Twenty Years After Dumas comes out on the side of the monarchy in general, or at least the text often praises the "idea" of benevolent royalty. His musketeers are valiant and just in their efforts to protect young Louis XIV and the doomed Charles I from their attackers. The action begins during the regency of Queen Anne of Austria (term 1643–1651), with Cardinal Mazarin as First Minister. D'Artagnan, who seemed to have a promising career ahead of him at the end of "The Three Musketeers", has for twenty years remained a lieutenant, and seems unlikely to progress despite his ambition and the debt
Twenty Years a Dream Twenty Years a Dream "Twenty Years a Dream" () is a short story written by Chinese author Pu Songling in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" (1740). One of the earlier entries in the collection, it revolves around a bachelor's romantic relations with a female ghost. The story was favourably received by literary critics. Yang Yuwei (), a bachelor who resides in a derelict apartment next to a cemetery, is visited by a female ghost one night. She introduces herself as Locket (连琐), a Gansu local who died of sickness in her teenage years some twenty years ago, and is