Between Two Kings
Page 40
For your benefit, reader, I’d like to welcome you to my website, Swashbucklingadventure.net, where you’ll find news and information about this book and others, plus additional related matters of interest. I hope to see you there!
—Lawrence Ellsworth
About the Authors
One of the most famous French writers of the nineteenth century, ALEXANDRE DUMAS (1802–1870) first achieved success in the literary world as a playwright before turning his hand to writing novels. In two years, from 1844 to 1845, he published two enormous books, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. Both novels have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Author photograph courtesy of Nina Harwick
LAWRENCE ELLSWORTH is the pen name of Lawrence Schick. An authority on historical adventure fiction, Ellsworth is the translator of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Red Sphinx, and Blood Royal. Lawrence was born in the United States and now lives in Dublin.
OTHER TITLES OF INTEREST FROM PEGASUS BOOKS
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
by Alexandre Dumas
(Book One of the Musketeers Cycle, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth)
THE RED SPHINX
by Alexandre Dumas
(Book Two of the Musketeers Cycle, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth)
TWENTY YEARS AFTER
by Alexandre Dumas
(Book Three of the Musketeers Cycle, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth)
BLOOD ROYAL
by Alexandre Dumas
(Book Four of the Musketeers Cycle, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth)
THE LAST CAVALIER
by Alexandre Dumas
THE BIG BOOK OF SWASHBUCKLING ADVENTURE
Selected and Introduced by Lawrence Ellsworth
Notes on the Text of Between Two Kings
1. CHTEAU DE BLOIS: Blois was an old medieval city on the Loire River about 120 miles southwest of Paris. The sprawling Château de Blois, which dominated the city, was a royal castle occupied by Prince Gaston from about 1620 until his death in 1660.
2. ‘MONSIEUR’: By tradition at the French Court, the younger brother of the king and heir to the throne was always referred to as “Monsieur.” At this time “Monsieur” is Prince Gaston, the Duc d’Orléans (see GASTON under Historical Characters).
3. HALL OF THE ESTATES GENERAL: Under the Ancien Régime the Estates General was an extraordinary gathering of representatives of the three classes, or Estates, of French society: the clergy, nobility, and commoners. The Château de Blois had hosted the Estates General in 1576 and 1588, during the prolonged crisis of the Wars of Religion.
4. CHAMBORD: Just upriver from Blois, Chambord was the largest château in the Loire valley, built for King François I early in the 16th century as a hunting estate. Still stunning today, it’s one of the finest examples of French Renaissance architecture.
5. “MADAME”: At the Royal Court, just as the younger brother of the king was called “Monsieur,” so his wife bore the informal title of “Madame.” At this time Madame was Prince Gaston’s second wife, Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchesse d’Orléans (1613–1672).
6. QUEEN MARIE… CLIMBING DOWN A FORTY-SEVEN-FOOT DROP: The Italian heiress Marie de Médicis (1575–1642) was the second queen to France’s King Henri IV, who married her in 1600 in a desperate quest for an heir after the infertile Queen Marguerite was set aside. Exiled to Blois by her son Louis XIII in 1617 for rebellion, with the help of other conspirators she escaped in 1619 by climbing out a high window, after which she returned to plotting against the throne.
7. ‘MONSIEUR LE PRINCE’: Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1621–1686), cousin of Louis XIV and second heir to the throne after the king’s younger brother, was known at Court by the informal title of “Monsieur le Prince” (see CONDÉ under Historical Characters).
8. THE VICTOR OF ROCROI AND LENS: Renowned as a general, the Prince de Condé was widely regarded as the military savior of France for his victories over the forces of Spain at the battles of Rocroi (1643) and Lens (1648). The Battle of Lens, recounted in Twenty Years After, was the young Vicomte de Bragelonne’s first military action.
9. MY SISTER-IN-LAW: Prince Gaston refers here to Queen Anne, widow of Gaston’s elder brother King Louis XIII and mother of Louis XIV (see ANNE OF AUSTRIA in Historical Characters).
10. BILLET-DOUX FROM THE BODICE OF MADEMOISELLE DE HAUTEFORT: This refers to a famous incident in which Louis XIII, jealous of the affections of Marie de Hautefort, one of the few women he ever coveted, concealed a presumed love letter in her bosom, whence the king was too shy and prudish to remove it. Dumas provided an amusing depiction of the scene in chapter 74 of The Red Sphinx.
