Twenty Years After

Twenty Years After returns to Alexandre Dumas's musketeer world with older, sharper men moving through a France split by loyalty, ambition, and revolt. From the tense chambers of the Palais Royal to the riot-filled streets of Paris, the story follows Cardinal Mazarin as he confronts the fragility of his power, the hatred aimed at a foreign minister, and the rising fury of the people. He proves shrewd, theatrical, and cautious, even donning a musketeer's uniform and venturing out with D'Artagnan to gauge the city's mood firsthand. As taxes, corruption, and court overreach inflame the capital, the Fronde gathers force around public anger and political intrigue. The young Louis XIV attempts to project royal authority, but unrest only deepens. At Notre Dame, a grand Te Deum celebrating Lens becomes a stage for military display, comic bustle, and covert maneuvering, as D'Artagnan, Porthos, and the old comrades are drawn back into danger. The crisis peaks when Comminges arrives to arrest the respected Councillor Broussel, turning a private household into a public flashpoint and a city already on edge into something close to revolt. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.