Review: Louise de la Vallière

Louise de la Vallière by Alexandre Dumas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is easily the weakest book of the series, but it still gets four stars from me because this series stole my heart and will keep it eternally.

Unlike its predecessor, this book is aptly titled because the focus moves away from our beloved musketeers and onto court intrigues, particularly surrounding the titular Louise, who has been (un)lucky enough to capture the attention of King Louis XIV. This is the main aspect that makes this book drag so much, as we're inundated with lovers' quarrels and meetings and plots etc. There are still some fantastic characters, but the action is less and the politics more.

The story opens with Athos asking the King's approval for Raoul to marry Louise (on Raoul's behalf). Sadly, that's the last we hear of Athos for the rest of the book. Ah, how I missed him and his invaluable sense of honour! I can just imagine him hearing about all of the drama that follows and thinking, 'I am way too old for this sh*t'. We get a little of Raoul as a consolation prize, but even he's sent away for the latter half of the novel. Thank god for de Guiche, who compensates a little for the loss of these two illustrious figures, even if he loses his own head to love.

D'Artagnan appears to face down the smack-talking de Wardes, who is the son of the dude d'Artagnan pretended to be back in The Three Musketeers in order to bed Milady. It kinda makes sense that de Wardes is a little angry but he talks so much crap about everyone that it's nice to see him get served so elegantly by d'Artagnan. Also great that Raoul is surrounded by supportive friends in de Guiche and Buckingham, who back him up and threaten to rumble with de Wardes if he doesn't reign in his mouth. I loved the interactions between these young fellas. You can kind of see a shadow of our musketeers in their friendship.

Having made his peace with de Wardes, d'Artagnan then sadly disappears for the next 400-odd pages, leaving us to deal with all the drama at court. And man, is there drama.

There's the jealous Gaston d'Orleans, brother to the king, married to the sister of England's new king. The sister is Henrietta, who is loved by basically every male who meets her, causing all kinds of drama. Buckingham, de Guiche, and even the king, who is her brother-in-law. She, in turn, seems to love all of them until she decides she's over it, and basically rampages around stomping on people's hearts, or stamping her foot petulantly if they remove their heart from her range, first. She wasn't my favourite, but she sure makes things interesting!

Louis is quite a fascinating character, as he's trying to be responsible and run a country, but he's kind of being carried away by his heart. Everyone in this book seems to do stupid things in the name of love. Boys were so much more romantic back in the day. *sigh*

Louise herself is my least favourite character because I'm completely devastated by her disloyalty to Raoul. That boy loves her with his whole heart and Louise gets carried off by a fancy for the king? These hoes ain't loyal! It made me so mad that she barely stops to consider him. Raoul totally deserves better.

Aramis, the sly fox - or master spider, rather - is tangled up in his own little webs, manipulating everyone in favour of Focquet. He's always up to something, and appears the most of our favourite four musketeers, albeit still too infrequently for my liking. I have enough loyalty to love him no matter what, but I really question his actions. He's certainly nowhere near as noble as Athos and I cringe at some of the decisions he makes! I'm so glad that d'Artagnan is there to love and yet still suspect him on my behalf. It's such a twisted relationship, and they lie to each other constantly, but at their core they're still bffs so it's all good?

Then poor old Porthos is stuck in the middle, unaware! I have so much respect for our friendly giant. I mean, he's kind of savage, and I get a malicious glee when he destroys things accidentally because he's misjudged his size or strength, but he's so caring and loyal and naive and never suspects any of his friends of wrongdoing or deceit. I love when d'Artagnan wins him over to his own side, but in my mind I suppose Porthos will always be Aramis's right-hand man. His sword-arm, really.

There are some seriously interesting dynamics between that constantly evolving friendship of our four musketeers.

There are still some great moments in this book, and de Guiche had a few at the end that had me pretty anxious and biting my lip! Even all the plots are so twisted that they keep things interesting.

When I originally read The Man in the Iron Mask, I skipped this book in my impatience to get to it. Now that I have a better understanding of all this drama that's happened, I'm really looking forward to having a better understanding of what comes next. I don't think it's particularly necessary to read this one, but it certainly adds a lot more meat to the story, and gives some fascinating history, too.

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