The Three Musketeers

Table of Contents

From the Pages of
Title Page
Copyright Page
Alexandre Dumas
The World Of Alexandre Dumas and The Three Musketeers
Introduction
NOTES TO INTRODUCTION
Author’s Preface

I - THE THREE PRESENTS OF D’ARTAGNAN THE ELDER
Chapter 2 - THE ANTECHAMBER OF M. DE TRÉVILLE
Chapter 3 - THE AUDIENCE
Chapter 4 - THE SHOULDER OF ATHOS, THE BALDRIC OF PORTHOS,
AND THE HANDKERCHIEF ...
Chapter 5 - THE KING’S MUSKETEERS AND THE CARDINAL’S GUARDS
Chapter 6 - HIS MAJESTY KING LOUIS XIII
Chapter 7 - THE INTERIOR OF “THE MUSKETEERS”
Chapter 8 - CONCERNING A COURT INTRIGUE
Chapter 9 - D’ARTAGNAN SHOWS HIMSELF
Chapter 10 - A MOUSETRAP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
II - IN WHICH THE PLOT THICKENS
Chapter 12 - GEORGE VILLIERS,DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
Chapter 13 - MONSIEUR BONACIEUX
Chapter 14 - THE MAN OF MEUNG
Chapter 15 - MEN OF THE ROBE AND MEN OF THE SWORD
Chapter 16 - IN WHICH M. SÉGUIER, KEEPER OF THE SEALS, LOOKS
MORE THAN ONCE FOR ...
Chapter 17 - BONACIEUX AT HOME
Chapter 18 - LOVER AND HUSBAND
Chapter 19 - PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
Chapter 20 - THE JOURNEY
Chapter 21 - THE COUNTESS DE WINTER
Chapter 22 - THE BALLET OF LA MERLAISON
Chapter 23 - THE RENDEZVOUS
Chapter 24 - THE PAVILION

Chapter 25 - PORTHOS
Chapter 26 - ARAMIS AND HIS THESIS
Chapter 27 - THE WIFE OF ATHOS
Chapter 28 - THE RETURN
Chapter 29 - HUNTING FOR THE EQUIPMENTS
Chapter 30 - D’ARTAGNAN AND THE ENGLISHMAN
Chapter 31 - ENGLISH AND FRENCH
Chapter 32 - A PROCURATOR’S DINNER
Chapter 33 - SOUBRETTE AND MISTRESS
Chapter 34 - IN WHICH THE EQUIPMENT OF ARAMIS AND PORTHOS IS
TREATED OF
Chapter 35 - ALL CATS LOOK ALIKE IN THE DARK
Chapter 36 - DREAM OF VENGEANCE
Chapter 37 - MILADY’S SECRET
Chapter 38 - HOW, WITHOUT INCOMMODING HIMSELF, ATHOS
PROCURED HIS EQUIPMENT
Chapter 39 - A VISION
Chapter 40 - THE CARDINAL
Chapter 41 - THE SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE
Chapter 42 - THE ANJOU WINE
Chapter 43 - THE INN OF THE RED DOVECOT
Chapter 44 - THE UTILITY OF STOVEPIPES
Chapter 45 - A CONJUGAL SCENE
Chapter 46 - THE BASTION SAINT-GERVAIS
Chapter 47 - THE COUNCIL OF THE MUSKETEERS
Chapter 48 - A FAMILY AFFAIR
Chapter 49 - FATALITY
Chapter 50 - CHAT BETWEEN BROTHER AND SISTER
Chapter 51 - OFFICER
Chapter 52 - CAPTIVITY THE FIRST DAY
Chapter 53 - CAPTIVITY THE SECOND DAY
Chapter 54 - CAPTIVITY THE THIRD DAY
Chapter 55 - CAPTIVITY THE FOURTH DAY
Chapter 56 - CAPTIVITY THE FIFTH DAY
Chapter 57 - MEANS FOR CLASSICAL TRAGEDY
Chapter 58 - ESCAPE
Chapter 59 - WHAT TOOK PLACE AT PORTSMOUTH, AUGUST 23, 1628
Chapter 60 - IN FRANCE
Chapter 61 - THE CARMELITE CONVENT AT BÉTHUNE

Chapter 62 - TWO TYPES OF DEMONS
Chapter 63 - THE DROP OF WATER
Chapter 64 - THE MAN IN THE RED CLOAK
Chapter 65 - TRIAL
Chapter 66 - EXECUTION
Chapter 67 - CONCLUSION

Epilogue
Endnotes
Inspired by The Three Musketeers
Comments & Questions
For Further Reading

From the Pages of

The Three Musketeers

Imagine to yourself a Don Quixote of eighteen; a Don Quixote without his
corselet, without his coat of mail, without his cuisses; a Don Quixote clothed in a
woolen doublet, the blue collar of which had faded into a nameless shade
between lees of wine and a heavenly azure; face long and brown; high cheek
bones, a sign of sagacity; the maxillary muscles enormously developed, an
infallible sign by which a Gascon may always be detected, even without his cap
—and our young man wore a cap set off with a sort of feather; the eye open and
intelligent; the nose hooked, but finely chiseled. (page 11-12)

“All for one, one for all—that is our motto, is it not?” (page 115)

“Oh, nothing but a scratch.” (page 233)

Immediately eight swords glittered in the rays of the setting sun, and the combat
began with an animosity very natural between men twice enemies. (page 361)

During the evening she despaired of fate and of herself. She did not invoke God,
we very well know, but she had faith in the genius of evil—that immense
sovereignty which reigns in all the details of human life, and by which, as in the
Arabian fable, a single pomegranate seed is sufficient to reconstruct a ruined
world. (page 590)





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Alexandre Dumas published The Three Musketeers in 1844.
The present translation, like many editions which first introduced English

readers to Dumas’s work, remains anonymous.

Originally published in mass market format in 2004 by Barnes & Noble Classics
with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By,
Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.
This trade paperback edition published in 2004.

Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading
Copyright © 2004 by Barbara T. Cooper.

Note on Alexandre Dumas, The World of Alexandre Dumas and The Three Musketeers,
Inspired by The Three Musketeers, and Comments & Questions
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Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas was born on July 24, 1802, in Villers-Cotterets, a town
northeast of Paris. He was the grandson of a French nobleman, the Marquis
Davy de la Pailleterie, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an Afro-Caribbean slave. His
father, Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, took the name Dumas when he
enlisted in the French army. After a period of illustrious service, he rose to the
rank of general; but by the end of the eighteenth century, he had fallen into
disfavor with Napoleon and was subsequently imprisoned. Thomas-Alexandre
Dumas died penniless and broken at age forty-five, leaving his family
impoverished. Young Alexandre received only a limited education; however, he
was an avid reader, and his elegant penmanship got him a position as clerk to a
solicitor. In 1823 he moved to Paris, where, through his father’s connections, he
became a copyist for the Duke of Orléans, the future King Louis-Philippe.

Dumas soon turned his attention to literary pursuits. His first major success
was the historical drama Henri III et sa cour (Henry III and His Court) in 1829,
followed in 1831 by Antony. By his thirtieth birthday, Dumas was regarded as
one of the major figures of the nascent French Romantic theater. His La Tour de
Nesle ( The Tower of Nesle, 1832) is a classic example of French romantic
drama replete with love, treachery, and death. Despite his success as a
playwright, Dumas found his true métier with the birth of the roman feuilleton,
or serial novel, in the 1840s. His gripping adventures, with their rambling
subplots and moments of suspense, were ideally suited to serialization in
newspapers. Les Trois mousquetaires ( The Three Musketeers), published in the
press from 1843 to 1844, was an overwhelming success that instantly established
Dumas as a master of the genre. It was followed by Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
(The Count of Monte Cristo) in 1844, and, by 1850, two sequels to The Three
Musketeers: Vingt Ans apres (Twenty Years After) and Le Vicomte de
Bragelonne (The Viscount of Bragelonne) .

Enormously prolific, Dumas was known for collaborating with others, notably

Auguste Maquet, with whom he wrote The Three Musketeers. His practice of
using other literary works as sources and working with collaborators, while
hardly unique among his contemporaries, was often criticized, making him a
controversial figure in French literary circles. Dumas’s life was filled with
adventures. He participated in the July Revolution of 1830 in France as well as
in Garibaldi’s quest for Italian independence in the 1860s; he amassed a fortune
through his writing, only to let his lavish lifestyle plunge him into perpetual
debt; and he built (and then lost in bankruptcy) an opulent chateau on the
outskirts of Paris that he called Monte Cristo. He was also an incorrigible lover
whose numerous liaisons produced three children, including a son, Alexandre
Dumas (known as Dumas fils to distinguish him from his father), who became an
important author in his own right. Alexandre Dumas père died on December 5,
1870.

The World Of Alexandre Dumas and The Three
Musketeers

16 22 King Louis XIII of France forms the Musketeers. His personal
bodyguards, they number approximately 200 and are armed with the
newly developed flintlock, muzzle-loading rifle, or musket.

1642 M. de Tréville, the Musketeers’ capitaine lieutenant, is involved in an
attempt to assassinate the king’s adviser Cardinal Richelieu. The plot
fails, and de Tréville is dismissed from the court and the Musketeers.

166 7 Born in 1632, the real-life D‘Artagnan becomes the capitaine lieutenant
of one of the two companies of King Louis XIV’s musketeers. He is later
appointed governor of Lille.

