'Dumas: Black Devil' to Ride on the Big Screen

You've probably never heard of French history's most famous Black general, who fought alongside (and later feuded with) Napoleon and inspired a literary classic. Director Ladj Ly aims to change that with his upcoming film Dumas: Black Devil. Known for his crime thriller Les Miserables, which was nominated for Best International Feature at the 2020 Academy Awards, Ly will explore the life of Thomas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie Dumas, a soldier who rose to prominence fighting in the French Revolution and whose son — the famous author Alexandre Dumas — made his story legend by using it as the inspiration for the fictional revenge fantasy The Count of Monte Cristo.

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was born in what is now Haiti, the son of a French count and a Black enslaved woman. Since the French empire offered legal protection to mixed-race people then, he moved to France at a young age and enlisted in the army, ultimately becoming the first and highest-ranking Black leader in the French military. He served as a general in the Revolutionary Army alongside Napoleon, winning battle after battle and earning the nickname "Black Devil."

But his many successes made Napoleon nervous— Dumas was quite charismatic and popular — and the future emperor left Dumas to rot in prison after he was captured while fighting in Naples. Though he was released several years later, Dymas never recovered from his imprisonment and died before his son turned four years old. But young Alexandre, who grew up hearing his mother's stories of his father's bravery, went on to immortalize him in fiction.