The Vicomte de Bragelonne

Summary

The Vicomte de Bragelonne, as Project Gutenberg titles its first volume, contains chapters I-LXXV of Dumas's enormous final musketeer novel, serialized in Le Siècle from 1847 to 1850 and written with Auguste Maquet. It opens in May 1660 at the castle of Blois, where Raoul, the Vicomte de Bragelonne and son of Athos, brings news that the young Louis XIV will pass through, and where Louise de la Vallière and her lively friend Montalais wait among the household of the old Duc d'Orléans. Louis at twenty-two is a king in name only. Cardinal Mazarin holds the treasury and the policy, and he has just separated the king from his niece Marie Mancini. When the exiled Charles II of England comes to Blois to beg a loan, Mazarin's arithmetic refuses him. D'Artagnan, still a lieutenant of musketeers after thirty years, overhears the refusal, resigns in disgust, and decides to restore Charles by his own wits. He forms a company with his old servant Planchet, now a prosperous grocer in the Rue des Lombards, recruits a few hard men at Calais, and kidnaps General Monk from his camp on the Tweed, shipping him to Holland in a deal box. Athos, meanwhile, has independently recovered a million in gold that Charles I hid at Newcastle before his execution, and he wins Monk by honesty where d'Artagnan won him by audacity. The two plots meet, Monk declares for the king, and Charles II returns in triumph. D'Artagnan comes home rich, pays Planchet his profits, and buys a country house. The second half turns to France. Mazarin falls mortally ill; the physician Guénaud tells him the truth, a Theatine confessor tells him his fortune is ill-gotten, and the cardinal makes a show of giving it to the king. His death frees Louis, who discovers through the intendant Colbert thirteen millions hidden in Mazarin's cellar. Colbert begins his patient war on the brilliant superintendent of finance, Fouquet, whose house at Saint-Mandé is full of poets and borrowers. A rescue attempt at the Place de Grève, staged by Fouquet's friends under the cry 'Vive Colbert!', is broken by d'Artagnan, who believes he is preventing a lynching. Recalled by the king, d'Artagnan goes secretly to Brittany and finds Belle-Isle being fortified, with Porthos as engineer and Aramis, now Bishop of Vannes, as hidden director. Aramis outrides him: the volume ends with Fouquet offering Belle-Isle to the king as a gift minutes before d'Artagnan's courier arrives. The book is comedy, adventure and political education together, and it introduces the rivalries of king, minister and friend that the next three volumes will bring to a tragic end.

Plot or Argument

• Blois, May 1660 (Ch. I-XIV)

  Raoul visits Louise at Blois. The court arrives; Louis XIV parts from Marie Mancini on Mazarin's orders, and Charles II's appeal for help is refused. D'Artagnan, guarding the king's antechamber, hears everything, resigns his commission and is set free by a moved, humiliated young king.

• Planchet and Company (Ch. XV-XXII)

  Athos rides off on a secret errand for Charles. D'Artagnan, unable to find Aramis or Porthos, persuades Planchet to finance a speculative expedition to England and recruits ten adventurers at Calais and the Hague.

• Monk, the treasure and the box (Ch. XXIII-XXXI)

  In General Monk's camp, Athos leads Monk to Charles I's buried gold and, refusing to lie, wins his respect. D'Artagnan's fishermen seize Monk and carry him to Scheveningen in a box. Monk, released, keeps his own counsel and then summons Charles to Dover.

• Restoration and reward (Ch. XXXII-XXXVIII)

  Charles II enters London. After a fright about royal ingratitude, d'Artagnan is paid, meets the young princess Henrietta and Buckingham on the canal at St James's, and returns to Paris to divide the profits with Planchet.

• The death of Mazarin (Ch. XXXIX-L)

  At a gaming party Athos tells the court of the restoration. Mazarin collapses; Guénaud gives him his sentence, the Theatine refuses easy absolution, and Colbert guides the deed of gift. Mazarin dies at Vincennes, and Louis wakes as master, with Colbert as purse-bearer.

• Fouquet's world (Ch. LI-LXV)

  Raoul confesses his love for Louise to Athos. The king recalls d'Artagnan. At Saint-Mandé, Fouquet entertains La Fontaine, Pellisson and Vatel while Colbert moves against two of his financiers. The rescue riot at the Grève fails, and d'Artagnan collects a diamond from Fouquet and laughs at Colbert.

