Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/300

[Translation.]

MY FATHER

My father, who has already been mentioned twice in the foregoing chapter, firstly, à propos of my certificate of birth, and again, in connection with his own marriage-contract, was General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie.

He was, as we have shown in the documents cited by us son of the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, Colonel and Commissary-General of Artillery, who owned by inheritance the estate of La Pailleterie, raised to a Marquisate by Louis XIV. in 1707.

The arms of the family were: "d'azur à trois aigles d'or, aux vols éployés pour deux, et un avec un anneau d'argent placé en cœur, embrassés par les griffes dextres el senestres des angles du chef, et reposant sur la tête de l'aigle de pointe"

My father, when enlisting as a simple sollier, or rather, when renouncing both title and coat-of-arms, adopted instead the simple device "Deus dedit; Deus dabit"—a device which would have sounded ambitious, if God himself had not countersigned it.

I do not know what secret discontent or speculative plan determined my grandfather to quit France, about 1760, sell his estate and go off to take up his abode in San Domingo.

As a result of this resolution he bought an immense stretch of land situated on the western side of the island near Cape Rose and known as La Guinodée, or the Trou de Jérémie.

It was there that my father was born, of Louise-Cessette Dumas and the Marquis de la Pailleterie, on March 25th, 1762. The Marquis was then fifty-two years of age, having been born in 1710.

My father first saw the light in the most beautiful spot in that magnificent island, queen of the gulf in which it is situated, and of which the air is so pure that no venomous reptile can exist there.