PARIS NOTES
July/August 2002
Volume 11 Issue 6
Dumas’ Digs
Author Alexandre Dumas' Doomed Château Now Celebrates his Riotous Life
By Ethan Gilsdorf
"You will design an English garden in the middle of which I want a Renaissance castle to be built facing a Gothic pavilion surrounded by water... There are springs: I want you to turn them into waterfalls." Such were the instructions Alexandre Dumas gave to his architect, Hippolyte Durand, charged with turning a hillside in Port-Marly, 30 minutes west of Paris, into a three-story pleasure palace.
Dumas had amassed a small fortune following the commercial successes of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Letting his appetite for adventure command the construction, his Château de Monte-Cristo was to be equal parts reality, romance and folly. But when groundbreaking began in 1844, Dumas had no way of predicting his dream’s demise.
The château’s modest size—it was no Versailles—was compensated by its wild reputation. Even King Louis-Philippe was said to be jealous of Dumas’ ability to draw the in-crowd. His housewarming party in 1847, intended for 50 guests, welcomed 500, while his poor peasant neighbors peeked through the iron gate in wonder. The grounds were populated with exotic fowl, monkeys and unusual dogs. Groupies hung about, leeching off Dumas’ goodwill and deep pockets, and hastening his eventual financial train wreck.
To escape the busy manor life, Dumas devised two solutions. One was a secret passage letting him flee the castle, as if he were a character in one of his own tales of betrayal. The second was less clandestine: a stone's throw from the larger house, he built the Château d'If, an even more fantastical, Disneyesque playpen surrounded by water. The retreat incorporates a mélange of anachronistic design elements—Gothic vaults and rose windows, Renaissance trim and brickwork, and rustic timbers. Stone blocks inscribed with his book titles decorate the facade. Today, you can cross its tiny bridge, though an all-glass door blocks the entrance to the "pavilion."
The main château's present incarnation is a tribute to the author. Rooms of art and ephemera are devoted not only to his literary career—novelist, man of the theater, magazine publisher—but also to his lesser-known pursuits—gourmand, hunter, world traveler. Framed satirical cartoons from prominent magazines of the day ridicule his reputation as a long-winded playwright (one depicts a child with the caption "audience member entering play" passing an elderly woman on her way out: "age after play is over").
On account of his numerous affairs, the Dumas family tree posted in one room looks like a subway map of lines and connections. A leather-clad, original edition of his cookbook includes recipes for kangaroo filets and stuffed elephant feet. Though his original furniture is gone, stained glass, herringbone parquet floors and lush wallpaper remain. The pinnacle of decadence is a Moorish room inspired by his travels to Algeria, complete with intricate plasterwork, enameled mosaics and Fez marble.
In 1848, due to personal bankruptcy, Dumas sold off his lavish furnishings, and the house itself a year later for one-seventh of its original worth. Over the decades, the entire estate fell into ruin until being rescued in 1971 and reopened in 1994. The interior finished, an ongoing exterior restoration project is realizing Dumas' vision of a "literary park," with pathways, caves, waterfalls, pools, uncommon plantings and an open-air theater built into the steep hillside.
Nowadays, a modern medical center, apartment towers and an unattractive welcome center encroach upon the property. Noise from the nearby six-lane highway somewhat spoils the overall grandeur. Fortunately, once you are inside the tranquil château, the traffic sounds fade, and it’s pleasant to imagine how Dumas once lived here. Or, how he might have continued to live, had he not dreamed so large.
>Château de Monte-Cristo: between Avenue du Président-Kennedy and Chemin des Montferrands, Le Port-Marly. Open: April 1-Nov. 1; Tues.-Fri., 10am-12:30pm, 2-6pm; Sat.-Sun., 10am-6pm. Nov. 2-Mar. 31: Sun., 2-5pm. Entrance: 5E. By car: A13 or N13 towards Saint-Germain-en-Laye. By train: RER A to Saint-Germain-en-Laye or SNCF train from Saint-Lazare, direction Saint Nom-le-Bretèche to Marly-le-Roi; then Bus CGEA 10, stop at "Square Monte-Cristo."