Court of Daggers

Episode 1

Court of Daggers

~ or ~

The Vicomte de Bragelonne

By Alexandre Dumas

Edited and Translated by Lawrence Ellsworth

Episode One

Introduction and Chapter I

Introduction

By Lawrence Ellsworth

Court of Daggers is the second volume of Alexandre Dumas’s mega-novel Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, his epic conclusion to the lives and adventures of the author’s most beloved characters, the Four Musketeers, as well as their friends, families, allies, and enemies. Published in serial form in the Parisian weekly papers over three and a half years, the sprawling Bragelonne’s ensemble cast, interleaved episodes, and long character arcs were an innovation in the modern novel form that hearkened back to earlier eras, to the serial pastorals of the 17th century and the French Arthurian epics of the 13th. Dumas’s experimental approach opened up the form from the conventional structure used in The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, utilizing extended storytelling methods that prefigured 21st-century long-form television series such as Game of Thrones, Deadwood, and Westworld.

The previous volume in this series, Between Two Kings, belonged to d’Artagnan, telling the tale of his swashbuckling escapade in England that restored the throne to Charles II. In Court of Daggers, the focus widens to the now-adult King Louis XIV and the key members of his newly established royal court, all vying for power and prestige in Dumas’s intricate and interlaced web. Moving from viewpoint to viewpoint, the great storyteller introduces or expands upon the plots of d’Artagnan and Aramis, now covertly opposed to each other, of the money men Fouquet and Colbert, the romantic rivals Buckingham and de Guiche, the mismatched royal couple Madame Henrietta and Monsieur Philippe, courtiers and lovers Montalais and Malicorne, and the young demoiselle Louise de La Vallière, all come to pursue their ambitions at the Court of Louis XIV in the orbit of a young king who is the most ambitious of any of them.

Amid the intrigues of these many agendas and aspirations, one character stands out from the others: the son of Athos, Vicomte Raoul de Bragelonne. Court of Daggers is his book, depicting the previously rather passive Raoul now come into full maturity, combining Athos’s nobility and stoic resolve with d’Artagnan’s convincing eloquence and even more convincing mastery of arms. Amid the overwrought passions of love and hatred swirling around the young king, Raoul emerges as the calm voice of sanity; when Buckingham, de Guiche, or de Wardes is about to commit some rash and unforgiveable act, it’s Raoul who stops them with sheer moral force—and if that isn’t enough, with a judicious flick of his sword. After having been lectured by his idol, d’Artagnan, for his naïveté for three volumes, Raoul even respectfully reproaches the musketeer when d’Artagnan contemplates defying their newly ascendant king.

There’s only one force Raoul cannot master: his own heart. In this he is also his father’s son, for in his youth, Athos had conceived an all-consuming passion for a young woman named Anne de Breuil—and when she betrayed him, he killed her. (Or so he thought: she survived and returned as Milady de Winter.) Raoul in his turn is devoted to the young and innocent Louise de La Vallière, but it’s a devotion that’s possessive and borders on obsession. When Athos asks his son what he would do if he discovered he had a rival for Louise’s affection, Raoul simply says he would kill him.

Le Vicomte de Bragelonne is a novel of the Romantic Era, and in the tropes of that time obsessive love always leads to tragedy. Court of Daggers establishes Raoul’s admirable traits, his courage, resolution, loyal heart, and dedication to a knightly code of honor. This book is his, but the next volume belongs to Louise de La Vallière, and in it she’ll display her own strengths—and Raoul will find himself faced with a rival he cannot kill without betraying himself.

What Has Gone Before

The previous volume, Between Two Kings, commenced ten years after the events of Blood Royal but continued that book’s plots and themes. D’Artagnan had achieved the rank of Captain of the King’s Musketeers at the end of Blood Royal, but in the interim, with the end of the rebellion of the Fronde, the promotion had been rescinded and d’Artagnan had returned to serving in the lower rank of lieutenant. With his three comrades once again scattered, and France at peace under the able but miserly rule of Cardinal Mazarin, d’Artagnan was bored. The young King Louis XIV had technically reached the age of majority, but in practice the duo of Queen Anne and Mazarin held onto the power of the regency and Louis lacked all authority.

