 The novel's setting is earlier than Dumas's better known "Valois trilogy".The principal character is Gabriel, comte de Montgomery; other characters include Martin Guerre, Catherine de Médicis and Ambroise Paré.When Meurice later published a dramatisation of the novel, a letter supposedly written by Dumas was attached as a preface, stating that he had never even read the book and that Meurice was the real author.