Publisher's Synopsis
After the death of Louis XIV, a group of noblemen faithful to the old court, including the Cardinal de Polignac, the Marquis de Pompadour, the Count of Laval and the Spanish ambassador, decided to replace Felipe de Orléans with the Duke of Maine, favorable to the interests of the Spanish King Philip V. The man chosen to carry out the main action in this conspiracy, the kidnapping of the Duke of Orléans, is Raoul de Harmental, a brave and passionate young man who has been unjustly dispossessed of his position in the army and that he gets involved in this dark plan motivated by his thirst for glory and his spirit always ready to undertake new deeds. With the help of another conspirator, Abbe Brigaud, Raoul pretends to be a student from the provinces and rents a loft from which he can act with the necessary discretion. There he meets a young and beautiful orphan of noble origin, Bathilda, who lives in very modest conditions under the protection of an official of few lights, but with a great heart. From then on, Raoul's sinister plans are interspersed with the romance that is born between the two young men. Intrigue, action, and love flow masterfully from Dumas's prose into a story that possesses all the emotion of the best adventure novels.