In England, following the execution of King Charles I, a fate the Four Musketeers had tried to forestall, the country had been ruled by Oliver Cromwell while the late king’s son and heir, Charles II, lived in exile in the Netherlands. After Cromwell’s death, rule of England was contested by two factions led by military leaders, Generals Monck and Lambert. In this division Charles II, though destitute, thought he saw an opportunity to regain the throne, and secretly visited Louis XIV to ask for his support in either money or troops. Louis wanted to help but the idea was quashed by Mazarin, and Charles was turned away.

As commander of the king’s guards, d’Artagnan overheard the whole thing. Furious and disgusted with his French masters, he decided to take action himself on Charles’s behalf, and resigned his position in the musketeers to do it. Bankrolled by his former lackey Planchet, now a successful Paris business owner, d’Artagnan conceived a bold exploit: with a few hired rogues, he would infiltrate Monck’s army, abduct the general, and conduct him to Charles II in Holland, where the king-in-exile could decide how best to take advantage of the situation.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to d’Artagnan, in France Charles had encountered the musketeer’s old comrade Athos, who was keeper of a secret legacy confided to him on the scaffold by King Charles I: the location of a hidden cache of a million in gold to be spent to restore the Stuarts to the throne. Athos revealed this secret to Charles and undertook to personally recover the treasure—from the middle of General Monck’s army.

By courage, wit, and luck, both d’Artagnan’s and Athos’s interlocking schemes were successful. Monck was convinced to support the restoration of the no-longer-destitute Charles II, England became a monarchy once more, and its young monarch was grateful to both musketeers, rewarding Athos with knightly honors and d’Artagnan with a moderate fortune. D’Artagnan was introduced to Charles’s sister, the lively Princess Henrietta, and also met the young second Duke of Buckingham, who was hopelessly smitten with Henrietta.

Meanwhile, in France, Cardinal Mazarin had died, and aspirants jockeyed to fill the resulting power vacuum. Mazarin had ruled France by controlling the public funds, and Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finance, intended to continue that policy and step into Mazarin’s shoes. But Louis XIV, finally freed from Mazarin’s grip, wanted to rule on his own behalf rather than through ministers, which meant he’d need control of his own sources of wealth. Louis allied with the conniving but capable Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Mazarin’s financier, who gave him access to the cardinal’s hidden millions. That went a long way toward solving the king’s money problem, but to rule, Louis would need a strong right arm as well. Learning of d’Artagnan’s role in the Restoration of Charles II, Louis resolved to bring d’Artagnan back to his side and finally take full advantage of his talents. As Louis said in the novel’s final words, “Colbert holding my purse and d’Artagnan wielding my sword: I am king!”

A Note on the Translation of Court of Daggers

The 44 chapters of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne that comprise Court of Daggers were first published in 1848 in Le Siècle, a Parisian weekly. They were collected almost immediately into book form by the publisher Michel Lévy Frères in Paris, followed just as rapidly by the first English translation by Thomas Williams, an American, for publisher W.E. Dean of New York. When Bragelonne was completed in 1851 a full translation was published by Thomas Pederson of Philadelphia, followed in 1893 by another complete version by yet another American, H.L. Williams. These Victorian-era translations, endlessly reprinted, have been the only versions of the first four volumes of Bragelonne available for over a century. Those early translators did their work well, but they were writing for a market that was uncomfortable with frank depictions of violence and sexuality. Moreover, they employed a style of elevated diction that, though deemed appropriate for historical novels in the 19th century, seems stiff, stodgy, and passive to today’s readers. It also does a disservice to Dumas’s writing style, which was quite dynamic for its time, fast paced and with sharp, naturalistic dialogue. Court of Daggers, the first significant new translation of this part of the work in over a century, attempts to restore Dumas’s edge and élan, aiming as well to recapture some of the bawdy humor lost in the Victorian versions. I hope you enjoy it.

Historical Character Note

The first time a notable character from history is mentioned in the text, their name is marked with an asterisk.* A brief paragraph describing that person appears in the Historical Characters appendix at the end of the episode.

Chapter I

A Passion

On the day of his arrival in Paris, upon returning from the Palais Royal,1 Athos* returned to his lodgings on Rue Saint-Honoré. There he found the Vicomte de Bragelonne* waiting for him in his rooms and chatting with Grimaud.2

It was no easy thing to converse with the old servant, and only two men possessed the secret: Athos and d’Artagnan.* The first succeeded because Grimaud wanted to get him to speak; d’Artagnan, on the contrary, because he knew how to make Grimaud talk.

