Chapter XLI. Wherein May Be Seen that a Bargain Which Cannot Be Made with One Person, Can Be Carried Out with Another.
Chapter XLII. The Skin of the Bear.
Chapter XLIII. An Interview with the Queen-Mother.
Chapter XLV. How Jean de La Fontaine Came to Write His First Tale.
Chapter XLVI. La Fontaine in the Character of a Negotiator.
Chapter XLVII. Madame de Belliere’s Plate and Diamonds.
Chapter XLVIII. M. de Mazarin’s Receipt.
Chapter XLIX. Monsieur Colbert’s Rough Draft.
Chapter L: In Which the Author Thinks It Is High Time to Return to the Vicomte de Bragelonne.
Chapter LI. Bragelonne Continues His Inquiries.
Chapter LIII. A Domiciliary Visit.
Chapter LIV. Porthos’s Plan of Action.
Chapter LV. The Change of Residence, the Trap-Door, and the Portrait.
Chapter LVI. Rivals in Politics.
Chapter LVIII. King and Noble.
Chapter LXI. Wounds within Wounds.
Chapter LXII. What Raoul Had Guessed.
Chapter LXIII. Three Guests Astonished to Find Themselves at Supper Together.
Chapter LXIV. What Took Place at the Louvre During the Supper at the Bastile.
Chapter LXV. Political Rivals.
Chapter LXVI. In Which Porthos Is Convinced without Having Understood Anything.
Chapter LXVII. M. de Baisemeaux’s “Society.”
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Introduction:
In the months of March-July in 1844, in the magazine Le Siecle, the first portion of a story appeared, penned by the celebrated playwright Alexandre Dumas. It was based, he claimed, on some manuscripts he had found a year earlier in the Bibliotheque Nationale while researching a history he planned to write on Louis XIV. They chronicled the adventures of a young man named D’Artagnan who, upon entering Paris, became almost immediately embroiled in court intrigues, international politics, and ill-fated affairs between royal lovers. Over the next six years, readers would enjoy the adventures of this youth and his three famous friends, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis, as their exploits unraveled behind the scenes of some of the most momentous events in French and even English history.
Eventually these serialized adventures were published in novel form, and became the three D’Artagnan Romances known today. Here is a brief summary of the first two novels:
The Three Musketeers (serialized March—July, 1844): The year is 1625. The young D’Artagnan arrives in Paris at the tender age of 18, and almost immediately offends three musketeers, Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Instead of dueling, the four are attacked by five of the Cardinal’s guards, and the courage of the youth is made apparent during the battle. The four become fast friends, and, when asked by D’Artagnan’s landlord to find his missing wife, embark upon an adventure that takes them across both France and England in order to thwart the plans of the Cardinal Richelieu. Along the way, they encounter a beautiful young spy, named simply Milady, who will stop at nothing to disgrace Queen Anne of Austria before her husband, Louis XIII, and take her revenge upon the four friends.
Twenty Years After (serialized January—August, 1845): The year is now 1648, twenty years since the close of the last story. Louis XIII has died, as has Cardinal Richelieu, and while the crown of France may sit upon the head of Anne of Austria as Regent for the young Louis XIV, the real power resides with the Cardinal Mazarin, her secret husband. D’Artagnan is now a lieutenant of musketeers, and his three friends have retired to private life. Athos turned out to be a nobleman, the Comte de la Fere, and has retired to his home with his son, Raoul de Bragelonne. Aramis, whose real name is D’Herblay, has followed his intention of shedding the musketeer’s cassock for the priest’s robes, and Porthos has married a wealthy woman, who left him her fortune upon her death. But trouble is stirring in both France and England. Cromwell menaces the institution of royalty itself while marching against Charles I, and at home the Fronde is threatening to tear France apart. D’Artagnan brings his friends out of retirement to save the threatened English monarch, but Mordaunt, the son of Milady, who seeks to avenge his mother’s death at the musketeers’ hands, thwarts their valiant efforts. Undaunted, our heroes return to France just in time to help save the young Louis XIV, quiet the Fronde, and tweak the nose of Cardinal Mazarin.
The third novel, The Vicomte de Bragelonne (serialized October, 1847—January, 1850), has enjoyed a strange history in its
