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 After by Spanish soldiers. After the fight, they find a man close to death who requests the last rites. They help him to a nearby inn and find a traveling monk. This monk is unpleasant to them and does not seem inclined to perform this service, so they force him to go to the inn. Once there, the monk hears the confession. The dying man reveals that he was the executioner of Béthune and confesses his part in the execution of Milady de Winter. The monk reveals himself as her son, John Francis de Winter, who calls himself Mordaunt after Charles