11. WE LIVE HERE IN THE PAST LIKE POLES: The Royal Court of Poland, east beyond the Germanies, was proverbially backward by French standards, though by intermarriage France provided monarchs to Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries. Poland returned the favor in the 18th century, providing a queen consort to Louis XV.
12. DON LUIS DE HARO: Luis Méndez de Haro (1598–1661) was a Grandee of Spain who succeeded the Count-Duke of Olivares in 1643 as King Philip’s favorite and leading minister. He negotiated with Mazarin the Treaty of the Pyrenees that ended the long war between France and Spain and led to the wedding of the Spanish infanta to Louis XIV.
13. WE SHALL RE-CROWN THEM WITH MYRTLES: In ancient times, military victors were crowned with laurel leaves, but a crown of myrtle, associated with Venus, was a symbol of love.
14. THE ESTATE OF THE COMTE DE LA FÈRE: Athos’s modest estate just outside Blois had first been introduced in Twenty Years After, where it was referred to as Bragelonne, presumably to explain Raoul’s noble name. (All French nobles were known by the names of their domains.) In Between Two Kings and subsequent volumes, Dumas referred to the estate as La Fère, apparently forgetting that he’d previously stated that Athos’s domain of La Fère was a county in the province of Berry.
15. THE TURMOIL OF THE FRONDE, OF WHICH WE FORMERLY ATTEMPTED TO RECOUNT THE FIRST PHASES: The first half of the multi-year rebellion of the Fronde formed the basis of the political intrigue between the musketeers and Mazarin in Twenty Years After and Blood Royal. See Note 45 below.
16. LOUIS DE CONDÉ HAD MADE A FRANK AND SOLEMN RECONCILIATION WITH THE COURT: After serving Queen Regent Anne of Austria and Mazarin as their general in the first half of the Fronde (1648–1649), the Prince de Condé had gone over to the Nobles’ faction in the second Fronde (1650–1653), ultimately losing when the nobles were defeated, then defecting to Spain. He commanded Spanish troops against France until his defeat at the Battle of the Dunes in 1658, which led directly to the end of the war and the Treaty of the Pyrenees in the following year. After that treaty, Condé was rehabilitated and accepted back into the French Court by Mazarin and Queen Anne.
17. PRINCIPLES OF LOYALTY TO THE MONARCHY, AS HE’D EXPOUNDED ONE DAY TO HIS SON IN THE VAULTS OF SAINT-DENIS: Athos swore Bragelonne to lifelong loyalty to the king in chapter 24 of Twenty Years After.
18. MONSIEUR DE TURENNE: Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Marshal and Vicomte de Turenne (1611–1675) was, after the Prince de Condé, the other great French general of the mid–17th century. After Condé went over to the nobles’ faction in the Second Fronde, Turenne, his former associate, stayed with the royal party, thereafter repeatedly defeating Condé until the Fronde was concluded with a victory for the royals.
19. A NOTEBOOK, ENTIRELY FILLED WITH HIS HANDWRITING: These are presumably the fictional memoirs of the Comte de La Fère, whom Dumas in his preface to The Three Musketeers had pretended to consult as a source for the story.
20. GOOD OLD GRIMAUD: The laconic Grimaud has been Athos’s “lackey,” or manservant, since The Three Musketeers. Like the musketeers’ other lackeys, Grimaud appears throughout the Musketeers Cycle, and eventually one gets the impression that this stoic but caring and utterly reliable man was Dumas’s favorite of the four.
21. MARSHAL D’ANCRE: Concino
Concini, Maréchal d’Ancre (1575–1617) was a handsome Italian courtier who was a favorite of Queen Marie de Médicis. During Marie’s regency after her husband King Henri IV was assassinated, the arrogant Concini was showered with posts and preferment; he lorded it over the French nobility and they cordially hated him for it, no one more so than the youth King Louis XIII. Luynes, the young king’s favorite, engineered Louis’s rise to power (and his own) when he orchestrated Concini’s public assassination in 1617.
22. THE SCHOOL OF RAPHAEL AND THE CARACCI: Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, “Raphael” (1483–1520) was a painter and architect of the Italian Renaissance, one of the “Old Masters” along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The three brother artists of the Caracci family of Bologna in the late 16th century rejected the dull Mannerist style then prevailing and hearkened back to the more naturalistic painting of Raphael, founding an art school called the Accademia degli Incamminati that pointed toward the innovations of the Baroque era.