Raoul was trying to get the story of the journey to England out of Grimaud, who had told it in all its detail by way of gestures and about eight words, more or less. He had first indicated, by a sinuous wave of his hand, that he and his master had gone across the sea. “On some mission?” Raoul had asked.

Grimaud, in bowing his head, replied yes.

“In which Monsieur le Comte went into danger?” asked Raoul.

Grimaud shrugged his shoulders slightly as if to say, not too much.

“But still, there was danger!” insisted Raoul.

Grimaud pointed to a sword, the fire, and a musket hanging on the wall.

“Then, Monsieur le Comte had an enemy there?” cried Raoul.

“Monck,”3 Grimaud replied.

“It’s strange,” continued Raoul, “that Monsieur le Comte persists in regarding me as a novice, refusing to share with me the honor and danger of these missions.”

Grimaud smiled.

At that moment Athos returned. The hotelier lit his way up the stairway, and Grimaud, recognizing his master’s footsteps, ran to meet him, which cut the conversation short.

But Raoul had begun asking questions and wasn’t about to stop. Gripping the count’s hands with tender respect, he said, “How is it, Monsieur, that you can go on a dangerous mission without bidding me farewell, let alone asking me to aid you with my sword—me, who should be your main support while in the strength of my youth? Me, whom you raised to act like a man? Ah, Monsieur! Would you risk putting me through the cruel ordeal of never seeing you again?”

“Who told you, Raoul, that my journey was dangerous?” replied the count, placing his cloak and hat in the arms of Grimaud, who had just removed his sword.

“Me,” said Grimaud.

“And why is that?” asked Athos severely.

Grimaud was embarrassed; Raoul tried to come to his rescue by replying: “It’s natural, Monsieur, for our good Grimaud to tell me the truth when it concerns you. By whom will you be loved and supported if not by me?”

Athos made no reply. He dismissed Grimaud with a friendly gesture, then sat in an armchair while Raoul, still standing, hovered over him. “Besides,” Raoul continued, “it wasn’t just a journey, it was a mission … one on which you were threatened by iron and fire.”

“No need to speak of that, Viscount,” said Athos softly. “I left quickly, it’s true, but the service of King Charles II* required an urgent departure. As for your concern, I thank you for it, and I know I can count on you. Did you lack anything during my absence, Viscount?”

“Nothing, Monsieur, thank you.”

“I had ordered Blaisois to issue you a hundred pistoles4 if you needed money.”

“Monsieur, I haven’t seen Blaisois.”

“Did you run short of money, then?”

“Monsieur, I had thirty pistoles left from the sale of the horses I captured in my last campaign, and Monsieur le Prince de Condé* had the kindness to let me win two hundred more at his card table three months ago.”

“You, gambling? I don’t like that, Raoul.”

“I never gamble, Monsieur, but in Chantilly Monsieur le Prince had me hold his cards for him one night while he received a courier from the king. I played and won, and the prince told me to keep the winnings.”

“Is that the custom in his household, Raoul?” said Athos, frowning.

“Yes, Monsieur; every week Monsieur le Prince finds one excuse or another to let one of his gentlemen win some money. His Highness has fifty gentlemen, and my turn came up.”

“Very well! You went to Spain for the royal wedding?”5

“Yes, Monsieur, it was a lovely trip, and very interesting.”

“And you’ve been back for about a month?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“And during that month?”

“During the month?”

“Yes, what did you do?”

“My duty, Monsieur.”

“You haven’t gone home to La Fère?”

Raoul blushed. Athos gave his son a look direct but calm.

“You would be wrong not to believe me,” said Raoul. “I blush because of my feelings despite myself. The question you do me the honor to ask me is bound to raise such emotions; I blush because I’m moved, not because I lie.”

“I know, Raoul, that you never lie.”

“No, Monsieur.”

“Besides, mon ami, you might be wrong about what I’m asking you….”

“I know what you mean, Monsieur—you want to know if I’ve been to Blois.”

“That’s it.”

“I didn’t go; I haven’t seen the person you’re alluding to.”

