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Sainte-Hermine #3
The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon
Selected as a Top Ten Book of the Year by The Washington Post: the newly discovered last novel by the author of The Three Musketeers. Rousing, big, spirited, its action sweeping across oceans and continents, its hero gloriously indomitable, the last novel of Alexandre Dumas—lost for 125 years in the archives of the National Library in Paris—completes the oeuvre that Dumas imagined at the outset of his literary career.
Indeed, the story of France from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, as Dumas vibrantly retold it in his numerous enormously popular novels, has long been absent one vital, richly historical era: the Age of Napoleon. But no longer. Now, dynamically, in a tale of family honor and undying vengeance, of high adventure and heroic derring-do, The Last Cavalier fills that gap.
Indeed, the story of France from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, as Dumas vibrantly retold it in his numerous enormously popular novels, has long been absent one vital, richly historical era: the Age of Napoleon. But no longer. Now, dynamically, in a tale of family honor and undying vengeance, of high adventure and heroic derring-do, The Last Cavalier fills that gap.
752 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1870
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1420 people want to read
About the author
Alexandre Dumas
6,981 books12.3k followersThis note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils.
Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France and the highest-ranking man of African descent in a European army at the time. His father’s early death left the family in poverty, but Dumas’s upbringing was nonetheless marked by strong personal ambition and a deep admiration for his father’s achievements. He moved to Paris as a young man and began his literary career writing for the theatre, quickly rising to prominence in the Romantic movement with successful plays like Henri III et sa cour and Antony.
In the 1840s, Dumas turned increasingly toward prose fiction, particularly serialized novels, which reached vast audiences through French newspapers. His collaboration with Auguste Maquet, a skilled plotter and historian, proved fruitful. While Maquet drafted outlines and conducted research, Dumas infused the narratives with flair, dialogue, and color. The result was a string of literary triumphs, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both published in 1844. These novels exemplified Dumas’s flair for suspenseful pacing, memorable characters, and grand themes of justice, loyalty, and revenge.
The D’Artagnan Romances—The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne—cemented his fame. They follow the adventures of the titular Gascon hero and his comrades Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, blending historical fact and fiction into richly imagined narratives. The Count of Monte Cristo offered a darker, more introspective tale of betrayal and retribution, with intricate plotting and a deeply philosophical core.
Dumas was also active in journalism and theater. He founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris, which staged dramatizations of his own novels. A prolific and energetic writer, he is estimated to have written or co-written over 100,000 pages of fiction, plays, memoirs, travel books, and essays. He also had a strong interest in food and published a massive culinary encyclopedia, Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, filled with recipes, anecdotes, and reflections on gastronomy.
Despite his enormous success, Dumas was frequently plagued by financial troubles. He led a lavish lifestyle, building the ornate Château de Monte-Cristo near Paris, employing large staffs, and supporting many friends and relatives. His generosity and appetite for life often outpaced his income, leading to mounting debts. Still, his creative drive rarely waned.
Dumas’s mixed-race background was a source of both pride and tension in his life. He was outspoken about his heritage and used his platform to address race and injustice. In his novel Georges, he explored issues of colonialism and identity through a Creole protagonist. Though he encountered racism, he refused to be silenced, famously replying to a racial insult by pointing to his ancestry and achievements with dignity and wit.
Later in life, Dumas continued writing and traveling, spending time in Belgium, Italy, and Russia. He supported nationalist causes, particularly Italian unification, and even founded a newspaper to advocate for Giuseppe Garibaldi. Though his popularity waned somewhat in his final years, his literary legacy grew steadily. He wrote in a style that was accessible, entertaining, and emotionally reso
Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France and the highest-ranking man of African descent in a European army at the time. His father’s early death left the family in poverty, but Dumas’s upbringing was nonetheless marked by strong personal ambition and a deep admiration for his father’s achievements. He moved to Paris as a young man and began his literary career writing for the theatre, quickly rising to prominence in the Romantic movement with successful plays like Henri III et sa cour and Antony.
In the 1840s, Dumas turned increasingly toward prose fiction, particularly serialized novels, which reached vast audiences through French newspapers. His collaboration with Auguste Maquet, a skilled plotter and historian, proved fruitful. While Maquet drafted outlines and conducted research, Dumas infused the narratives with flair, dialogue, and color. The result was a string of literary triumphs, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both published in 1844. These novels exemplified Dumas’s flair for suspenseful pacing, memorable characters, and grand themes of justice, loyalty, and revenge.
The D’Artagnan Romances—The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne—cemented his fame. They follow the adventures of the titular Gascon hero and his comrades Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, blending historical fact and fiction into richly imagined narratives. The Count of Monte Cristo offered a darker, more introspective tale of betrayal and retribution, with intricate plotting and a deeply philosophical core.
Dumas was also active in journalism and theater. He founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris, which staged dramatizations of his own novels. A prolific and energetic writer, he is estimated to have written or co-written over 100,000 pages of fiction, plays, memoirs, travel books, and essays. He also had a strong interest in food and published a massive culinary encyclopedia, Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, filled with recipes, anecdotes, and reflections on gastronomy.
Despite his enormous success, Dumas was frequently plagued by financial troubles. He led a lavish lifestyle, building the ornate Château de Monte-Cristo near Paris, employing large staffs, and supporting many friends and relatives. His generosity and appetite for life often outpaced his income, leading to mounting debts. Still, his creative drive rarely waned.
Dumas’s mixed-race background was a source of both pride and tension in his life. He was outspoken about his heritage and used his platform to address race and injustice. In his novel Georges, he explored issues of colonialism and identity through a Creole protagonist. Though he encountered racism, he refused to be silenced, famously replying to a racial insult by pointing to his ancestry and achievements with dignity and wit.
Later in life, Dumas continued writing and traveling, spending time in Belgium, Italy, and Russia. He supported nationalist causes, particularly Italian unification, and even founded a newspaper to advocate for Giuseppe Garibaldi. Though his popularity waned somewhat in his final years, his literary legacy grew steadily. He wrote in a style that was accessible, entertaining, and emotionally reso
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dnf
April 21, 2017UGH! Last great novel this is not. This is billed as the adventures of the Count Sainte-Hermine, yet of the first 275 pages we have probably 10 pages TOTAL that deal with the Count Sainte-Hermine's story. There is SO much back story and SO many tangents that any hope of a plot has long since crumbled. The point where he's describing a random guy's adventures in the wilderness of America in a novel set in Napoleonic France was when I threw in the towel. I'm pretty sure it picks up the plot of Sainter-Hermine at the beginning of Part II, but that's not until page 343... and I just can't you guys... I just can't.
So as much as I love Dumas and I have throughly enjoyed his other works... this one is just not happening for me. Maybe I'll reread Count of Monte Cristo to make myself feel better.
So as much as I love Dumas and I have throughly enjoyed his other works... this one is just not happening for me. Maybe I'll reread Count of Monte Cristo to make myself feel better.
January 1, 2010
A lost masterpiece? Not for me. The frequent disruption to narrative thrust noted by another reviewer eventually became too much - I gave upon page 421. Dumas' strengths are undeniably there but payment by quantity undermines him. When Napoleon goes to hear a performance of The Creation, most of a page is given to a biography of Haydn; when St Hermine arrives in St Malo, a whole chapter relates the port's history; when his ship arrives at Mauritius, the narrative stalls again for another chapter of history. And St Hermine himself disappears from the story for well over a hundred pages. This is not The Count of Monte Cristo
or The Three Musketeers rediscovered. What Dumas needed was not a generous paymaster but a ruthless editor.
or The Three Musketeers rediscovered. What Dumas needed was not a generous paymaster but a ruthless editor.
August 20, 2008
A Dumas novel no one new existed! What a find this must have been, to discover an unknown work of Dumas hidden away in the Library of Paris. As the novel opens, it is the dawn of the 19th century and Napoleon rules as First Consul, not yet having being having been crowned Emperor, and the Royalist forces are still battling to restore the crown. Our hero, Hector, the Count Sainte-Hermine has seen his father and two older brothers nobly die for the Royalist cause. During a brief truce, Hector hopes to set all battles aside and declares for his true love, Claire de Sourdis. However, just before the marriage contract is signed, Hector is called back to the Royalist forces and is eventually imprisoned (and forgotten) for three years. When he is remembered and released, Hector is stripped of his title and must serve in either army or navy as a mere enlisted man, an insult for one of his class.
