I do like the sexy lamp test!
I think the book is one to read for the excitement of the big set pieces - the chāteau set on fire, which I thought was a ripper, and of course the events towards the end in Nīmes.
While it isn't great literature by any means, I think Weyman wrote well and he was clearly immersed in the history of France. (From memory, all his books are set in France, many in the times before the Revolution.)
It was a romantic view of time and place, rather than a grand romance in the "boy meets girl" sense.
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