1673 The real-life D’Artagnan dies in the battle of Maestricht, Holland.
1789 The years surrounding the French Revolution and the rise and fall of
— Napoleon Bonaparte produce upheavals in French society. In literature,
1815 classicism, featuring universal themes and pure genres such as tragedy

and comedy (the former represented by Corneille and Racine, and the
latter by Molière), remains the dominant force. However, a new

modernism, fueled by the works of Shakespeare, the German Sturm und
Drang movement, and such Romantics as Lord Byron and Sir Walter
Scott, arises as a competing trend in which genres are often mixed.

1802 Alexandre Dumas is born on July 24 in Villers-Cotterêts, a village in the
department of Aisne to the northeast of Paris. Dumas’s mother is Marie-
Louise-Elisabeth Labouret, the

daughter of a local innkeeper; his father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, is
the Haitian-born son of the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la
Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an Afro-
Caribbean slave from the French colony of Santo Domingo.

1806 Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a leading general in Napoléon’s army who
has fallen into disfavor, dies, leaving his family impoverished. Young

Dumas receives a limited education and becomes attracted to the popular
literature of the time.

1817- Dumas takes a job as a solicitor’s clerk in Villers-Cotterêts. At eighteen
1820 he meets Adolphe de Leuven, a young exiled Swedish aristocrat through

whom Dumas is introduced to the Parisian theater scene.

1822- Dumas relocates to Paris. With help from his father’s military
1823 colleagues and because of his elegant handwriting, he becomes a copyist

for the Duke of Orleans, the future King Louis-Philippe of France, whose
palace houses the royal Théâtre-Français. Attending a show one evening,

Dumas meets writer Charles Nodier, who will later help advance the
young playwright’s career. Dumas reads the work of Shakespeare, Scott,
Byron, Schiller, and others influential in the development of the French

Romantic movement. He meets Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian patriot
and soldier who will influence Dumas later in his life.

1824 On July 27, Catherine Labay, a seamstress and neighbor Dumas had
begun courting the previous year, bears him a son, Alexandre. (When the
son later becomes a respected writer himself, he is known as Alexandre
Dumas fils to distinguish him from his father, called Alexandre Dumas
père.)

1825- Dumas begins to write plays, often in collaboration with others such as
1829 de Leuven. In 1829 he achieves a resounding success when Henri III et

sa cour (Henry III and His Court) is presented at the Comédie-
Française. The author becomes an instant celebrity in Paris and wins

admiration from the young Romantics.

1830- During the Revolution of 1830, Dumas supports the liberal campaign of
1836 the Marquis de Lafayette. The same year, a riot pits young Romantics

against classicists at the opening of Victor Hugo’s play Hernani,
signaling the ascendancy of Romanticism in France. Dumas builds on his
success as a playwright; his notable achievements include Antony (1831),
La Tour de Nesle (The Tower of Nesle, 1832), and Kean (1836). La Tour

de Nesle, in particular, is still considered a masterpiece of French
melodrama.

1837 Amid growing fame and popular success, Dumas is honored with the
title of chevalier by the king.

1840- Dumas turns his attention to the novel. Newspaper serialization takes
1846 hold as a trend in France, and Dumas quickly proves himself a master of

the genre. Les Trois mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers) becomes a
popular sensation when installments appear in 1843. Within a decade

two sequels follow: Vingt Ans après (Twenty Years After) and Le
Vicomte de Bragelonne (The Viscount of Bragelonne). The success of Le

Comte de Monte-Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo), which begins

serialization in the Journal des Débats in 1844 and is published in book

form in 1846, eclipses even that of The Three Musketeers. Despite his

success, Dumas is criticized for his vast production of material and is

accused of overusing collaborators.

1847- Dumas reaches his peak of success. He opens the Theatre Historique in
1850 1847, mainly to present his own plays, including an 1848 production of

The Count of Monte Cristo. He spends vast sums to build a grand,

hybrid Renaissance-Gothic-style country house, named Monte Cristo,

near Saint-Germain; some 600 people are invited to a lavish house-

warming party in July 1848. With the Revolution of 1848, however,

theater attendance plummets. In 1850 the Theatre Historique closes its

doors, causing financial disaster for Dumas. His house, Monte Cristo, is

sold at auction.

1851 - After fleeing to Brussels to escape his creditors,

1852 Dumas is forced into bankruptcy. He never regains the prosperity of the
preceding decade.

1853- Dumas travels extensively and produces travel books. From 1853 to
1870 1857 he publishes a newspaper, Le Mousquetaire, and from 1857 to

1862 he produces a literary journal, Le Monte Cristo. While in Italy in

the early 1860s he is an active participant in Garibaldi’s struggle for

Italian independence.

1870 Alexandre Dumas dies on December 5, at Puys, near Dieppe.

Introduction

Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers is one of the most perennially
popular works of French literature. It has been continuously in print since its
original publication in serial form in the Parisian newspaper Le Siècle (March
14-July 1, 1844) and has also been the subject of numerous cinematographic
adaptations. Dumas himself wrote two sequels to the novel. The first, Twenty
Years After, also appeared in Le Siècle (January 21-August 2, 1845); the second,
The Vicomte de Bragelonne (sometimes translated as The Man in the Iron
Mask), was likewise published in Le Siècle, with significant interruptions,
between October 20, 1847, and January 10, 1850. Dumas also adapted The
Three Musketeers for the stage. Under the title La Jeunesse des Mousquetaires
(The Musketeers‘Early Years), the play was first performed at Dumas’s own
Theatre Historique in 1849, with Mélingue starring as the book’s hero,
D’Artagnan.1 Other authors, too, have taken advantage of the popularity of The
Three Musketeers, by penning numerous imitations and continuations of
Dumas’s masterpiece.2

Many readers, public libraries, and book publishers today classify The Three
Musketeers as “youth fiction” and see the work as a swashbuckling adventure
novel appealing primarily to adolescent boys. Dumas, however, wrote for a
broader, adult public. During the nineteenth century, and especially after 1836,
when new printing techniques and commercial advertising made it possible to
produce newspapers more cheaply, short stories, travelogues, chronicles, and
even entire novels began to appear in daily or weekly installments in the French
press. Newspaper publishers hoped that these serialized texts would boost
readership and revenues, and they did. Authors likewise gained from this.
Eugène Sue (The Mysteries of Paris), Honoré de Balzac (The Human Comedy),
and Dumas, among others, saw the mass production and distribution of their
narratives as a way to increase their income and establish a solid relationship
with a growing, if diversely sophisticated, reading public. What is more,
following its serialization in the press, a successful work might profit from its
journalistic notoriety and be reprinted in book form.3

Serial publication was not without its constraints, however. There were
deadlines to be met and a certain volume of words, lines, or pages to be

produced. This frequently led to an emphasis on dialogue, since each speaker’s
comments would trigger a new paragraph break and thus a new line, making
pages accumulate more quickly and the action seem more fast-paced. Dumas,
who was known primarily as a dramatist prior to the publication of The Three
Musketeers, was ideally suited to take advantage of such a technique. He knew
how to portray characters, reveal conflicts, and describe elements of the decor in
dynamic, dramatic exchanges of speech. He understood how to vary pacing,
when to present or postpone information, and how to conclude an act or scene so
as to promote suspense or heighten emotion. There are numerous examples of
the dramatic—if not to say theatrical—nature of serial fiction writing in The
Three Musketeers. Take chapters 52—58, which describe the incarceration and
eventual escape of the book’s villainess, Milady (de Winter), from a cell in her
English brother-in-law’s castle. Replete with references to performance (for
example, postures and expressions, lighting, costuming, and setting),4 this series
of chapters advances by increments that seem to be more like acts in a play than
sections of a novel.5 What is more, each individual chapter in this sequence
begins and ends in a way that leaves the reader eager to discover what follows.6
Such a compositional strategy all but insured future newspaper sales and created
an avid audience for each episode of the story.

From his historical dramas like Henri III et sa cour (Henri III and His Court,
1829) and Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux (Charles VII at the Home of his
Principal Vassals, 1831), Dumas also learned how to create period flavor
through a limited number of precise, colorful details about customs, costumes,
and locations, and how to mix real characters and actions with invented or
artistically embellished ones. In fact, in the preface to Charles VII, Dumas
declared history to be nothing more than a nail ( “un clou ”) on which he hung
his dramatic canvas. While not as perfectly suited to The Three Musketeers, such
a formula is nonetheless suggestive of some of Dumas’s practices in that book as
well. For instance, although the novel features actual historical figures—
including King Louis XIII of France; his Queen, Anne of Austria; his prime
minister, Cardinal Richelieu; and England’s Duke of Buckingham—and
recognizes their importance as catalysts of events, those individuals are relegated
to the margins of the plot for much of the time. In the foreground are less
historically prominent and partially or wholly imagined personages, including
D’Artagnan; the Musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis; and the dangerously
seductive Milady. It is they who move the action forward and generally become
the focus of our attention. Real events are also part of Dumas’s tale, but are
frequently modified or enhanced for narrative effect. Thus, while the siege of the

city of La Rochelle, a port on France’s Atlantic coast that was then a Protestant
stronghold, and John Felton’s assassination of the Duke of Buckingham are
historically attested facts, not all of the details or parameters of those events as
they are described in The Three Musketeers are authentic. This mixture of fact
and fiction is not unique to Dumas’s work, of course, and is a subject to which
we shall return again later.