Hector signs on as a Corsair instead of the regular Navy and the adventure begins. Bereft of his lost love and his family fallen before him, Hector's only wish is to live life to the fullest and if he must, to die as nobly as his father and brothers did. Problem is, no matter how hard he tries, he never succeeds. Thus begins battles at sea, a fight to the death with a shark, hunting tigers and crocodiles and a close call with a python, as Hector carries off every situation with dignity, charm and élan. If this book hadn't been unknown until two years ago, I'd swear that Hector was the model for our present day super heroes. Swooning female? Out come the smelling salts and more from his bat-belt! It was so over the top and campy at times, but jolly good fun.
No, I'm not giving away the whole story -- actually the first half of the book has very little to do with Hector and very much to do with Napoleon at the start of his reign -- those who read the book jacket and expect it all to be about Hector and his heroics will be sorely disappointed. There is much politics, intrigue and battles about Europe. About half way through Hector comes back into the story and things cooked along for most of the rest of the book until the last 100 pages or so and then dragged down again. I'm not huge on battle scenes, so those were slow for me also, particularly the intricate details of the battle of Trafalgar. I confess to skipping a few pages there.
Readers should be advised that this recently discovered novel was never finished, and we'll never know where he planned to take the story in the end. There are many chapters of what appear to be needless characters, history and scenes, but not knowing how Dumas planned to complete the story, how are we to judge? I recall reading The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics)and so many chapters that went off into another direction until the end where he pulled all the threads together in the end, and perhaps that is what Dumas planned with The Last Cavalier as well. We'll never know.
Hector signs on as a Corsair instead of the regular Navy and the adventure begins. Bereft of his lost love and his family fallen before him, Hector's only wish is to live life to the fullest and if he must, to die as nobly as his father and brothers did. Problem is, no matter how hard he tries, he never succeeds. Thus begins battles at sea, a fight to the death with a shark, hunting tigers and crocodiles and a close call with a python, as Hector carries off every situation with dignity, charm and élan. If this book hadn't been unknown until two years ago, I'd swear that Hector was the model for our present day super heroes. Swooning female? Out come the smelling salts and more from his bat-belt! It was so over the top and campy at times, but jolly good fun.
No, I'm not giving away the whole story -- actually the first half of the book has very little to do with Hector and very much to do with Napoleon at the start of his reign -- those who read the book jacket and expect it all to be about Hector and his heroics will be sorely disappointed. There is much politics, intrigue and battles about Europe. About half way through Hector comes back into the story and things cooked along for most of the rest of the book until the last 100 pages or so and then dragged down again. I'm not huge on battle scenes, so those were slow for me also, particularly the intricate details of the battle of Trafalgar. I confess to skipping a few pages there.
Readers should be advised that this recently discovered novel was never finished, and we'll never know where he planned to take the story in the end. There are many chapters of what appear to be needless characters, history and scenes, but not knowing how Dumas planned to complete the story, how are we to judge? I recall reading The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics)and so many chapters that went off into another direction until the end where he pulled all the threads together in the end, and perhaps that is what Dumas planned with The Last Cavalier as well. We'll never know.
July 8, 2012
The discovery of this "lost" final novel by Alexandre Dumas (pere) certainly had to be the literary find of the year. if not the decade, and maybe the 20th century.
Dumas, who wrote voluminously, wrote his novel serially, that is, in installments, being paid by the line. He cleverly had written into his contracts, that he reserved the right to edit those installments into individual novels, which were best-sellers in their day.
Dumas died, however, before his final novel was finished, and hence, never being edited and published separately, was forgotten. Dumas was by the time of his death past his prime and the French reading public tended to more modern styles and themes.
Claude Schoop, the preeminent Dumas scholar, (re-)discovered this final novel in 1990, spending the next dozen or so years reconstructing the episodes through published installments, drafts, and letters.
This sprawling novel is incomplete and certainly hardly the best or most memorable of Dumas' works.
The published that agreed to publish the work in 2005 only printed 2,000 copies, thinking it would only be a curiosity. But it became a literary sensation, with 60,000 printed, marking an unexpected revival in interest in Dumas in France.
Dumas, who wrote voluminously, wrote his novel serially, that is, in installments, being paid by the line. He cleverly had written into his contracts, that he reserved the right to edit those installments into individual novels, which were best-sellers in their day.
Dumas died, however, before his final novel was finished, and hence, never being edited and published separately, was forgotten. Dumas was by the time of his death past his prime and the French reading public tended to more modern styles and themes.
Claude Schoop, the preeminent Dumas scholar, (re-)discovered this final novel in 1990, spending the next dozen or so years reconstructing the episodes through published installments, drafts, and letters.
This sprawling novel is incomplete and certainly hardly the best or most memorable of Dumas' works.
The published that agreed to publish the work in 2005 only printed 2,000 copies, thinking it would only be a curiosity. But it became a literary sensation, with 60,000 printed, marking an unexpected revival in interest in Dumas in France.
May 7, 2012
I love Dumas books. Lots of history with engaging fictional characters woven in to bring the stories to life. I would say that Sainte-Hermine is a blend of d'Artagnan and Edmund Dantes. I was sad to discover that Dumas did not finish writing this book, but was very glad that he wrote a letter (which is included in the front of the book) that quickly tells what his intentions for the end of the book were. If you do not want to spoil the ending, wait to read the letter until after you have finished reading the book.
I give this book 4 out of 5 because of a couple of parts that are all history and get a little long and boring. While you learn a lot from them, they take you away from the story for too long at one time, in my opinion. Overall, though, it was a good read.
I give this book 4 out of 5 because of a couple of parts that are all history and get a little long and boring. While you learn a lot from them, they take you away from the story for too long at one time, in my opinion. Overall, though, it was a good read.
June 30, 2021
My impressions of the book are somewhat different now on the heels of reading the two earlier Sainte-Hermine novels, compared with my inaugural reading in 2017, before having read them. The factor principally responsable is the tremendous amount of recapitulation Dumas undertakes in a heroic effort to make The Last Cavalier work as a standalone novel. The fullness of Hector’s tragic circumstances can only fully be understood in the context of his family’s history, which is treated at length in both The Companions of Jehu and The Whites and the Blues. Entire chapters of the present work are copied nearly verbatim from the earlier installments (albeit with slight inconsistencies), and readers who are up-to-date on the elder Sainte-Hermine brothers may find these sections drag.
Nor does Dumas stop there: he fully recounts the Carnation Plot, which is treated in length in The Knight of Maison-Rouge (although here he cleverly finds the means of subtly interweaving the Antoinette romances and Sainte-Hermine novels). And certain episodes from unrelated novels resurface, such as with Hector and the shark on Île de France (see Georges for an earlier telling of the same adventure, also on Île de France).
Having noted these minor quibbles, let me express how much I love this book, and how grateful I am to Claude Schopp for resurrecting this lost treasure from the purgatory of having been completely forgotten (Dumas died in the middle of serialization, and it never again saw the light of day before Schopp’s rediscovery). As heartbreaking as it is to find the story abruptly cut off, Schopp nobly, mercifully stepped up to give some closure to the final published episode. Of course this was done with an eye to expedience, rather than trying to capture Dumas’ panache, but it serves its purpose, and stems the nagging feeling of absence. I’ll also say that Schopp’s preface is masterful; comprehensive; breathtaking.
And best of all, the preface includes Dumas’ sketch for how the novel would play out to the end. What he planned to do is nothing short of monumental. In it’s final execution the output would easily have dwarfed Monte-Cristo, while all of Hector’s combined adventures and achievements would have paled Dumas’ many earlier heroes by comparison. Even in what Dumas left us, we see that his failing health did nothing to dull his ambition. Thank goodness Dumas never did anything small, even on his way out.
Nor does Dumas stop there: he fully recounts the Carnation Plot, which is treated in length in The Knight of Maison-Rouge (although here he cleverly finds the means of subtly interweaving the Antoinette romances and Sainte-Hermine novels). And certain episodes from unrelated novels resurface, such as with Hector and the shark on Île de France (see Georges for an earlier telling of the same adventure, also on Île de France).
