Twenty Years After - Week 13 - thru The Port Wine

[Robin P, Moderator]

The plot advances quickly. Athos has a close-up experience of the beheading of Charles. I remember being very moved by this section when I first read this at the age of 12 or so. Dumas continues to show the king as a heroic martyr.

Had you guessed the identity of the executioner? I was surprised about the beard. I would have thought Mordaunt would have revealed himself to the king at some point and gloated about his vengeance. But even he seems a bit subdued by the moment.

While the others are recovering from the situation, d'Artagnan has used his ingenuity to follow the masked man and keep him under guard. Once again Cromwell is shown to not be a bloodthirsty man. He favored letting the king escape and having him die at sea. Now we know the plot which our heroes do not. Mordaunt shows himself to be an impressive duelist. When did he learn all these skills?

On the ship, we learn the timetable for the disaster but our heroes are unaware and sound asleep. Thanks to a somewhat humorous interchange of the valets, the fatal secret is discovered and the musketeers and valets make it to the longboat just in time. Are you enjoying this action-packed section?

[Ana]

I was about 12 too when I first read this book and I had no idea they would be unable to save King Charles. (I wasn’t really familiar with the history and it wasn’t as easy to google it as it is now.)
The execution was really sad, especially the part when the king sees his children.
Dumas always tends to prolong these scenes and make them more dramatic and heart-breaking. There is always a piece of jewelry and an object stained with blood.
King Charles holds on to the cross sent to him by Henrietta till the last minute. This is very similar to the execution scene from Queen Margot. It also reminds me of Buckingham’s stabbing in the Three Musketeers. (The part when he sends the jewelry box back to Queen Ann and adds the knife with his blood on it.)

There is definitely a lot of action in these chapters.
This is perhaps the most interesting and most dramatic section of the book.
Our 4 friends finally confront Mordaunt. It was about time!
Of course the best part is yet to come.

[Hedi]

”The best part is yet to come...”

I was about to continue reading and realized that that was the next chapter.
A lot happens in this section and I was able to visualize these scenes as a movie easily.
I also thought that the execution of the king was very sad, in particular his last encounter with his children. I must admit I had not expected so much sentimentality from a king of the 17th century, but I might just be biased and prejudiced due to so many movies about the Elizabethan ages.
And then there was honorable Athos sitting under the scaffold catching a drop of blood on his face. Dumas was making a great scene out of this.
The following chapters were not less intriguing with the discovery of the man in the mask - my gut feeling had been right - and his close relationship with Cromwell. I think Cromwell did not want to execute the king because the king’s followers could use this against him - a “simple accident” would have made him less guilty and vulnerable for vengeance.

I wonder how much Dumas prepared himself for this novel as he is putting it into this English historical context. The 19th century offered many historians , but I am really curious to know how he learned about the circumstances - well, he was not keeping too much attention as there are some historical errors in the book, but anyway.