If Dumas’s serialized novel quickly attracted a faithful and fervent audience, it
was not only because the author proved to be a master storyteller whose writing
was vividly alive with emotions and actions, dialogues and duels, but also
because it skillfully combined literary genres then popular with readers. By the
time Dumas composed The Three Musketeers, Honoré de Balzac and others had
already made the novel of initiation, or Bildungsroman, a familiar and successful
form of French real ist fiction.7 The Three Musketeers shares many of the
characteristics of that genre. Like most such works, Dumas’s story focuses on an
inexperienced youth who travels from the provinces to Paris in search of a
broader knowledge of the world and in the hope of earning fame or fortune or
both.

In chapter 1 of Dumas’s book, young D‘Artagnan leaves his parents’ home in
southwestern France and sets off on the road to Paris, where he hopes to join the
corps of the King’s Musketeers. Before D’Artagnan leaves, his father gives him
three “gifts”—fifteen crowns; a letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tréville, a
fellow Gascon and former comrade-in-arms of D‘Artagnan père and now the
captain of the Musketeers; and a horse whose peculiar yellow color and old age
significantly detract from the young man’s image as a noble and dashing hero.
He also gives the lad his sword. Together with these items, the senior
D’Artagnan offers his son three bits of advice: Never sell this horse; do not
brook insults or fear duels for, although by law the latter are illegal, “it is by his
... courage alone, that a gentleman can make his way nowadays” (p. 13); and
always serve the King and the Cardinal.

Soon after leaving home, D‘Artagnan’s paternally encouraged susceptibility
leads him to quarrel with a gentleman whom he will subsequently refer to as “the
man from Meung” (the name of the town where they meet and where he also
glimpses a beautiful woman addressed as Milady). The encounter does not end
well for young D’Artagnan. Not only will he be wounded in the confrontation
with the man from Meung; he will also have his letter of introduction taken from
him and his sword split in two.8 Later, when he arrives in Paris, D’Artagnan will
already be short of funds and will sell his risible and exhausted horse for cash.
That sale provides him with the means to procure inexpensive lodgings and to

have a new blade made for his sword. This inauspicious beginning is followed
by a series of squabbles with three men (the Musketeers Athos, Porthos, and
Aramis) he meets shortly after his arrival in the French capital. He agrees to a
duel with each and, with the same brash courage that he has already displayed in
Meung, schedules those contests back to back.

D‘Artagnan’s impetuous bravado in these early encounters, along with his
ignorance of the codes of behavior and the political rivalries at work in Paris and
at the royal court, make it clear that the young man will need more than daring
and a certain native intelligence if he is to achieve his goals. He will have to find
mentors who can help him understand the complicated relationships, hidden
truths, and moral subtleties of modern (that is, seventeenth-century) French life.
He finds that help in the form of two surrogate father figures: Monsieur de
Tréville, the captain of the King’s Musketeers, and Athos, the oldest of the three
Musketeers with whom he has recently quarreled. D’Artagnan also meets
Constance Bonacieux, the young and beautiful wife of his Parisian landlord and
laundress to Queen Anne.

Constance will not only offer the young man an opportunity to prove his
mettle, but will also win his heart. She tells D‘Artagnan that the King has
ordered the Queen to wear the diamond studs he gave her to an upcoming ball.
Unfortunately, Anne no longer has those studs in her possession. She has given
them, with her affections, to England’s handsome Duke of Buckingham.
Cardinal Richelieu, who is in love with the Queen and has been spurned by her,
knows this and hopes to take advantage of the difficulty the situation presents.
He sends a ruthlessly seductive agent in his employ—Milady—to England to
obtain the diamonds from Buckingham. If she succeeds and is able to bring the
studs back before the ball, the Cardinal will be able to prove that the Queen has
been unfaithful to Louis and to France.9 To save the Queen’s reputation and
perhaps even her life, D’Artagnan must also seek out Buckingham and return the
studs to Anne instead. He must overcome the obstacles of time and distance and
evade the Cardinal’s agents who have been sent out to prevent him from
crossing the English Channel. However determined he may be, young
D‘Artagnan cannot hope to prevail alone against his cunning and dogged
adversaries. He therefore enlists the help of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who
will accompany him on this crucial and dangerous voyage. The journey, the final
stages of which the young man completes alone (his friends having been
variously rendered hors de combat along the way), lies at the heart of the novel.
Success, which he achieves with Buckingham’s help, will earn D’Artagnan the
gratitude of the Queen and Constance, but also the animosity of Richelieu and

Milady.10

This chivalrous adventure not only marks the first major stage on
D’Artagnan’s path to manhood, it also highlights the historical character of
Dumas’s fiction. It is thus not surprising that, in The Three Musketeers, Dumas
takes full advantage of the popularity of the historical novel, whose vogue in
France had been sparked by translations of Walter Scott’s Waverly cycle. Scott’s
novels were widely read and admired in France and prompted numerous
dramatic, musical, artistic, and literary adaptations and imitations.11 In fact, as a
young man, Dumas himself had succumbed to this fashion. One of his earliest
literary creations was a three-act melodrama entitled Ivanhoe, which he wrote
around 1822 after reading Scott’s novel by that name in a French translation.12

At the same time as Scott’s popularity moved many to attempt various types
of historical fictions, men like Augustin Thierry and François Guizot were
transforming the science of history. Basing their writings on the study of
chronicles, memoirs, and other historical documents, they claimed for their
works a greater degree of accuracy than had previously been achieved and
seemed to convey a more vivid sense of the drama and dynamics of past eras
than their predecessors had. Like these historians, Dumas, too, often turned to
earlier records of past events when composing his works. He had, for example,
been inspired by passages from Louis-Pierre d‘Anquetil’s L’Esprit de la Ligue
(The Spirit of the League, 1767) and Pierre de L‘Estoile’s Mémoires pour servir
à l’histoire de France (Memoirs Intended to Serve as the Basis for the History of
France, 1719), when he wrote his play about a sixteenth-century French
monarch, Henri III, in 1829. Dumas also wrote vulgarized histories that made
the past more accessible to the general public. One of these, an account of Louis
XIV et son siecle (Louis XIV and His Century) was published in Le Siècle from
March 9 to November 8, 1844—that is to say, more or less simultaneously with
The Three Musketeers.

In their research for Louis XIV and The Three Musketeers, Dumas and his
collaborator, Auguste Maquet, a history teacher and middling writer, consulted
real and apocryphal memoirs from the reign of Louis XIII. Claude Schopp, the
foremost specialist on Dumas’s life and works, has suggested that among the
many documents the two men read, the Mémoires inédits de Louis-Henri de
Loménie, comte de Brienne, secrétaire d‘État sous Louis XIV (Unpublished
Memoirs of Louis-Henri de Loménie, Count of Brienne, Secretary of State under
Louis XIV) , edited and published by François Barrière in 1828, is deserving of
special attention. 13 According to Schopp, the Essai sur les mœurs et sur les
usages (Essay on Manners and Customs) that prefaces that volume contains a

brief account of the Queen’s gift of two diamond studs to Buckingham. Schopp
sees this as the primary source of inspiration for the central episode in Dumas’s
novel. Another of the novel’s principal sources is the Mémoires de M.
d’Artagnan (Memoirs of M. d‘Artagnan), a work of fiction written by Courtilz
de Sandras in 1700. Dumas borrowed that book from a library in Marseilles in
June 1843 and apparently never returned it. From this work Dumas drew the
name of his hero—D’Artagnan, a real person who is remembered today not so
much for his own exploits as for those of the fictional character given his name.
These pseudo-memoirs were also the source of the names of the Musketeers
Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. The name of Dumas’s villainess, Milady, likewise
appears to be derived from a woman named Miledi *** in Courtilz’s pseudo-
memoirs of D’Artagnan.

From these and other sources, Dumas, aided by Maquet, composed what is
nonetheless a uniquely original tale. Their novel is neither a complete and
accurate record of historical events14 nor an archaeological reconstruction of the
past filled with detailed descriptions of places, manners, and dress. Instead, in
The Three Musketeers, the boundary between fact and fiction is deliberately
blurred. Here, for example, is how the narrator of the novel explains the reaction
of the men and women of Meung who raced toward the site of a commotion that
took place in their town on the first Monday in April 1625:

In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some city
or other registering in its archives an event of this kind. There were nobles,
who made war against each other; there was the king, who made war
against the cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king.
Then, in addition to these concealed or public, secret or open wars, there
were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made
war upon everybody. The citizens always took up arms readily against
thieves, wolves, or scoundrels, often against nobles or Huguenots,
sometimes against the king, but never against the cardinal or Spain. It
resulted, then, from this habit that ... the citizens, on hearing the clamor, and
seeing neither the red-and-yellow standard [that is, the flag of Spain] nor
the livery of the [Cardinal-] Duc de Richelieu, rushed toward the hostel of
the Jolly Miller (p. 11).

The seemingly objective, reportorial tone that the narrator adopts in this
passage—the exact date and place are given in the previous paragraph—lends an
air of truth to his invented account of the populace’s response to the mayhem
occurring at the Jolly Miller inn. So, too, do the narrator’s allusions to city
archives and to the historically genuine threats posed in those times by thieves,

wolves, and domestic and foreign political conflicts. Concrete details about the
event that has sent the people of Meung dashing toward the inn are not
immediately forthcoming, however. Instead, the expected explanation is aborted
as soon as it has begun (see the sentence fragment: “A young man—” [p. 11 ]).
In place of an explanation, we find a multi-page description of the youth whose
existence has just been mentioned and an account of the circumstances that have
brought him to this place. The postponement is, of course, part of a deliberate
strategy.15 By the time the narrator returns to the specific event with which his
tale began, “facts” and fictions have been so convincingly intertwined that
readers, like the citizens of Meung, are carried along by their curiosity and are
eager to discover just what is going on.