Having noted these minor quibbles, let me express how much I love this book, and how grateful I am to Claude Schopp for resurrecting this lost treasure from the purgatory of having been completely forgotten (Dumas died in the middle of serialization, and it never again saw the light of day before Schopp’s rediscovery). As heartbreaking as it is to find the story abruptly cut off, Schopp nobly, mercifully stepped up to give some closure to the final published episode. Of course this was done with an eye to expedience, rather than trying to capture Dumas’ panache, but it serves its purpose, and stems the nagging feeling of absence. I’ll also say that Schopp’s preface is masterful; comprehensive; breathtaking.
And best of all, the preface includes Dumas’ sketch for how the novel would play out to the end. What he planned to do is nothing short of monumental. In it’s final execution the output would easily have dwarfed Monte-Cristo, while all of Hector’s combined adventures and achievements would have paled Dumas’ many earlier heroes by comparison. Even in what Dumas left us, we see that his failing health did nothing to dull his ambition. Thank goodness Dumas never did anything small, even on his way out.
August 30, 2023
Ce troisième volet de la trilogie qui comprend aussi "les Blancs et les Bleus" et "les compagnons de Jéhu" a été retrouvé presque par hasard... en fait, il était sorti en feuilleton dans Le Moniteur, mais Dumas n'avait pas eu le temps de le réviser pour le faire paraître en ouvrage, et d'ailleurs il ne l'avait pas terminé. Un spécialiste l'a exhumé en 2005. L'absence de révision est un peu visible : pas mal de reprises, de digressions, de développements faits pour allonger le feuilleton et qui auraient sauté au montage, des erreurs de script (sur la couleur des cheveux des soeurs Hélène et Jane...).On voit même de longs extraits de Chateaubriand, qu'on n'est pas fâchée de retrouver, le face-à-face avec Bonaparte est savoureux... Au-delà de ça, si Dumas reste excellent quand il met face à face les "braves" des deux camps, royaliste et bonapartiste, ici le roman fait la part belle aux aventures individuelles d'Hector de Saint Hermine -dernier rejeton d'une famille dont tous les représentants sont tombés pour la monarchie - , y compris dans des chapitres "exotiques" qui sont une marque de fabrique de cette trilogie : Birmanie et Ile Maurice (à l'poque, Ile-de-France). Or, quand il n'y a plus le camp napoléonien en face pour faire contrepoids, Dumas perd un peu la mesure : les aventures de Saint-Hermine (chasse aux fauves, combats navals) sont exagérées, à la limite du grotesque -peut-être pour satisfaire le tropisme exotique de l'époque-, un tel super héros n'est tout simplement pas crédible. Bref, il manque la relecture qui aurait précédé la parution en volume. Mais enfin c'est Dumas, et on ne va pas bouder son plaisir.
July 14, 2011
I've enjoyed all the other Dumas novels I've read so far, and this was no exception. I couldn't put it down and read it in three days! The characters are wonderful; the men are honourable and the women are feminine (things we've almost lost in today's culture), and it was an inspiring read. There was a sense of respect and honour even between enemies, and it was refreshing to see them do the right thing even if it meant personal loss.
Dumas adds a lot of historical background information about the people and places he describes, which I found very interesting, but some people want to skip those chapters. Overall, it was a wonderful and exciting book that I'd highly recommend to anyone.
Dumas adds a lot of historical background information about the people and places he describes, which I found very interesting, but some people want to skip those chapters. Overall, it was a wonderful and exciting book that I'd highly recommend to anyone.
January 15, 2010
The historical half, about Napoleon, was fascinating, but the fictional hero's sad perfection suffered drastically in contrast with the dynamic and decidedly flawed Napoleon.
October 1, 2017
Awesome! I wanna read it again.the longer version of course. In the future. Maybe
March 14, 2019
Audiobook
Final, unfinished novel. Third in a trilogy revolving around Napoleon's rise to power, the schemes surrounding both his supporters and those opposing him.
I read all three novels in this trilogy. This book is my favorite as it includes history of Nelson, India/Burma and Italy.
The disappointment is Dumas' death before he finished. However, reading the Introduction *after* reading the novel, there is wonderful reconstruction of what happens to the title character and educated guesses of what Dumas intended.
This translation is smooth and "readable" (I listened).
Final, unfinished novel. Third in a trilogy revolving around Napoleon's rise to power, the schemes surrounding both his supporters and those opposing him.
I read all three novels in this trilogy. This book is my favorite as it includes history of Nelson, India/Burma and Italy.
The disappointment is Dumas' death before he finished. However, reading the Introduction *after* reading the novel, there is wonderful reconstruction of what happens to the title character and educated guesses of what Dumas intended.
This translation is smooth and "readable" (I listened).
December 12, 2021
this is not a book by Dumas that I would recommend. It didn't have his finesse. I didn't finish it, it's that bad.
April 12, 2023
Hoopla quit carrying the book, so I could not finish. However, I was quite enjoying it.
August 29, 2024
As a long-lost novel by Alexandre Dumas (Author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo! proclaims the cover) this is, I'm afraid, little more than a historical curiosity. The translation does it no favours -- it is weird to read Dumas 'in American', where characters say "Huh?" and wear "short leather pants", I'm pretty sure all the "castles" near Paris in the narrative were actually chateaux rather than military fortresses, I seriously question the rendition of Caesar's wife as holding a "lesbian orgy", and the writer is clearly unfamiliar with English naval terminology of the era: prisoners of war were held in the infamous 'hulks' at Portsmouth and not on "pontoons", and there is no such body as the "Royal English Navy". The famous Georges Cadoudal is rechristened, for some reason, 'George', which is oddly offputting! But my issues with the book as a whole go a long way beyond that.
Perhaps the most obvious problem is that it is not so much a novel as a novelised history -- which, according to the editorial notes at the end of the volume was in fact Dumas' explicit intention, but which makes for heavy reading. The adventures of the Three Musketeers take place against a historical backdrop, but one that is only lightly sketched, with character and adventure taking precedence over real-life politics. Likewise, the fall and rise of Napoleon affect the story of the Count of Monte-Cristo, but only as distant plot levers; it is the story of human relations and of revenge.
"The Last Cavalier", however (a puzzling choice of title: the author's intended "Hector de Sainte-Hermine" or "Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine" would have made more sense, and I wonder if this is yet another mistranslation), does not really focus on Comte Hector as a character at all. Large parts of it are simply recounting history and/or acting as a travelogue: the trip to Burma began to remind me of "Around the World in Eighty Days", which in its unabridged version is simply an excuse to introduce an untravelled readership to descriptions of various exotic locations. Meanwhile the protagonist himself gets little development -- like Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte-Cristo he undergoes a long imprisonment during which he educates himself and develops superhuman strength by exercising to pass the endless hours (although I don't see how he also becomes a crack shot and deadly swordsman, talents one can hardly practise in jail!), and we are given a detailed family backstory, which I am assuming comprises a plot summary of the previous two novels in the sequence, and which sounds like prime Dumas adventure, albeit of the tragically doomed variety rather than the rollicking exploits of the young d'Artagnan or the Scarlet Pimpernel. But his personal story occupies a tiny proportion of this enormous book.
The youngest survivor of an aristocratic family who were all executed in turn for their Royalist activities, Hector de Sainte-Hermine takes up the cause in his turn and sacrifices the happiness of his impending marriage to renewed hostilities against an increasingly autocratic Bonaparte. He is not, however, a particularly effective guerilla and is rapidly caught, whereupon his sole hope is to follow his brothers into death without bringing further disgrace upon his unhappy fiancée. However, Fouché, the devious minister of police, contrives instead to have him forgotten in jail and finally released once Bonaparte has become the Emperor Napoleon, by which point Hector has seen the error of his ways and consents to serve the glorious new empire, giving his loyalty to France rather than to the exiled Bourbons for whom his family sacrificed their future.
And that is basically the entire plot. The rest of the novel consists of Hector under multiple aliases travelling around the fringes of history and impressing everybody with how incredibly good he is at everything -- he is supposed to be a tragically romantic figure mourning his lost love and doing his best to get himself killed, but unlike, say, Athos in The Three Musketeers, who is likewise noble, handsome, reticent about his past, and emotionally scarred, he remains very much a cipher rather than engaging the reader in any way. Despite having been imprisoned and being the heir to a family all executed for treason against the new régime, he appears to have retained all his aristocratic income, and as in Around the World in Eighty Days (where Phileas Fogg, however, is sacrificing his entire fortune in the process) he is able to overcome obstacles and win obedience simply by throwing large amounts of money around. He never comes across as a man in despair who takes wild risks in the hopes of finding oblivion; he never undertakes anything he is not supremely confident of being able to do, from killing a shark underwater to acting as a sharpshooter at the Battle of Trafalgar, for which of course he gets back to Europe just in time to volunteer. And we never get much indication of his ongoing desire for his fiancée: when one of his cousins (and a childhood romantic interest) falls for him during their shared adventures, Hector knows that it Cannot Be because he is committed to another woman, but the circumstances and setting are romantic and we have far more of a sense that he is tempted to return her feelings than that he is actually pining for Claire de Sourdis, with whom his relationship consisted largely of admiring her from afar.
