[8] It is pretty generally known--even to those to whom it has not been
granted to stand in the imposing presence of our fast friend and ancient
ally, Monsieur Alexandre Dumas--that there is a slight tinge of black in
the blood of that greatest of French _romanciers_, past, present, or to
come. In connexion with the fact, we will cite an anecdote:--
A person more remarkable for inquisitiveness than for correct
breeding--one of those who, devoid of delicacy and reckless of rebuffs,
pry into every thing--took the liberty to question M. Dumas rather
closely concerning his genealogical tree.
"You are a quadroon, M. Dumas?" he began.
"I am, sir," quietly replied Dumas, who has sense enough not to be
ashamed of a descent he cannot conceal.
"And your father?"
"Was a mulatto."
"And your grandfather?"
"A negro," hastily answered the dramatist, whose patience was waning
fast.
"And may I inquire what your great-grandfather was?"
"An ape, sir," thundered Dumas, with a fierceness that made his
impertinent interrogator shrink into the smallest possible compass. "An
ape, sir--my pedigree commences where yours terminates."
The father of Alexander Dumas, the republican general of the same name,
was a mulatto, born in St Domingo, the son of a negress and of the white
Marquis de la Pailleterie. By what legitimatizing process the bend
sinister was erased, and the marquisate preserved, we have hitherto been
unable to ascertain.