Twenty years after
Twenty Years After reopens in 1648, two decades on from the muskets-and-mischief of The Three Musketeers. France is now governed by the unloved Cardinal Mazarin, with the young Louis XIV still a child and Paris simmering toward the revolt of the Fronde. D'Artagnan, still a humble lieutenant of musketeers, is sent to gather his old comrades, but finds Athos, Porthos, and Aramis scattered and divided in loyalty. As civil war erupts at home and across the Channel the English king Charles I faces the scaffold, the four friends are pulled onto opposing sides and race to save a doomed monarch from Cromwell's revolution.
The novel deepens Dumas's earlier swashbuckling into something more reflective on age, friendship, and shifting loyalty. Its heroes are older, wearier, and answerable now to politics and conscience as much as to honor. Set against real events, it weighs personal fidelity against duty to crown and country, and asks whether the bonds of youth can survive the compromises of middle age. It endures as a stirring, melancholy bridge between adventure and history.
How it begins
[Project Gutenberg eBook 1258 listed below, is of the same title as eBook 2681 and its contents overlap those of two other volumes: it includes all the chapters of eBook 2609 and the first 28 chapters of 2681] TITLE PG EBOOK# DATES VOLUME CHAPTERS Ten Years Later 1258 1660–1661 3 1–104 CONTENTS Chapter I. The Shade of Cardinal Richelieu. Chapter II. A Nightly Patrol. Chapter III. Dead Animosities. Chapter IV. Anne of Austria at the Age of Forty-six. Chapter V. The Gascon and the Italian. Chapter VI. D’Artagnan in his Fortieth Year. Chapter VII. Touches upon the Strange Effects a Half-pistole may have. Chapter VIII. D’Artagnan, Going to a Distance to discover Aramis. Chapter IX. The Abbé D’Herblay. Chapter X. Monsieur Porthos du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds. Chapter XI. Wealth does not necessarily produce Happiness. Chapter XII. Porthos was Discontented with his Condition. Chapter XIII. Two Angelic Faces. Chapter XIV. The Castle of Bragelonne. Chapter XV. Athos as a Diplomatist. Chapter XVI. The Duc de Beaufort. Chapter XVII. Duc de Beaufort amused his Leisure Hours in the Donjon of Vincennes. Chapter XVIII. Grimaud begins his Functions. Chapter XIX. Pâtés made by the Successor of Father Marteau are described. Chapter XX. One of Marie Michon’s Adventures. Chapter XXI. The Abbé Scarron. Chapter XXII. Saint Denis. Chapter XXIII. One of the Forty Methods of Escape of the Duc de Beaufort.
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