love love LOVE this book. best assigned reading ever. i love maurice and lorin and the conflicts had me in a chokehold even tho i knew what was gonna happen

Alexandre Dumas sapeva bene come costruire un racconto frenetico di avventura e romanticismo, mescolando storia e finzione e creando un'atmosfera di intrighi e capovolgimenti mozzafiato.

Il cavaliere di Maison-Rouge, scritto solo tre anni dopo I tre moschettieri e Il conte di Montecristo, tuttavia è obiettivamente meno accattivante delle sue opere più celebri.

Pubblicato come al solito nelle vesti di romanzo a puntate, il romanzo passa velocemente da un capitolo all'altro raccontando la storia di Maurice Lindey, un giovane patriota e rivoluzionario che ha la sfortuna di innamorarsi di Genevieve, un'aristocratica sposata con un intrigante monarchico, lottando così tra la sua lealtà alla Repubblica e il suo amore per la donna, il tutto mentre cerca di smascherare un monarchico, il cavaliere del titolo, che complotta per salvare la regina Maria Antonietta, imprigionata come storicamente noto.

Sicuramente esuberante e dalla narrativa energica, non brilla ma è perfetto da leggere se non si è neofiti dell'autore.

Need a book that will make you ugly cry? This is it!

Here is a novel that had oddly vanished from circulation in France, there is no real reason as to why it was neglected out of all of Dumas's works. There is no speculation. Was it because this particular story shows how favourably he viewed the royals at such a fragile time in French history even though by the time of his adulthood the Revolution was long past? As Lorenzo Carcaterra points out and as many Dumas readers are full aware he never uses accuracy in any historical sense. But then most of his readers in his time and possibly after are not very concerned with historical accuracy. They all want to know what will become of his heroes? Without a doubt Maurice Lindey is his father,General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. As for the ultra perfect Genevieve? Perhaps she was based on his mother or else she was a complete fragment of his imagination. To be expected of course his two heroes have a triumphant end. The Revolution exists or doesn't on the last two true Revolutionaries, Lindey and Lorin. There is not much of a write about the novel on Wikipedia so for those concerned save yourselves the trouble of searching for it there. As always with Dumas you can disappear to another place, another time with different people, it is so easy to be caught up in Dumas's writings and well worth to be caught up by him. You find yourself sharing explicitly all the emotions and thoughts of the heroes and of course by then you want him or her to succeed and never to fail. When he or she is jealous you want to call out as a character "Now take it easy! It's not as bad as all that." But for me is it as straight forward to feel admiration in Genevieve? She is too perfect to feel she was real and too much perhaps in Dumas's fantasies as to feel a party to her creation. And yet Dumas always wanted the perfect match for his heroes and perhaps as the reader we expect no less. Such as she in this book that Lindey has no head for several situations and fortunately Dumas acknowledges to his reader what is apparent is apparent and he is not pulling on any tricks of our suspicions which to the reader is obvious if not for the hero. No less an action hero not one to be using his intelligence often. He reacts on a whim, not thinking of the consequences, he doesn't plot or bide his time, he simply acts. For if he thought more he would have realised that there were other forces around him that were in more control of the environment than himself. if he had stopped to question even the simplest of acts he would have had more cause to pause and the outcome of many events would have been very different. Is he a man to act on instinct? It may have been instinct or foolhardy bravado thus is Maurice Lindey and his trusty friend at arms, Lorin, so much the wiser in that he thinks things through. He is not as much a man of impulse although he can when he needs to be for the sake of his friend, his foster brother as it were. Although some translated words seemed odd, the cry of "Bully for you!' for example, unless of course Dumas had a quirk to use British phrases and I was a little confused that the little dog the Queen had was separated from her for two months, found her again obviously fed and cared for only to be run over by the cart and then a little later on to miraculously recover from this slight only to be banged on the head. This time it didn't recover. In this novel though there is not any sympathy in the least for the ordinary man or woman. One would feel that they are at fault for executing the "poor queen", whose only crime it would seem was to be a queen with a regal attitude and fine bearing. Not that she had scads of money and could eat fine and dress well while the vast majority of Frances's subjects went hungry, died of starvation and had only rags to wear. But Dumas's book here is not an obvious political one, he hides it all with the distractions of his two heroes. One who acts on the love of an "angelic" woman and the other for the love of his great friend. It is very trying for Dumas to have two notable women characters, the plot is not big enough in many of his book for four. Brothers in arm and one of those brothers love, three is the neat little party. As a middle aged man Dumas was larger than life, his characters are larger than life in spirit.

Dumas (and his uncredited collaborator Maquet) integrated a story more complex than it would appear on the surface while using a neglected approach to story with lovers as political adversaries in the inhuman bloodbath that was the French Revolution.

C'est le premier livre d'Alexandre Dumas que je lis en entier, et sans que ce soit pour les cours.

Je trouve celui-ci excellent. Le style de Dumas est à la fois sophistiqué, et très facile à lire, encore aujourd'hui. Les personnages sont intéressants, les dialogues savoureux, et l'intrigue très bien ficelée : Le lecteur est tenu en haleine littéralement jusqu'à la dernière page.

Dumas nous permet de goûter à l'ambiance assez terrifiante du Paris de la révolution française, ou suspicion était presque systématiquement synonyme de décapitation.

Je ne mets que 4 étoiles, l'intrigue principale tournant autour d'une relation adultérine. Sans cela, c'est un excellent roman.

შეუძლებელია სახელმწიფომ, რომელიც ქალებსა და ბავშვებს ასე ექცევა (საერთოდ არ აქვს მნიშვნელობა, ვინ არიან ისინი), დიდხანს იარსებოს და ასეც მოხდა. ბევრი კარგი ადამიანი კი შეეწირა მარია-ანტუანეტას ხსნის მცდელობას - რეალურად არსებულნი და დიუმას გამოგონილნი.

This can easily be read as a stand-alone novel. Only few characters from the previous books in the series made an appearance here, most notably Marie Antoinette.
The story is once again very dramatic and tense. The Reign of Terror is in its prime. The people in Paris are thirsty for blood and for spectacles. The imprisoned queen patiently waits for her doom, while a handful of loyal supporters desperately try to set her free. And a devoted Republican falls deeply in love with a young and beautiful noblewoman.
As a person, who read the previous four books, my only criticism was that I was really expecting Philippe de Taverney to be a prominent figure here. I don't think he was properly removed from the story, having in mind what an important character her was in the first two books.

3.5 ⭐
On mérite tous un ami comme Lorin tbh

Meh. Letto (ascoltato, in realtà) più per completezza del ciclo che per altro. Da molti punti di vista sembra un'occasione perduta. Al solito Dumas ama inventare, in questo caso cospirazioni per liberare la regina dalla prigionia, cosa che finisce per trasformare anche i personaggi più complessi in macchiette. Al quinto romanzo è semplicemente un meccanismo stancante. Non può nemmeno essere visto come una fan fiction perché si prende fin troppo sul serio. Meh, di nuovo.

Aunque no es la obra más conocida de Dumas, es una historia que describe el período de Terror, a finales del siglo XVIII en Francia, de una forma extraordinaria. Personajes heroicos y a la vez trágicos hacen que la novela mantenga un ritmo trepidante. Súper recomendable.

C'est un livre que ma mère m'avait acheté, étant jeune, j'aurais aimé le retrouver.