Sexy Lexy in Paris
Monsieur Alexandre Dumas (Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie) can be found in the Pantheon, or rather, his remains are under that grand building in Paris. He was laid to rest in tomb number XXIV.
Alexandre Dumas was not alone. Tomb number XXIV already housed an impressive duo of writerly blokes: Emile Zola lay to his right and Victor Hugo on his left. On the day of my visit, a magnificent bouquet of perfect, fresh, white roses lay on Zola’s tomb. A drop of water still sparkled on a petal.
On the wall outside the tomb, Hugo’s name was above Dumas - perhaps because he died later. Both Hugo and Dumas were born in 1802 but Dumas died in 1870, fifteen years before his friend. Zola was a latecomer to the trio, born in 1840 and dying in 1902.
Monsieur Dumas lay under the window, at the back of the room, between the two others who are planted on either side of the door. The cold-light window above him was small and rectangular, shining like an ice cinema screen. Almost as if the gleam from the window showed his soul beaming from the tomb. The walls of the Pantheon are thick, and the inner frame of the window was arched giving the window a double misshapen frame. Dumas’s grave was backlit, in the traditional position of power, where should he have chosen to interview someone, they would be forced to squint at him.
Although the yellow stone of the Pantheon was somewhat mottled and marked, each corner was sharp, each carved urn whole and clear, each curve continued and exact, the way the masons left it a mere three centuries before (building commenced in 1757). There was something theatrical about the lighting, the look of a film set or important opera, in the orange glow curves and disappearing perspective of the corridors.
I’d read a lot of Dumas; certainly the D’Artagnan novels, and The Count of Monte Cristo. He’d affected me, or rather his The Three Musketeers affected me, to the extent I wanted to create a new story exploring Milady’s young life, her prequel. I carried a grievous sense of injustice in the way he’d mistreated her, or rather, his male characters mistreated her.
Given the fame and popularity of The Three Musketeers, the various adaptations, the film versions, I was surprised I had never heard anything adverse about the treatment of this woman. Au contraire, children chortle over amusing cartoons of the musketeers, everyone knows that if it’s all for one then it’s one for all, while wearing a certain type of aftershave!
Dumas was a man of his time, of course, and his characters, those four musketeers, men of their time before him, so perhaps he had some excuses. If I could be bothered thinking of them. I just wanted justice for Milady – or at least a conversation - what do you think?
My compatriot in this day’s search for Dumas was charming Gabriel Ruderman, a talented artist of mime, magic, and puppetry. I met him the year before in Prague during the puppet workshop when he played the Prince in Cinderella. And so now you see The Little Prince in the Parthenon.
Gabriel lived in Paris and due to his international parentage spoke English easily. He was knowledgeable about travel and had no difficulty guiding an ignorant Antipodean through the mysteries of the city of light.
I was that Antipodean and at that time I only had one day in Paris to find Dumas. Gabriel and I had lunch and walked to the Pantheon. The Pantheon felt like a hallowed temple, a great church with imposing sculptures and tiled rooms with a sense of an underground swimming pool. The patterns on the floor were great tessellations of glory that reflected the shapes soaring into the heavens. There were depictions of battles and glories but for me, the attraction was only Dumas.
Once the tomb was found, seen, and snapped, the swirl of modern touristic humanity caught us up. We wandered off to explore the artificial caverns, following random tour guides. There was one with a pirate dolly on a stick. Perhaps she offered a kind of nautical tour?
As we strolled about seeing the names of famous men (and they are mostly men) engraved into the smooth stone, I realised my practiced ideas about asking Dumas for permission were wrong. It was Zola’s lovely white roses that did it. I felt guilty I had brought nothing for Dumas, no roses, no gift, no small token of esteem. Previously, I’d imagined that his tomb would be fenced off, in a hollow somewhere, like an old-fashioned lion’s den in a zoo. I had whimsical dreams of artistically dropping a feather quill that would drift and float and linger through the air to eventually lie attractively across his engraved name. But I didn’t bring a feather and one couldn’t get close to his grave anyway.
And hang on a minute, I thought, why should I give him anything anyway? What’s he ever done for me? Nothing. Well, not yet anyway (apart from entertaining me with his merry writing). So instead, I realised, I had to ask him for help. Wouldn’t it be terrific if he could act as my muse, my inspiration and guide?
I gathered Gabriel and we went back through the golden halls to see Monsieur Dumas. Gabriel tutored me on what to say en Français. I stood at the gate formally. Zola to the right, Hugo to the left (here I am, stuck in the middle with you) and I bowed and said, ‘Excusé-moi, Monsieur Alexandre Dumas … ‘ and was peremptorily brushed aside by a wave of tourists.
One smartly dressed fellow with short, blond, buzz-cut hair pointed his long lens, more I think at Hugo, but it might have been Dumas, and took up all the man-spreading space in the doorway so I went back to Gabriel and further practiced what to say. I was nervous. Elbowing aside the tourists and eventually garnering enough strength I directed my plea straight at his tomb.