The novel is oddly ambivalent about Napoleon, as well. One gathers that this reflects Dumas' own attitude, and it's a salutary reminder that while English history tends to regard him as one more in a series of dictators who tried to conquer the Continent by bloody means and against whom Britain Stood Alone, the French view of history perceives him as the Man Who Made France Great Again when she was fighting against all the crowned heads of Europe, and/or as a vital staging-post in the inevitable march of democracy from Kings to its current highly-evolved form (see also Les Miserables and the progression of Marius' opinions from his grandfather's nostalgia for the ancien régime via his father's veneration for the Emperor to Enjolras' egalitarianism).
All the same, what we actually see of Napoleon's behaviour and character in the first part of this story is in general far from flattering -- to the degree that Dumas apparently found it necessary to defend his depiction by citing research and original sources -- and the tale of how Hector's family are wiped out one by one in gory detail while fighting in defence of the monarchy is a harrowing one that makes it hard to see how the young man could reconcile himself with the victorious party. Napoleon's brief appearances later on in the book are not calculated to arouse admiration either, as he is portrayed as vindictive, petty, and ruthless. But the novel breathes a general air of admiration towards him and his campaigns, and despite the fact that he keeps getting kicked in the teeth by his Emperor Hector serves him loyally (and, according to Dumas' plot sketch, was eventually to end up assisting in Napoleon's return from the Isle of Elba). It feels like a betrayal of the oath young Sainte-Hermine has taken and of everything that happened in the previous books, to the degree that when we do get tiny references to his tragic past (notably, the editor feels the need to insert one in his 'reconstructed/suggested' ending to the unfinished bandit chapter, where the bandit's severed head reminds him of "some heads that were dear to me"), it comes as a breath of fresh air and a much-needed deepening of his character.
Perhaps the most interesting narrative choice, conscious or not, that Dumas makes in this context is that all the great Napoleonic victories seem to take place off-screen, while the engagements the protagonist actually gets involved in, however heroic his personal actions (e.g. breaking single-handedly through the English lines at the battle of Maida or killing Admiral Nelson) appear to be losing ones... (And one very odd piece of moral judgement, to modern eyes, is the fact that after capturing and condemning an American slaver for the crime of "removing the black people in his hold from their lands and families by force or by trickery", with the judgement that he should be hung at his own yard-arm, after pardoning him for his sincere repentance the victors then authorise him to sell off the eighty Negroes he still has on board in order to restore his fortunes; fair enough as an exemplar of dealing with a gallant enemy, apart from the high indignation shown on behalf of those same slaves and their sufferings a few scenes earlier!)
Obviously it is unfortunate that the author died long before he could finish his ambitious intended scope for the story, which was, according to his notes, to have extended throughout the entire fourteen years of 'widowhood' foretold for Claire de Sourdis and have covered the whole of Napoleon's career. And it is possible that with a masterly narrative twist or two and a great deal of editing of irrelevant ancedote -- as was apparently Dumas' wont when revising newspaper serials like this, where he was required to churn out a certain relentless column length per issue, for subsequent publication in coherent novel form -- he might have managed to turn it into something more readable; after all, "The Count of Monte-Cristo" is pretty diffuse and waffly, and the titular protagonist is effectively peripheral to the action for large chunks of the book. But while an unfinished story is always frustrating, it's hard to feel that this one would have amounted to anything more than a continued recital of Napoleonic history with Hector de Sainte-Hermine popping up at long intervals, winning vows of undying brotherhood from all the men alongside whom he fights and attracting admiration in vain from all the women.
In terms of Dumas' better-known output, this is probably closer in concept to Louise de La Vallière, in which the main focus is on the historical characters while the former musketeers have only bit-parts around the edges. But the difference is that the reader actually gets caught up instead in the affairs of Madame Henriette and of Louis XIV as main characters, whereas here there is no clear set of 'alternative protagonists', but an endless succession of people whom we meet for a few chapters before moving on; for example, the beginning, with its drama between Bonaparte's aide-de-camp Roland de Montrevel and the Chouans (with the latter coming out decidedly the better) is as good as anything Dumas ever wrote, but in the next section Roland is now disconcertingly dead off-screen.
There is nothing inherently wrong in having a noble and flawless hero in this sort of fiction, and arguably the eponymous and unlucky Raoul de Bragelonne is one such. But I found I cared more about the fate of Raoul, however minor a role he may play in the book that bears his name. Hector de Sainte-Hermine may be both gifted and highly educated in all the arts of war and peace, kind, generous and intelligent, but ultimately he simply isn't terribly interesting.
(Praise, however, must go to Claude Schopp, who not only edited and rediscovered the text in the first place, but manages to conclude the half-finished chapter of the serial in a manner that is not only indistinguishable, to my eye, from the style and moralising of the original, but which manages in that short space to be more humane and engaging (the ex-bandit Tomeo names his mule; René is reminded of his lost family) than the genuine unpublished later chapters that were completed by Dumas before he died! Apparently Schopp subsequently proceeded to produce a complete novel based on Dumas' plot outline for the remainder of the story, under the title Le Salut de l’Empire, though I'm afraid I don't find myself inspired enough to seek it out...)
Perhaps the most obvious problem is that it is not so much a novel as a novelised history -- which, according to the editorial notes at the end of the volume was in fact Dumas' explicit intention, but which makes for heavy reading. The adventures of the Three Musketeers take place against a historical backdrop, but one that is only lightly sketched, with character and adventure taking precedence over real-life politics. Likewise, the fall and rise of Napoleon affect the story of the Count of Monte-Cristo, but only as distant plot levers; it is the story of human relations and of revenge.
"The Last Cavalier", however (a puzzling choice of title: the author's intended "Hector de Sainte-Hermine" or "Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine" would have made more sense, and I wonder if this is yet another mistranslation), does not really focus on Comte Hector as a character at all. Large parts of it are simply recounting history and/or acting as a travelogue: the trip to Burma began to remind me of "Around the World in Eighty Days", which in its unabridged version is simply an excuse to introduce an untravelled readership to descriptions of various exotic locations. Meanwhile the protagonist himself gets little development -- like Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte-Cristo he undergoes a long imprisonment during which he educates himself and develops superhuman strength by exercising to pass the endless hours (although I don't see how he also becomes a crack shot and deadly swordsman, talents one can hardly practise in jail!), and we are given a detailed family backstory, which I am assuming comprises a plot summary of the previous two novels in the sequence, and which sounds like prime Dumas adventure, albeit of the tragically doomed variety rather than the rollicking exploits of the young d'Artagnan or the Scarlet Pimpernel. But his personal story occupies a tiny proportion of this enormous book.
The youngest survivor of an aristocratic family who were all executed in turn for their Royalist activities, Hector de Sainte-Hermine takes up the cause in his turn and sacrifices the happiness of his impending marriage to renewed hostilities against an increasingly autocratic Bonaparte. He is not, however, a particularly effective guerilla and is rapidly caught, whereupon his sole hope is to follow his brothers into death without bringing further disgrace upon his unhappy fiancée. However, Fouché, the devious minister of police, contrives instead to have him forgotten in jail and finally released once Bonaparte has become the Emperor Napoleon, by which point Hector has seen the error of his ways and consents to serve the glorious new empire, giving his loyalty to France rather than to the exiled Bourbons for whom his family sacrificed their future.
