Jason Waltz’s Reviews > The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo > Status Update

The French are such messy contradiction! From rabid revolution to (mostly) racial equality, sometimes, some places. From liberators to enslavers, idiots to sellouts, incompetents to zealots, no wonder they produced a Napoleon. As for our man Dumas, we seem to have gotten a wee bit off track as we got stuck in Egypt, but the chapter ends promisingly mysteriously with "and that's the last we heard from him for 2 years"

This has been a spectacularly informative and entertaining read.

Dang, Dumas rises and falls in extremes. The man was a powerhouse both militarily, personally, familialy, and almost politically. He could lead men from the front up mountains in the face of guns, stand alone to secure a bridge against numerous foes, share profound sorrow with his wife, maintain his patriotism, and effectively govern a conquered/freed people.

General Dumas was Da Man! Cool character, someone to have known.

Dang, the French Revolution was vicious - to its own people most of all. Dumas seems to have been a superb general and an excellent politician.

There truly is not much new under the sun. History begats history, and none can say the difference.

Le French, they were le cra-cra! Egads, the things going on in this country, in Europe!, in the late 1700s.

What an era of tumult! The family line is down to just the 'Dumas' name, the French Revolution has begun, the dandy is now a dragoon.

Fascinating history - of Dumas family, of France, of sugar, of slavery, of racism.

The double prologues deliver a terrific opening, setting the stage quite well.