Finished: The Man in the Iron Mask (Dumas). Another good Dumas book! :-) Although, the book was far less about the man in that iron mask than it was about the ending stories of the four Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan. I haven't read the Musketeer books before this one, but I am very tempted to now that I've read this! In this book the Musketeers are all beyond middle age now and all serving different masters. Porthos, the loving, happy giant, is rich and happy and is concerned mostly with new clothes and perhaps gaining a Dukedom from the king. He still serves the master of honorability and friendship to a tee. Athos, the only one with a child, serves that son, Raoul, with all the love, patience and heartbreak of parenthood. D'Artagnan, the consummate soldier, is captain of the Musketeers, serving the young, volatile, willful King Louis XIV of France. Aramis now serves God, or so it is supposed. He is now a priest and leads the Jesuit order. He, however, aspires to loftier goals. Aramis (for me the most unlikable of the former companions) has his eyes set on being first a cardinal, and then the Pope himself. Since it is the king who would appoint both positions, Aramis has found his way around his contentious relationship with King Louis. There is a deep, dark, royal family secret.....when Louis was born 23 years earlier, a twin brother was born soon after him, Philippe. Their father, King Louis XIII, feared a possibility of discrepancies about who would be the rightful heir to the throne...the first born? Or, last born and first conceived (as was believed in those days). Acting against any possible doubt and strive for the throne and the country, he declares that the second born twin son should be taken off to the country and raised in obscurity. When the boy Philippe comes too close to finding out the truth due to a misplaced letter, he is imprisoned in the Bastille from the age of 15. Sadly, all this is with the knowledge of his own mother! Aramis, having become privy to this information, decides to free Philippe and trade him out for the identical King Louis! Philippe will then owe Aramis his loyalty and grant him his ambitious wishes. All goes well and the switch is made! It lasts less than 24 hours, though, as Aramis trusts the wrong person to confide his scheme in, the unlikely hero to the king, his minister of finances, Fouquet, who at the time, the king highly mistrusts and is about to have arrested. Fouquet is innocent of the charges the king has been informed of, and expressing his unwavering loyalty for the crown, single-handedly rescues the king from the dungeon in the Bastille where he has been taken. Aramis realizes that his plan has been foiled and he is now an enemy of the king and knows that he must flee. Unfortunately, he had roped the unknowing Porthos into helping him take the mysterious prisoner, aka, the king, to the Bastille. Aramis realizes that he has also compromised the integrity and safety of Porthos, and he takes him to flee to an island fortress belonging to, of all people, Fouquet. Meanwhile, D'Artagnan is ordered by the king to place the "usurper", Philippe, in an iron mask so his face will never be shown again and imprison him on the isle of Marguarite. He also orders D'Artagnan to pursue and kill the traitors, Aramis and Porthos. D'Artagnan is heartbroken and does everything he can to help the two escape before he officially has to arrest them. King Louis, suspecting that D'Artagnan might not be able to follow through, calls D'Artagnan back and orders his other men to capture the traitors and put them to death. Together, Aramis and Porthos put up quite a battle, killing dozens of soldiers before Aramis escapes in the boat they had both planned to take together. While waiting for Porthos to run out from the cave where they had their boat stashed, Aramis watches in horror as an explosion causes huge boulders from the cave to crash down on Porthos, killing him and burying him in his final resting place. In despair, Aramis sails for the safety of Spain. Meanwhile, Athos is happy to relish in the company of his son Raoul, who all the Musketeers consider like a son. He is honorable and much beloved, however, his fiance, Louise de la Valliere, who he has given his entire heart and soul to, has fallen in love with the king and he with her. Distraught at the loss of the love of his life, Raoul signs up for a military excursion in Africa which is basically a suicide mission. Raoul and Athos share a heartbreaking farewell and basically, Athos wastes away while he waits for word from his son. In severely declining health he has a vision of Raoul heroically dying in Africa. Immediately thereafter he receives words that Raoul has, in fact, been killed. Athos then closes his eyes and dies as well. :-( Terribly saddened by the deaths of dear Porthos, beloved Raoul and impeccable Athos, D'Artagnan ages overnight....but he pulls up his bootstraps and heads back to Paris to serve his king. In the epilogue, however, it is four years later and D'Artagnan is still King Louis' captain of the Musketeers. The only thing he aspires to, what he has wanted for years, is to be made a Marshall of France. He knows that it will require a big military excursion to do this. King Louis commissions him to head up his military ground forces in his battle against Holland. D'Artagnan is surprised and happy to be reunited with Aramis before he goes. Aramis, apparently forgiven by the king, comes bringing the alliance of Spain to France in that Spain will stay neutral in this war and do nothing to impede France. Their brief reunion allows the two friends to embrace one more time "two embracing for four", and remember their fallen comrades. D'Artagnan goes and has so much success in Holland that the king dispatches an order naming him the Marshall of France. Just as he reaches out to take his cherished Marshall's baton, a cannon ball from the enemy fells the magnificent D'Artagnan. The end. So...the story of the Musketeers comes to an end as the three most noble of the men makes his way to heaven, and the fourth lives the remainder of his life in Spain, and the twin brother of Louis rots in his iron mask, never mentioned again after the middle of the book.

I might just be inspired to read the first book of the series! But, not right now. :-)