Taking the Bastile Alexandre Dumas Books
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This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
Taking the Bastile Alexandre Dumas Books
Although not as strong (or as well known) as the musketeers stories this historical novel continues the progression of the "Marie Antoinette" series through the beginnings of the French Revolution. Perhaps a little long winded and flowery in its descriptions it is still an exciting and informative novel as one would expect from Alexandre Dumas.Product details
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Taking the Bastile Alexandre Dumas Books Reviews
My remarks pertain to the Old LandMark edition ($2.50)
This is better known as "Ange Pitou." "Taking the Bastille" (sometimes spelled with a single "L") is actually the sub-title, but since it is a somewhat more illustrative title than merely using a person's name, it is frequently employed instead. Finding a sound English translation of almost any Dumas book is very difficult. His works have appeared in so many abridged, adapted, and re-written versions, often under various titles (like this volume), that acquiring them can be challenging. A particularly horrid edition of this book currently exists in the supposedly "translated" (but really "butchered") by Henry Llewellyn Williams that leaves out more than it provides. This particular edition from Old LandMark Publishing seems complete to me, and while its translation is an old, public domain one -- the translator is not identified (but, thankfully, isn't Williams) -- it is quite readable. For those who like historical fiction and Dumas in particular, this book will be most satisfying.
This is one of a series of books by Dumas relative to the decline and fall of the French monarchy. The others are "The Queen's Necklace," "The Chevalier of Maison-Rouge" (peripherally), "Joseph Balsamo" (a long work not infrequently divided into two separate books, each given its own distinct title), and "The Countess de Charny." Though (more or less) next-to-last in this series, "Taking the Bastille" may be enjoyed by itself (as may any of the others).
Dumas is always colorful, descriptive, and exhilarating, and if you have previously regarded "The Three Musketeers" and/or "The Count of Monte Cristo" favorably, you will probably like this one, too (though it may be a tad more challenging inasmuch as it is more ensconced in French history).
And -- "There are moments when the destiny of a whole nation is being weighed in the scales of Fate. One of them weighs down the other. Everyone already thinks he has attained the proposed end. Suddenly some invisible hand lets fall into the other scale the blade of a poniard or a pistol-ball. Then all changes, and one only cry is heard, Woe to the vanquished!"
Wow. It was paragraphs like that that just knocked my socks off. I always knew Dumas was brilliant, but he really outdoes himself in this book. Taking the Bastile is the fourth in Dumas' six book series retelling the French Revolution and begins several years after the close of The Queen's Necklace (1902). The first third of the book retells the events leading up to and including the storming of the Bastile through the POV of Ange Pitou a young orphan from the countryside and his comrade in arms the farmer Billot. Agents of the French government remove papers from Billot's farm that he is storing for Dr. Gilbert, which sends he and Pitou to Paris to advise the doctor of the theft. They find Gilbert (yes, our young Gilbert from the first two books) imprisoned in the Bastile and are swept up with the rest of the city on that fateful day when all Paris attacks and destroys that symbol of tyranny.
Gilbert is rescued and discovers that the person who ordered his imprisonment is the Countess de Charny, a name he does not recognize and goes to Versailles in search of answers. Presented to Louis XVI as a doctor of renown (being a pupil of Balsamo in the mystic arts), Gilbert discovers that the countess is the beauteous Andrée whom he loved as a young boy. Andrée denies any knowledge of Gilbert or his imprisonment until Gilbert uses his magnetic powers and hypnotizes her (very creepy) to gain the truth -- there was an incident in the second book where Andrée had been compromised by Balsamo and Gilbert and she feared exposure and scandal.
As Andrée recovers from Gilbert's ministrations we see that she is in love with her husband the Count de Charny, who loves the Queen (who returns his love), to Andrée's great sorrow. The story then switches back and forth between the actions at the court of Louis XVI and the growing violence and restlessness of the Paris mobs as Dumas recounts the events leading up to the Women's March on Versailles demanding bread and the subsequent mob storming the palace sending the royal family on a mad dash for safety (unputdownable!). The final 100 or so pages of the book detail Ange Pitou's return to his country village and the logistics of how the villagers were converted from the mindset of being simple farmers working for a living to the rationale of the revolutionary and setting up a local national guard.
That's about as much of the plot as I'm going to try and detail, the bulk of the book is known history as Dumas recounts the terror of the revolution from all walks of life in late 18C France, the countryman, the farmer, the Church, the Paris citizens and the royal court of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. Some readers may find a slow spot here and there at the beginning and end of the book, but other than that I found it quite unputdownable. Next up in the series, The Countess de Charny.
Side note, there are several newly published versions of these books and some are poorly translated -- one of those being The Queen's Necklace (published by Wildside) which I had purchased prior to realizing this was a series, and I found the quality of the story sorely lacked from that bad translation. Dumas with a mediocre story and boring dialogue? Not on your life. The other three I obtained very old copies published by PF Collier and Sons in the early 1900's and I strongly urge you to seek those out either via library or used (around $7), and I'll be sticking with that for the last two books in the series.
too many typos to enjoy reading. please fix this problem as i would very much like to read it. thank you
Like anything he wrote, Dumas has a way of making you laugh and endearing you to principal characters in his story. This is no exception. Also the intricate web of complexity that you have come to expect has not suffered in this work. I would advise reading these books in order, as references to previous books do happen. The one before this is the Queen's Necklace, and the one after is The Countess of Charny.
The book, as is all Dumas works, is excellent. It needs some minor formatting fixes, like the Italics command shows up out of no where every once in a while and 10 to 15 pages are all in Italics, then it goes away. Any good editor could fix this in a day or so. Other than that, this is a excellent book. It gets a three star only because of formatting, the book itself is excellent.
Although not as strong (or as well known) as the musketeers stories this historical novel continues the progression of the "Marie Antoinette" series through the beginnings of the French Revolution. Perhaps a little long winded and flowery in its descriptions it is still an exciting and informative novel as one would expect from Alexandre Dumas.
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