"Nous acceptons d'être criminels pour que la terre se couvre enfin d'innocents." A. Camus

Mình đọc bản tiếng Việt: Hiệp sĩ nhà đỏ.

Un clásico que todo mundo debe de leer!!!

Much adventure and little character development! Dumas empathy for the royalists comes through strongly.

My first exposure to Dumas had me constantly on the edge of my seat. The Knight of Maison-Rouge is filled with adventure and risk and romance and bravery and courage and humor. And also love-blind stupidity and political crisis and (intentionally) bad poetry. These are characters I will remember. The heroes are truly heroic and the villains are despicable. Tragedy upon tragedy, it's true, but a thoroughly engaging tale. And a reminder that fiction is possibly the best way to learn about history.

Well written until the end. I can truly say that this is one of the worst endings of any book I have ever read.

I absolutely loved this book, and I don’t think that it gets enough credit as it hides in the shadow of Dumas’s other works (The Count of Monte Cristo / D’artagnan Romances). But the tale is magical, recounting the last days of Marie Antoinette and the various Royalist plots to free her. The two main characters are romantic, light-hearted, and whimsical, a complete contrast to the madness of the Terror happening in the background. It’s a funny peculiarity with Dumas as the Knight of Maison Rouge is in fact more a secondary character, the reader learns little of his background, why is he so loyal to the former Queen, a similar case with Diximer, their background remains a mystery. I found this peculiarity in the Man in the Iron Mask, who was finally only a periphery character in the climax of the D’artagnan series.

One thing I really appreciate about Dumas is his style of writing which allows the reader to really imagine the colors, the landscapes, the emotions of each scene, his books really stand the test of time. The ending unfortunately is tragic, there is no walking off into the sunshine for the two lovers Maurice and Genevieve. Lorin rather bravely accepts his death humorously while the villain Simon is appraised by a regime that operates on innuendo and public denunciations.
It is somewhat a shame that the three characters seem to accept their condemnation and that a showdown exposing Diximer as the master manipulator and Simon as a petulant schemer is not offered up as a conclusion. The reader instead gets death of the three main characters and Maison Rouge delivered through love, friendship and unquestionable loyalty.

Warning: Audible lists this book as the second in the series when it is actually the last one.

This is another brilliant work by Alexandre Dumas and I appreciate that it covers the Reign of Terror. In my experience this particular time period in historical fiction writing is often skipped for what comes before or what comes after.

Because I followed the Audible sequence, I feel like it ruined the story a little for me. This series is afterall supposed to cover the last few years of Marie Antoinette and this book has such a different character in Marie Antoinette than in the Queens Necklace. In the Queens Necklace she is still jovial and good humored. This descended into a much darker time and character without the historical [and needed] transition. Moral of the story: don't trust audible for the proper sequencing when it comes to this series!

Era în seara zilei de 10 martie 1793. Abia sunaseră ceasurile zece la Notre-Dame şi bătăile, desprinzându-se una după alta ca nişte păsări nocturne dintr-un cuib de bronz, îşi luau zborul, trist, monoton, patetic.

Noaptea ce se lăsase asupra Parisului nu era plină de zgomot, furtunoasă şi întretăiată de fulgere, ci rece şi înnegurată.

Parisul însuşi nu era nici pe departe Parisul cunoscut, strălucind seara de mii de focuri ce se oglindesc în mâzga-i poleită, Parisul trecătorilor grăbiţi, Parisul şoaptelor vesele şi-al suburbiilor bahice, pepinieră a certurilor aprige şi-a crimelor temerare, cuptor din sânul căruia se înalţă mii de urlete. Parisul nu mai era decât un oraş copleşit de ruşine, sfios, neliniştit, ai cărui rari locuitori alergau ca să străbată dintr-o stradă în alta şi se năpusteau pe alei sau pe sub portaluri ca nişte fiare sălbatice, hăituite de vânători, pierind ca înghiţite de vizuinile lor.

Era, în sfârşit, aşa cum am spus, Parisul zilei de 10 martie 1793.

Câteva cuvinte despre împrejurările critice care aduseseră asemenea schimbare în aspectul Capitalei şi apoi vom trece la evenimentele care formează obiectul povestirii de faţă.

Franţa, odată cu moartea lui Ludovic al XVI-lea, o rupsese cu toată Europa. Celor trei duşmani cu care se războise mai înainte, cu alte cuvinte Prusiei, Imperiului Austriei şi Piemontului, li se adăugaseră Anglia, Olanda şi Spania. Numai Suedia şi Danemarca îşi păstrau vechea lor neutralitate, preocupate dealtfel, cum era şi firesc, să stea cu ochii aţintiţi la Ecaterina a II-a, care destrăma Polonia.

Bellissimo romanzo storico ambientato in piena rivoluzione francese, personaggi (come da regola) pieni d'onore e di grande senso di sacrificio in nome dell'amore e dell'amicizia. "Viva Simon!"

Alexandre Dumas has done it again and rescued me from a reading slump! This was absolutely incredible, a wild ride from start to finish, and the ending left me stunned. I can’t believe this isn’t talked about more—I’m not sure what has relegated it to the bottom of the stack with Dumas. This was a great deal of fun and also thought provoking. Revolutionary Paris, Marie Antoinette, swashbuckling scenes! It was everything that I love.

This book is sublime. This was my second time reading it, after initially reading it two years ago. While on my first pass I had read it as a standalone novel, this time I approached it as the conclusion to the Marie Antoinette romances. It works in either capacity, but keep in mind that Knight of Maison-Rouge was written first, although occurring last, chonologically.

Thus, while we first meet the enigmatic Knight of Maison-Rouge in the present volume, we have to turn to Joseph Balsamo and the Queen’s Necklace to learn all about his powerful bond with Antoinette. I only wish Dumas had made it easier to revel in the continuity of these characters’ arcs throughout the entire epic series. In Maison-Rouge we learn the knight’s name is Armand; in Balsamo we know him as Philippe de Taverney. In Maison-Rouge he’s described as short, with “spindly legs,” which doesn’t square with my image of him from the other books. His age is sometimes described as mid-to-late thirties, which is consistent with the earlier timeline; at other times, he’s described as ten years younger. At one point the queen claims never to have seen the knight before; but the knight later states that “she was my protectress”. It’s possible to either reconcile each of these statements or to ignore them, but it’s unfortunate having to read through the story with the nagging question of, “wait, is this Philippe or not?” Well, it is – but Dumas wasn’t necessarily thinking ahead to how Maison-Rouge would figure in later stories.

Another thing to keep in mind, relating to this book having appeared first: Dumas hadn’t fleshed out the entire world he was about to unleash throughout the subsequent volumes. Other than the Queen and the Knight, there are no familiar faces; as far as the other characters go, Countess de Charny is the real conclusion, being Dumas’ final venture into that particular era. Instead, much of the main action revolves around Maurice and Lorin: two unforgettable new heroes, whose bond reminds me somewhat of Jules et Jim in the early scenes of the film by the same name.

And for anybody thinking of tackling the Marie Antoinette romances, and is unsure whether to read Knight of Maison-Rouge first or last: why not both!