Among the real conflicts the narrator evokes in the passage cited above are the
ongoing tensions between French Protestants (known as Huguenots) and
Catholics. A minority of the French population, the Huguenots were often the
victims of religious persecution by the Catholic majority during the period in
which Dumas’s story takes place. Louis XIII’s father, King Henri IV, had been
born into a Protestant family but converted to Catholicism in order to ascend the
French throne. The Edict of Nantes Henri promulgated in 1598 sought to provide
his former coreligionists freedom of worship and a limited number of
(geographical) safe havens but did not always fully afford them the protections it
was intended to guarantee. Although doctrinal differences were part of what
prompted the tensions between Catholics and Huguenots, issues of royal
authority and national sovereignty also came into play. French Protestants could
and occasionally did request the intervention of countries like England and
Holland when under attack. The siege of La Rochelle, which is described at
some length in The Three Musketeers, is one example of a time when English
military forces came to the aid of the Huguenots and hence into direct
confrontation with Louis XIII and Richelieu. Dumas ties Buckingham’s role in
that event not only to English political and religious interests, but also to his
amorous rivalry with and feelings of personal animosity for the King and the
Cardinal—a subject introduced earlier by means of the diamond-stud incident.16

Dumas places D’Artagnan and his Musketeer friends at the siege of La
Rochelle. Their presence there is entirely plausible given what we know of the
history of that battle. However, some of the specific episodes in which they are
involved—such as their alfresco breakfast in a battlefield bastion and their
discovery of the collusion between Richelieu and Milady—are pure invention.
Those incidents acquire verisimilitude both because they are embedded in an
account of historically attested events and because they serve as a further

illustration of the character and appetites the novel has already established for
the book’s protagonists.

In the midst of the battlefield breakfast, for example, we are not surprised to
see D’Artagnan and his friends display the kind of skill, determination, and
panache needed to defeat an enemy who greatly outnumbers them. They have
found themselves in similar circumstances on other occasions (see the duel
against the Cardinal’s Guards in chapter 5), and have triumphed often enough
for us to believe in their aplomb, courage, clever stratagems, and “glorious”
retreat here. Neither do we find it astonishing that the four men, accompanied by
their valets, are again sharing food and wine. Such communal meals are frequent
in the novel (though usually taken at inns) and testify to the men’s friendship and
their (realistic) need for sustenance and for opportunities to plan future
undertakings. 17 The scene also allows Dumas to indulge, through his fiction, in
his passion for cuisine. Both a gourmet and a gourmand, Dumas often
entertained friends at his home and frequently included recipes for exotic foods,
such as bear steak, in his travel narratives. Later, he would even write a Grand
Dictionnaire de cuisine, which was published posthumously in 1873.18

History confirms Cardinal Richelieu’s critical role at the siege of La Rochelle
and paintings from the time record his presence there dressed in battle armor.
We know, too, that his hatred of Buckingham was real. It is therefore plausible
that the Cardinal would plot to have the Duke assassinated. What is less
plausible historically, though narratively convincing given Buckingham’s
apparent penchant for women and the vengeful character the novel attributes to
Milady, is that she would become the instrument of such an act. Even less likely
is the discovery of the Cardinal’s plot by Athos, who overhears the prelate’s
conversation with Milady thanks to a stovepipe that sends the sound of their
voices into the very room where he, Porthos, and Aramis have been told to wait
(chapter 44). In the course of that overheard conversation, Athos, whose anti-
English sentiments might otherwise leave him indifferent to Buckingham’s fate,
learns two things that move him to act. First, he recognizes the voice of Milady
as that of his wife—a malicious woman whom he long believed to be dead but
now discovers to be alive. Then, he learns of Milady’s intention to wreak
vengeance on Madame Bonacieux and D’Artagnan and of the Cardinal’s
willingness to draft a letter providing her immunity from prosecution should she
succeed. This eavesdropping scene is later followed by a direct confrontation
between Athos and his wife that leaves him in possession of the document
granting her carte blanche to act as she sees fit “for the good of the state.” That
text will play a vital, if unanticipated, role at the end of the novel.

In addition to the Bildungsroman and the historical novel, there is yet another
literary genre, the Gothic novel, whose popularity Dumas exploited in
composing The Three Musketeers. The Gothic novel first appeared in England,
where Horace Walpole (Castle of Otranto, 1764), Ann Radcliffe (The Mysteries
of Udolpho, 1794), Matthew Gregory “Monk” Lewis (The Monk, 1796), and
Charles Robert Maturin (Melmoth the Wanderer, 1821), helped to shape its form
and content. Their works, which were immediately translated into French, were
widely read and served as models for similar texts composed by French authors.
Gothic tales are typically sensationalist in nature and often involve the
persecution of a young woman whose virtue, if not her very life, is put in grave
danger. Such stories are frequently set in isolated castles notable for their
subterranean or elevated spaces (prisons, dungeons, or cells) and are populated
by cruel and/or lubricious men. Dumas was quite familiar with the conventions
of this genre and could use them to good effect, as one of his early novels,
Pauline (1838), clearly shows.19 When incorporated into The Three Musketeers,
however, instead of functioning in a straightforward manner, Gothic codes are
deployed as clichés and subverted by parody.

In The Three Musketeers, the fact that the story of Milady’s imprisonment and
escape (chapters 49 and 50 and 52—58) is set in England seems at first to be
unproblematic. In retrospect, however, this nod in the direction of the birthplace
of Gothic fiction can be read as a sign of the parodic nature of the account of
Milady’s arrest and detention by her brother-in-law, Lord de Winter. Abducted
from a ship, carried off in a closed carriage, then locked in a well-guarded cell in
an isolated castle, Milady is immediately positioned on what the (sophisticated)
reader will easily recognize as a standard Gothic narrative trajectory.20 What is
more, the better to seduce her prison guard, John Felton, Milady will soon spin
out a stereotypical tale of sexual and religious victimization by Buckingham in
which she portrays herself as the virginal heroine/martyr. Nothing, of course,
could be further from the truth. Still, her mastery of the Gothic genre makes
Milady’s story so convincing that, as she had hoped, Felton obligingly casts
himself in the role of rescuer and redresseur de torts (righter of wrongs). Like
Felton, naive readers may accept at face value this interpolated tale and the
(historically incorrect) explanation it offers for Felton’s assassination of the
Duke of Buckingham. More experienced readers will enjoy the way this episode
ironically lays bare the commonplaces of Gothic fictions.

As this example of generic subversion clearly shows, wit is an important
feature of The Three Musketeers. Whether subtle, as it is here, or overt, as it is
on other occasions, humor contributes to our reading pleasure as well as to our

understanding of certain characters and events in the novel.21 There are times,
for example, when the narrator’s comic barbs are directed at D‘Artagnan. We
have already quoted (in note 8 below) the mock-heroic scene at the Jolly Miller
inn where an irate D’Artagnan attempts to skewer the host of that hostelry, only
to discover that he has nothing more than the stub of a sword in his hand. The
scene is, of course, laughable, but also carries with it the suggestion of
emasculation—the sword being a well-known phallic symbol. The “joke” is
further emphasized by the fact that the host has previously taken the other, larger
part of the lengthy blade to use as a larding needle. Such a use plays upon the
double linguistic register (cooking and sword fighting) in which the verb
embrocher, “to skewer,” can be employed and transforms the sword into
something less than a noble instrument of valor and power. As a result, the
reader is afforded an opportunity to laugh at D’Artagnan’s youthful (and
therefore impotent) rage and to verify the pertinence of the narrator’s earlier
comparison of the book’s hero to Cervantes’s Don Quixote.

This scene is followed by a similar event much later in the novel. In chapter
35, D‘Artagnan, assuming the identity of the Comte de Wardes, spends several
hours alone with Milady in a darkened room late at night. The next day, Athos—
who believes he recognizes the sapphire ring “De Wardes” received as a token
of affection from Milady—warns D’Artagnan to stay away from this woman
who could prove to be a dangerous enemy. Writing as De Wardes, D‘Artagnan
decides to send Milady an insulting letter. Incensed by its contents, Milady soon
summons D’Artagnan (as himself) to her home and, feigning love for him, asks
him to punish De Wardes for her. She also invites D‘Artagnan to an assignation
later that night. D’Artagnan thinks about not returning but changes his mind,
believing that, now aware of Milady’s duplicitous character, he will not be
deceived by her wiles. However, once under Milady’s sexual spell, the young
man loses his head and imprudently confesses that he had earlier taken De
Wardes’s place. Milady is outraged and in the struggle that ensues, her
nightdress is torn and the fleur de lis branded on her shoulder is revealed. The
discovery of this mark of her past crimes, which she had heretofore managed to
keep secret, further infuriates Milady and, to avoid being stabbed by her,
D‘Artagnan “almost unconsciously [draws his sword] from [its] scabbard” (p.
417). Maneuvering his way out of her bedroom and into her maid’s chamber
next door, D’Artagnan barely manages to escape Milady’s wrath.

There is much that is psychologically insightful in this scene, which at once
shows Milady’s transformation from siren to fury and D‘Artagnan’s evolution
from wary lover to incautious naif and then dazed quarry. What follows, though,

is comical. While Milady repeatedly thrusts her dagger at the bolted door behind
which D’Artagnan has managed to barricade himself, the young man appeals to
her maid.

“Quick, Kitty, quick!” said D’Artagnan, in a low voice.... “let me get out of
the hotel; for if we leave her time to turn round, she will have me killed by
the servants.”

“But you can’t go out so,” said Kitty; “you are naked.”