Raoul’s voice trembled as he said this. Athos, sensitive in delicate matters, immediately added, “Raoul, I see your feelings are wounded; you’re suffering.”

“A great deal, Monsieur—since you forbade me to go to Blois and see Mademoiselle de La Vallière* again.”

There the young man stopped; that sweet name, so lovely to say, tore his heart as it passed over his lips.

“And I did the right thing,” said Athos hastily. “I’m not a cruel or unjust father, I respect true love, but I foresee a particular future for you, a grand future. We’re at the dawn of a new reign, and war calls to the spirit of our chivalrous young king. What he needs to support this heroic ardor is a brigade of cavaliers who are young and free, who can charge into battle and fall, crying ‘Vive le roi!’ rather than, ‘Farewell, my wife!’ You understand that, Raoul. As heartless as my reasoning may seem, I implore you to listen to me and turn your gaze away from your younger days when you lived for love, soft and carefree days that weaken the heart until it can’t stand the strong drink we call glory and adversity. Raoul, I tell you again, see in my counsels only the desire to help you, nothing but the ambition to see you prosper. I believe you capable of becoming a remarkable man; march forward alone, and you will march faster and farther.”

“You have commanded, Monsieur,” replied Raoul. “I obey.”

“Commanded!” cried Athos. “Is that your response? I commanded you! Oh, you twist my words, because you misunderstand my intentions. I don’t command, I entreat.”

“No, Monsieur, you command,” said Raoul stubbornly. “However you ask, your wish is to me a command. I will not see Mademoiselle de La Vallière again.”

“But that wounds you! You’re hurt!” said Athos.

Raoul made no reply.

“You’re pale, you’re distressed … this feeling is strong, then!”

“It is a passion,” said Raoul.

“No—just a habit.”

“Monsieur, you know that I’ve been traveling a great deal, that I’ve spent two years away from her. A habit, why, in two years that would fade, I think … but when I saw her again, I loved her, not more, that’s impossible, but still, and deeply. Mademoiselle de La Vallière is for me the woman beyond all other women—but to me, you are a god upon earth. For you, I’d sacrifice everything.”

“And that would be wrong,” said Athos. “I have no further rights over you. Age has emancipated you; you have no need of my consent. Besides, I wouldn’t refuse it after what you’ve just told me. Marry Mademoiselle de La Vallière, if that’s what you wish.”

Raoul started, but quickly said, “You’re very kind, Monsieur, and your concession warms me with gratitude—but I can’t accept it.”

“What, now you refuse?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“I won’t oppose you in anything, Raoul.”

“But in your heart, you do oppose this marriage. You would have me choose another.”

“That’s … true.”

“That’s enough to forestall me. I will wait.”

“Take care, Raoul! What you’re saying is serious.”

“I’m aware of it, Monsieur. And I say, I will wait.”

“What? Until I die?” said Athos, dismayed.

“Oh, Monsieur!” cried Raoul, voice choking. “How can you tear my heart that way when I’ve never given you a single cause for complaint?”

“My dear boy, that’s true,” murmured Athos between his lips, trying to contain the emotion he could no longer suppress. “No, I don’t want to hurt you, I just don’t know what you expect. Do you think you’ll fall out of love with her?”

“No, never that, Monsieur. I’ll wait … until you change your mind.”

“Then I’ll put it to the test, Raoul—and we shall see if Mademoiselle de La Vallière will wait as you do.”

“I hope so, Monsieur.”

 “But, be warned, Raoul—she might not wait! Ah, you’re so young, so confident, so loyal … but women are changeable.”

“You’ve never spoken ill of women to me before, Monsieur. You’ve never had cause to complain of them—why should you doubt Mademoiselle de La Vallière?”

“That’s true,” said Athos, looking away. “I’ve never spoken ill of women, never had reason to complain. Mademoiselle de La Vallière has done nothing to deserve suspicion—but when one looks to the future, one must consider exceptions, even improbabilities! What if, as I said, Mademoiselle de La Vallière doesn’t wait for you?”

“What do you mean, Monsieur?”

“What if she turned her eyes elsewhere?”

“Onto another man, you mean?” said Raoul, suddenly pale.

“Just so.”