And that is basically the entire plot. The rest of the novel consists of Hector under multiple aliases travelling around the fringes of history and impressing everybody with how incredibly good he is at everything -- he is supposed to be a tragically romantic figure mourning his lost love and doing his best to get himself killed, but unlike, say, Athos in The Three Musketeers, who is likewise noble, handsome, reticent about his past, and emotionally scarred, he remains very much a cipher rather than engaging the reader in any way. Despite having been imprisoned and being the heir to a family all executed for treason against the new régime, he appears to have retained all his aristocratic income, and as in Around the World in Eighty Days (where Phileas Fogg, however, is sacrificing his entire fortune in the process) he is able to overcome obstacles and win obedience simply by throwing large amounts of money around. He never comes across as a man in despair who takes wild risks in the hopes of finding oblivion; he never undertakes anything he is not supremely confident of being able to do, from killing a shark underwater to acting as a sharpshooter at the Battle of Trafalgar, for which of course he gets back to Europe just in time to volunteer. And we never get much indication of his ongoing desire for his fiancée: when one of his cousins (and a childhood romantic interest) falls for him during their shared adventures, Hector knows that it Cannot Be because he is committed to another woman, but the circumstances and setting are romantic and we have far more of a sense that he is tempted to return her feelings than that he is actually pining for Claire de Sourdis, with whom his relationship consisted largely of admiring her from afar.
The novel is oddly ambivalent about Napoleon, as well. One gathers that this reflects Dumas' own attitude, and it's a salutary reminder that while English history tends to regard him as one more in a series of dictators who tried to conquer the Continent by bloody means and against whom Britain Stood Alone, the French view of history perceives him as the Man Who Made France Great Again when she was fighting against all the crowned heads of Europe, and/or as a vital staging-post in the inevitable march of democracy from Kings to its current highly-evolved form (see also Les Miserables and the progression of Marius' opinions from his grandfather's nostalgia for the ancien régime via his father's veneration for the Emperor to Enjolras' egalitarianism).
All the same, what we actually see of Napoleon's behaviour and character in the first part of this story is in general far from flattering -- to the degree that Dumas apparently found it necessary to defend his depiction by citing research and original sources -- and the tale of how Hector's family are wiped out one by one in gory detail while fighting in defence of the monarchy is a harrowing one that makes it hard to see how the young man could reconcile himself with the victorious party. Napoleon's brief appearances later on in the book are not calculated to arouse admiration either, as he is portrayed as vindictive, petty, and ruthless. But the novel breathes a general air of admiration towards him and his campaigns, and despite the fact that he keeps getting kicked in the teeth by his Emperor Hector serves him loyally (and, according to Dumas' plot sketch, was eventually to end up assisting in Napoleon's return from the Isle of Elba). It feels like a betrayal of the oath young Sainte-Hermine has taken and of everything that happened in the previous books, to the degree that when we do get tiny references to his tragic past (notably, the editor feels the need to insert one in his 'reconstructed/suggested' ending to the unfinished bandit chapter, where the bandit's severed head reminds him of "some heads that were dear to me"), it comes as a breath of fresh air and a much-needed deepening of his character.
Perhaps the most interesting narrative choice, conscious or not, that Dumas makes in this context is that all the great Napoleonic victories seem to take place off-screen, while the engagements the protagonist actually gets involved in, however heroic his personal actions (e.g. breaking single-handedly through the English lines at the battle of Maida or killing Admiral Nelson) appear to be losing ones... (And one very odd piece of moral judgement, to modern eyes, is the fact that after capturing and condemning an American slaver for the crime of "removing the black people in his hold from their lands and families by force or by trickery", with the judgement that he should be hung at his own yard-arm, after pardoning him for his sincere repentance the victors then authorise him to sell off the eighty Negroes he still has on board in order to restore his fortunes; fair enough as an exemplar of dealing with a gallant enemy, apart from the high indignation shown on behalf of those same slaves and their sufferings a few scenes earlier!)
Obviously it is unfortunate that the author died long before he could finish his ambitious intended scope for the story, which was, according to his notes, to have extended throughout the entire fourteen years of 'widowhood' foretold for Claire de Sourdis and have covered the whole of Napoleon's career. And it is possible that with a masterly narrative twist or two and a great deal of editing of irrelevant ancedote -- as was apparently Dumas' wont when revising newspaper serials like this, where he was required to churn out a certain relentless column length per issue, for subsequent publication in coherent novel form -- he might have managed to turn it into something more readable; after all, "The Count of Monte-Cristo" is pretty diffuse and waffly, and the titular protagonist is effectively peripheral to the action for large chunks of the book. But while an unfinished story is always frustrating, it's hard to feel that this one would have amounted to anything more than a continued recital of Napoleonic history with Hector de Sainte-Hermine popping up at long intervals, winning vows of undying brotherhood from all the men alongside whom he fights and attracting admiration in vain from all the women.
In terms of Dumas' better-known output, this is probably closer in concept to Louise de La Vallière, in which the main focus is on the historical characters while the former musketeers have only bit-parts around the edges. But the difference is that the reader actually gets caught up instead in the affairs of Madame Henriette and of Louis XIV as main characters, whereas here there is no clear set of 'alternative protagonists', but an endless succession of people whom we meet for a few chapters before moving on; for example, the beginning, with its drama between Bonaparte's aide-de-camp Roland de Montrevel and the Chouans (with the latter coming out decidedly the better) is as good as anything Dumas ever wrote, but in the next section Roland is now disconcertingly dead off-screen.
There is nothing inherently wrong in having a noble and flawless hero in this sort of fiction, and arguably the eponymous and unlucky Raoul de Bragelonne is one such. But I found I cared more about the fate of Raoul, however minor a role he may play in the book that bears his name. Hector de Sainte-Hermine may be both gifted and highly educated in all the arts of war and peace, kind, generous and intelligent, but ultimately he simply isn't terribly interesting.
(Praise, however, must go to Claude Schopp, who not only edited and rediscovered the text in the first place, but manages to conclude the half-finished chapter of the serial in a manner that is not only indistinguishable, to my eye, from the style and moralising of the original, but which manages in that short space to be more humane and engaging (the ex-bandit Tomeo names his mule; René is reminded of his lost family) than the genuine unpublished later chapters that were completed by Dumas before he died! Apparently Schopp subsequently proceeded to produce a complete novel based on Dumas' plot outline for the remainder of the story, under the title Le Salut de l’Empire, though I'm afraid I don't find myself inspired enough to seek it out...)
December 18, 2014
I find it very hard to believe that a book by Alexandre Dumas, one of my favourite authors, has disappointed me, but this has. I was very looking forward reading this last book for Dumas, an epos he could not finish before he passed away and which manuscript was found not earlier than 2005 by Claude Schopp, who then put all the pieces together and published the work. But unfortunately, it could not satisfy me.
First of all it's taking ages before the main character finally shows up, and later he disappears for 180 (!) pages. The story goes in many directions, in the first part Napoleon has the main role, but I couldn't tell why. In 'The Count of Monte Christo' there are long sideways as well, but at least they had their meaning to the whole story. This book does not even seem to have a motive.
Hector de Saint-Hermine has lost his whole family of Royalists in the French Revolution and under the regime of Napoleon, yet Hector does not feel hatred against Napoleon, nor the obligation to follow in his fathers' and brothers' foot steps. He is almost too perfect: he is handsome, rich, elegant, kind, strong and seems to be a master in everything. What fails to me is a real character; something that drives him. Although he describes the complete history of his family, which made me believe he wanted to seek revenge, he seems to be just living his life, doing what comes across him (and doing that brilliantly), but without an envisioned goal. Hector therefore is a completely different charachter than D'Artagnan or Edmond Dantès.
The long parts about the history of certain places Hector visites or about people he encounters wouldn't bother me if they were helpful in understanding the setting of the story, but in this book they just make the (not really existing) storyline going forward even slower.
Claude Schopp tells us in his epilogue that Dumas wanted to write a book about the history of France and not as much a historical novel. I think this did not work out very well: by naming the book after The Knight of Saint-Hermine, who is a fictional character, and by making up an adventurous story about this man, he started to create a historical novel. So in the end, for readers who love novels in a historical setting, the nonfictional parts are too long, and for readers who want to learn something about France in the Napoleonic era, the fictional story around Saint-Hermine will be bothering.
First of all it's taking ages before the main character finally shows up, and later he disappears for 180 (!) pages. The story goes in many directions, in the first part Napoleon has the main role, but I couldn't tell why. In 'The Count of Monte Christo' there are long sideways as well, but at least they had their meaning to the whole story. This book does not even seem to have a motive.