“That’s true,” said D’Artagnan ... “that’s true. But dress me as well as
you are able, only make haste; think, my dear girl, it’s life and death!”

Kitty was but too well aware of that. In a turn of the hand she muffled
him up in a flowered robe, a large hood, and a cloak.

She gave him some slippers, in which he placed his naked feet, and then
conducted him down the stairs. It was time (p. 418).

Fleeing Milady’s residence in a disguise that leaves him “unmanned” (he
wears neither pants nor boots), D’Artagnan is first briefly pursued by a police
patrol and then hooted at by passersby on their way to work (it is almost dawn) .
He does not stop in his mad dash across Paris until he arrives at Athos’s door.
When a sleepy Grimaud, Athos’s usually silent valet, comes to see who is
pounding at the door, he is stunned into speech.

“Holloa, there!” cried he; “what do you want, you strumpet? What’s your
business here, you hussy?”

D’Artagnan threw off his hood, and disengaged his hands from the folds
of the cloak. At sight of the mustaches and the naked sword, the poor devil
perceived he had to deal with a man. He concluded it must be an assassin.

“Help! murder! help!” cried he. “Hold your tongue, you stupid fellow!”
said the young man; “I am D’Artagnan; don’t you know me?...”

“You, Monsieur d’Artagnan!” cried Grimaud, “impossible” (p.419).

This scene is almost pure farce.22 At first, Grimaud brashly scolds the visitor
whom, judging by “her” dress, he sees as a woman of loose morals. He then
trembles at the sight of “his” mustaches and naked sword (a symbolic display of
genitalia), which cause the valet to fear for his life. In any event, Grimaud
cannot—or will not—recognize the (confusingly gendered) individual at the
door.

Awakened by all this noise, Athos soon appears. His reaction is rather
different from his valet’s, but in its own way is just as atypical as Grimaud’s
unusual loquacity was of him.

Athos recognized his comrade, and phlegmatic as he was, he burst into a
laugh which was quite excused by the strange masquerade before his eyes
—petticoats falling over his shoes, sleeves tucked up, and mustaches stiff
with agitation. (p. 420)

After Athos has bolted the door to his rooms and D‘Artagnan has shed his
“female garments” for a man’s dressing gown—the change of clothes restores
his equanimity and stiffens his masculine resolve—the young man tells the
Musketeer of his “terrible adventure” (p. 420). Framed between a pair of
securely fastened doors (at Milady’s and at Athos’s), this account of
D’Artagnan’s flight gives the reader another opportunity to laugh at the novel’s
hero, although the clash with Milady will later prove to have serious and far-
ranging consequences. Appearing as it does near the middle of the book, the
episode suggests both how far D’Artagnan has come since his adventure in
Meung—this time he at least has a real sword—and how far he still has to go
before he can lay claim to the wisdom that is usually a sign of maturity and
experience.

Other characters in the novel are similarly subject to the narrator’s comic
barbs. There are, for instance, numerous examples of Porthos’s vainglory and
gargantuan appetite, which his purse is never full enough to satisfy. One might
not always expect this to be funny, and yet there is something undeniably
humorous in the discomfiture Porthos feels when his expectations of gustatory
pleasure and satiety come face to face with the reality of the dinner he is served
at the procurator’s home (chapter 32 )23 or when he is offered D’Artagnan’s old
yellow horse instead of the noble steed he had expected to receive (chapter 34) .

There are times, too, when Aramis’s religious vocation, casuistic language,
and expressions of Christian meekness and piety are set at odds with his
aggressive behavior as a Musketeer. This brings a delicious touch of comic
dissonance to the text. Consider, for example, the following scene in which
Aramis explains to Cardinal Richelieu the role he played in a quarrel that has
just taken place at the Red Dovecot inn:

Monseigneur [he says, addressing Richelieu], being of a very mild
disposition, and being, likewise, of which Monseigneur perhaps is not
aware, about to enter into [holy] orders, I endeavored to appease my
comrades, when one of these wretches gave me a wound with a sword,
treacherously, across my left arm. Then I admit my patience failed me; I
drew my sword in my turn, and as he came back to the charge, I fancied I
felt that in throwing himself upon me, he let it pass through his body. I only
know for a certainty that he fell; and it seemed to me that he was borne

away with his two companions (p. 473).

The contrition Aramis expresses here and his seeming denial of active
responsibility for the injury of his opponent appear to be designed to elicit
absolution for an act that is both illegal (dueling) and immoral (killing) 24 The
reader may well smile at this, but the Cardinal—who is both the author of a ban
on dueling and a prelate—will in fact pardon Aramis. He does so, however, not
because of the efficacy of the Musketeer’s language, but because he discovers
that Aramis and his friends fought to protect a woman who, unbeknownst to
them, is none other than Milady—the very person the Cardinal has come to meet
at the inn.

Comic scenes like this and the others described above seem to me to be more
than just occasions for laughter. They play a role in the development of character
psychology—something critics have at times insisted is lacking in Dumas’s
novel. In fact, these comic episodes show that, even when characters evolve little
over the course of the story, their foibles do not go unexamined and readers are
afforded some insight into the workings of their minds. What is more, although
D’Artagnan’s transformation from an impetuous youth to a thoughtful, resolute
adult is often slow and uneven, he does travel the road from innocence to
experience, from naivete to knowledge.

In this way, despite the swashbuckling nature of his adventures, Dumas’s
seventeenth-century protagonist is very much like Eugène de Rastignac, the
nineteenth-century hero of Balzac’s Le Père Goriot (Old Goriot, 1834—1835),
whose journey, while seemingly more urbane and of a more modern nature,
follows a very similar path. Both novels begin with a naive young man’s arrival
in Paris, where he is forced, for lack of funds, to take modest lodgings. Both
show him making mistakes and being guided by mentors. Both novels end with a
somber, sobering death that, overt differences aside, similarly marks the
definitive end of the protagonist’s youth and the beginning of his more knowing
manhood. This quick comparison with Balzac’s novel, a work rarely faulted for
its lack of character psychology or viewed as appealing primarily to adolescent
boys, leaves one wondering why the two books have long occupied such very
different positions in the literary canon. Perhaps it is the liberal, joyful inclusion
of humor, the immoderate feasting, and the clashing of swords that diminishes
the prestige of Dumas’s work in the minds of some.

To be sure, Balzac’s novel is considerably shorter than Dumas’s and is devoid
of the lengthy interpolations (for example, the story of Milady’s imprisonment)
that temporarily divert attention away from the hero’s growing understanding of
the complex codes and relationships that are key to his future success. Modern

critics, who tend to prefer brevity and who may fail to note the pertinence of
these episodes to the overall design of Dumas’s novel, may grow impatient with
such elements of the text, finding them either old-fashioned or superfluous.
While such a view is mistaken, it might account for some of the scholarly
disdain to which Dumas’s work is still occasionally subject despite its enduring
popularity with readers.

Then, too, the myth that has grown up around Balzac—a myth most notably
embodied in Rodin’s statue of the man—often paints him as a solitary genius
who spent long nights in monk-like garb writing and revising his texts. Such an
image coincides perfectly with our modern conception of the artist as an
intensely focused, singularly original creator. The truth is more complex,
however, for Balzac, like Dumas, lived a full and varied life and accumulated
massive debts in the process. Dumas, though, worked with a collaborator—
Auguste Maquet—a face he openly acknowledged, even though his signature
alone appeared on the text. Much has been made of this collaboration, which has
been used to dismiss Dumas’s genius and to deny him literary paternity of his
works. Some of this criticism no doubt reflects our modern bias in favor of
individual (versus collaborative) composition. Some of it reflects a misappraisal
of Dumas’s talents and Maquet’s contributions, and some seems to have been
motivated by racism—Dumas’s father was born on a plantation in Haiti, the son
of a black slave and her white master, a minor French nobleman.25 The work of
serious contemporary scholars like Claude Schopp, who have examined the
extant portions of Maquet’s drafts for The Three Musketeers, make it clear,
however, that the text that has enthralled generations of readers is most
definitely Dumas’s.

Although it is Dumas’s adventuresome heroes who generally garner most
readers’ attention, the infamous Milady—a.k.a. Anne de Breuil, Milady de
Winter, Charlotte Backson, and Lady Clarick—is just as important a figure.
Beautiful, ruthless, intelligent, and determined, she is D‘Artagnan’s principal
antagonist in The Three Musketeers and one of Cardinal Richelieu’s secret
agents. Variously described as a tigress, a lioness, a panther, and a serpent, she
uses every means at her disposal to gain her ends and attack her enemies.
Actress and seductress, she has an uncanny ability to see into the hearts and
minds of her victims. A bigamist as well (she has married both Athos and Lord
de Winter’s brother), she has led her husbands and other men astray and
destroyed their lives. Some critics have taken the character of Milady as proof of
the misogynistic nature of Dumas’s novel, though such a view is hard to credit
given Dumas’s personal affection for women. To be sure, like Marguerite de

Bourgogne in Dumas’s 1832 drama, La Tour de Nesle (The Tower of Nesle),
Milady conforms to the nineteenth-century stereotype that portrayed some
women as diabolical and treacherous creatures.26 Promiscuous, powerful, and/or
profligate, such women were seen as a threat to (patriarchal) society, to the
family, and even to the nation. In The Three Musketeers, Milady very clearly
represents a danger to these fundamentally male-centered institutions and
relationships, and so it comes as no real surprise that, in the end, she must die.
The fact that Milady is also responsible for the death of Constance Bonacieux—
the woman D’Artagnan loves—is, of course, a further and more romantic
rationale for her execution. (Constance herself embodies another stereotype, that
of women as angels and/or innocent victims.)

