3.5
In 1793 King Louis XVI has just been beheaded. Maurice Lindley, a military lieutenant, has fallen love with Genevieve Dixmer. Lindley and his friend Louis Lorin are suspected of aiding the Royalists while trying to free Marie Antoinette from jail.

I love The Count of Monte Cristo. And I think that every time I read something by Dumas, that's what I'm hoping for. This was not that. And I don't know if this had something to do with the translation, but the book felt like an earlier draft instead of a final.

Really enjoyed this story. Dumas was a really great writer.

Una novela muy bonita. Una historia de amor imposible entre un jacobino y una monárquica en el contexto del encierro de Maria Antonieta tras la muerte de Luis XVI.

I picked this up because the book jacket said it was a novel of Marie Antoinette, which is a bit of misnomer. Marie Antoinette is a minor character in the novel, and many characters are involved in intrigues to save her from prison and death. The main character, Maurice, is a popular, well connected young man in Paris. He takes one look at Genenieve and falls passionately in love. His best friend is Loren and because of Maurice's love, both young men destroy themselves. Their motivations don't ring true partially because Genenieve is not well drawn. All we really know about her is her beauty. Her husband is a typical mustache twirling villain. It's a decent read but I found too much not credible in the book.

4.5 ☀️
C'est une lecture pour l'école. Je ne m'attendais pas à ce qu'il soit aussi bon et aussi bien! Les personnes sont super attachantes et la romance très bien exploité. Mon personnage préféré est Lorin, le meilleur ami de Maurice, vraiment un petit coeur.

I ABSOLUTELY ADORED THIS BOOK!

During the summer, I did not have much to do so I spent the majority of it sitting around and doing nothing until I remembered that I had this book in my room!

I read the first pages and did not think much of it until I made it halfway and fell in love with the plot and the storytelling. The dynamic between Louis and Maurice is one most people wish for and Louis was so funny throughout the book. I loved his digs at Simon oh my god.

Maurice is genuinely a good character. He's respectful and I wish I could take off a point for his borderline obsessive love for someone that didn't really care for him (he's a sad simp) but my love for this masterpiece of a work stops me from doing so.

A very good book and easy read. Completely different in style compared to his other works in the same genre, more so, classed as a romantic work.

Takie czytadełko z Rewolucją Francuską w tle. Nawet ze ścięcia głowy na gilotynie można zrobić, albo usiłować zrobić, scenę romantyczną. Rewolucja tnie głowy jak podleci a tytułowy kawaler kombinuje i kombinuje jak uwolnić królową Marię Antoninę. Oczywiście jemu się nie udaje. Romantycy i Ci co mają wartości kończą śmiercią a triumfują złośliwi kombinatorzy i chamy. Niezbyt optymistyczne. W porównaniu do innych powieści Dumasa ta trochę posklejana jakby na siłę.

The thing about Dumas is that I don't know if he has fully-realized heroes in these novels. His novels tend to end tragically for no reason (kind of like Shakespeare). There are plenty of opportunities for revenge or alternate endings, but they tend to end with people having their heads cut off (like this novel and also the Black Tulip). Maybe it is the commitment to realism that I do not like. Maybe I just expect too much out of a hero, such as living through the ordeal.

Outside of the ending, the book itself was mostly entertaining. It was probably too long, but it's literature so I expected it to be long. The dialogue is a little confusing, but I can get over that. The plot was not always existent and it took a full hundred pages to really establish the main story arc.

The heroes, perhaps noble in principle, ultimately failed - it left me with a sour mouthful of disappointment.

Un récit plein d'aventures.
Plus pour adolescents, tout de même.

I didn't get enough of Dumas for now by reading the Queen's necklace so I started the next book in the series on Audible. Turns out (according to Goodreads) I've read now the third and the eighth books in the series, not first and second. Well not a problem since we know what happened to Marie Antoinette and I suppose the other main characters aren't central in the other books. Fortunately the other books are free on Librivox. (John Van Stan reads Dumas rather nicely on Librivox if you don't mind his accent.) I didn't get used to the way Simon Vance pronounces names and I had to check them from the Project Gutenberg version. Especially when Lorin seemed to be called Louis. I was a bit confused. It was a different translation and I rather liked it better than this newer translation. This one has French words in odd places. I didn't know some of those were used in English. The parts with lots of names that I followed from the old translation which flowed better in my opinion. Gutenberg public domain English translation has the original French title Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge for some reason.

The characters are fascinating and surprising. The plot was interesting but due to historical facts the ending was looming in the background the whole time. Towards the end Dumas leans heavily into melodrama, but it wasn't too over the top. There could have been more of it, because the book is set in the final months of the life of Marie Antoinette. I'll definitely listen to Joseph Balsamo in the near future. This series is rather captivating.