“The novelist Dumas would one day borrow features from both of his uncles, not to mention his grandfather, the acknowledged scoundrel, in fashioning the central villains of The Count of Monte Cristo. Reading court documents detailing the sordid unraveling of… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“Unhappiness cannot but draw tighter the bonds which hold us fast to one another,” General Dumas had written to Marie-Louise as he made his way home. His son has Edmond Dantès express the same sentiment in a letter to his… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“At first, the Jacobin Club was not the most radical club. It was known for its lively, collegial debates and for attracting diverse and prominent revolutionaries to its ranks. Though it would one day command the loyalty of the Paris “street,” its initial membership was largely professional and bourgeois, mainly because it charged hefty subscription fees to join. The Duke… — Tom Reiss Copy Share
“energized and emboldened delegates of the Third Estate, the “99 percent”—in reality, closer to 96 percent—of the French population who paid the bulk of… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“Suddenly Paris fashion-that bellwether for the French mind-had to be à l'Amérique: tailors manufactured "insurgent coats" and "lightning-conductor dresses" (in honor of Ben Franklin,… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“The way it had originally worked was that each of the three estates got an equal say: each had an equal number of “deputies”… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“The bitter irony was that the financial crisis had largely been caused by French support of the American patriots; in getting back at the… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“Man is born free but is everywhere in chains,” wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract in 1762. A generation of crusading lawyers put Enlightenment principles into action by helping slaves sue for the right to be treated as ordinary French subjects. They took the issue of human bondage to the sovereign parlement courts of France—and won, in nearly every… — Tom Reiss Copy Share
“When they weren’t running meat—or rum—they worked as salt miners or piloted small boats along the coast. These highland Saint-Dominguans, along with more recent white immigrants, also from the middle and lower classes, were worlds removed from the sugar kings, businessmen,” — Tom Reiss Copy Share
“Unhappiness cannot but draw tighter the bonds which hold us fast to one another," General Dumas had written to Marie-Louise as he made his way home.” — Tom Reiss Copy Share
“Wednesday, June 17, 1789, France went from a system where only the nobility and the church had power to a system where, at least… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“in 1788, he had become infatuated by the American republic and its spirit of “simplicity, goodness, and that dignity of man which is the… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“Alex Dumas had the confidence that accompanies a life of physical exploits, along with an unwavering faith in the rightness of his actions that… — Tom Reiss Copy Share Image
“This mulatto gentleman could powder and dress as he liked, however, because he was acknowledged to be the greatest swordsman in Europe. Over the previous decade and a half, every white champion had stepped up to try to beat Saint-Georges; except for one Italian, who fought him under exceptional circumstances, they all failed. Saint-Georges” — Tom Reiss Copy Share