Hector de Saint-Hermine has lost his whole family of Royalists in the French Revolution and under the regime of Napoleon, yet Hector does not feel hatred against Napoleon, nor the obligation to follow in his fathers' and brothers' foot steps. He is almost too perfect: he is handsome, rich, elegant, kind, strong and seems to be a master in everything. What fails to me is a real character; something that drives him. Although he describes the complete history of his family, which made me believe he wanted to seek revenge, he seems to be just living his life, doing what comes across him (and doing that brilliantly), but without an envisioned goal. Hector therefore is a completely different charachter than D'Artagnan or Edmond Dantès.
The long parts about the history of certain places Hector visites or about people he encounters wouldn't bother me if they were helpful in understanding the setting of the story, but in this book they just make the (not really existing) storyline going forward even slower.
Claude Schopp tells us in his epilogue that Dumas wanted to write a book about the history of France and not as much a historical novel. I think this did not work out very well: by naming the book after The Knight of Saint-Hermine, who is a fictional character, and by making up an adventurous story about this man, he started to create a historical novel. So in the end, for readers who love novels in a historical setting, the nonfictional parts are too long, and for readers who want to learn something about France in the Napoleonic era, the fictional story around Saint-Hermine will be bothering.
March 14, 2013
Those who know me know that I am a big fan of Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers are two of my all-time favorite novels (Musketeers, incidentally, seems to be rising in my estimation vis-à-vis CMC, perhaps because of the former's incredible wit). So needless to say, I was expecting a lot out this book. It didn't fully meet those high expectations, but I would still recommend it. The fact that this unfinished 800-page novel was recently discovered after being lost for over a century is in itself pretty amazing (and it is worth finding out more about the discovery in the introductory materials—although I would recommend reading them after you've finished the text, so as not to "spoil" anything).
The book itself feels quite disjointed. The protagonist, Count Sainte-Hermine, doesn't even appear for about the first 100 pages, and when he does, his back story is told in a somewhat clunky manner of him narrating his past to his soon-to-be fiancé. This back story is riveting, but just when you think you are getting into the story of the young count, he disappears from the novel for another couple hundred pages until the end of the first half of the book. What fills the rest of the first half is a rather intriguing portrait of Napoleon before he declares himself Emperor, including how he put down an apparent royalist conspiracy. This portrait of Napoleon, for me, was one of the more interesting parts of the book.
In the second half of the book, Napoleon recedes (at least as a character) and we follow the adventures of Sainte-Hermine, as he sails on the high seas as a French corsair, hunts tigers and breaks hearts in Burma, plays a pivotal role in the battle of Trafalgar, and (as the unfinished novel draws to a close) hunts bandits in the service of Napoleon's brother King Joseph of Naples. The young count, whose real name is Hector but who goes by Rene or sometimes Leo, excels at just about everything (including humility, of course) and by the end of the book, this kind of gets on your nerves. But his adventures are genuinely exciting, and if you like Dumas, I think you will enjoy the ride here. If you want perfection, you'll certainly get it from Sainte-Hermine (who is seemingly flawless) but not from Dumas' Last Cavalier.
The book itself feels quite disjointed. The protagonist, Count Sainte-Hermine, doesn't even appear for about the first 100 pages, and when he does, his back story is told in a somewhat clunky manner of him narrating his past to his soon-to-be fiancé. This back story is riveting, but just when you think you are getting into the story of the young count, he disappears from the novel for another couple hundred pages until the end of the first half of the book. What fills the rest of the first half is a rather intriguing portrait of Napoleon before he declares himself Emperor, including how he put down an apparent royalist conspiracy. This portrait of Napoleon, for me, was one of the more interesting parts of the book.
In the second half of the book, Napoleon recedes (at least as a character) and we follow the adventures of Sainte-Hermine, as he sails on the high seas as a French corsair, hunts tigers and breaks hearts in Burma, plays a pivotal role in the battle of Trafalgar, and (as the unfinished novel draws to a close) hunts bandits in the service of Napoleon's brother King Joseph of Naples. The young count, whose real name is Hector but who goes by Rene or sometimes Leo, excels at just about everything (including humility, of course) and by the end of the book, this kind of gets on your nerves. But his adventures are genuinely exciting, and if you like Dumas, I think you will enjoy the ride here. If you want perfection, you'll certainly get it from Sainte-Hermine (who is seemingly flawless) but not from Dumas' Last Cavalier.
March 4, 2015
This is the last novel of the Saint-Hermine trilogy. The first two are The Whites and the Blues and The Companions of Jehu. Each of these three books can be read separately.
The first hundred pages of this book is retelling of the events of the first two novels. Many chapters are basically copied and pasted from those books but with few alterations. The Whites and the Blues left couple of plot threads hanging and those threads are resolved and integrated with the portion that retells The Companions of Jehu. Also the ending of The Companions of Jehu is told differently, although with no contradictions.
Main character in The Last Cavalier is the third Saint-Hermine brother, Hector. He is introduced after first hundred pages but his story really begins only after the halfway point. The hero of the first half is Napoleon who deals with royalist conspirators. This first half is very much like a history book but I found it very entertaining. Napoleon is a complex person and his rise to power is very interesting to read. Sadly there is not much of him after the first half.
After the halfway point story centers mainly with Hector. Hectors story feels more like fiction although there are many historical figures, for example admiral Horatio Nelson. Much of Hector story happens outside France. This is a nice change because usually Dumas' stories don't happen outside the borders of France. Hector travels as fas as Burma and kills tigers and giant snakes, then he returns just in time of Battle of Trafalgar and finally he hunts bandits in Italy where the story ends.
Unfortunately Dumas never finished this story and there is no resolution for Hector. However, in the foreword there is a letter in which Dumas tells the whole plot in broad strokes and it seems very interesting with Napoleons invasion of Russia and his exile.
I give this book four stars but I recommend it only to Dumas fanatics. Other readers may find it boring and I understand that. This is not as thrilling as the best of Dumas' novels and there is lots of historicals facts and "rambling". But I enjoyed it and perhaps I read it again someday.
The first hundred pages of this book is retelling of the events of the first two novels. Many chapters are basically copied and pasted from those books but with few alterations. The Whites and the Blues left couple of plot threads hanging and those threads are resolved and integrated with the portion that retells The Companions of Jehu. Also the ending of The Companions of Jehu is told differently, although with no contradictions.
Main character in The Last Cavalier is the third Saint-Hermine brother, Hector. He is introduced after first hundred pages but his story really begins only after the halfway point. The hero of the first half is Napoleon who deals with royalist conspirators. This first half is very much like a history book but I found it very entertaining. Napoleon is a complex person and his rise to power is very interesting to read. Sadly there is not much of him after the first half.
After the halfway point story centers mainly with Hector. Hectors story feels more like fiction although there are many historical figures, for example admiral Horatio Nelson. Much of Hector story happens outside France. This is a nice change because usually Dumas' stories don't happen outside the borders of France. Hector travels as fas as Burma and kills tigers and giant snakes, then he returns just in time of Battle of Trafalgar and finally he hunts bandits in Italy where the story ends.
Unfortunately Dumas never finished this story and there is no resolution for Hector. However, in the foreword there is a letter in which Dumas tells the whole plot in broad strokes and it seems very interesting with Napoleons invasion of Russia and his exile.
I give this book four stars but I recommend it only to Dumas fanatics. Other readers may find it boring and I understand that. This is not as thrilling as the best of Dumas' novels and there is lots of historicals facts and "rambling". But I enjoyed it and perhaps I read it again someday.
August 3, 2020
*** Attenzione: di seguito anticipazioni sulla trama***
Premetto che Dumas, per me non si discute e rimane l’autore di uno dei miei due libri di formazione. Non passano estati senza che riprenda la lettura di uno dei suoi romanzi per inseguire l’avventura senza pensieri. Tuttavia questo libro ha più (molto più) di una pecca.
E’ vero che la famiglia spendacciona era sempre a corto di quattrini e che 40 centesimi di franco a riga erano un allettamento irresistibile ma, 1500 pagine di un romanzo CHE NON FINISCE, è più di quanto possa accettare dal Grande Sbruffone.
Ma la pecca vera è che l’eroe è semplicemente ODIOSO.
Un gagà aristocratico che (a parte la sfiga iniziale che motiva le sue avventure) è sempre al posto giusto nel momento giusto: è il più coraggioso, il più ricco, il più bello, il più forte, il più fortunato, il più audace, il più magnanimo, il più colto, il più stoico, il più gentiluomo, il più elegante; le sue armi sono sempre le più fini i suoi cavalli i più focosi, i suoi serpenti i più immensi, le sue tigri le più feroci ecc ecc.
