Louise de la Vallière is the fourth volume in Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers series, at least, according to the Oxford World’s Classics edition. In the original French, it is the second part of an immense novel (about 2700 pages) called Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, which is the third in the Musketeers saga. The Oxford World’s Classics translation breaks this novel into three parts: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask, the final part, which is often read on its own. To add even more confusion, there is a recent translation by Lawrence Ellsworth, which breaks down the volumes into smaller parts. In that translation, there are at least eight in the series, and the part that corresponds to Louise de la Vallière is, as far as I can tell, the seventh, entitled Devil’s Dance. The new translation might be easier to read for modern readers, but I’m sticking with the Oxford edition, which is based on a 19th century translation, with introductions and notes by David Coward. In this edition, the volumes are, as follows: The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask. Despite some stilted language at times, the older translation still reads well.
This volume, Louise de la Vallière, takes place in 1661 and focuses on romantic intrigues at the court of Louis XIV. As others have commented, it is the weakest in the series in terms of adventure, but the strongest on romance. The four musketeers (yes, there are four, not three)—Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan—play relatively minor roles, and there are vast stretches in which we don’t see them at all. The novel includes several different subplots which run in parallel to the main plot. Several chapters will cover one plot, then Dumas will switch to another for the next few chapters, even though the various plots are taking place at the same time. And so, the novel is very complex and difficult to summarize, but I will mention the basics here.
The nominal hero is Raoul, Vicomte de Bragelonne, son of Athos, but even he disappears from the novel halfway through and does not reappear until the end. He greatly resembles his father, both physically and in his character: a noble man of honor and an excellent swordsman. Raoul has been in love with the title character, Louise de la Vallière, since they both were children, and they grew up together. At the end of the previous volume, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise became a lady-in-waiting to Henrietta, sister of Charles II of England, who has recently arrived in France to marry Louis XIV’s younger brother Philippe. Louise is from a noble but impoverished family. She walks with a limp after a childhood accident, and she is not particularly beautiful. As this novel begins, Athos asks the king for Louise’s hand in marriage for Raoul, but the king refuses his request because he doesn’t consider Louise good enough for Raoul and wants to marry him off to a woman of fortune. After this episode, Athos disappears from the novel, and you don’t see him again until The Man in the Iron Mask.
The Duke of Buckingham, son of the Duke of Buckingham who was assassinated in The Three Musketeers, has fallen in love with Princess Henrietta, who is usually referred to as “Madame,” while her husband, Philippe, is usually called “Monsieur.” Louis’ mother, Anne of Austria, who, as readers might remember, was the lover of the older Duke of Buckingham, has dismissed the younger duke from the court and sent him back to England. As he is about to leave, he quarrels with de Wardes, a young man whose father d’Artagnan had defeated in a duel in The Three Musketeers. D’Artagnan relates the history of his relationship with Milady, and with de Wardes’ father, to Buckingham towards the beginning of the novel, and that’s all you see of d’Artagnan until more than halfway through the book, where he plays a more prominent role in one episode (more of that later). Buckingham and de Wardes fight a duel off the coast of Calais, since Louis has forbidden dueling in his kingdom. Both are wounded, de Wardes more seriously than Buckingham.
For most of the novel, the scene moves to Louis’ court at Fontainebleau. This is a time when Louis, who has recently come of age, is consolidating power into his own hands after the rule of his mother, the Regent of France, and her lover, Cardinal Mazarin, who was the unofficial ruler of France during Louis’ minority. It is the beginning of what will turn out to be an absolute monarchy. D’Artagnan is loyal to the monarchy as an institution, but he does not care for Louis as a person. As readers of the previous volume, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, may remember, there are two rival finance ministers, Fouquet and Colbert. Dumas (and, by extension, the musketeers), greatly prefers Fouquet, who was a patron of the arts and literature, but also a lavish spender. He spends millions on lavish festivities at Fontainebleau and, later, at Fouquet’s own house in Paris. Colbert, on the other hand, is stingy with money and is also a conniving schemer, although he is not as evil as Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers or Mazarin in Twenty Years After. The Vicomte de Bragelonne detailed the political intrigues between the two ministers, and they continue, but to a lesser extent, in this volume.
As I mentioned above, Louise de la Vallière is more about romantic than political intrigue. Louis XIV, although married to the Spanish princess Maria Theresa, has fallen in love with his sister-in-law Henrietta (Madame). Her husband Philippe (Monsieur) is gay, as he was in real life, and there is no passion in that marriage. Despite that, Monsieur is jealous, because most of the men at court are in love with Madame. In addition to Louis and Buckingham, Raoul’s best friend, the Comte de Guiche, is in love with her. Madame is fickle and flirtatious and easily transfers her affections from one man to another. Louis’ attentions to Madame are starting to be noticed and, to distract the court and, especially, his brother, he decides to pretend to be in love with one of Madame’s ladies-in-waiting instead of the princess. He fixes on Louise, who, with her lack of beauty and fortune, is the least likely to attract the king’s attention.
