Louise De La Vallière

The middle movement of Dumas's great musketeer saga. This is where the adventure becomes tragedy, where the swords are sheathed but the wounds cut deeper than any blade. Ten years have passed since the Musketeers saved France. Now they are older, scattered, some in disgrace. But Louis XIV is consolidating power at Versailles, and old secrets won't stay buried. D'Artagnan, that tireless blade, finds himself caught between a king hungry for absolute power and the remnants of the old France. At the heart of the court burns the tender, doomed affair between the king and Louise de la Vallière, a woman of grace and vulnerability caught in the machinery of royal desire and political ambition. Colbert and Fouquet circle each other like wolves. The musketeers are drawn back into a world they thought they'd escaped. This is Dumas at his most ambitious: the adventure has grown up, become something richer and sadder. Honor collides with power. Loyalty becomes complicated. And one of literature's great heroes must learn that some battles cannot be won with a sword.