Five-minute digest
Ten Years Later
Summary
Ten Years Later is the second of Project Gutenberg's four volumes of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, numbered here as Chapters I-LXV (chapters 76-140 of the whole novel). It begins where the first volume stopped: d'Artagnan, spurs bloody from the ride from Brittany, reaches the Louvre an hour after Fouquet has made the king a present of Belle-Isle. His report is useless, but Louis rewards his zeal with the captaincy of the musketeers that he has waited thirty years to hold. From there the book becomes a court novel set in 1661. Henrietta of England, sister of Charles II, crosses from England to marry Monsieur, the king's brother. At Le Havre her two admirers, the Duke of Buckingham and the Comte de Guiche, nearly bring the English and French escorts to blows, and Raoul's tact keeps the peace. In Paris Monsieur grows jealous, first of Buckingham, whom Anne of Austria persuades to go home, then of Guiche. The spiteful De Wardes slanders d'Artagnan and Raoul and is humiliated by d'Artagnan and Athos; he and Buckingham later fight on the sands at Calais until the tide nearly drowns them. Raoul obtains his father's consent to marry Louise de la Vallière, now a maid of honour to Madame, but the king, asked for his own consent, declares her neither rich nor pretty enough and postpones the match. At Fontainebleau the court bathes, hunts butterflies and dances the Ballet of the Seasons. The king and Madame flirt so openly that, to quiet gossip, they agree he will pretend to court one of her maids. Under the royal oak Louise confesses to her friends that she could love no one but the king, not knowing he is listening. The pretence becomes real: after an outburst of royal pride, a night visit through Malicorne's contrivance, and a storm in which Louis shelters her under a tree, the king's passion for Louise is plain to everyone except Raoul. Beneath the courtship runs the political plot. Colbert manages the fêtes and baits Fouquet into offering the king a fête at Vaux that will cost millions. Madame de Bellière sells her plate to keep Fouquet solvent. Aramis pays the debts of Baisemeaux, governor of the Bastille, and visits a young prisoner in the tower called la Bertaudière; at an inn he attends the deathbed of the General of the Jesuits and becomes his successor. A lost letter from Fouquet to Louise makes Aramis suspect betrayal. The volume ends at Anne of Austria's lottery, where Louis gives the prize bracelets to Louise before the whole court. The comedy is real, but so is the cost: every alliance is now hostage to the king's desire.
Top Lessons
A pretence that becomes a passion
Louis and Madame agree that he will feign interest in one of her maids to quiet the court; the feigned courtship becomes his ruling passion. Dumas shows how games with the affections escape their players. Students can trace the stages from pretext to confession and ask who bears responsibility for each step.
Peacemaking at Le Havre
Raoul is at his best between the tents at Le Havre, where he keeps Buckingham's jealousy from turning into a battle between English and French escorts. Dumas gives him courage without swagger. Ask what makes a mediator effective and why Buckingham ends by offering friendship.
Slander and its answer
De Wardes insults d'Artagnan's honour and spreads malicious hints about Louise. D'Artagnan and Athos answer not with an immediate duel but with a cold exposure in front of witnesses, and then Buckingham takes the quarrel to the sands at Calais. Students can weigh the different responses to slander and the honour code that governs them.
Hidden power behind the festivals
While the court dances, Aramis gains the Bastille registers, the Jesuit generalship and a view into Fouquet's affairs, and Colbert maneuvers Fouquet toward ruin. Dumas places politics in the background of nearly every pleasure. The lesson is to read the volume in two layers and see how the private and public plots touch.
Verified Quotes
“I am your friend; whatever you would wish me to do, I will do”
“His own personal disappointment seemed contemptible, in comparison with the anger of the king”
“Fouquet bowed with a smile to him who, an hour before, was bringing him ruin and death”
“we die to save our friends”
“a woman who has truly loved is always young, and that the bloom of the girl of twenty years ever lies concealed in some secret cloister of the heart”
“You have ruined me,” whispered Fouquet, in a low tone, to Aramis. “I have saved you,” replied the latter”
“If I am not mistaken, that girl will become the strongest passion of the king’s life”
“but why desire that which can never, by any possibility, be ours”
Medical Lens
Two short episodes touch medicine. At the inn of the Beau Paon a dying Franciscan, secretly the General of the Jesuits, summons the local physician Grisart; after the death Aramis tells Grisart to empty the glass of 'what the grand council desired you to put in', implying the physician acted as an instrument of the order. Anne of Austria's suffering and her physician's opinions are mentioned as she declines. Dumas gives no diagnosis, and any identification of the queen-mother's illness belongs to history, not to this text.
- Ch. LI-LIII, 'What Actually Occurred at the Inn Called the Beau Paon', 'A Jesuit of the Eleventh Year', 'The State Secret'
The feverish Franciscan calls for a physician and a confessor; Grisart attends him and prepares a cordial; after his death Aramis's words reveal that the physician had been directed to add something to the glass.
- Ch. LXIV, 'Madame's Four Chances'
Anne of Austria, suffering acutely and losing her looks, finds her physician's opinions less painful than the neglect of courtiers.