Scaramouche

When André-Louis Moreau witnesses the murder of his best friend Philippe de Valmorin by an arrogant aristocrat — the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr in the book [AKA 'Noel, the Marquis de Maynes' on 1952 theatrical film] — he swears to avenge his death. Forced to flee his hometown after the murderous duel, he falls in with a travelling theatre company and disguises himself as the character of the wily rogue Scaramouche. His ensuing adventures involve hair-raising duels, romance, treachery and shocking family secrets. . .

Scaramouche is a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1921. It was subsequently adapted into a play by Barbara Field and into feature films, first in 1923 starring Ramón Novarro, Scaramouche (1923), and a remake in 1952 with Stewart Granger. A romantic adventure, Scaramouche tells the story of a young lawyer and adventurer during the French Revolution.

In the course of his adventures he becomes an actor portraying "Scaramouche" (also called Scaramuccia, a roguish buffoon character in the commedia dell'arte). He also becomes a revolutionary, politician, and fencing-master, confounding his enemies with his powerful orations and swordsmanship. He is forced by circumstances to change sides several times. The book also depicts his transformation from cynic to idealist. The later film version includes one of the longest swashbuckling sword-fighting scenes ever filmed. The three-part novel opens with the memorable line: "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." This line was to become Sabatini's epitaph, on his gravestone in Adelboden, Switzerland.
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https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swashbuckler
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045125/
[Scaramouche IMDb Reviews] '(...) Andre-Louis Moreau is a nobleman's bastard in the days of the Ancien Régime and the passage to the French Revolution. Noel, the Marquis de Maynes, a nobleman in platonic love with the Queen Marie Antoinette, is ordered to seek the hand of a young ingenue, Aline de Gavrillac, in marriage. André also meets ] Aline, and forms an interest in her. But when the marquis kills his best friend, Philippe de Valmorin, André declares himself the Marquis's enemy and vows to avenge his friend. He hides out, a wanted man, as an actor in a commedia troupe, and spends his days learning how to handle a sword. When De Maynes becomes a *spadassinicide*, challenging opposing National Assembly members to duels they have no hope of winning, Andre becomes a politician to protect the 'Third Estate' (and hopefully eliminate the Marquis de Maynes)'.'
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(*) Spadassinicide, (plural spadassinicides), (rare) The act of coaxing someone, usually through insult, into initiating a swordsman's duel, and subsequently killing that person with superior skill so as to commit legal murder.
André Moreau vs. Noel de Maynes (Scaramouche /1952):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmFnX8DmEeA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBjnsVS7OGY
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XVIII Century France, once he was André-Louis Moreau, a lawyer raised by nobility, unconcerned with the growing discontent among France’s lower class—until his best friend is mercilessly struck down by a member of the aristocracy. Now, he is Scaramouche. Speaking out against the unjust French Government, he takes refuge with a nomadic troup of acting improvisers where he assumes the role of Scaramouche The Clown—a comic figure with a very serious message... Set during the French Revolution, this novel of swashbuckling romance is also a thought-provoking commentary on class, inequality, and the individual’s role in society—a story that has become Rafael Sabatini’s enduring legacy.

Aventura / Crime / Crônicas / Drama / Ficção / História / Literatura Estrangeira / Suspense e Mistério