23. MADAME LA MARÉCHALE D’ANCRE: Leonora Dori Galigaï (1571–1617), wife of Marshal d’Ancre (see Note 21), was like her husband a favorite of Queen Marie de Médicis. After the young Louis XIII had the marshal assassinated, his wife was arrested, charged with using witchcraft to enchant the queen, convicted, decapitated, and burned at the stake on the Place de Grève in Paris.
24. BRONZINO: Agnolo di Cosimo, (1503–1572) called “Bronzino” probably for his dark skin tone, was a Florentine painter in the Italian Mannerist style, and the portrait painter of the ruling Medici family.
25. ALBANI: Francesco Albani or Albano (1578–1660) of Bologna was a Baroque painter and student of the Caraccis (see Note 22) known for his bright, decorative paintings illustrating classical themes.
26. ANACREONTIC SIRENS: The Greek poet Anacreon (5th century B.C.E.) was known for his songs celebrating love and conviviality, implying the queens on the sign looked amorously inviting.
27. AS THEY REALLY DIVIDE INTO TWO RACES, THE BLACK AND THE WHITE: For Dumas, whose father was born a half-black slave in the Caribbean, the matter of race was complicated. Dumas burned with outrage at the injustices his father suffered in the Napoleonic years, and though he never pretended he wasn’t one-quarter black, the author was deeply hurt by the racist attacks of those Frenchmen who derided his “African” aspects. But young Alexandre had been raised in the bourgeois society of a small conservative French town, and though he flirted with rebellion and revolution as a young man, he craved even more the approval of the establishment. Deep down, he never really questioned the establishment’s fundamental belief in the overall superiority of the “white race.” Dumas was a man ahead of his time in many ways, but he could only go so far.
28. A PHYSIOGNOMIST: By which Dumas means the innkeeper can read men’s personalities from their faces and expressions. Physiognomy was an ancient pseudoscience that was revived in 1643 by the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) that was often invoked to justify the prejudice of first impressions. Browne also brought the word “caricature” into the English language, which should give some indication of physiognomy’s lack of subtlety and nuance.
29. KING’S MUSKETEERS: A company—later two—of elite soldiers, the musketeers were the personal guard of King Louis XIII and after him Louis XIV. They were founded in 1622 when a carbine-armed company of light horsemen was upgraded and given the new, heavier matchlock muskets as primary arms. Though their function was mainly ceremonial and to serve as royal bodyguards, they were sometimes deployed on the battlefield, where they fought either mounted as cavalry or dismounted and relying on their muskets. They are often depicted wearing their signature blue tabards with white crosses, which were adopted sometime in the 1630s.
30. MONSIEUR DANGEAU: Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau (1638–1720) was a longtime ornament of the Court of Louis XIV and one of his early favorites, liked for his wit and because he was such a dedicated cardplayer.
31. THE GORGET AND BUFFCOAT: A gorget was a semicircular plate of armor that covered the neck and upper chest; the buffcoat was originally an arming doublet worn under plate armor, but when full armor became obsolete due to firearms, it evolved into a leather jerkin typically made of thick ox or cowhide. The buffcoat of a gentleman of high rank was often heavily embroidered.
32. PARRY: The old man who served as the loyal body servant to England’s King Charles I and then his heir was first introduced in Blood Royal. He is an invention of Dumas.
33. PISTOLES: Pistole was a French word for a gold coin of the 16th and 17th centuries, usually Spanish in origin. The leading European states liked to mint their own coins, but gold was hard for them to come by—except for Spain, which flooded Europe with gold from its possessions in the New World, making the Spanish escudo the de facto base currency of European trade for two centuries. When Dumas’s characters refer to pistoles, they are mostly Spanish escudos. One pistole is worth about ten livres or three French crowns (écus).
34. A CROWN THAT WAS ALREADY SLIPPING FROM THE VALOIS TO THE BOURBONS: France was ruled by the House of Valois from the 14th through 16th centuries; Henri III, who ruled from 1574 to 1579, was the final king of the Valois line, followed by Henri IV, the first of the Bourbons and grandfather of Louis XIV. Henri III “stooped to betrayal and assassination” when he had the Duc de Guise murdered—see Note 35 below.