Three of Madame’s ladies-in-waiting play prominent roles in the novel: Louise de la Vallière, her friend Mademoiselle de Montalais, and Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente. Montalais is a born intriguer, and she and her lover Malicorne, also a master of intrigue, have some of the best scenes in the novel. Their actions alternately help and hinder the romance of Louis and Louise, depending on what suits their own interests at any given time. Tonnay-Charente is the future Madame de Montespan, who will eventually replace Louise in Louis’ affections. As the three are speaking together one evening, Louise declares her love for the king, thinking no one else can hear her. But the king and his confidant, the Comte de Saint-Aignan, overhear them. Knowing that Louise loves him, Louis genuinely falls in love with her. Louis sends Raoul to England because he knows of Louise’s previous attachment to him.
Madame, of course, is jealous and does everything she can think of to separate the lovers. She, together with Anne of Austria and Louis’ wife, Maria Theresa, contrive to have Louise sent away from the court. When the court returns to Paris, they contrive an elaborate misunderstanding, which makes Louise think Louis no longer loves her, and she runs away to join a Carmelite convent. She is not familiar with the streets of Paris, though, and she walks in the wrong direction, only to run into d’Artagnan, who promises not to tell the king where she has gone. But he only promised not to tell the king directly. D’Artagnan lets the news slip to Saint-Aignan, after it turns out Louis still loves Louise and is very upset that she has run away. The men go to the convent to bring her back to the court.
Only reluctantly does Madame agree to take Louise back as a lady-in-waiting, and she arranges things so that Louise is never alone with the king. Louis, however, has a secret staircase built, with the help of Malicorne and Saint-Aignan, so that he can visit Louise in her bedchamber, or she can go to his. Mademoiselle de Montalais, though, contrives to separate the lovers once again by writing to Raoul in England and asking him to return to France. Just as Louise and the king are embracing each other, Raoul comes back and sees them together, and that is how the novel ends.
As I mentioned earlier, there are several subplots in addition to the main plot. One involves Aramis, who makes more frequent appearances than the other musketeers in this novel. Having retired from the musketeers, Aramis has taken vows as a priest and is now a bishop and a member of the Jesuit Order. He learns, from the governor of the Bastille, of a mysterious prisoner with a strong resemblance to King Louis. This man will turn out to be the Man in the Iron Mask. Aramis plots to replace Louis with the prisoner as king. To further his plans, Aramis convinces the dying General of the Jesuits to name him his successor. This story, of course, will be much more prominent in the next volume.
Meanwhile, Porthos, who had built the fortifications at Fouquet’s stronghold at Belle-Isle, but allowed Aramis to take the credit, wishes to be presented to Louis. (Fouquet has given the fortress as a gift to Louis). D’Artagnan agrees and arranges for his presentation. There is a delightful scene where Porthos dines with the king, who admires his prodigious appetite. Porthos, now the Baron du Vallon, is much in favor with the king following this scene. I think this subplot will be continued in The Man in the Iron Mask.
Another subplot is about Raoul’s friend, the Comte de Guiche. When Raoul leaves for England, he asks de Guiche to protect Louise. He suspects Louise doesn’t love him as much as he loves her, and that she loves someone else, but he doesn’t realize at this point that it’s the king she loves. De Wardes, d’Artagnan’s enemy from the previous book, returns to court after being wounded by Buckingham in a duel, and he insults Louise in de Guiche’s presence. De Guiche challenges him to a duel, even though, under Louis’ laws, dueling is punishable by death. The two men fight a pistol duel on horseback in the woods at night. This section is the most thrilling in the whole novel, and I couldn’t put it down while I was reading this part. De Wardes ends up running away, but de Guiche is badly wounded. The king sends d’Artagnan to investigate what happened. In this part, d’Artagnan uses deductive logic like a detective to reconstruct, very accurately, what took place. David Coward mentions, in his notes, that Dumas was a great admirer of the detective stories of Edgar Allan Poe, and that Poe’s stories influenced this section. (They were also a big influence on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, and sometimes I thought d’Artagnan acted like Holmes in this part of the book). Malicorne’s friend Manicamp comes up with an elaborate plot to convince Louis that d’Artagnan is wrong, and that de Guiche was wounded in a boar hunt. Louis agrees with Manicamp, and d’Artagnan goes along with the explanation so that de Guiche avoids punishment.
Louise de la Vallière moves more slowly than the other volumes in the series, but I greatly enjoyed the various romantic intrigues and the action scenes, relatively few as they are. It is not, however, meant to be read on its own. It is a bridge between The Vicomte de Bragelonne and The Man in the Iron Mask, and, as I said above, in the original French they were all one novel. I would recommend reading the whole series in order, starting with The Three Musketeers. As another blogger said, starting with any of these later novels (including The Man in the Iron Mask, even though that is often read on its own) would be like reading The Lord of the Rings beginning with The Return of the King—possible, but you would miss a lot.
If you have read the previous books, though, Louise de la Vallière is a compelling novel. Unusually for Dumas, there is no real villain, unless it is Louis XIV. Dumas disapproved of Louis’ absolute monarchy. Louise de la Vallière herself is something of an enigma. We don’t know how strong her feelings for Raoul are, and we don’t even know if she loves Louis as a man or as a king. As I was reading, I was angry with her at times for abandoning Raoul, who loves her so much, for Louis. I also happened to know that, historically, Louis would leave her for Madame de Montespan. There is an excellent novel about Louise, Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland, which I have previously reviewed, and she is portrayed much more sympathetically there. I would also recommend Dumas’ version of the story, but keep in mind that it is only a part of a much larger series.
Louise de la Vallière is available from the Hatcher Graduate Library and electronically from several different providers, including the University of Michigan.