# The Line of Love — Character guide

> Key figures in The Line of Love by James Branch Cabell.

- [Demoiselle Matthiette](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/matthiette.md): Matthiette sits at the center of a hard bargain: her uncle Sieur Raymond needs an alliance with Puysange, and she is the currency. She is drawn to courtly glitter, masques, and gallant kings, yet her d'Arnaye blood carri
- [Florian de Puysange](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/florian_de_puysange.md): Florian de Puysange has just married Adelaide de la Forêt at Storisende, and the hall behind him is still dancing. But a nagging thought has surfaced: Tiburce, something he meant to do and did not. He leaves his bride mi
- [Master Richard Mervale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/richard_mervale.md): Master Mervale sits with the Marquis of Falmouth and hears the whole rueful account of a love abandoned for prudence. His mild interjections — that we pay more dearly for our wisdom than our follies — land like small, pr
- [Sir Adhelmar de Nointel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/adhelmar_de_nointel.md): Adhelmar de Nointel is a proven soldier and a maker of songs, lodging at Puysange and reading to Mélite of Helen, Melior, and Morgaine. He loves her; she pities him and kisses him from tenderness, which Hugues d'Arques w
- [Demoiselle Mélite](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/melite.md): Mélite receives Adhelmar's songs and his heart in the garden at Puysange, and refuses both with a tenderness that does more damage than cruelty would. She says she loves Hugues d'Arques, who has done nothing, and then wo
- [Sieur Raymond d'Arnaye](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/raymond_darnaye.md): Sieur Raymond d'Arnaye argues for the Puysange marriage on grounds of bread, cheese, and calving cows, and admits it is something to be the wife of a great lord. He catches Matthiette's chin when she speaks of the gallan
- [Sir John Falstaff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/john_falstaff.md): Falstaff arrives as the embodiment of comic appetite in a book preoccupied with love's cruelties, offering a counterweight of belly-laughter to the marquis's star-crossed sighing. Where younger men ruin themselves for bl
- [Catherine de Vaucelles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/catherine_de_vaucelles.md): Betrothed to François de Montcorbier on the Fête-Dieu, she scandalizes her neighbors by refusing Noël d'Arnaye's nobility, Philippe Sermaise's money, and every safer match in Paris. Her choice sets jealousies burning: a 
- [Fulke d'Arnaye](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/fulke_darnaye.md): Taken at Agincourt and held without ransom by Henry's deliberate policy, Fulke is penned at Hugh Vernon's estate like a starling in a cage, denied even the fields where herbs grow. He courts Adelais with mock-medical wit
- [Cynthia Allonby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/cynthia_allonby.md): Daughter to the Marquis of Falmouth and kinswoman to Pevensey, she watches her suitor defy Elizabeth Tudor's orders to linger in plague-ridden London, flattered and a little frightened by such gay self-confidence. She se
- [Adelais](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/adelais.md): She is the sister of Hugh Vernon, the man charged with keeping Fulke d'Arnaye caged, and she moves through her garden to the sound of a voice trilling her name in borrowed ancient praises. Surprised by the Frenchman's su
- [François de Montcorbier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/francois_de_montcorbier.md): The Rue Saint Jacques dismisses him as inoffensive at best, a Navarre scholar whose verses are thin diet for two lusty young folk, yet Catherine de Vaucelles chooses him over noblemen and priests alike. He scales the Vau
- [Tiburce d'Arnaye](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/tiburce_darnaye.md): A member of the d'Arnaye family, participating in the family's affairs.
- [Philippe Sermaise](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/philippe_sermaise.md): A character involved in the conflicts and intrigues of the narrative.
- [Hugues d'Arques](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/hugues_darques.md): A knight, possibly with a dual identity, involved in the action.
- [Lady Adeliza](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/adeliza.md): A noble lady, appearing in the narrative with some presence.
- [Captain Edward Musgrave](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/edward_musgrave.md): A young captain whose name closes the chronicle, destined to marry Cynthia Allonby and carry the Musgrave line across an estranging sea to Virginia.
- [Lady Ursula Heleigh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/ursula_heleigh.md): A noblewoman whose hand becomes the prize in a contest of love and friendship, testing whether Pevensey's devotion can outweigh a rival's sworn adoration.
- [George Bulmer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/george_bulmer.md): A character who appears in the narrative, possibly as a narrator or participant.
- [Earl of Pevensey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/earl_of_pevensey.md): The Queen's brilliant favorite, a poet's vision yoked to correct arithmetic, who rides in triumph while others measure the cost of his eminence.
- [Kit Marlowe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/kit_marlowe.md): The playwright, appearing as a character in the narrative.
- [Reinault de Puysange](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/reinault_de_puysange.md): A member of the Puysange family, involved in the family's affairs.
- [Raoul de Frison](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/raoul_de_frison.md): A nobleman, appearing in the romantic and social scenes.
- [Stephen Allonby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/stephen_allonby.md): A member of the Allonby family, involved in the plot.
- [François Villon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/francois_villon.md): The historical poet, appearing as a character in the narrative.
- [Monsieur de Puysange](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/monsieur_de_puysange.md): An older member of the Puysange family, possibly Florian's father.
- [Dame Adelaide](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/dame_adelaide.md): A woman of some standing, appearing in the narrative.
- [Sylvia Vernon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/sylvia_vernon.md): A woman connected to the Vernon family, involved in romantic plots.
- [Mistress Adelais Vernon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/adelais_vernon.md): A Vernon woman whose fate threads through the family's tangled romances, her story bound to the weddings and heartburnings that shape the Musgrave line.
- [Roger Darke of Yaxham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/roger_darke.md): A character with a possible connection to Hugues d'Arques, involved in the plot.
- [Sylvie de Nointel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/sylvie_de_nointel.md): A young woman of the Nointel family, involved in the plot.
- [Lord Falmouth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/lord_falmouth.md): A nobleman, appearing in the narrative.
- [Grandfather Perion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/perion.md): An older character, possibly a grandfather figure, appearing in the story.
- [Will Sommers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/will_sommers.md): A character, possibly a jester or servant, appearing in the narrative.
- [Nicolas de Caen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/nicolas_de_caen.md): An older character, appearing in the story.
- [Blaise](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/blaise.md): A minor character, appearing in the narrative.
- [Elinor Sommers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters/elinor_sommers.md): A woman, possibly related to Will Sommers, appearing in the story.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_line_of_love_se/characters