35. THE VERY SPOT WHERE THE DUC DE GUISE RECEIVED THE FIRST THRUST OF THE PONIARD: In the previous century, during the French Wars of Religion (roughly 1562–1598), the hardline Catholic members of the nobility, who wanted to crush the Protestant (or Huguenot) faction, were often held in check by the more moderate Catholics who were usually allied to the then-current Valois king. In 1576 a powerful and ambitious Catholic peer, Henri I, Duc de Guise, founded the Catholic League to organize opposition to the Huguenots and to King Henri III, who was regarded as too conciliatory toward the Protestants. The League was heavily armed, and more than a few battles were fought before Henri III had the Duc de Guise assassinated in 1588 in the Château de Blois.
36. LA PORTE: Pierre de La Porte, Cloak-Bearer to the Queen (1603–1680) entered Queen Anne’s service in 1621 and was for decades one of her most trusted confidential servants. The 1839 edition of La Porte’s Memoirs was one of Dumas’s primary sources. La Porte will reappear in an important (albeit nonhistorical) role in the final book in the Musketeers Cycle, The Man in the Iron Mask.
37. THE SCOTS… HANGED LORD MONTROSE, MY MOST DEVOTED SERVANT, BECAUSE HE WOULDN’T BECOME A COVENANTER: James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose (1612–1650), had been a Covenanter, or Scottish Presbyterian, and in the civil wars was initially opposed to Charles I before coming over to the Royalist side in 1644. One of the best of Charles I’s generals, he was a master organizer who won a number of battles but met defeat at Philiphaugh in 1645 and escaped to Norway. To support Charles II, he returned to Scotland in 1649, but was defeated, captured, and hanged by Parliament in Edinburgh—ironically, shortly before the Scottish government changed sides and declared for Charles II.
38. RICHARD ABDICATED THE PROTECTORATE ON MAY 25, 1659: Richard Cromwell (1626–1712), son of Oliver, became Lord Protector when his father died in 1658, but he lacked both experience and will and held the position for less than a year before being forced by the military to step down.
39. MONSIEUR DE RETZ: Jean-François Paul de Gondy or Gondi, Bishop Coadjutor of Paris and later Cardinal de Retz (1613–1679) was a political and militant churchman who was one of the most important leaders of the Fronde, and an important character in Twenty Years After and Blood Royal. He was awarded a cardinal’s hat in 1652 in an attempt to pacify him, but the gambit failed and he was exiled; Louis XIV eventually recalled him to Court in 1662.
40. FOUR FRENCH GENTLEMEN DEVOTED TO MY FATHER: That is, d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who nearly saved Charles I from execution in the preceding volume of this series, Blood Royal.
41. MONSIEUR DE BRIENNE: Henri-Auguste de Loménie,
Comte de Brienne (1594–1666) was the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1643 to 1663, reporting to Mazarin. A diplomat from a family of diplomats, he was a stable and steadying influence for decades, plus his wife was a close friend of Queen Anne’s, which helped maintain him in his influential position—until Louis XIV, eager to flex his own diplomatic muscles, replaced him in 1663.
42. CARDINAL RICHELIEU: Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu (1585–1642), Louis XIII’s incomparable prime minister, was one of the two most important Frenchmen of the 17th century, exceeded only by Louis XIV. Richelieu has been the subject of scores of biographies (including one by Dumas), and his life and works have been analyzed in excruciating detail, starting with his own Memoirs. His deeds were momentous, but it was his character and personality that interested Dumas, who loved historical figures who were great but also greatly flawed. After deploying Richelieu in The Three Musketeers as the worthy antagonist of his most enduring heroes, Dumas couldn’t resist revisiting him as a protagonist for The Red Sphinx. Though gone from the Musketeers Cycle after The Red Sphinx, Richelieu nonetheless casts a long shadow over the rest of the series, all the way through The Man in the Iron Mask.
43. YOUR FATHER’S BROTHER-IN-LAW: A reminder that King Charles I had married Princess Henriette of France, sister of King Louis XIII.
44. THE RUMP PARLIAMENT: After England’s Parliament was purged of royalists—half its number—by strongarm commanders loyal to Cromwell in 1648 (in order to try to convict Charles I), its remaining members in the House of Commons were referred to as the “Rump Parliament,” and so it was called until replaced by the “Convention Parliament” during the Restoration.