‘Will you please help me?’ I repeated this sincerely in English to make sure it was heartfelt. I really did mean it too. I reckoned I was going to need all the help I could get. How could an ignorant Antipodean dare to think she might write an account of a French orphan, English migrant, eventual spy for Cardinal Richelieu, up to the time she became a victim of vile deception and murder? I had no intention of breaching Dumas’s storyline. I already knew I would lead up to Meung-sur-Loire and go no further than the Jolly Miller Inn.
I really did not expect the bolt of amusement that seemed to speed up from his tomb and power into my guts. Perhaps it was my imagination, or perhaps there might have been some ghostly power? I was just there to have made the request, perhaps to write about it, as now evidenced. But I felt as if his amusement was aimed directly at me. It was certainly positive and very friendly. I was greatly cheered by the experience. If anything, I was merely intending to ask for his blessing but really, I got a lesson; Lighten Up! Have fun! And even, ‘Amuse me!’
I went to the gift shop (normally money-magnet-mazes to avoid) and bought a postcard of him which I treasure. He was fifty-three when the photo was taken and looks very jolly. His grandmother Dumas was a slave from what we call Haiti, and he has her brown skin. He has a full head of frosty wiry hair, with moustache and goatee whiskers below his bottom lip. He has a rolling double chin, ample cheeks, and a calculating eye. Perhaps even a seductive, come hither, look about him. It is said he had around forty known lovers, often minor actresses. He looks very prosperous, wearing a waist coat under his jacket and a smart bow tie. I understand he was paid by the word which explains his productivity with the musketeer series. He is obviously a man who enjoys the finer things by way of food and wine, (he even wrote a cookbook!) and I also understand he was a fellow who liked the hunt and the cards – expensive tastes. The d’Artagnan series does go on rather.
His hands are interwoven in a way that makes me think of my fathers’ hands. WEP (William Pidgeon) once painted the portrait of the drowned (or disappeared) Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt. He used the men of our neighbourhood to give credence to various parts of the body. My father’s hands are alive and well in the halls of the Australian Parliament House.
Funny how the search for another shines a light into one’s own life.
I imagine Dumas might have been like some of the Australian tv writers I worked with in the eighties: Bill Searle perhaps, or David Phillips; genial, generous to a fault, funny and working all the time. David always took a hotel room in the Australian Writers’ Guild Awards nights where he hosted the best after parties. The medical research nurses at A Country Practice used to worry about Phillip’s blood pressure. ‘Oh,’ they’d say in worried tones, ‘Did you see him after he’d climbed the stairs? His complexion was florid. His liver … I don’t know how long he can go on.’ David was a bumblebee of writers. He’d go from show to show, Neighbours to GP to ACP and regale each writers’ room with stories of the last. He wrote from a bottle of whisky and at least one tv blaring-drip-feeding into his arms and head as they linked to his eighties computer. He had irons in every possible fire; his greatest fear and his biggest hope they’d all ignite at once. Bill was a compassionate, thoughtful, and fun-loving man with a mission to ignite understanding. If he could be subversive, provoke some thought, especially with First Nations, he’d give it a go. Both gone now, Searle and Phillips, greatly missed.
Dumas went from debt to great wealth to debt in a roller coaster that his friends (for instance, Hugo) would suffer and support. He built a small castle, like a folly, in the country; a memorial to his books (all in his name - some not actually written by him). It was a day’s drive (for him) from Paris, where, full of bonhomie, he told stories, cooked and joked and loved his many mistresses.
In his Moorish Salon, I could imagine him enjoying a pipe of hash before trotting out to his writers’ shed to turn on his literal flow of words - to the extent he never used punctuation. He employed secretaries to rewrite his outpourings into some legible, grammatical state. Having had the experience of sitting in writers’ rooms, story-lining for strip tv, it made perfect sense. The long arcs of Monte-Cristo, and perhaps, the life of d’Artagnan, could have come from a tv script team. He certainly employed a historian, Macquet, who first came to him with a book to endorse, stayed for years, helping through those historic novels. And, as a matter of cash, Macquet stayed ‘til he got paid!
In ‘The King of Romance’, F. W. J. Hemmings portrays Dumas as full of joie de vivre, and financial weakness. He believed his money would never run out. He lost his castle, the Chateau Monte-Cristo, (you’ll see, I’ll get there eventually) because he needed money, but finally managed to employ managers to see he was fiscally responsible.
I believed Sexy Lexy was with me in spirit, helping me find Milady, but as I developed the project I struggled to keep it light - searching for the chuckle - because I needed to understand her time. Not just swashbuckling but also plagues and epidemics, droughts and floods, deformities, poverty, and the enormous divisions in religion. It was the beginning of the Thirty Years War. I’ve got to be my own Macquet.
I want to find a way to honour Sexy Lexy, honour Milady’s (fictional!) humanity, honour story, and twisty plots and honour any reader who might stumble upon my efforts. I really hope you’re as amused as I hope Sexy Lexy might be!
Love the message from beyond and I agree with Dumas. Lighten up! You have as much reason as anyone to write it, own it and reshape it to your will ❤️
Loved this!