“Well, Monsieur! I’d kill that man,” said Raoul simply, “and every other man Mademoiselle de La Vallière chooses, until one of them kills me or Mademoiselle de La Vallière comes back to me.”

Athos winced. “I thought you told me just now,” he said, voice strained, “that I was your god, your law in this world?”

“Oh!” said Raoul, trembling. “Would you forbid me the right to duel?”

“What if I did forbid it, Raoul?”

“Then you would forbid me to hope, Monsieur. But you could not forbid me to die.”

Athos raised his eyes and looked searchingly at the viscount. He had spoken these words in a dark tone and followed them with a darker look.

“Enough,” said Athos after a long silence. “This is a sad subject and we’ve carried it to extremes. Live life day by day, Raoul; do your duty, love Mademoiselle de La Vallière—in short, act like a man, since you’ve reached the age of manhood. But never forget that I love you dearly, as you say you love me as well.”

“Ah, Monsieur le Comte!” said Raoul, pressing Athos’s hand against his heart.

“My dear child. Leave me now, I need rest. By the way, Monsieur d’Artagnan has returned with me from England, and you owe him a visit.”

“With all my heart, Monsieur! I love Monsieur d’Artagnan.”

“And rightly so: he’s an honest man and a brave cavalier.”

“Whom you love!” said Raoul.

“I do indeed. Do you know where to find him?”

“At the Louvre,6 I expect, or the Palais Royal—wherever the king is. Doesn’t he still command the King’s Musketeers?”7

“Not at the moment: Monsieur d’Artagnan took a leave of absence … for his kind of vacation. No, don’t look for him at his old posts. You’ll find news of him at the house of Planchet.”8

“His former lackey?”

“Who has become a grocer, yes.”

“Rue des Lombards, right?”

“Or Rue des Arcis, something like that.”

“I’ll find him, Monsieur, I’ll find him.”

“And you’ll give him a thousand compliments on my behalf and bring him to dine with me before I leave for La Fère.”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Bonsoir, Raoul!”

“Monsieur, I see you wear an order that’s new to me. Accept my compliments.”

“The Fleece? Ah, yes. A trifle, my son, the kind of bone they throw to an old dog like me. Bonsoir, Raoul!”

Historical Characters

ATHOS: Athos, Comte de La Fère, is based loosely on Armand, Seigneur de Sillègue, d’Athos, et d’Autevielle (c. 1615–1643), as filtered through Courtilz de Sandras’s fictionalized Memoirs of Monsieur d’Artagnan. Though Sandras had made Athos the brother of Aramis and Porthos, the historical d’Athos was a Gascon petty nobleman who joined his cousins, Captain de Tréville and Isaac de Portau (Porthos) in the King’s Musketeers in 1640. Little is known of his life; he was killed in a duel in December 1643. Dumas invented Athos’s character and personality from whole cloth to suit his storytelling purposes.

BRAGELONNE: Raoul, Vicomte de Bragelonne. The young viscount, son of the musketeer Athos, is almost entirely Dumas’s invention, based solely on a single reference in Madame de La Fayette’s memoir of Henriette d’Angleterre, which mentions that in Louise de La Vallière’s youth in Blois she had once loved a young man named Bragelonne. Raoul embodies all of Athos’s noble virtues, even those unsuited to Louis XIV’s less chivalrous age. His relationship with Louise de La Vallière—and her relationship with King Louis—are central to the final volumes of the Musketeers Cycle.

CHARLES: King Charles II, Charles Stuart, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1630-1685) was the exiled son of that King Charles I whose 1649 execution was depicted in Blood Royal. Dumas alluded to the intrigues and adventures of Charles II on his long road to Restoration without going into detail, but it was a full ten years of melodrama, reversals, frustration, and hairbreadth escapes. At first Charles had hopes of French support, but when Mazarin allied France with Cromwell in 1655, Charles and his exiled royalists on the continent were driven into the arms of Spain, and he actually led English royalist troops on the side of the Spanish against the French at the Battle of the Dunes in 1658. The 1660 visit to Louis XIV in Between Two Kings is fictional, but the role of General Monck in facilitating Charles’s return and restoration is basically accurate. Dumas portrays Charles as a young Romantic-Era melancholy hero, but by contemporary accounts he was more impatient and entitled than tragic and resigned.

