Paris: Le Chateau de Monte Cristo
THE GUEST LIST for my imaginary dinner party of Famous Frogs Through The Ages changes by the week.
But one name that’s firmly on the list is that of Alexandre Dumas… wit, bon vivant, gourmet, intrepid traveller and writer of industrial output. Who better to make a soiréee go with a swing?
Dumas père’s novels include The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, La Reine Margot, The Black Tulip and dozens more blockbusters you’ll never get round to reading. Flamboyant through and through, Dumas spent his fortune as fast as he made it. Much of it went on the Chateau de Monte Cristo, the fantasy home and party pad he built in the 1840s when he was at the height of his fame.
Saved from destruction in 1997, the Chateau de Monte Cristo is a startling confection.The interior has been restored to reflect a man who lived life to the full (witness the bedazzling Moorish suite he installed after his travels in the southern Med.) In the gardens, guarded by a snoozing stone dog, is the Chateau d’If (pictured below), Dumas’ miniature gothic retreat. As creative dens go, it beats the garden shed.
Dumas was ‘mulatto’, descendent of a freed Haitian slave – which gives him some claim to have been France’s first black writer. And it’s a measure of the man that he claimed his greatest work was actually his illegitimate son, Alexandre Jr, who is rather less well remembered today as the author of The Lady of the Camelias.
Tempted to visit? The Chateau de Monte Cristo is in Marly le Roi, some 15 kilometres west of Paris, or a 30 minute train ride from Gare St-Lazare. From Marly le Roi station, take bus number 10 to bus-stop Les Lampes, and follow the signs. If it’s sunny, round the day off with a picnic at the Parc du Marly.
Now, who shall I put next to Colette…?
