Volume II of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or Ten Years After, Louise de la Valliere focuses largely on the intrigues and romances of the pleasure-seeking court of King Louis XIV, sorely neglecting D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. Indeed, The Many Loves of Louis XIV might be a better title for this section. Early on, after the rushing adventures and plot lines from the end of Volume I suddenly gave way to chapters detailing various jealousies and family quarrels in the royal residence, I almost lost heart. A fairly large section can perhaps be accused with that awful genre label, "soap opera", as many different men (including Louis himself) pursue Henrietta, new bride of Louis's younger brother Philip. But this is still Dumas, so despite the sudden and overwhelming focus on royal love affairs, and despite a preponderance of pages-length descriptive paragraphs, the reading is still interesting, and he still manages to generate some excitement with the fairly sedate story material (which is, for the most part, lifted straight from France's history).If the musketeers and Raoul are largely absent, they do get some quite excellent scenes, including a hilarious vignette where Porthos dines with the king, a tense encounter between D'Artagnan and Aramis, and a meeting with a mysterious prisoner locked in the Bastille. And when the court storyline finally focuses on the romance between the king and Louise, it really does become gripping. Despite my best efforts not to be sucked in by the love story, I was gasping in surprise and reading on the edge of my seat. Unlike Volume I, this one ends on a classic cliffhanger after the action is wrought up to a fever pitch. On to Volume III!
Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 loves of Louis XIV
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