The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (Haiti) in 1762, the son of the Marquis and Marie-Cessette Dumas, his Haitian slave. In addition to being the father of French novelist Alexandre Dumas, he was the grandfather of playwright Alexandre Dumas, known for "La Dame aux Camélias", the source for Giuseppe Verdi's "La traviata". Dumas was born the son of a renegade French nobleman and his black slave in 1762 in the French sugar colony of Saint Domingue (the future Haiti); at the time of his birth, his father was living on the run from the royal authorities
Royalty Theatre of the Glen". In addition, Philip Carr's Mermaid Society produced Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Again, the theatre was threatened with closure by the authorities, but Santley had it rebuilt again in 1906 to meet safety requirements. After redecoration in French Regency style, which increased the capacity of the theatre to 657 seats, the Royalty reopened on 4 January 1906 with a season of Theatre Français directed by Gaston Mayer. Sarah Bernhardt led her own company in "La Tosca, Phedre" and "La Dame aux Camelias" in 1907. In 1911, J. E. Vedrenne and Dennis Eadie acquired the theatre, and in 1912,