Buste d'Alexandre Dumas

You are standing in the Place du Général-Catroux, a site affectionately known as the Square of the Three Dumas. This space honors three generations of a remarkable family, each represented by their own monument. The bronze figure you see of the famous novelist Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, was sculpted by Gustave Doré and unveiled here in 1883. He sits in his dressing gown, captured in a moment of creative contemplation. Across the gardens, you will find the stone statue of his son, Alexandre Dumas fils, the playwright behind The Lady of the Camellias. The most poignant part of this square, however, is the tribute to the first of the three: General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Born into slavery in Saint-Domingue to a French nobleman and a slave mother, he rose to become a general in the French Revolutionary army. His original statue, which once stood in this square, was destroyed by the Nazi regime during the occupation of Paris in 1942, with the bronze melted down for the war effort. A modern iron sculpture now marks his place, depicting the broken chains of a slave to honor his extraordinary life and his defiance of the prejudices of his time.