Massacres du Midi
Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) "Peut-être notre lecteur, préoccupé seulement de ses derniers souvenirs, qui remontent à la Restauration, s'étonnera-t-il du large cadre dans lequel nous enfermons le tableau que nous allons mettre sous ses yeux et qui n'embrasse pas moins de deux siècles et demi : c'est que toute chose a son précédent, toute rivière, sa source, tout volcan, son foyer ; c'est que, de 1551 à 1815, tout a été, sur le point de la terre où nous portons le regard, action et réaction, vengeance et représailles ; c'est que les annales religieuses du Midi ne sont rien autre chose qu'un registre en partie double tenu par le fanatisme au profit de la mort, et écrit d'un côté avec le sang des catholiques, et de l'autre avec celui des protestants. Dans ces grandes commotions politiques et religieuses du Midi dont les tressaillements, pareils à des tremblements de terre, ont parfois ébranlé jusqu'à la capitale, Nîmes s'est toujours fait centre. Nous choisirons donc Nîmes comme le pivot de notre récit, qui s'en éloignera quelquefois, mais qui y reviendra toujours." Pour sa série "Les crimes célèbres", Alexandre Dumas nous raconte les crimes fratricides, dont les causes étaient religieuses, qui eurent lieu, de 1551 à 1815, dans le Midi.
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Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas (born Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie; 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père, was a French novelist and playwright.
His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. He also wrote many plays and, since the early 20th century, many of his novels have been adapted into films. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. He wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris.
His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, né Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an African slave. At age 14, Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, where he was given his freedom, educated in a military academy, and entered the military for what became an illustrious career.
Alexandre acquired work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, a career that led to his early success. Decades later, after the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. He moved to Russia for a few years and then to Italy. In 1861, he founded and published the newspaper L'Indépendant, which supported Italian unification. He returned to Paris in 1864.
English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his later life, described him as "the most generous, large-hearted being in the world. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth. His tongue was like a windmill—once set in motion, you would never know when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself."
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