"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."
- Alexandre Dumas, French author and playwright, his father was the son of a French aristocrat and a slave in Haiti.
The French version is:
"Mon père était un mulâtre, mon grand-père était un nègre et mon arrière grand-père un singe. Vous voyez, Monsieur: ma famille commence où la vôtre finit."
In 2002, French President Jacques Chirac has Dumas' ashes re-interred at the Panthéon of Paris. Chirac remarked that Dumas was the most widely read French author.
