Harvey J. Adkins о Филиппе дю Плесси
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FriendsofAngelique/ I'll add the following short essay I wrote years ago to the Philippe
discussion, as he is one of my personal favorite characters in the
series.
To me the stormy relationship between AngИlique and her second
husband is one of the most interesting parts of the saga. To
watch the two of them warring back and forth until it was clear
to both of them that, despite all, they loved each other very
much was a fascinating story all its own. I was, even despite my
wish that Joffrey had not been "executed," very sad to see
Philippe killed off just at the point that his love had blossomed
so obviously that he could no longer deny it.
I thought an interesting insight into Philippe was made by one of
AngИlique's friends (Ninon de Lenclos) when AngИlique began to
consider him a marriage prospect. She said (and I paraphrase, since
I don't have the book in front of me) that once one got to know him
he wasn't
as nice as he appeared. But once one got to know him better, he
was nicer than he appeared. He was the ultimate courtier who was
obsessed with trivial matters of protocol, and his devotion to
the King was paramount.
Philippe was a sheep in wolf's clothing. He was a boy wanting to
be loved by a memory of a young girl he once called "the Baroness
of the Doleful Dress" but who he thought no longer existed. That
young girl had now become, or so he thought, a grasping,
back-stabbing courtesan who blackmailed him into marriage in
order to further her own ambitions. To this new woman he showed
the face of the wolf - an uncompromising brute who would destroy
her utterly. Of course, what he didn't know was that the young
girl he remembered was still there deep down desiring his love as
much as he did hers. This was AngИlique's secret strength and
kept her in the battle where others would have long since felt it
was a lost cause. She was willing to do whatever it would take to
find again the handsome, young marquis - the ideal whom she had
secretly loved from her youth. For every setback in their
personal war, she returned a victory.
Finally, the relationship culminated in what I feel was one of
the most beautiful scenes in the series - when Philippe returned
from the battle front partly to console AngИlique for the loss of
her son Cantor, for whom he must have felt some responsibility,
since he talked AngИlique into letting the boy go to sea. He was
the only one who understood what Cantor's loss meant to her.
Beyond that, though, he came to present AngИlique with the amulet
of the Du Plessis-Belliere women. With that, according to the
terms of a bet they had made about the outcome of their personal
conflict, Philippe acknowledged AngИlique the winner of the war.
Despite his warrior background, he found a most poetic way to
profess his love for her.
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