The Conspirators

The Conspirators is a historical fiction novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas, who is best known for his works Celebrated crimes, a series of true crime novels based on historical characters.

Excerpts:

The man who thus attracted the attention of the young chevalier was a powerfully-built fellow of five feet ten, wearing, instead of a peruke, a forest of his own black hair, slightly grizzled, dressed in a manner half-bourgeois, half-military, ornamented with a shoulder-knot which had once been crimson, but from exposure to sun and rain had become a dirty orange. He was armed with a long sword slung in a belt, and which bumped ceaselessly against the calves of his legs. Finally, he wore a hat once furnished with a plume and lace, and which—in remembrance, no doubt, of its past splendor—its owner had stuck so much over his left ear, that it seemed as if only a miracle of equilibrium could keep it in its place.