During religious wars in France, Marguerite de Valois, a Catholic, marries Henry de Navarre, a Protestant and the future king

Extrait: ...a dix pas de nous, je ne conservai plus aucun doute. Je craignais maintenant presque autant le secours que le danger. Je restai muette et immobile, rangee dans l'angle de la fenetre, de sorte qu'il ne pouvait me voir. Arrive au pied du mur, il arreta sa barque a un anneau, et je vis apparaitre sa tete a la hauteur de l'appui de la croisee. Je ne pus retenir un leger cri. -Ah! pardon; dit le comte de Monsoreau, je croyais que vous m'attendiez. -C'est-a-dire que j'attendais quelqu'un, monsieur, repondis-je, mais j'ignorais que ce quelqu'un fut vous. Un sourire amer passa sur le visage du comte. -Qui donc, excepte moi et son pere, veille sur l'honneur de Diane de Meridor? -Vous m'avez dit, monsieur, dans la lettre que vous m'avez ecrite, que vous veniez au nom de mon pere. -Oui, mademoiselle; et, comme j'ai prevu que vous douteriez de la mission que j'ai recue, voici un billet du baron. Et le comte me tendit un papier. Nous n'avions allume ni bougies ni candelabres, pour etre plus libres de faire dans l'obscurite tout ce que commanderaient les circonstances. Je passai de la chambre de Gertrude dans la mienne. Je m'agenouillai devant le feu, et, a la lueur de la flamme du foyer, je lus: Ma chere Diane, M. le comte de Monsoreau peut seul t'arracher au danger que tu cours, et ce danger est immense. Fie-toi donc entierement a lui comme au meilleur ami que le ciel nous puisse envoyer. Il te dira plus tard ce que du fond de mon coeur je desirerais que tu fisses pour acquitter la dette que nous allons contracter envers lui. Ton pere, qui te supplie de le croire, et d'avoir pitie de toi et de lui, BARON DE MERIDOR. Rien de positif n'existait dans mon esprit contre M. de Monsoreau; la repulsion qu'il m'inspirait etait bien plutot instinctive que raisonnee. Je n'avais a lui reprocher que la mort d'une biche, et c'etait un crime bien leger pour un chasseur. J'allai donc a lui. -Eh bien?...

Another of the very finest of Dumas' historical romances. It was composed in collaboration with Auguste Maquet. It is often referred to as a sequel to "La Reine Margot," but it is not such save in that it follows fairly closely on the concluding year of the previous work, thus including many of the same historical characters. It concerns the troubled times of Henri III, and the League, the king's "mignons" and the death of the most famous among them as well as that of Bussy d'Amboise. the only character in all Dumas' gallery who may possibly rival in popularity and splendour of portrayal d'Artagnan, is here first met with : Chicot, the king's gentleman-jester. The period is 1578-79. It first appeared serially in "Le Constitutionnel," according to Dumas, in his preface to Grisier's "Armes et le Duel".

A true sequel to "La Dame de Monsoreau." It concerns the revenge of Diane de Méridor upon the Duc d'Anjou for his base betrayal of Bussy d'Amboise. Historically it commences with the execution of Salcède and the arrival of the Forty-Five at Paris, and deals with the Guise intrigues, the campaign of Anjou in Flanders and his death. Period 1584-85. Maquet was again the collaborator. During the fête held at Villers-Cotterets in 1902 the original MS. of this romance was exhibited, half being in the hand of Dumas père, and the remainder, the latter moiety, in that of his son, with a note signed by this latter to the effect that his father, being confined to his bed by sickness, had dictated it to the younger man. Yet in face of this it has been repeatedly affirmed that Maquet finished it alone.

Volume one of a two volume set Never did the reign of any European sovereign present so many and such varying phases. A contest for empire, a captive monarch, a female regency, and a religious war; the poisoned bowl and the burning pile alike doing their work of death amid scenes of uncalculating splendor and unbridled dissipation; the atrocities of bigotry and intolerance, blent with the most unblushing licentiousness and the most undisguised profligacy - such are the materials offered to the reader by the times of Francis I. The period thus characterized is that in which the scene of the present romance is laid, and although the plot is mainly concerned with the fortunes of others than subjects of the Roi Chevalier, we are treated to a succession of vivid pictures of life and manners at the French court and in the French capital. By universal consent Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), Pere is now acknowledged the most entertaining of the writers of romance. For variety of incidents, sprightliness of dialogue, and vividness of narrative no tales of adventure can compete with such works as The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo. It is doubtful also, whether the life of any novelist comes as near as the life of Alexandre Dumas to what is expected of an entertaining work of fiction. Viewed as a hero of romance, the great novelist is almost as striking a figure as his picturesque and fascinating D'Artagnan, so that his memoirs and the numerous volumes in which he relates the story of his travels seem to differ from his other narrative works only in the use, for the hero, of the first instead of the third person of the verb.

The Two Dianas (French: Les Deux Diane, 1846) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It tells the fictionalized story of Gabriel, comte de Montgomery, who mortally wounded king Henry II of France. The two Dianas in the title refer to Henry II's favorite, Diana de Poitiers, and her daughter, Diana de Castro. The novel also includes a fictionalization of the Martin Guerre story.