• Belle-Isle (Ch. LXVI-LXXV)

  D'Artagnan travels to Brittany disguised as a buyer of salt-works, finds Porthos building fortifications and Aramis in splendour at Vannes, and races back. Aramis reaches Fouquet first, and Fouquet gives the island to Louis before d'Artagnan can report it.

Characters

• D'Artagnan, protagonist

  A weathered lieutenant of musketeers who turns entrepreneur, restores a king for profit and honour, and becomes the crown's indispensable investigator.

• Athos, Comte de la Fère, d'Artagnan's friend

  The aristocrat of the old friends; serves the Stuart cause from loyalty, refuses to lie even to save the treasure, and receives the Golden Fleece.

• Raoul, Vicomte de Bragelonne, title character

  Athos's earnest son, a soldier under the Prince de Condé, whose love for Louise de la Vallière is quiet and complete.

• Louise de la Vallière, Raoul's childhood sweetheart

  A modest, slightly lame girl of the Blois household, briefly seen in this volume.

• Louis XIV, young king

  Proud, wounded and impatient at twenty-two; he learns from d'Artagnan's frankness and Mazarin's death what it means to rule.

• Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister

  Avaricious, shrewd and dying; his last days are a study of a man trying to settle accounts with God and his heirs.

• General Monk, English commander

  Silent, Puritan and calculating; the man who decides the restoration and who never forgives d'Artagnan's box.

• Charles II, exiled king

  Melancholy in exile, gracious and witty once restored.

• Planchet, grocer and investor

  D'Artagnan's former lackey, now a prosperous Paris shopkeeper whose cautious courage funds the expedition.

• Colbert, Mazarin's intendant

  Cold, exact and ambitious; enters the story by uncovering hidden millions and becomes Fouquet's enemy.

• Fouquet, superintendent of finance

  Generous, magnificent, reckless with money and loyal to friends; the patron of Saint-Mandé and secret owner of Belle-Isle.

• Aramis, Bishop of Vannes

  The old musketeer turned prelate and Fouquet's strategist, who plays a long game against d'Artagnan.

• Porthos, Baron du Vallon

  Strong, vain and good-natured; directs the fortifications without quite understanding them.

Lessons

• A lieutenant who tells the king the truth

  In Chapters XII-XIV d'Artagnan, after thirty years without promotion, tells Louis plainly that he has served badly paid masters and will serve no longer. The king, humiliated by Mazarin, lets him go and later recalls him. The scene shows frankness as a form of loyalty and asks what a good servant owes a weak ruler.

  • Why does d'Artagnan resign at Blois, and why does the king accept it?
  • Is d'Artagnan's bluntness disrespect or a kind of fidelity? Use his words in Chapter XIV.
  • What does Louis learn from this exchange that he uses after Mazarin's death?

• Two roads to General Monk

  Athos and d'Artagnan both aim to restore Charles II. Athos wins Monk by refusing even a temporary lie about the gold; d'Artagnan wins him by kidnapping him in a box. Dumas admires both, but the contrast sets honour and cunning side by side and lets students judge which methods are lawful and which only effective.

  • Why does Athos confess that he lied about the gold being his own, and what effect does his honesty have on Monk?
  • Is d'Artagnan's kidnapping of Monk justified by its result? What does Monk himself think?
  • What does Dumas suggest by letting both plans contribute to the restoration?

• A rich man's deathbed

  Mazarin's last chapters set three counsellors around a dying man: the physician who tells him the truth, the Theatine who refuses to absolve ill-gotten wealth, and Colbert who teaches him to give it to the king in a way that will be returned. Dumas makes the scene both comic and grave. It is an occasion to discuss restitution, repentance and the difference between a gesture and a change of heart.

  • What does Guénaud's 'medical calculation' about the years of the Fronde tell Mazarin?
  • Why does the confessor refuse to absolve the cardinal, and how does Colbert respond?
  • Is Mazarin's donation to the king an act of repentance or another calculation? Defend your reading.

• The riot that cried the wrong name

  At the Place de Grève Fouquet's friends try to rescue two condemned financiers by staging a riot that shouts 'Vive Colbert!' and burns the prisoners in d'Artagnan's tavern. D'Artagnan, seeing only a mob about to burn condemned men, breaks the riot, and the men hang. The episode shows how crowds are manipulated by slogans and how a just act can serve purposes the actor does not see.