Dumas’s deployment of this stereotypical vision of the diabolical woman is, I
believe, no different from his use of the conventions of the Bildungsroman, the
historical novel, or Gothic fiction. By adopting the gender stereotypes of his day,
Dumas is not so much expressing a hatred of women as he is conforming to the
expectations of his audience. The cliché he sets out here helps his readers to
make sense of and situate his novel within the parameters of their prior literary
and cultural experiences. Consider, for instance, Milady’s reaction to the
insulting letter she receives from “De Wardes.” Although she grinds her teeth,
turns “the color of ashes,” and collapses into an armchair after reading that
missive, Milady quickly rebuffs the ministrations of her maid.

“What do you want with me?” said she, “and why do you place your hand
on me?”

“I thought that Madame was ill, and I wished to bring her help,”
responded the maid, frightened at the terrible expression which had come
over her mistress’s face.

“I faint? I? I? Do you take me for half a woman? When I am insulted I do
not faint; I avenge myself!” (p. 403).

This passage first bows to and then plays against the fainting scene that novelists
so often assign to a woman who has been affronted or abandoned by her lover.27
It immediately dismisses the notion that Milady is, after all, a typically weak
female and insists instead on “her iron will” (p. 413).28 It also prepares and
makes plausible her aggressive reaction, in chapter 37, to D‘Artagnan’s
discovery of the fleur de lis branded on her shoulder. On that occasion, the
narrator tells us, “She turned upon him, no longer like a furious woman, but like
a wounded panther” and, taking in hand “a small poniard ... threw herself with a
bound upon D’Artagnan” (p. 417).29 Of course, the comparison of a violent

woman to a wild beast is yet another cliché, but one that is perfectly logical and
appropriate here given Milady’s well-established sense of self-preservation and
her fierce determination to seek revenge against those who would dominate or
insult her.30

It is, I think, no accident that Dumas gives Milady a “manlike soul in that frail
and delicate body” (p. 558) or that, having killed off his villainess at the end of
The Three Musketeers, he replaces her, in Twenty Years After, with a masculine
double—her son, Mordaunt.31 If we are to believe in D‘Artagnan’s heroism, his
intelligence, and his courage, the young man must have a worthy opponent
against whom to test himself and in contrast to whom he can display his noble
qualities.32 In The Three Musketeers, the contest between D’Artagnan and
Milady is not about sex or social positioning. It is about politics, honor, and
power. The conflict between these two characters begins, as we have seen, with
their parallel efforts to recover the diamond studs Queen Anne gave to
Buckingham. That event establishes once and for all the rivalry and the
antithetical equivalence between the valorous, if inexperienced, youth and the
perfidious, perceptive, and cunning woman. It also leads, with an inexorable
sureness born of Dumas’s narrative skill, to their final confrontation on the
banks of the River Lys and to D‘Artagnan’s charitable tears.33 I would argue, in
fact, that it is because we are as fully persuaded of Milady’s villainy and egotism
as we are of D’Artagnan’s decency and courage that we continue to read, believe
in, and be moved by this remarkable novel.

The Three Musketeers is not without its flaws and inconsistencies—D’
Artagnan is twice made a Musketeer, as if Dumas has forgotten having done this
a first time, and the chronology is at times fuzzy. The book does, however, offer
readers a wonderful tale of spirit and adventure, of character, honor, and humor.
It is also an unforgettable paean to friendship. “All for one and one for all” is
more than just a slogan; it is a pledge of support and mutual assistance, of caring
and sharing the burdens and the joys of life. Born of conflict—D‘Artagnan is set
to duel each of the three Musketeers—the relationship the young D’Artagnan
forges with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis is vital to the success of his efforts to
recover the diamond studs and to all his other undertakings. His three friends
teach him lessons about life, love, dignity, integrity, sacrifice, commitment, and
courage, but also about respect, indulgence, compassion, vanity, hypocrisy, and
suffering. Their generosity is legendary and is both practical and selfless.34
When one has money, all share it if there is a need. When all have funds, each
uses his purse as he sees fit. Personal skills, servants, and other relationships are
likewise employed for the individual or the common good, as circumstances

demand.

As closely tied as they are, however, each of these four men has his own
personality, qualities, ambitions, and cares. Chapter 67 makes this clear one last
time. Arrested at the behest of the Cardinal, D‘Artagnan is accompanied to
Richelieu’s quarters by the same true friends who had escorted him on his
journey to England. But, just as the final stages of that earlier trip were made
alone, D’Artagnan must now confront the Cardinal on his own. The young man,
harrowed by the death of his beloved Constance and by the execution of Milady,
is convinced that he will be condemned to die, but he goes bravely forward. He
hands Richelieu the carte blanche Athos had taken from Milady—it reads: “It is
by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he
has done. RICHELIEU” (p. 695)—but he does not expect to be spared
punishment.

After a time, however, the Cardinal offers him, in exchange for that document,
a lieutenant’s commission in the Musketeers with the name of the holder of that
rank left blank. Later, D‘Artagnan offers the commission to each of his friends
in turn. They all refuse it. Porthos will instead be married to his rich
benefactress, who is now widowed; Aramis will enter holy orders; Athos will
continue to drink and, for a time, to fight. It is Athos who finally writes
D’Artagnan’s name on the commission. The promotion, which once would have
brought D’Artagnan great joy, leaves him despondent.

“I shall then have no more friends,” said the young man. “Alas! nothing but
bitter recollections.”

And he let his head sink upon his hands, while two large tears rolled
down his cheeks.

“You are young,” replied Athos; “and your bitter recollections have time
to change themselves into sweet remembrances” (p. 698).

Time may not heal all wounds, but neither time nor distance will diminish the
friendship of these four men or the affection that readers feel for them all.
D’Artagnan and Dumas have thrilled and enthralled people across generations
and around the globe. There is a generosity of spirit and a wealth of human
understanding in this book that will never go out of fashion. It therefore seems
appropriate that, in 2002, on the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth, Dumas
was reburied in the Pantheon, the monument to and final resting place of some
of the foremost contributors to France’s history and cultural glory. New, wide-
ranging studies of Dumas’s works have recently begun to appear and publication
of his complete correspondence is planned for the near future.35 These, together

with editions of his novels, plays, and other writings that are once more in print,
should lead to a fuller and more richly nuanced understanding of and
appreciation for the life and the genius of this multi-talented literary titan.

Barbara T. Cooper is Professor of French at the University of New Hampshire.
She is a member of the editorial boards of Nineteenth-Century French Studies
and the Cahiers Alexandre Dumas. She specializes in nineteenth-century French
drama and in works by Dumas. Cooper was the editor of a volume on French
dramatists from 1789 to 1914 that is part of the Dictionary of Literary Biography
series and wrote the essay on Dumas in that volume. She has also coedited two
volumes of essays on nineteenth-century French literature and culture, and is the
author of more than fifty scholarly articles on works of nineteenth-century
French literature, many of which focus on texts by Dumas. In 2002 she
participated in several colloquia marking the bicentennial of Dumas’s birth.
Cooper, who holds her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was
named a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French
government in 1994 for her contributions to the promotion and propagation of
French culture.

Dedicated to Wallace, my one for all.

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

1. The most recent edition of the play is Alexandre Dumas, “La Jeunesse
des Mousquetaires” suivi de “Les Mousquetaires” (edited by Jean-Baptiste
Goureau; Paris: La Table Ronde, 1994). See, too, Michel Autrand, “Les
Trois Mousquetaires au théâtre—La jeunesse des Mousquetaires,” in “Les
Trois Mousquetaires, ” “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo”: Cent cinquante ans
après (edited by Fernande Bassan and Claude Schopp; Marly-le-Roi,
France: Editions Champflour, 1995, pp. 9-20).
2. For more information on the films and literary works based on Dumas’s
novel, see Daniel Compere, D‘Artagnan & Cie: “Les Trois Mousquetaires”
d’Alexandre Dumas, un roman a suivre (Paris: Encrage, 2002). The Internet
Movie Database (www.imdb.com) provides a partial list of film
adaptations. See also “Inspired by The Three Musketeers” on p. 709 of this
edition.
3. Publisher and bookseller Jules Baudry published the first bound edition
of The Three Musketeers in Paris in 1844.
4. See, for example, the following passages: “Then, as if to render an
account to herself of the changes she could place upon her countenance, so
mobile and so expressive, she made it take all expressions from that of
passionate anger, which convulsed her features, to that of the most sweet,
most affectionate, and most seducing smile” (p. 558) and “A light appeared
under the door; this light announced the return of her jailers. Milady, who
had arisen, threw herself quickly into the armchair, her head thrown back,
her beautiful hair unbound and disheveled, her bosom half bare beneath her
crumpled lace, one hand on her heart, and the other hanging down” (p.
559).
5. Indeed, in a number of French Romantic dramas, the term journée (day),
which figures in the titles of chapters 52-56 here, was used as a substitute
for the word “act.”
6. Consider chapter 52, which begins in the following, engaging manner:

Let us return to Milady, whom a glance thrown upon the coast of France
has made us lose sight of for an instant.

We shall find her still in the despairing attitude in which we left her,
plunged in an abyss of dismal reflection—a dark hell at the gate of which
she has almost left all hope behind, because for the first time she doubts, for
the first time she fears (p. 556).

The chapter ends in a similarly captivating fashion, but on an emotionally
opposite note that simultaneously brings closure to this episode and piques
the reader’s curiosity about the next:

“Weak or strong,” repeated Milady [to herself], “that man has, then, a spark
of pity in his soul; of that spark I will make a flame that shall devour
him....”