Ma, ai nostri occhi moderni (sì, lo so che non si dovrebbe prescindere dall’epoca in cui è stato tratteggiato), scusate la volgarità, è anche il più testa di…
Per dire, massacra in allegria uomini e bestie senza fare un plissé, dà fuoco allegramente a una intera foresta per tenere lontane le bestie notturne, tratta i non europei che incontra come scimmie poco sviluppate, ecc. ecc.
Le uniche parti divertenti del romanzo sono quelle storiche (ascesa e consolidamento di Napoleone, Giuseppina, Fouché, i generali in disgrazia) e quelle enciclopediche (inserti sulla storia romana antica, sulle su grandi autori come Chateaubriand, Haydn).
“Il piacere della lettura, sul quale Dumas non transigeva”,
come scrive il curatore dell’edizione, qui è veramente andato a Patrasso: visto che si tratta di un romanzo perduto da quasi un secolo ci si domanda che bisogno c’era di ritrovarlo
Premetto che Dumas, per me non si discute e rimane l’autore di uno dei miei due libri di formazione. Non passano estati senza che riprenda la lettura di uno dei suoi romanzi per inseguire l’avventura senza pensieri. Tuttavia questo libro ha più (molto più) di una pecca.
E’ vero che la famiglia spendacciona era sempre a corto di quattrini e che 40 centesimi di franco a riga erano un allettamento irresistibile ma, 1500 pagine di un romanzo CHE NON FINISCE, è più di quanto possa accettare dal Grande Sbruffone.
Ma la pecca vera è che l’eroe è semplicemente ODIOSO.
Un gagà aristocratico che (a parte la sfiga iniziale che motiva le sue avventure) è sempre al posto giusto nel momento giusto: è il più coraggioso, il più ricco, il più bello, il più forte, il più fortunato, il più audace, il più magnanimo, il più colto, il più stoico, il più gentiluomo, il più elegante; le sue armi sono sempre le più fini i suoi cavalli i più focosi, i suoi serpenti i più immensi, le sue tigri le più feroci ecc ecc.
Ma, ai nostri occhi moderni (sì, lo so che non si dovrebbe prescindere dall’epoca in cui è stato tratteggiato), scusate la volgarità, è anche il più testa di…
Per dire, massacra in allegria uomini e bestie senza fare un plissé, dà fuoco allegramente a una intera foresta per tenere lontane le bestie notturne, tratta i non europei che incontra come scimmie poco sviluppate, ecc. ecc.
Le uniche parti divertenti del romanzo sono quelle storiche (ascesa e consolidamento di Napoleone, Giuseppina, Fouché, i generali in disgrazia) e quelle enciclopediche (inserti sulla storia romana antica, sulle su grandi autori come Chateaubriand, Haydn).
“Il piacere della lettura, sul quale Dumas non transigeva”,
come scrive il curatore dell’edizione, qui è veramente andato a Patrasso: visto che si tratta di un romanzo perduto da quasi un secolo ci si domanda che bisogno c’era di ritrovarlo
May 5, 2019
A terrible book. I completed it only because it was Dumas' last (unfinished) book and I wished to give the man and author my respect, after enjoying a number of his other books. But, man, did it need editing. It was exactly half the length of War and Peace but seemed twice as long. Forget the fact that it was entirely derivative, especially from The Count of Monte Cristo, it was just boring. It had nothing to do with Dumas' suggestion in his preface that many might not appreciate the book since it is more history than novel; it is just boring. Long lists of names are trotted out too often, entire scenes of little veracity, entire sequences for little reason other than to display the “historicity” of the novel. Mostly, the novel is about the hyperbolic adventures of a character who was, evidently, the first Tarzan: killing a 43 foot, yard wide snake that was crushing two elephants at the time. A woman literally dies for love of him which he cannot requite since he's being honest to the true love that had been denied him; despite the fact he fathers some children from an Indian woman who dies and the children just seem to consequently disappear. The blurbs promise a swashbuckler; there may have been buckling, but with very little swash. Everyone, even villains, fall for the magnificence of this demigod of a hero (humble, oh, so very humble). The editor finished the ending, but that I did not waste my time with. I am not sorry I read it, I am sorry that Dumas ended his career with this. (Some books, like Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, should never have been found and published.) He was a great man. His father was a brilliant general who slighted the rising Napoleon and was later destroyed by him. I expected the book to reflect that, but, in deference to the Bonapartists, as he says, he makes Napoleon out as nothing but a genius. I prefer Tolstoy's version of a crumbling, mad egoist.
May 23, 2008
So far, this is one of the good ones, much better than the book that came before it in this series, Les Blancs et les Bleus. I'm particularly interested in Napoleon, so that's an added incentive to stick with it.
*******
well, just finished it (finally) and really thought this book would never end. It's interesting but it's very repetitive; the heroes keep having the same battles and adventures over and over again. It feels like Dumas just loved this character so much (once he finally introduces him) that he just keeps on imagining one tale after another with St Hermine as the star.
St. Hermine doesn't even really appear until the middle of this (very long) book. He's sort of a cross between the Count of Monte Cristo and D'Artagnan but is absurdly perfect in every way that it makes you roll your eyes.
Napoleon is lively and interesting when he appears but mostly he disappears after the first few chapters. And Dumas spends a painful amount of pages giving boring details of minute battles during the Napoleonic wars. He does describe Trafalgar and makes it very human and interesting but he skips most of what Napoleon is up to and concentrates instead on detailing little skirmishes in the mountains between French soldiers and brigands from various countries.
So, if you really love Dumas, give it a try, there are parts of it that are very satisfying. But don't be surprised if, by the end, you can't wait for it to be over.
*******
well, just finished it (finally) and really thought this book would never end. It's interesting but it's very repetitive; the heroes keep having the same battles and adventures over and over again. It feels like Dumas just loved this character so much (once he finally introduces him) that he just keeps on imagining one tale after another with St Hermine as the star.
St. Hermine doesn't even really appear until the middle of this (very long) book. He's sort of a cross between the Count of Monte Cristo and D'Artagnan but is absurdly perfect in every way that it makes you roll your eyes.
Napoleon is lively and interesting when he appears but mostly he disappears after the first few chapters. And Dumas spends a painful amount of pages giving boring details of minute battles during the Napoleonic wars. He does describe Trafalgar and makes it very human and interesting but he skips most of what Napoleon is up to and concentrates instead on detailing little skirmishes in the mountains between French soldiers and brigands from various countries.
So, if you really love Dumas, give it a try, there are parts of it that are very satisfying. But don't be surprised if, by the end, you can't wait for it to be over.
July 10, 2010
Origianlly a lost manuscript, it wouldn't have hurt anything of it had stayed that way. Set in Napoleanic times, it kind of follows the adventures of a young noble whose familial obligations lead him afoul of Napolean. I say kind of because the story meanders through often pedantic tangents that rarely inform or flesh out the story. What is worse is that the young Count is so perfectly good at just about everything that there is almos no drama when Dumas actually gets back on track telling the story. The fact that it is unfinished provides the perfect final dollop on the unsatisfying pie of this novel.
The settings are a bit fruther afield than Dumas usually applies, leading to the possibility of interest, but this ends predicatbly in an alomost laughably absurd depiction of India. Dumas seems to Continental Europe, and can fake England/Ireland enough to get by druing brief episodes, but anything more fleshed out than the brief and puprosely obsure references in Count of Monet Cristo seem to throw him.
While it is passable entertainment, it got two stars just beacuse it is Dumas. It wasn't an unpleasent read, but it certainly wasn't enthralling. All in all if you are looking for something that is just ok that you won't mind being distracted from, this ne may be for you. If you wish to preserve an image of Dumas being a great writer, then pass.
The settings are a bit fruther afield than Dumas usually applies, leading to the possibility of interest, but this ends predicatbly in an alomost laughably absurd depiction of India. Dumas seems to Continental Europe, and can fake England/Ireland enough to get by druing brief episodes, but anything more fleshed out than the brief and puprosely obsure references in Count of Monet Cristo seem to throw him.
While it is passable entertainment, it got two stars just beacuse it is Dumas. It wasn't an unpleasent read, but it certainly wasn't enthralling. All in all if you are looking for something that is just ok that you won't mind being distracted from, this ne may be for you. If you wish to preserve an image of Dumas being a great writer, then pass.