  • What does the abbé's plan intend, and why does it use Colbert's name?
  • Why does d'Artagnan call the burning of men 'condemned to be hung' infamous?
  • How does Dumas use this scene to set up the rivalry between Colbert and Fouquet?

Context

The volume covers May 1660 to the spring of 1661: the last months of Cardinal Mazarin's ministry, the Restoration of Charles II in England (May 1660), Mazarin's death at Vincennes (9 March 1661), and the start of Louis XIV's personal rule. Real persons include Monk, Mazarin, Colbert, Fouquet, Gaston d'Orléans, Marie Mancini, the physician Guénaud and Fouquet's circle of Pellisson, La Fontaine, Gourville and Vatel. Fouquet did buy and fortify Belle-Isle, and Mazarin did offer his fortune to the king, who returned it. Dumas compresses dates, moves Marie Mancini's farewell (historically 1659) to Blois, and invents the kidnapping of Monk, Athos's treasure, Planchet's company and the Grève riot.

Composition

Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, ou Dix ans plus tard ran in the newspaper Le Siècle from October 1847 to January 1850, through the Revolution of 1848, with Auguste Maquet as Dumas's collaborator for research and drafts. English translators divided its 268 chapters into three, four or five volumes; this Gutenberg text, an anonymous nineteenth-century translation, is the first of four and covers chapters I-LXXV.

Reception

The full novel was a popular success in France and was quickly translated. English readers came to know its parts separately, especially The Man in the Iron Mask; this opening volume, with its English adventure and the comic Planchet partnership, was less often reprinted. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote an affectionate essay on the Vicomte as one of his most re-read books.

Comparisons

• Twenty Years After

  Twenty Years After ends with Athos and d'Artagnan failing to save Charles I; here the same friends restore his son, so the Stuart plot closes a circle opened at Whitehall.

• Ten Years Later

  The next Gutenberg volume opens at the very moment this one ends, with d'Artagnan's courier from Brittany, and moves the story from war and money into the courtship intrigues of Fontainebleau.

• The Three Musketeers

  The young Gascon who once fought for a queen's diamonds is now a grey veteran who earns a fortune by speculation; reading the two together shows what Dumas thinks thirty-five years do to courage.

• The Count of Monte Cristo

  Both novels follow a hero who gains great wealth by daring; d'Artagnan banks his reward and laughs at Colbert, while Dantès turns his treasure to vengeance.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The night d'Artagnan spends in the king's antechamber at Blois, overhearing Louis, Mazarin and Charles II (Chapters VIII-XIV).
• How Planchet's grocery accounts frame the English adventure as a business venture, down to the final division of profits (Chapters XIX-XX, XXXVII-XXXVIII).
• Athos and Monk alone in the vaults by the Tweed, and the cost of Athos's refusal to lie (Chapters XXV-XXVI).
• The three counsellors at Mazarin's bedside: Guénaud, the Theatine and Colbert (Chapters XLIII-XLVI).
• The race between d'Artagnan and Aramis from Brittany to Paris in the last chapters.

Key terms and names

Lieutenant of musketeers

D'Artagnan's rank: acting commander of the king's musketeers in the absence of a captain, unpromoted for decades.

Superintendent of finance

Fouquet's office, controlling royal revenue and loans; its holder often lent his own credit to the crown.

Intendant

Colbert's post as manager of Mazarin's fortune, from which he moves into the king's service.

The Fronde

The civil wars of 1648-1653 against Mazarin, remembered here as the years that aged the cardinal.

Restoration

The return of Charles II to the English throne in May 1660 after the Commonwealth.

Belle-Isle

An island off the Breton coast bought and fortified by Fouquet, whose fortification d'Artagnan is sent to discover.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How does d'Artagnan get General Monk out of his camp and across the sea?
2. Comprehension What does Colbert discover after Mazarin's death, and why does it matter to the king?
3. Interpretation Why does Dumas give the Monk adventure the form of a joint-stock company with Planchet? What does the business language add?
4. Interpretation Compare Athos's and d'Artagnan's ways of serving Charles II. Which does Dumas seem to admire more, and how can you tell?
5. Interpretation How does Dumas make the young Louis sympathetic at Blois and alarming by the end of the volume?
6. Big Question Can a man serve a king faithfully while working for his own fortune? Use d'Artagnan's choices to argue your answer.

