‘a ONT ie ae ok SC eeFA for one and one for all.” Alexandre Dumas , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie: 24 July 1802 — 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas, pére, wag.a French writer, His works have been translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. He was borit in 1802 in Villers-Cotteréts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, France, He had two older sisters, Marie-Alexandrine and Lovise-Alexandrine . Their parents were Marie-Louise Elisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper, and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Thomas-Alexandre had been born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue , the mixed-race, natural son of the marquis Alexandre Antaine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and général. commissaire in the artillery of the'golony, and Marie-Cessette Damas; a slave of Afro-Caribbean© In the very first sentences of his preface, Alexandre Dumas indicated as hi Mémoires de Monsieur d’Artagnan (1700), a historical. novel by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, which Dumas discovered during his research for his history of Louis XIV, printed by Pierre Rouge in Amsterdam. It was in this book, he’Said, that d’Artagnan relates his first visit to M. de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers, where in the antechamber he met three young Béarnese with the names Athos, Porthos and Aramis. This information struck the imagination of Dumas so much—he tells us—that he continued his investigation and finally encountered _ once more the names of the three musketeers in a manuscript with the title Mémoire de M. le comte de la Fére, etc.. Flated —so continues his yarn—he asked permission to reprint the manuscript, Permission granted: Now, this is the first part of this precious manuscript which we offer to our readers, restoring it to the title which belongs to it, and entering intoan © engagement that if (of which we have no doubt) this first part should obtain the: sticcess it merits, we will publish the second immediately. netThe book he referred to was Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan, Capitaine lieutenan la premiére compagnie des Mousquetaires du Roi (Memoirs of Sir d'Artagnan, Lieutenant Captain of the first company of the King's Musketeers) by Gatien de. = — Courtilz de Sandras (Cologne, 1700). The book was borrowed from the Marseille Public library, and the card-index remains to this day; Dumas kept the book when he went back to Paris. * Following Dumas's lead in his preface, Eugene d'Auriac (de la Bibliotheque Royale) in 1847 was able to write the biography of d’Artagnan: d'Artagnan, Capitaine-Lieutenant des Mousquetaires- Sa vie aventureuse- Ses ducls- ete. based on Courtilz de Sandras. The Three Musketeers was written in collaboration with Auguste Maquet, who also worked with Dumas on its sequels (Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later), as well as The Count of Monte Cristo, Maquet would suggest plot outlines after doing historical research; Dumas then _ expanded the plot, femoving some charactérs, including new ones, and imbuing i the story with his unmistakable style. + The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the newsp: Siécle between March and July 1844.