D’ARTAGNAN: Charles de Batz de Castelmore, Chevalier (later Comte) d’Artagnan (c. 1611–1673). The historical d’Artagnan was a cadet (younger son) of a family of the minor nobility from the town of Lupiac in Gascony. Like so many other younger sons of Gascony, he followed his neighbor Monsieur de Tréville to Paris to make his fortune, and by 1633 was in the King’s Musketeers at a time when Tréville was a lieutenant. D’Artagnan spent the rest of his life in the musketeers, except for the periods when the company was briefly disbanded, when he soldiered with the Gardes Françaises. He gradually rose through the ranks until he became Captain-Lieutenant (in effect, Captain) of the Musketeers in 1667. During the Franco-Dutch War of 1673 he was killed at the Battle of Maastricht. Dumas famously borrowed d’Artagnan from Courtilz de Sandras’s highly fictionalized biography, The Memoirs of Monsieur d’Artagnan, but his personality and character in the novels of the Musketeers Cycle are entirely the product of the genius of Dumas.

LA VALLIÈRE: Françoise-Louise de la Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière (1644-1710). Louise de La Vallière was raised in Blois at the court of Prince Gaston, and after coming to Versailles in 1661 became the first long-term mistress of King Louis XIV. Louise was introduced in Twenty Years After as a girl of age seven and returns here as a young woman of seventeen. As the love of Raoul’s life, she will be a central character in the next two volumes, Devil’s Dance and Shadow of the Bastille.

Notes on the Text of Court of Daggers

1.     PALAIS ROYAL: Cardinal Richelieu started building his Palais Cardinal 1633 and completed it in 1639. When Richelieu died in 1642, he willed his grand Paris residence to the king, and it was renamed the Palais Royal. Upon the death of Louis XIII, Queen Anne moved her family—including Cardinal Mazarin—from the Louvre into the more modern Palais Royal.

2.     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.

3.     MONCK: General George Monck or Monk, 1st Duke of Albemarle (1608-1670) was a career soldier who worked his way up through the ranks, fighting on the Continent, the Scottish border, and against the Irish in the rebellion of 1641. He became one of Oliver Cromwell’s most trusted commanders and proved to be as canny at political strategy as he was at warfare. After Cromwell’s death, he consolidated his position in the north of Britain and began a waiting game, biding his time to see how matters would play out. He finally threw his support behind Charles II and was instrumental in the Restoration that put the Stuarts back on the throne. He was rewarded with a peerage and, eventually, the admiralty.

4.     PISTOLES: Pistole was a French word for a gold coin of the sixteenth and seventeenth 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).

5.     YOU WENT TO SPAIN FOR THE ROYAL WEDDING: Well, to the border, anyway: the June 7, 1660 wedding of Louis XIV and the Infanta Maria Theresa was held on the Isle of Pheasants in the Bidassoa river that forms part of the border between Spain and France.

6.     THE LOUVRE: The ancient palace of the Kings of France in Paris; first built as a medieval fortress in the 12th century, it was enlarged and modernized by each succeeding generation if the reigning monarch could afford it. The royal residences were mainly in the four three-story halls that surround the square Cour Carrée, the easternmost portion of the modern Louvre.

7.     THE 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.

ALEXANDRE DUMAS’ MUSKETEERS CYCLE

Court of Daggers is part of a series. Everyone has heard of The Three Musketeers and its heroes d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, but what’s less well known nowadays is that Dumas followed up his greatest novel with a series of sequels that are just as great. Your Cheerful Editor Lawrence Ellsworth has been compiling all-new contemporary translations of these novels, and the entire series, when complete, will fill nine volumes:

-        The Three Musketeers, Book One

-        The Red Sphinx, Book Two

-        Twenty Years After, Book Three

-        Blood Royal, Book Four

-        Between Two Kings, Book Five

-        Court of Daggers, Book Six

-        Devil’s Dance, Book Seven

-        Shadow of the Bastille, Book Eight

-        The Man in the Iron Mask, Book Nine

The first five volumes are already in print and available from Pegasus Books. After Court of Daggers completes serial publication, its episodes will be compiled into a conventional book and ebook, and we’ll begin the serialization of Devil’s Dance. I hope you’ll all come along for the ride!

—Lawrence Ellsworth

Copyright © 2022 Lawrence Schick. All rights reserved.