Five-minute digest
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.
Top 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.
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.
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.
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.
Verified Quotes
“Courtiers flatter kings with the remembrance of past distresses, as with the hopes of future good fortune”
“Now, I am not enough of a fool to wish to appear to have lost my wits before a friend like you, Athos”
“Formerly he said, “Mordioux!” which was a prick of the spur, but now he had become older, and he murmured that philosophical “Bah!” which served as a bridle to all the passions”
“it is the first lie I have pronounced in my life, a temporary lie, it is true”
“be kind enough to reckon every year of the Fronde as three years—that makes thirty; now twenty and fifty-two makes seventy-two years”
“People generally find they have been so,—when they die”
“Thirteen millions in my cellar,” said the king; “Colbert carrying my purse and D’Artagnan my sword—I am king”
“What! burn the poor devils who are only condemned to be hung? that is infamous”
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.
- 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.
- 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.