Description of the attraction
Probably nowhere else in the world is there a square on which there are three monuments to close relatives at once. And in Paris there is one. It bears the name of General Catroux, but it could be called the Square of the Three Dumas - there are monuments to the writers Dumas-father and Dumas-son, as well as the oldest - father's father - General Dumas. They are not crowded together, the square is very large, in fact, it is the intersection of two avenues. Monuments stand on the lawns around the intersection. There is so much space that it was enough for the fourth statue - Sarah Bernhardt.
Alexander Dumas the father looks very picturesque. This monument, unveiled in 1883, is the last work of Gustave Dore. On a high pedestal, the author of The Three Musketeers is sitting in an armchair with a satisfied smile on his lips, a feather in his hand. Below, on one side of the pedestal, sits a motley company - a barefoot worker, a young man of a different kind and a girl reading Dumas' book aloud to them. On the other hand, the main character of Dumas, D'Artagnan, sat on the pedestal in a defiant pose and with a naked sword.
The monument to Alexander Dumas-son was erected in 1906 on the other side of the square. The sculptor René de Saint-Marceau introduced the playwright as he pondered over a manuscript, also with a pen in his hand. It is not by chance that the father and son were immortalized here, they lived nearby: the father on the Boulevard Malserbes, the son on the Avenue de Villiers.
The statue of the eldest, General Dumas, was erected on the square in 1913 after a long fundraising campaign led by Anatole France and Sarah Bernhardt. The general was truly an outstanding person. The son of a white nobleman and a black slave, one of the key figures of the French Revolution, who was not afraid to protect the innocent in the days of terror, the commander of the Napoleonic army, a man of enormous physical strength and fearlessness, he performed a lot of military feats and was a legend of his time. After the Egyptian expedition, he was captured in the Kingdom of Naples and was thrown into prison, where he languished for two years - Napoleon was in no hurry to save his tall, spectacular and daring general. In prison, the prisoner undermined his health and after returning to France he lived for only five years. The life of the elder Dumas subsequently inspired the son, who adored him, on many subjects.
The monument to the general was destroyed by the Germans during the occupation. They did not begin to restore it, but in 2009 they put a new one, the work of Driss San Arcide: huge shackles with a broken chain.
