The Vicomte de Bragalonne: Ten Years Later is part of the third sequel to The Three Musketeers (the first sequel being Twenty Years After). I say part of the third sequel, because the third sequel is almost always broken up into three parts, culminating in The Man in the Iron Mask (virtually no resemblance to any of the movies).

While I was deep in my Dumas phase, as a young man in Florida, a time which also happened to be pre-internet, I hunted vigorously through used bookstores for these sequels. Among those I found was The Vicomte de Bragalonne, though in my edition, it was a faded red, smallish hardback titled only Ten Years Later.

I wish I remembered more about the convoluted plot of the lifelong progress of d’Artagnan and his three companions, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, but it was terribly convoluted.

During my New Year’s Eve supper with my lady friend at the Federalist, I wandered into a room for private dining, mainly to look at the books on the shelves. They were primarily in what I guessed to be Swedish, but among them was  a lovely copy of The Vicomte de Bragelonne and it’s mere appearance struck a very pleasant chord in my memory.