Although Monsieur Dumas cites contemporary authority for the final catastrophe as having actually taken place, to assume that any other portion of Banniere's career, as traced in this story, is founded upon fact. Dumas is himself responsible for the plot so far as it is concerned with the fortunes of Olympe and her ardent and headstrong lover. But the scenes which deal with the conspiracy to corrupt young Louis XV., and force him to adopt a career of unredeemed profligacy, are founded upon indisputable evidence, adapted, of course, to the exigencies of the narrative. The authority of contemporaneous memoirs may be cited in support of some of the most improbable details; for example, the queen's coldness toward the king, and the various anecdotes concerning Mademoiselle de Charolais. With his usual matchless skill, Alexandre Dumas has so interwoven history and romance that each embellishes the other; and the result is a harmonious and intensely interesting whole, albeit the period was conspicuously lacking in those stirring, chivalric incidents which furnished the themes for the marvelous romances of the days of the Valois kings and the first Bourbons.
Authors
This note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils. Alexandre Dumas, père (French for "father", akin to Senior in English), born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were serialized. Dumas also wrote plays and magazine articles, and was a prolific correspondent. Dumas was of Haitian descent and mixed-race. His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas 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, a black slave. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, where he was educated in a military academy and entered the military for what became an illustrious career. Dumas' father's aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre Dumas acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, finding early success. He became one of the leading authors of the French Romantic Movement, in Paris. Excerpted from Wikipedia.
