The Vicomte de Bragelonne is the first part of Alexandre Dumas’ massive third volume of the Three Musketeers series, following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. Originally, it and its sequels, Louise de la Vallière and The Man in the Iron Mask, formed an enormous, 2800-page novel called The Vicomte de Bragelonne, but in modern editions, this title refers only to the first part, which itself is very long, at over 700 pages. To make things even more confusing, there is a new translation of the whole Musketeers saga, which breaks up the volumes differently. It is not yet complete, but from what I understand, it will be seven volumes long. I have been reading the series in the Oxford World’s Classics edition, which breaks it up into the usual five volumes. It is a revised version of a 19th century translation. For the most part, it reads well, but I noticed some stilted language at times, more so in this volume than in The Three Musketeers or Twenty Years After.
The plot is much too long and complicated to summarize in detail, but here are the basics. The book takes place in 1660-1661, more than thirty years after The Three Musketeers and ten years, or a little more, after the events of Twenty Years After. Of the four musketeers (and there are four, not three), Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan, only d’Artagnan is still a musketeer. He is well into his fifties, and the others are even older. D’Artagnan still has the same sense of adventure and the same impulsiveness and tendency to leap into danger, as he did as a young man. He is frustrated, though, because, after all these years, he is still a lieutenant. At the end of Twenty Years After, he had saved the life of the young king, Louis XIV, and his mother, Anne of Austria, the Regent of France while Louis was underage, and was promised a promotion to captain. As we find out at the beginning of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, though, Cardinal Mazarin, the chief minister of France, who is an old enemy of d’Artagnan, has rescinded the promotion. Dumas portrays Mazarin as Anne of Austria’s lover, the virtual ruler of France during Louis’ minority, and a miserly, scheming villain. Now he lies dying, and Louis is eager to assume the full rulership of France.
The title character, the Vicomte de Bragelonne, is Raoul, the son of Athos, but he only appears at the beginning, and towards the end, of the novel. I assume he will play a larger role in the following two volumes. Raoul is in love with Louise de la Vallière, a beautiful, but slightly lame (because of a childhood accident) member of the French court. His father Athos, who is really the Comte de la Fère, thinks Louise is not good enough for his son and wants him to marry an aristocratic lady. By the end of the book, Raoul begins to suspect that Louise has feelings for someone else. (She is a real person and history tells us the man she has feelings for is the king.)
Much of the first part of the novel deals with the restoration of Charles II to the English throne. As readers of Twenty Years After will remember, the four musketeers nearly saved Charles I from being executed, only to be thwarted by that novel’s villain, Mordaunt, son of Milady. Charles II knows of the musketeers’ efforts to save his father and is very grateful to them. D’Artagnan and Athos, working separately and unaware of the other’s efforts, at least at first, are instrumental in restoring Charles to the throne. Charles had gone to Louis XIV to ask for his help. At first Louis is willing to help him, but Mazarin will not let him have the money he needs, so Louis refuses. D’Artagnan sees Louis as weak-willed and too dependent on Mazarin when he should be ruling on his own, and so he decides not to serve Louis anymore and leaves the musketeers.
When Charles II gains his throne, he rewards d’Artagnan for his help, and so d’Artagnan finds himself rich for the first time in his life. He buys himself a house and becomes a landlord. His former servant Planchet, now a grocer, who had financed d’Artagnan’s journey to England, is also rewarded. D’Artagnan seems content in his new life, but, of course, events will overtake him, and he won’t stay that way.
The middle part of the novel deals with complex intrigues at the French court and are probably the most difficult for a modern reader, unfamiliar with 17th century French politics, to understand. After Mazarin’s death, Louis becomes more decisive, and determined to rule the country on his own. Two rival finance ministers, Fouquet and Colbert, scheme against each other to become the new chief minister. Dumas is clearly on the side of Fouquet, who, although corrupt and extravagant, is a patron of the arts and literature and by far the more sympathetic of the two, at least in this novel. Colbert is ruthless and miserly, even though Dumas cannot deny his brilliant mind for finance. He never rises to the level of a true villain, though, and is not as formidable an enemy of the musketeers as Richelieu in The Three Musketeers or Mazarin in Twenty Years After. D’Artagnan, with Raoul at his side, stops a riot in the streets of Paris at the public execution of two friends of Fouquet, who are being put to death as a result of Colbert’s intrigues. The rioters threaten to burn d’Artagnan’s house down, but d’Artagnan saves the day.
Louis becomes aware that Fouquet is building fortifications on his island home of Belle Île, off the coast of Brittany, and sends d’Artagnan to investigate, promising him his promotion to captain if he is successful. And so d’Artagnan reenters the king’s service. When he arrives on Belle Île, he finds Porthos and Aramis there. The two of them had been missing entirely from the first half of the novel. Porthos is using his engineering talent to help design the fortifications, under the direction of Aramis, who is now a bishop and has ambitions to become a cardinal. The purpose of the fortifications is not entirely known and, I am sure, won’t be until later in the series. Aramis is suspicious of d’Artagnan’s purposes. He sends Porthos back to Paris to warn Fouquet that the purpose of his fortifications has been discovered. In Paris, d’Artagnan finally receives his promotion to captain, even though he did not entirely fulfill his mission for the king.
The last part of the novel has to do with the wedding of Louis’ younger brother Philippe to the English princess Henrietta, Charles II’s sister. Raoul and several friends are sent to meet the princess on her arrival in France. Among the group is a young man, de Wardes, who hates d’Artagnan because, in The Three Musketeers, he had defeated de Wardes’ father in a duel, even though he spared his life. His hatred for d’Artagnan extends to the other musketeers, and to Raoul because he is Athos’ son. Raoul ends up defeating him in combat.
Raoul’s beloved Louise has found a place in the princess’ entourage, and Athos finally agrees to their marriage, even though, as mentioned before, Louise’s affections seem to be straying. The young Duke of Buckingham accompanies the princess. He is the son of the Duke of Buckingham who had been in love with the queen, and was assassinated, in The Three Musketeers. Buckingham loves the princess. Her new husband, Philippe, is gay (as he was in real life), and there is no passion in their marriage, but he is still jealous of Buckingham and asks his mother, the former regent, to send him away from France, which she does. And that is where the novel ends, rather abruptly. Of course, it is to be continued in the next part, Louise de la Vallière.
Since it is only the first part of an immense novel, The Vicomte de Bragelonne cannot be said to stand on its own. Also, it helps greatly to have read The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. As another blogger said, reading any of these later novels on their own would be like reading The Lord of the Rings beginning with The Return of the King. The reader would be confused about what was going on. I recommend the book, but it should be read in its appropriate place in the series, and readers should realize it is only part of a much longer novel. Also, the action is not as thrilling as in The Three Musketeers or even Twenty Years After, and sometimes the novel gets bogged down in the intrigues of the French court. There is also no true villain, certainly no one like Milady in The Three Musketeers or even Mordaunt in Twenty Years After. Colbert is not evil enough, and de Wardes is just a young man looking to avenge an insult to his father and doesn’t even appear until the last 100 pages or so. Despite these criticisms, I still think the book is well worth reading in the context of the whole series.
The Vicomte de Bragelonne is available from the Hatcher Graduate Library and online via HathiTrust.