Continuing on the Alexandre Dumas père appreciation-fest, here we have images of him (two looking like they used the same source sketch) from 1840 and 1842, and an 1850s Charivari caricature of him as a Musketeer.
I’ve been twisting around in my head how to incorporate him into The Truth We Owe the Dead without being blatantly “everyone in Paris knows everyone else in Paris” about it, but there are very short degrees of seperation - Arago and Combeferre are linked in the text, and Arago reportedly ran into and spoke to Dumas on the night of the June Rebellion, apparently already knowing him. Dumas was also in with the Hugo crowd, knowing Hugo himself and having being sketched by Achille Devéria. So if we’re linking at least one or two of the Amis with the Bouzingo circles, and we know Dumas was a Republican, it is not at all inconcievable that they ran into each other.
Then there are the rather disperate reports of what he was up to on the night of the 5-6 June…whether he was really recovering from cholera, when did he run into Arago outside Lafitte’s, when did he persuade the Polytechniens that no, killing Lafayette was NOT a good idea…I’ve already referred to the Arago encounter in chapter two of the story, and am quite leaning towards an idea that may work all the reports in together. Next chapter will have a bit more Arago anyway.
oh gosh. this has made me very excited. i hope you piece things together!
bettercalllacho