by Alexandre Dumas.
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Original title: Twenty Years After
Author Name: Alexandre Dumas
ISBN:
Original Language:
Genre: Historical, romantic
Publisher: 2009
Current year of publication: 2009
Year of reading: 2018
Additional Information:
Abstract of the work:
It is the year 1648, twenty years after the events of
The Three Musketeers. The history of France has changed: Louis XIII and
Cardinal Richelieu have died; the queen Ana of Austria assumes the regency of
the country due to the minority of age of Luis XIV, of only ten years; the new
prime minister is Cardinal Julio Mazarino, of Italian origin, who maintains a
not very secret relationship with the queen; and the revolutionary movement
known as La Fronda is born, motivated by protests over the fiscal pressure
demanded by the Thirty Years' War. D'Artagnan has remained stuck in the rank of
lieutenant of musketeers, and for years he has not seen his friends, until one
day Mazarin decides to hire him as his personal agent. To this end, he will
urge you to gather the heroes of twenty years before, his friends.
D'Artagnan will soon find out that Porthos Du Vallon
of Bracieux de Pierrefonds is now a wealthy widower who lives on his hacienda
in Pierrefonds, bored very much and dreaming of new adventures. D'Artagnan will
easily convince him by telling him that with Mazarino he will fulfill his
greatest ambition, to be noble, insisting that the cardinal will make him a
baron. He fails with Aramis, now the Abbe d'Herblay (Aramis), since he is
secretly frondist, and apart from a lover of the Duchess Madame de Longueville,
prominent frondist. As for Athos, the Count de la Fère, who left the service to
collect an inheritance, now lives near Blois with his adopted son Raul, the
Viscount of Bragelonne, whom he conceals his origin, since he is actually a
natural child his and the Duchess of Chevreuse, formerly intimate of the queen,
and now frondist. D'Artagnan also fails to convince him, since Athos also
sympathizes with the Fronde. During his visit to his friend (to whom fatherhood
has rejuvenated), D'Artagnan, in addition to Raúl, will meet a character that
will be very important ten years later, a girl named Luisa de La Vallière.
The Duke of Beaufort, a prisoner in Vincennes by order
of Mazarin, manages to escape with the inestimable help of Grimaud, the
faithful footman of Athos. Mazarin, who already has D'Artagnan and Porthos at
his service, sends them in pursuit. D'Artagnan and Porthos manage to catch up
with the fugitives but then they meet with an unpleasant surprise: among the
men who help the duke, are Athos and Aramis, with which the old friends are now
enemies. Athos and Aramis intercede with the Duke of Beaufort, who leaves
D'Artagnan and Porthos free. Later, they meet in Paris, where they will cross
each other's reproaches, and even get to draw the swords, but Athos breaks his
own before crossing it with the one he always called son (D'Artagnan), so they
embrace and do the peace, being nevertheless divided into two camps.
Meanwhile, Raul, who has been sent by Athos to the
army of the prince of Condé, along with the count of Guiche, son of the Marshal
of Grammont, and after having fought in the battle of Lens, finds in the way a
supposed friar, whom he sends to aid in his last moments the old executioner of
Béthune, who is badly wounded in an inn. Very soon the supposed friar will be
revealed as John Francis de Winter, the son of Milady de Winter, who seeks
revenge on the six (D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, Lord de Winter and
Béthune's executioner) who executed his mother. He begins his revenge by
stabbing the dying former executioner and fleeing afterwards. Grimaud will find
him with the dagger stuck in his chest and hear his last words, in which he
asks to warn of danger to Athos and others. Faced with this, Grimaud returns to
Paris.
Later, the four musketeers gather at a meal, to iron
out rough edges, with Grimaud arriving with the news of the existence of
Milady's son and the executioner's murder. After separating again, Athos and
Aramis are reunited with Lord de Winter, whom Oliver Cromwell has removed his possessions,
and who is in the service of Queen Henriette, wife of Charles I of England and
daughter of Henry IV of France, sister of Luis XIII and, therefore,
sister-in-law of Queen Anne of Austria and aunt of Louis XIV. Enriqueta now
lives in the Louvre (which Anne of Austria and Louis XIV have left by the
Palais Royal), although in very precarious conditions, lacking everything. They
put themselves at their service, once they learn that Mazarin, for political
reasons, has refused to help her (he does not want the enmity of the new
English government, controlled by Cromwell), and they leave for England with
Lord de Winter, with the mission of auxiliary to King Charles I, taken
prisoner.
Mazarin, on the other hand, sends D'Artagnan and
Porthos with an emissary of Cromwell called Mordaunt. In addition, it will have
to face the revolt of the Fronde, that has forced to hide in precarious
conditions to the king Luis XIV and to the queen mother in the castle of Saint
Germain (in which D'Artagnan will have a decisive paper, orchestrating his
flight in secret) .
Bust of Charles I of England, king whom D'Artagnan and
his friends try to save in the novel.
General Oliver Cromwell, one of the leaders of the
opposition against Charles I of England.
After meeting in England, and after the death of Lord
de Winter at the hands of Mordaunt (who is but the son of Milady under another
name), D'Artagnan and Porthos decide to help, and if possible, free the King of
England from his possible execution, abandoning the mission of Mazarino, who
sent them to serve Cromwell. After arduous attempts, despite their efforts
(which include kidnapping the official executioner), they fail to save Carlos
I, who is beheaded at the hands of a masked executioner, while Athos impotently
witnesses the execution hidden under the scaffold, where he hears the last
words of the king (which will have great importance in the novel The Viscount
of Bragelonne). The improvised executioner turns out to be Mordaunt, who then
fills the ship with gunpowder where the friends return to France with the
intention of killing them, but he fails and dies when he is stabbed in the
heart by Athos, who in spite of everything tried to save him, in the water,
during a fight in the open sea, after the explosion of the ship.
Friends arrive in France, separating. D'Artagnan and
Porthos are persecuted and arrested, and Athos, after an interview with the
queen, by order of her and with the complicity of Mazarin, too. But Aramis has
been freed, allowing him to gather troops from the Fronde to free him.
Athos is locked in the same castle where D'Artagnan
and Porthos are prisoners, and finally, after escaping from his cell and
finding out the hiding place where Mazarin has the money he has collected at
the expense of France, they escape from the castle together with Athos and with
a valuable hostage: Mazarin himself. They take refuge in Pierrefonds and there,
D'Artagnan blackmails him to obtain several favors: the captaincy of
D'Artagnan, the barony of Porthos and a dowry for Raúl. All this is achieved in
an interview with the queen, carrying those conditions signed by Mazarin, along
with the demands of the Fronde, which is the end of the uprising frondista.
One day when passing the royal coach and being
attacked by the remains of the Fronde, D'Artagnan defends and in combat wounds
one of its leaders, resulting to be the Earl of Rochefort, who dies in his
arms, as he had predicted in The three musketeers ("Surely I will kill you
at the fourth"). Porthos in turn kills an old man and tells d'Artagnan
that the old man is familiar. Just in the last lines of the book Porthos
remembers that it was Mr. Bonacieux.
At the end of the novel the friends separate again,
but this separation will be definitive: the four will never meet again.
The book continues with The Viscount of Bragelonne,
also written by Alexandre Dumas Father.
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