Dumas’ Volcanic Heroes Now Vividly Portrayed

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 292, 11 December 1935, Page 11

Dumas’ Volcanic Heroes Now Vividly Portrayed

BATTLE OF WITS AND SWORDS AGAINST RICHELIEU’S INTRIGUE

(State: Screening Saturday.)

Cardinal Richelieu’s bitter struggle to maintain his control over Louis XIII of France in the 17th century dominates one of the most dramatic eras in f rench history. What is more, it has importance in French literary history, for it gave Alexandre Dumas a vivid background and a motivating force for the romantic adventures of d’Artagrtan, Athos, Porthos and Aremis, in “The Three Musketeers,” which hag been adapted to the screen by RKO Radio.

It was in 1625 that d’Artagnan rode out of Gascony on his orange-coloured horse to best the agents of ' Cardinal Richelieu, who dictated policy to the wavering Louis XIII. and waged a ,bitIcr war of intrigue with his Queen Anno of Austria. The tale of that lean Gascon’s winning of a placo with Athos, Porthos and Aramis as one of the four greatest fighting men in the King’s Musketeers is woven of tho historic threads of spectacular rivalry, guile and intrigue. Paris was then a city of mystery and danger. There wero only .guttering candle-lanterns to light its narrow, unpaved streets, and its dark alleys were the domain of assassins. There was little safety for the common man and none for the enemies of Cardinal Riche-