my wife gave birth to our child, a boy called Alexandre Dumas, who would grow to become a writer and include me in many of his books.
I was sent to command the Army of the Alps and under my command we captured the mountain range from the Austrians and i came to the notice of Napoleon Bonaparte who had a very complex relationship with me, he either hated or loved me depending on the day.
He tried to demote me for resisting his order to ransack any city we entered then got his praise for taking the city of Mantua then demoted me again when i complained about a General then promoted again after almost single-handedly defending a bridge in an Italian village after the rest of the men retreated.
He took me to Egypt with him but when men began dying of the heat, thirst and inadequate supplies and i complained to Napoleon, he promptly sent me back to France, or he would have done if the British hadn't sank all our ships in Cairo Harbour so i hired a ship to take me home to my family but the ship was a dog and sinking and we had to land our ship in Naples which was friendly to France or rather it was when we left but in the meantime the Government had been overthrown and the new guys were warring against us.
I spent the next two years locked up somewhere in Naples, Napoleon heard but preferred to carry on not sticking it to Josephine than try and get me released and the guards treated me so badly that when i was released i was partially paralyzed, almost blind and deaf in one ear but i went home thinking at least i had my army back-dated wages and pension to live on.
I wrote multiple times to Napoleon, asking for both explaining that my son couldn't get an education without it but nobody ever replied and i died of stomach cancer a year later but if I had ever got my hands on him i would have tied him to a cannon and made him into Napoleon Blown-apart.
I was sent to command the Army of the Alps and under my command we captured the mountain range from the Austrians and i came to the notice of Napoleon Bonaparte who had a very complex relationship with me, he either hated or loved me depending on the day.
He tried to demote me for resisting his order to ransack any city we entered then got his praise for taking the city of Mantua then demoted me again when i complained about a General then promoted again after almost single-handedly defending a bridge in an Italian village after the rest of the men retreated.
He took me to Egypt with him but when men began dying of the heat, thirst and inadequate supplies and i complained to Napoleon, he promptly sent me back to France, or he would have done if the British hadn't sank all our ships in Cairo Harbour so i hired a ship to take me home to my family but the ship was a dog and sinking and we had to land our ship in Naples which was friendly to France or rather it was when we left but in the meantime the Government had been overthrown and the new guys were warring against us.
I spent the next two years locked up somewhere in Naples, Napoleon heard but preferred to carry on not sticking it to Josephine than try and get me released and the guards treated me so badly that when i was released i was partially paralyzed, almost blind and deaf in one ear but i went home thinking at least i had my army back-dated wages and pension to live on.
I wrote multiple times to Napoleon, asking for both explaining that my son couldn't get an education without it but nobody ever replied and i died of stomach cancer a year later but if I had ever got my hands on him i would have tied him to a cannon and made him into Napoleon Blown-apart.
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