Спасибо, я вспомнила как убили Марию Антуанетту, когда была на экскурсии по Александровскому дворцу.

C'était étonnement romanesque, que d'émotions !

The Reign of terror is in town, and Madame le Guillotine is HUNGRY!!

This is a classic "based on historical events" novel, with extremely passionate characters and Dumas' flair for over the top drama. great fun!

"C’est que l’on a souvent pour ennemis des gens qu’on voudrait avoir pour amis."

I didn't even realize how much this book dragged me into the plot, how much I got involved. I also noticed, that A.Dumas' books are always full of education history wise. When you finish reading one of his books, you feel like you've learned so much more about the times the action took it's place.
This time I re-lived the XVIIIth, French revolution. Imagined myself walking down the streets of not so stable and safe Paris, following the characters of the book. And I loved every page of it.
I feel like Lorin deserves a golden medal for "The best 'best friend' of all time". Really. I loved his poetic and enthusiastic soul. Lorin - A friend that everybody NEEDS to have.

Intriguing, Fascinating & Memorable!

The first thing I realized in reading this book was that I have a woeful lack of knowledge about the French Revolution. I now have to remedy that, so suggestions for good non-fiction accounts of the French Revolution are being accepted. :-)

I genuinely loved this book; it is definitely a "swashbuckler," but in all the best ways -- a great, dramatic tale, with great, honor-bound characters. I had somehow skipped over Dumas prior to this, but now will go back to scoop up the Three Musketeers and Count of Monte Cristo at some point. If you are in the mood for historical fiction, this is a worthy read.

What about that ending boys and girls!...could you see it coming..Written before the Marie Antoinette series ,has no connection with that other than the queen, the times, and events..So one could read it separately without having previously read the first 5...Pretty gripping little fast paced drama..Has elements of Dickens's later,A Tale of Two Cities and The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy..

4.25/5
Dumas was the first classic author I ever read — and loved. These last few months, even years, I forgot his books and turned to Anglo-Saxon authors which is something I want to change now. French classics are so diverse in genre and writing and i have read only a tiny bit of it.

I am so glad I did ! Le Chevalier de maison-rouge is pure Dumas. It is not his best I think, but it is entertaining, fun and dramatic. I love how he always interweaves historical events with terrible love stories and secret plans.

What didn’t work as best here is the love story which I found was not so interesting. It felt a little strained and not very natural...

Set during the French Revolution, this story centres around the imprisoned Marie Antoinette and a ring of royalists led by a shadowy figure calling himself the Knight of Maison-Rougue. Full of secret messages, hidden identities, attempted jail breaks, denunciations and executions.

Exciting story, but fairly predictable. It was obvious to me from early on in the book what all of the secrets were, and the fact that this was so transparent, made the main character, Maurice, look pretty oblivious.

The story begins in March 1793 as Louis XVI has been beheaded, Marie Antoinette and her children are imprisoned and the Committee for Public Safety has unleashed The Reign of Terror. Unaware of a curfew, a young woman is stopped by members of the National Guard but saved from arrest by Civic Guard office Maurice Lindey. The woman disappears into the night but the enchanted Maurice finally locates her, and becomes friends with Genevieve and her older husband (who finds Maurice to be useful in his royalist plots). In the meantime, all Paris is abuzz over the mysterious Chevalier de Maison Rouge and his heroic attempts to secrete Marie Antoinette away from her fate with the guillotine.

The story then goes back and forth between that of Maurice and his beloved Genevieve and a recounting of the final days of Marie (now called Madame Capet) and the various schemes of several royalist parties to save her. Although I did enjoy this book very much (it _is_ Dumas), this one just didn't come off with the excitement and flare the previous six have done. Perhaps after six books I was approaching burn out, perhaps it's because there was no sign of my favorite characters from the first five books, but this one just didn't knock my socks off -- although I very much enjoyed the love story between Genevieve and Maurice. They were very touching and I doubt I'll ever look at a carnation the same way again. Have the tissue handy for the ending.

I do want to caution potential readers of this series to research carefully which edition you purchase -- there are some bad translations out there that can seriously impact your reading experience. The best luck I've had is with the early 1900's translations published by a P F Collier and Sons. The entire series, in order:

Joseph Balsamo
Memoirs of a Physician
The Queen's Necklace
Taking the Bastile
The Countess de Charny
The Chevalier de Maison Rouge (or The Knight of the Maison-Rouge)

This lesser known Dumas novel definitely deserves more attention. Mason-Rouge tells of a young man in the middle of the French Revolution that inadvertently is brought into a treasonous conspiracy.

The young man in question, Maurice, is very reminiscent of D’artagnan as he is a talented man of action but is carried away into making foolish decisions by his love. Maurice’s best friend Lorin is a real scene stealer with a sharp wit. Much like Dumas’s most famous work The Three Musketeers this book is somewhat of an ode to the strength of friendship.

However, also like The Three Musketeers the hero’s romance in the story concerns an affair. Yet, rather than showing infidelity as something casual like it is sometimes portrayed in Three Musketeers, it is shown as something wrong in this book even if the lover does “get the girl”. The situation surrounding the affair is somewhat complex and in the final confrontation between Lover and Husband both had some interesting points.

In regards to the female aspect of the romance she is overly pure and unbelievable, but that’s par for the course with Dumas. As is the case in some of his other works the romantic gushing takes up a bit too much space in the novel.

The first half of the novel primarily builds up the romance and was not particularly gripping but once the story gets going, it really gets going. The ending of this story is tense, unexpected, and fairly moving. If you can make it through the first half you won’t put down the second.

The setting of the French Revolution is well developed if not particularly accurate. There is hatred, suspicion, and upheaval seeped into the atmosphere.

If you like Dumas, adventurous historical fiction, or have an interest in the French Revolution definitely read this. Plus if you are a fan of the Scarlet Pimpernel this has a lot of the same elements as it has a daring hero saving royals, disguises, and schemes galore.

Dumas has been one of my favorite authors since we tore through The Three Musketeers in college when we should have been studying for finals. (Honestly, I think we did better on the finals because of the distraction.) The Knight of Maison-Rouge is one of his lesser-known books, and I am glad we were lucky enough to find a copy when we did.

This book is set during the Reign of Terror, after King Louis XVI was beheaded but before Marie Antoinette suffered the same fate. It’s based on the real “Affair of the Carnation” in which notes were passed to the Queen in captivity through a carnation. Putting notes into the carnation was ingenious, though in real life, as in the book, the attempt failed. One of the best things about Dumas’ fiction to me is the fact that he based it on real-life events, so while it’s not an accurate history lesson, it can at least prompt someone to go find out more about the real story. And weaving real people into the narrative is always fun. Many authors before and since have used this device.

Overall the book was very good. Each time I come back to Dumas’ works, i forget what a good story-teller he was and how the reader gets caught up in the story. I guess in some ways that was necessary because of the serialized way the novels were originally published, but this reader finds it engaging and very each to be drawn through the story.

While I missed my friends from The Three Musketeers, I was happy too make friends of the characters in this novel. Maurice and Lorin were likable, which made me want to root for them to succeed through the book. The villains were completely unlikable and the reader really dies want to kick them all, if not run them through with a sword.

I am not sure this qualifies as “great literature,” and I am not sure this should be the Dumas work chosen for required reading, if in fact one is at all, but it’s well worth the read and a galloping good journey through a vicious period in France’s history.