And Milady went to bed and fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.
Anyone who had seen her sleeping might have said she was a young girl
dreaming of the crown of flowers she was to wear on her brow at the next
festival (p. 563).

7. The representation of life as a journey, a path to maturity that is fraught
with endless dangers and opportunities, is an ancient literary trope that
dates back at least to the story of Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey. In
eighteenth-century France, such tales existed in memoir or epistolary form
(for example, Prévost’s Manon Lescaut or Choderlos de Laclos’s
Dangerous Liaisons) with a particular emphasis on sexual initiation. Balzac
(Old Goriot, Lost Illusions, Wild Ass’s Skin, etc.), Stendhal (The Red and
the Black, The Charterhouse of Parma), and other authors of French realist
fiction transformed the Bildungsroman in the nineteenth century, using the
genre to explore social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of
initiation into adulthood in a richly described setting.
8. Note the mock-heroic tenor of the narrator’s comments when, shortly
thereafter, D‘Artagnan threatens to skewer the host, hostess, and servants at
the Jolly Miller inn with his sword: “Unfortunately, there was one
circumstance which created a powerful obstacle to the accomplishment of
this threat; which was, as we have related, that his sword had been in his
first conflict broken in two.... Hence it resulted that when D’Artagnan
proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and simply
armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in length, which
the host [earlier] had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the rest of the
blade, the master [of the inn] had slyly put that on one side to make himself
a larding pin” (p. 24). The impulsiveness the young man displays here will
slowly disappear over time and by the end of the novel he will act with
greater maturity and more careful reflection.
9. Because England and France were often at war with one another, the
queen’s affection for Buckingham would be viewed as treasonous as well
as adulterous.
10. For more on this episode, see the article by Ora Avni, ‘The Semiotics of

Transactions: Mauss, Lacan, and The Three Musketeers“ (MLN 100:4
[September 1985]: pp. 728-757).
11. The classic study of Scott’s influence in France is Louis Maigron, Le
Roman historique à l’époque romantique; essai sur [‘influence de Walter
Scott (Paris: Hachette, 1912). For information on how Scott’s novels were
received in France, see Klaus Massmann, Die Rezeption der historichen
Romane Sir Walter Scott in Frankreich (1816-1832) (Heidelberg: C.
Winter, 1972).
12. The text of this play was published for the first time in Alexandre
Dumas, Théâtre complet (edited by Fernande Bassan; Paris: Lettres
Modernes/Minard, 1974, vol. 1, pp. 73-144). Composer Hector Berlioz’s
Waverly Overture offers another, more famous example of Scott’s
popularity in France.
13. For more detail on Dumas’s sources, correspondence related to the
novel, and the text of a surviving fragment of Maquet’s draft of part of the
novel, see Claude Schopp’s preface to Dumas’s Les Trois
Mousquetaires/Vingt Ans aprés (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1991, pp. iii-xxiii,
and the documents section, pp. 1,281—1,364).
14. See, for example, the statement the narrator makes regarding the battle
between French and English forces over the Ile de Ré (situated opposite the
port city of La Rochelle), ”As it is not our intention to give a journal of the
siege, but on the contrary only to describe such of the events of it as are
connected with the story we are relating, we will content ourselves with
saying in two words that the expedition succeeded, to the great
astonishment of the king and the great glory of the cardinal“ (p. 468). Some
critics have made much of Dumas’s chronological and historical
inaccuracies. While it is true that Dumas does not always respect fact in this
novel, he does seem to have captured the spirit of the age and, for his
purposes, that is surely more important.
15. Since The Three Musketeers is a serial novel, the temporary deferral of
the explanation of the event underway and the lengthy flashback that takes
its place has economic as well as literary value. On the one hand, the
inserted material provides important background information about the
young man and, by diverting attention from the initial narrative thread,
creates suspense. On the other hand, it also allows for the physical
expansion of the text and thus helps the author to satisfy his contractual
obligation to provide a specified quantity of words or lines of text.
16. On several occasions in the novel, Dumas indicates that minor events
and/or private conflicts can have a significant impact on national or

international affairs.
17. Christophe Miller has studied the role of inns in his article ”Les
Auberges dans la trilogie des Mousquetaires” in “Les Trois
Mousquetaires”, “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo”: Cent cinquante ans après
(edited by Fernande Bassan and Claude Schopp; Marly-le-Roi, France:
Editions Champflour, 1995, pp. 45—49)- It is important to note that until
late in the book, D’Artagnan is not yet a Musketeer and would not
necessarily serve alongside his friends. Meals are an occasion on which
they could plausibly meet.
18. See Dumas on Food: Selections from “Le Grand Dictionnaire de
cuisine” (translated by A. and J. Davidson; Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 1987). The most recent French edition is Alexandre
Dumas, Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine (Paris: Phébus, 2000).
19. See Alexandre Dumas, Pauline (edited by Anne-Marie Callet-Bianco;
Paris: Editions Gallimard, 2002).
20. Consider the following description:

At length after a journey of nearly an hour, the carriage stopped before an
iron gate, which closed an avenue leading to a castle severe in form,
massive, and isolated. Then, as the wheels rolled over a fine gravel, Milady
could hear a vast roaring, which she recognized at once as the noise of the
sea dashing against some steep cliff.

The carriage passed under two arched gateways, and at length stopped in
a court large, dark, and square....

[She] passed with [Felton] under a low arched door, which by a vaulted
passage, lighted only at the farther end, led to a stone staircase around an
angle of stone. They came to a massive door, which after the introduction
into the lock of a key which the young man carried with him, turned heavily
upon its hinges, and disclosed the chamber destined for Milady (pp. 534-
535).

21. One recent exploration of this topic can be found in the article by
Jacques Goimard, “La Bande des farceurs: l’humour dans Les Trois
Mousquetaires,” in “Les Trois Mousquetaires, ” “Le Comte de Monte-
Cristo”: Cent cinquante ans après (edited by Fernande Bassan and Claude
Schopp; Marly-le-Roi, France: Editions Champflour, 1995, pp. 67-73).
22. . Indeed, Grimaud’s behavior here strikes me as reminiscent of that of
the alternately brave and timorous servant, Sosie, in Molière’s play
Amphitryon (1668).
23. “After the soup the maid brought a boiled fowl—a piece of

magnificence which caused the eyes of the [other] diners to dilate in such a
manner that they seemed ready to burst.... The poor fowl was thin, and
covered with one of those thick, bristly skins through which the teeth
cannot penetrate with all their efforts. The fowl must have been sought for a
long time on the perch, to which it had retired to die of old age.

‘The devil!’ thought Porthos, ‘this is poor work. I respect old age but I
don’t much like it boiled or roasted“’ (p. 373).

24. His mea culpa is expressed in terms that would be perfectly suited to
the confessional (“I admit my patience failed me”), but are rather amusing
coming from a man who, whatever his future plans, is currently a
Musketeer. Note that the phrases ”throwing himself upon me” and “he let
[my sword] pass through his body” grammatically diminish Aramis’s moral
responsibility for wounding and/or killing his opponent. This would seem
to be an attempt to cast his actions as a venial sin.
25. One of the most biased and racist critics was Eugène de Mire-court,
Fabrique de romans: Maison Alexandre Dumas & Cie (Paris: Tous les
marchands de nouveautés, 1845). Bernard Fillaire, in Alexandre Dumas et
associés (Paris: Bartillat, 2002) follows in his footsteps. Gustave Simon, in
Histoire d‘une collaboration: Alexandre Dumas et Auguste Maguet (Paris:
G. Crès, 1919) gives an overly generous view of Maquet’s contributions.
On Dumas’s father, see John G. Gallaher, General Alexandre Dumas:
Soldier of the French Revolution (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1997) and Claude Ribbe, Alexandre Dumas, le dragon de la reine
(Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 2002).
26. Milady is described as “that invincible power of evil” on page 556 of
the novel. Like many other nineteenth-century French writers, Dumas often
condemns women in positions of power. On this and related subjects, see
Lise Quefflélec, ”Inscription romanesque de la femme au XIXe siècle: Le
Cas du roman-feuilleton sous la monarchie de Juillet“ (Revue d’Histoire
Littéraire de la France 86:2 [1986], pp. 189-206) and Odile Krakovitch,
Peurs et obsessions du XIXe siècle (forthcoming).
27. In fact, the image of the woman who loses consciousness in such cases
is so well established that, in Madame Bovary (1857), where Flaubert
routinely ironizes Romantic clichés, Emma Bovary feels faint after reading
the letter Rodolphe Boulanger has sent her to announce the end of their
adulterous relationship.
28. Indeed, the plan Milady adopts in chapter 36—she makes love to
D’Artagnan in the hope that he will agree to punish “De Wardes” for

insulting her—seems to link Milady to another famously strong-willed
literary villainess: Choderlos de Laclos’s Madame de Merteuil (Dangerous
Liaisons, 1782). In that book, Merteuil uses the naive and inexperienced
Chevalier Danceny as an instrument of vengeance against a former lover.
29. The panther image returns in chapter 50 when, chastising his prisoner,
Lord de Winter

pointed, with a slow and accusing gesture, to the left shoulder of Milady,
which he almost touched with his finger.

Milady uttered a deep, inward shriek, and retreated to a corner of the
room like a panther which crouches for a spring.

“Oh, growl as much as you please,” cried Lord de Winter, “but don’t try
to bite, for I warn you that it would be to your disadvantage....”

