I've always loved that D'artagnan and Constance basically related on the basis of being good-hearted and complete dorks, not because of being cute. And I suspect my years of fencing were inspired more by that than by vague memories of whichever Errol Flynn movies I've seen.

Hey, even if it's French trash, you still need to learn French to be able to read it in the original.

BTW I'm now reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood for the first time; Dickens certainly wasn't Literature in his own day.