A Visit to Dumas, by Kari Sperring

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At the height of his fame, Alexandre Dumas was constantly interrupted by visitors who had come to meet the great man and tell him of their admiration for his works. He was, by all accounts, both generous and sociable in his reception of his fans, and he enjoyed their praise. It pleased him that his books pleased others. But all the same he must sometimes have found all the interruptions frustrating. He wrote as he did everything else in his life - whole-heartedly, exuberantly and prolifically. His most famous books - The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, are still widely loved and read today. I have a postcard of him over my desk, smiling down at me. I've always been sorry that I have never had the option of sending him a letter, at least, to tell him how much his books have meant to me. I would love to be able to send him a copy of Living with Ghosts.

He died on December 5^th 1870 and for over a hundred years lay buried with his parents in Villers-Cotterets, a town to the north-east of Paris. In November 2002, however, the French government translated his body from there to the Panthéon in Paris, where he lies alongside many of the great men of French literature, politics and science. (And two women. Marie Curie and another lady who is there because her famous husband - whose name I completely forget - wished to be buried with her.) He shares a crypt with his friend and contemporary Victor Hugo. It is an honour that would have delighted him: in his lifetime he was disdained by critics and that always rankled. He was popular with the reading public but because he was of mixed race that did not sit well with parts of the literary establishment. It has taken a long time for him to receive the recognition he deserves.

Back when I was setting out to be a novelist, when I was sixteen or seventeen, I made myself a promise. I could not write to or meet Dumas, but I could thank him. I made up my mind that if and when I sold my first novel, I would go to where he was buried and place flowers on his grave. In November 2007, I went with my partner Phil to fulfil that promise.

Paris today is not the Paris of the musketeers, not the city that inspired my own city of Merafi. It was rebuilt and reshaped after the French Revolution, with wide boulevards and handsome neo-classical buildings. The Panthéon, in the Quartier Latin, was begun in the reign of Louis XV as a church, but not completed until 1789, during the Revolution. Instead of a church, it became a secular temple, a mausoleum for those considered to be the greatest thinkers and politicians. From the front, it looks like the original Panthéon in Rome, with classical columns and frieze, but surmounted by a tall dome. The interior is high and airy, bright and washed in light. In its centre, suspended from the dome, hangs a single heavy pendulum, installed by Foucault himself in 1851. It swings slowly and smoothly, demonstrating the rotation of the earth, over the scientists and writers, politicians and philosophers who lie in the crypt below. The crypt - as large as the building above it, but with lower ceiling and discreet careful lights - is accessed by a stair and is open to visitors. I had been to the Panthéon before, and seen Dumas' tomb, but this visit was different. When I arrived at the entrance with my flowers - irises in blue and gold, like the tabards of the musketeers - the staff seemed to know already what I must want. They asked me whose grave I wanted to visit, and, when I said Dumas, took me down into the crypt and opened the grille that led into his side-chamber. Then they left me alone.

Dumas has the end space, under the window where thin lines of daylight filter down from street-level up above. If you listen,  the sounds of the road - traffic, passers'-by - can be made out under the footsteps of the visitors to the Panthéon. Dumas, who loved life, lies where it can still be sensed all around. The day I was there, his tomb was bare, although someone had brought flowers for one of his companions. Standing in the gloom, I could smell their scent, sweet and drying. I had to stand on the plinth to reach high enough to place my own bouquet and the card I'd written to go with them. It read ‘Merci pour les mousquetaires.'

In the lobby on my way out, I bought the postcard. I don't know what Dumas would make of Living With Ghosts,  although I like to daydream that he would have enjoyed it. After all, he liked ghosts and mystery and swordfights, too.

Kari Sperring, Living With Ghosts, fantasy, DAW Books, Penguin Books