January 12, 2021
I've listened to the whole novelization on Audible. The best of Dumas's works I have witnessed of late. I am on my second listen. Les Trois Mousquetaires, Le Compte de Monte Cristo, are both, still some of the most amazing stories. Hector de Saint Hermine, now there is a hero! d'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, Aramis and Edmond Dantes rolled into one character.
History class taught me that Napoleon Bonaparte was not a good guy. Sure, he had his faults, but he was quite a personage. His decisive nature and compassion for France and it's people, is quite honorable. He had more compassion, love and understanding than any Bourbon. Bonaparte paid Pensions, as he appreciated the hard work of his soldiers. General Dumas didn't recieve his Pension. Probably because General Dumas had seriously differing political views. The Bourbons basically forgot anyone who wasn't themselves and a few select elites... Louis XIII through to XVIII were garbage in comparison.
My comparison of the Bourbon bloodline and the liquor is, both are pretty in appearance, and the initial flavor is sweet. But the after taste and long term effects are vile.
History class taught me that Napoleon Bonaparte was not a good guy. Sure, he had his faults, but he was quite a personage. His decisive nature and compassion for France and it's people, is quite honorable. He had more compassion, love and understanding than any Bourbon. Bonaparte paid Pensions, as he appreciated the hard work of his soldiers. General Dumas didn't recieve his Pension. Probably because General Dumas had seriously differing political views. The Bourbons basically forgot anyone who wasn't themselves and a few select elites... Louis XIII through to XVIII were garbage in comparison.
My comparison of the Bourbon bloodline and the liquor is, both are pretty in appearance, and the initial flavor is sweet. But the after taste and long term effects are vile.
February 24, 2010
This is Dumas' last novel -- well, most of it. Dumas scholar Claude Schopp discovered references to it and then tracked the installments down in the Bibliothèque Nationale; then he found some manuscript pages, never published, opening a new episode of the serial.
I loved the beginning, because I am a fool for Napoleonic fiction, and Dumas' portraits of Napoleon and Josephine are wonderful. But then, the last half of the book is all over the place, and I really had to talk myself into finishing it: first the hero goes to sea as a corsair, then he's in India (where a woman dies for love of him, argh!), then he's back at sea at Trafalgar (and is the unidentified Frenchman who kills Nelson), then he's back in France for about three seconds before heading off to Italy to catch bandits. I suppose Dumas might have pulled this together a little if he'd lived long enough to finish it and edit it for book form, but it's really kind of a mess. I think if he'd just stuck with Napoleon, I'd have ended up liking it a lot; as it is, not so much.
I loved the beginning, because I am a fool for Napoleonic fiction, and Dumas' portraits of Napoleon and Josephine are wonderful. But then, the last half of the book is all over the place, and I really had to talk myself into finishing it: first the hero goes to sea as a corsair, then he's in India (where a woman dies for love of him, argh!), then he's back at sea at Trafalgar (and is the unidentified Frenchman who kills Nelson), then he's back in France for about three seconds before heading off to Italy to catch bandits. I suppose Dumas might have pulled this together a little if he'd lived long enough to finish it and edit it for book form, but it's really kind of a mess. I think if he'd just stuck with Napoleon, I'd have ended up liking it a lot; as it is, not so much.
May 9, 2022
I enjoyed this as Dumas last Novel, but this is an unfinished work that doesn’t know what it wants to be. One moment a history lesson, the next a stirring action scene, Dumas brushes broadly in places I wanted detail, and writes in depth scenes that I wished would just end.
This novel has some detailed descriptions of horrific executions that feel much more dark than any other Dumas I’ve read.
One thing in particular bothers me about St. Hermine: The description of the novel claims this is a tale of enduring vengeance, but unless I’m missing something, St. Hermine completely ignores his vow to avenge his family. Instead he does the opposite and actually works in the service of the men responsible for his family’s death. I like to think that Dumas had some master plan where Hermine would somehow be involved in Napoleon’s downfall and finally claim his vengeance, but like I said, it’s unfinished.
All that said, I enjoyed this ride even though it’s no Monte Cristo.
This novel has some detailed descriptions of horrific executions that feel much more dark than any other Dumas I’ve read.
One thing in particular bothers me about St. Hermine: The description of the novel claims this is a tale of enduring vengeance, but unless I’m missing something, St. Hermine completely ignores his vow to avenge his family. Instead he does the opposite and actually works in the service of the men responsible for his family’s death. I like to think that Dumas had some master plan where Hermine would somehow be involved in Napoleon’s downfall and finally claim his vengeance, but like I said, it’s unfinished.
All that said, I enjoyed this ride even though it’s no Monte Cristo.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 27, 2012
Saying that I have read this book is a stretch. Have you seen it? It's a monster of a book. I think it might be able to take "War and Peace" in a cage fight to the death. I wasn't able to finish it, so "read" is sort of a lie. I tried very hard to read it. My dad and I were supposed to read it together, and I just couldn't maintain the interest. Dad got further along and confirmed what I was feeling: the main character (Count Sainte-Hermine) is a flawless prick (Dad's words) and it is difficult to care what happens to him. Swaths of the story seem barely connected to him at all, and you frequently get excessive information (by which I mean their life story) on a character who dies in the next chapter.
I love Dumas, and I do not want him to have written something so disappointing...but this is a pretty terrible book for a lost, final opus of a master creator of French literature.
I love Dumas, and I do not want him to have written something so disappointing...but this is a pretty terrible book for a lost, final opus of a master creator of French literature.
February 26, 2010
Heartbreaking ending, as the novel was unfinished by Dumas before he died.
All of the romantic elements are there, and the voyage is one of Dumas' greatest as you walk along side with Napoleon, Nelson, into the raw jungles of Burma, and wait ever patiently for true love to be validated as was fore told by the fortune teller - yet it is not, we are left hanging.
The Count Sainte-Hermine embodies all of the heroic elements that makes Dumas' men so grand and larger than life. He reinforces the humble, beautiful, eloquent man to whom honor and integrity are the code to which one binds his life.
Swooning.
Dorene
All of the romantic elements are there, and the voyage is one of Dumas' greatest as you walk along side with Napoleon, Nelson, into the raw jungles of Burma, and wait ever patiently for true love to be validated as was fore told by the fortune teller - yet it is not, we are left hanging.
The Count Sainte-Hermine embodies all of the heroic elements that makes Dumas' men so grand and larger than life. He reinforces the humble, beautiful, eloquent man to whom honor and integrity are the code to which one binds his life.
Swooning.
Dorene
March 8, 2011
This is one of those books that when you first pick it up...it's so heavy you may drop it. Knowing what a great author Dumas was after reading The Count of Monte Cristo I knew that I wouldn't be disappointed. There are so many characters in this spun novel that you would think you would get lost in all the details....but it couldn't be any further from the truth. These characters were so real & so awesome that I simply didn't want the story to end. When I turned to the last page I was so disappointed that I had nothing else to read. By far one of my favorite books. Dumas is amazing and there are very few authors that compare. I'm off to read The Three Musketeers.
May 2, 2011
Dumas does it again, taking a story fantastic all on its own and giving it that extra umph with its mixture of historical back round and settings. Dumas is my favorite author for many reasons, one being the author of my favorite book The Count of Monte Cristo and another being his complex plots and set ups involving many characters. Despite being his largest book The Last Cavalier is engrossing and exciting. The worst thing about this book is it is unfinished, however if you pick up on some of Dumas' foreshadowing you can predict how the story might have been continued if Dumas had not died before its completion. Wonderful story, especially if you are a big fan of Dumas.
July 21, 2008
I didn't realize that it's really just the third installment in what is essentially Dumas' history of France. Don't go into this expecting your usual historical fiction. Think of it more as a history book that reads like a beach novel. The translation is smooth and sometimes funny but there isn't enough drama to keep me in it for 700 pages. There isn't enough Josephine and really isn't she what keeps Bonaparte from being just another dreary old Caesar wannabe? But what do I know? Have you seen the rest of my books?
January 11, 2020
Not Dumas’s best work, in no small part because he died part way through writing it. Parts were captivating, especially the maritime sequences, but it got bogged down with random, long-winded backstories of minor characters or places. The book cuts off abruptly, but fortunately the person who discovered the manuscript and put it to press also found a letter from Dumas to his publisher detailing the entire plot of the book. So at least we know how it was supposed to end.
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