Faith Connections

• Luke 12:16-21 (Scripture)

  The rich fool is told that his soul is required of him this night. Mazarin, counting his gold at the gaming table and then hearing Guénaud's prognosis, discovers the same question: whose shall those things be?

• Ephesians 4:25 (Scripture)

  'Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour.' Athos treats even a temporary lie to Monk as a stain to be confessed, and his truthfulness is what wins the treasure for its rightful owner.

• Romans 13:7 (Scripture)

  Render to all their dues. Athos insists that Charles I's gold belongs to his son and not to whoever finds it, a sharp contrast with Mazarin's hoard and Fouquet's borrowed splendour.

• Machiavelli, The Prince (Great Conversation)

  Louis's night of reckoning after Mazarin's death, counting money, ministers and swords, can be read against Machiavelli's advice on how a new prince secures his state.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A king who depends on a minister's purse is not yet a king; Louis gains real power only when Mazarin dies and he commands both money (Colbert) and loyal force (d'Artagnan); meanwhile private men of courage restore a foreign king by honour and daring that the French court refused to risk; therefore the volume sets personal virtue and personal enterprise against the calculating statecraft that will dominate the rest of the novel.

Rhetorical device: dramatic irony. At the Place de Grève in Chapter LXII the crowd shouts 'Vive Colbert!' while trying to save Fouquet's men, and d'Artagnan, who cannot hear the plan behind the slogan, defeats the rescue; the reader understands more than the hero.

Debate: Resolved: that d'Artagnan's kidnapping of General Monk was an honourable act.

Memory Work

Courtiers flatter kings with the remembrance of past distresses, as with the hopes of future good fortune

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace d'Artagnan from his resignation at Blois to his recall by the king. Argue whether he changes, or whether the king and the circumstances change around him.

Comparison with Twenty Years After: Twenty Years After ends with the execution of Charles I in spite of the musketeers' efforts. Compare that failure with the success of this volume's Stuart adventure, and explain what has changed in the friends and in their methods.

Medical Lens

The death of Mazarin (Chapters XLII-XLIX) is an extended portrait of a seventeenth-century court physician and of a public deathbed. Guénaud, a real physician to the court, finds gout 'with complications', reads the pulse, and breaks the prognosis by reckoning each year of the Fronde as three or four years of age; he has known the secret for two months and kept it. The scenes show prognosis as a matter of tact and status, and a dying statesman who has himself dressed and painted to receive ambassadors. Dumas's account is a novelist's reconstruction, not a clinical record.

• Ch. XLII-XLIII, 'In which Mazarin becomes Prodigal' and 'Guenaud'

  Mazarin collapses after a fright at his gaming party and sends for Guénaud, who examines him, diagnoses gout with complications, and tells him he is dying by a roundabout calculation of age.

  Physicians Doctors Aging Senescence
• Ch. XLV-XLVI, 'Confession of a Man of Wealth' and 'The Donation'

  The dying cardinal confesses to a Theatine, who will not absolve ill-gotten wealth, and then signs a deed of gift under Colbert's direction.

  Death Dying
• Ch. XLVIII-XLIX, 'Agony' and 'The First Appearance of Colbert'

  Mazarin is carried to Vincennes, takes leave of the king, and insists on being dressed and painted before the end; the king waits through the night for his own liberty.

  Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Draw a two-column map of the English adventure: Athos's route and d'Artagnan's route to Monk, with the chapter in which each plan succeeds and the virtue or skill it depends on.

• Essay

  Compare the two counsellors at Mazarin's deathbed, the Theatine and Colbert. Which gives better counsel, and what does Dumas's handling of the scene suggest about wealth and repentance?

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Monk and d'Artagnan on the voyage back from Holland that Dumas leaves almost silent, using only what each man knows at that point.

• Fiction

  Tell the Grève riot from the point of view of one of the two condemned financiers, who knows a rescue is planned and sees it fail.

Further Reading

• Twenty Years After, Alexandre Dumas

  The preceding novel, ending with the death of Charles I.

• Ten Years Later, Alexandre Dumas

  The second Gutenberg volume of the same novel.

• A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas's, Robert Louis Stevenson

  Stevenson's essay (in Memories and Portraits, 1887) on his love for the Vicomte.

• Louis XIV, Vincent Cronin

  Readable biography covering Mazarin's death, Fouquet and Colbert.