The eyes of Milady darted such flashes that although he was a man and
armed before an unarmed woman, he felt the chill of fear glide through his
whole frame (pp. 541-542).

The comparison of Milady to a serpent, also present in chapter 36, appears
again in chapter 52.

30. For a summary of the numerous reasons Milady will have to hate our
hero, see pages 556-557. For similar scenes where Milady’s prostration is
followed by resolve, see page 536 and page 558.
31. The name is a homonym of mordant, the present participle of the verb
mordre, “to bite.” When used as an adjective, the participle can also mean
caustic, corrosive, bitingly critical, or sarcastic. The name describes the
man’s character as well as his actions.
32. Balzac’s Rastignac (in Old Goriot) must affirm his character in face of
the temptations offered by the master criminal, Vautrin, who, like Milady,
has been branded by the authorities for his crimes.
33. As the executioner prepares to put Milady to death, D‘Artagnan is
moved to pity and declares, “Pardon me, madame, for having by a trick
unworthy of a gentleman provoked your anger; and I, in exchange, pardon
you the murder of my poor love and your cruel vengeance against me. I
pardon you, and I weep for you. Die in peace!” (p. 687). Again, the
comparison with Balzac’s Père Goriot comes to mind. That novel, too,
shows the hero shedding his final, youthful tears at the book’s conclusion
before moving on to a more calculating, adult existence.
34. Contrast this to Louis XIII of whom the narrator says, “Louis XIII, like
every weak mind, was wanting in generosity” (p. 689).
35. See, among others, Alexandre Dumas, une lecture de l’histoire (edited

by Michel Arrous; Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2003). Claude Schopp,
who has already published parts of Dumas’s correspondence, is heading up
the effort to collect and print all of his letters.

Author’s Preface

In which it is proved that, notwithstanding their names’ ending in os and is, the
heroes of the story which we are about to have the honor to relate to our readers

have nothing mythological about them.

A short time ago, while making researches in the Royal Library for my History
of Louis XIV,1 I stumbled by chance upon the Memoirs of M. d’Artagnan,
printed—as were most of the works of that period, in which authors could not
tell the truth without the risk of a residence, more or less long, in the Bastille—at
Amsterdam, by Pierre Rouge. The title attracted me; I took them home with me,
with the permission of the guardian, and devoured them.

It is not my intention here to enter into an analysis of this curious work; and I
shall satisfy myself with referring such of my readers as appreciate the pictures
of the period to its pages. They will therein find portraits penciled by the hand of
a master; and although these squibs may be, for the most part, traced upon the
doors of barracks and the walls of cabarets, they will not find the likenesses of
Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, Richelieu, Mazarin, and the courtiers of the period,
less faithful than in the history of M. Anquetil.2

But, as it is well known, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is not
always what affects the mass of readers. Now, while admiring, as others
doubtless will admire, the details we have to relate, our main preoccupation
concerned a matter to which no one before ourselves had given a thought.

D’Artagnan relates that on his first visit to M. de Tréville,3 captain of the
king’s Musketeers, he met in the antechamber three young men, serving in the
illustrious corps into which he was soliciting the honor of being received,
bearing the names of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

We must confess these three strange names struck us; and it immediately
occurred to us that they were but pseudonyms, under which D’Artagnan had
disguised names perhaps illustrious, or else that the bearers of these borrowed
names had themselves chosen them on the day in which, from caprice,
discontent, or want of fortune, they had donned the simple Musketeer’s uniform.

From that moment we had no rest till we could find some trace in

contemporary works of these extraordinary names which had so strongly
awakened our curiosity.

The catalogue alone of the books we read with this object would fill a whole
chapter, which, although it might be very instructive, would certainly afford our
readers but little amusement. It will suffice, then, to tell them that at the moment
at which, discouraged by so many fruitless investigations, we were about to
abandon our search, we at length found, guided by the counsels of our illustrious
friend Paulin Paris, a manuscript in folio, endorsed 4772 or 4773, we do not
recollect which, having for title, “Memoirs of the Comte de la Fère, Touching
Some Events Which Passed in France Toward the End of the Reign of King
Louis XIII and the Commencement of the Reign of King Louis XIV.”

It may be easily imagined how great was our joy when, in turning over this
manuscript, our last hope, we found at the twentieth page the name of Athos, at
the twenty-seventh the name of Porthos, and at the thirty-first the name of
Aramis.

The discovery of a completely unknown manuscript at a period in which
historical science is carried to such a high degree appeared almost miraculous.
We hastened, therefore, to obtain permission to print it, with the view of
presenting ourselves someday with the pack of others at the doors of the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, if we should not succeed—a very
probable thing, by the by—in gaining admission to the Académie Française with
our own proper pack. This permission, we feel bound to say, was graciously
granted; which compels us here to give a public contradiction to the slanderers
who pretend that we live under a government but moderately indulgent to men
of letters.

Now, this is the first part of this precious manuscript which we offer to our
readers, restoring to it the title which belongs to it, and entering into an
engagement that if (of which we entertain no doubt) this first part should obtain
the success it merits, we will publish the second immediately.

In the meanwhile, as the godfather is a second father, we beg the reader to lay
to our account, and not to that of the Comte de la Fère, the pleasure or the ennui
he may experience.

This being understood, let us proceed with our history.

I

THE THREE PRESENTS OF D’ARTAGNAN THE ELDER

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung,4 in
which the author of the Romance of the Rose5 was born, appeared to be in as
perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La
Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying toward the High Street,
leaving their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and
supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with a musket or a partisan,
directed their steps toward the hostelry of the Jolly Miller, before which was
gathered, increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of
curiosity.

In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some city
or other registering in its archives an event of this kind. There were nobles, who
made war against each other; there was the king, who made war against the
cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king. Then, in addition to
these concealed or public, secret or open wars, there were robbers, mendicants,
Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody. The
citizens always took up arms readily against thieves, wolves, or scoundrels, often
against nobles or Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against the
cardinal or Spain. It resulted, then, from this habit that on the said first Monday
of the month of April, 1625, the citizens, on hearing the clamor, and seeing
neither the red-and-yellow standard nor the livery of the Duc de Richelieu,
rushed toward the hostel of the Jolly Miller. When arrived there, the cause of this
hubbub was apparent to all.

A young man—we can sketch his portrait at a dash. Imagine to yourself a Don
Quixote6 of eighteen; a Don Quixote without his corselet, without his coat of
mail, without his cuisses; a Don Quixote clothed in a woolen doublet, the blue
color of which had faded into a nameless shade between lees of wine and a
heavenly azure; face long and brown; high cheek bones, a sign of sagacity; the
maxillary muscles enormously developed, an infallible sign by which a Gascon
may always be detected, 7 even without his cap—and our young man wore a cap

set off with a sort of feather; the eye open and intelligent; the nose hooked, but
finely chiseled. Too big for a youth, too small for a grown man, an experienced
eye might have taken him for a farmer’s son upon a journey had it not been for
the long sword which, dangling from a leather baldric, hit against the calves of
its owner as he walked, and against the rough side of his steed when he was on
horseback.

For our young man had a steed which was the observed of all observers. It
was a Béarn pony, from twelve to fourteen years old, yellow in his hide, without
a hair in his tail, but not without windgalls on his legs, which, though going with
his head lower than his knees, rendering a martingale quite unnecessary,
contrived nevertheless to perform his eight leagues a day. Unfortunately, the
qualities of this horse were so well concealed under his strange-colored hide and
his unaccountable gait, that at a time when everybody was a connoisseur in
horseflesh, the appearance of the aforesaid pony at Meung—which place he had
entered about a quarter of an hour before, by the gate of Beaugency—produced
an unfavorable feeling, which extended to his rider.

And this feeling had been the more painfully perceived by young D‘Artagnan
—for so was the Don Quixote of this second Rosinante named—from his not
being able to conceal from himself the ridiculous appearance that such a steed
gave him, good horseman as he was. He had sighed deeply, therefore, when
accepting the gift of the pony from M. d’Artagnan the elder. He was not ignorant
that such a beast was worth at least twenty livres; and the words which had
accompanied the present were above all price.

“My son,” said the old Gascon gentleman, in that pure Béarn patois of which
Henry IV could never rid himself, “this horse was born in the house of your
father about thirteen years ago, and has remained in it ever since, which ought to
make you love it. Never sell it; allow it to die tranquilly and honorably of old
age, and if you make a campaign with it, take as much care of it as you would of
an old servant. At court, provided you have ever the honor to go there,”
continued M. d’Artagnan the elder, “—an honor to which, remember, your
ancient nobility gives you right—sustain worthily your name of gentleman,
which has been worthily borne by your ancestors for five hundred years, both for
your own sake and the sake of those who belong to you. By the latter I mean
your relatives and friends. Endure nothing from anyone except Monsieur the
Cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, please observe, by his courage alone,
that a gentleman can make his way nowadays. Whoever hesitates for a second
perhaps allows the bait to escape which during that exact second fortune held out
to him. You are young. You ought to be brave for two reasons: the first is that

you are a Gascon, and the second is that you are my son. Never fear quarrels, but
seek adventures. I have taught you how to handle a sword; you have thews of
iron, a wrist of steel. Fight on all occasions. Fight the more for duels being
forbidden,8 since consequently there is twice as much courage in fighting. I have
nothing to give you, my son, but fifteen crowns, my horse, and the counsels you
have just heard. Your mother will add to them a recipe for a certain balsam,
which she had from a Bohemian and which has the miraculous virtue of curing
all wounds that do not reach the heart. Take advantage of all, and live happily
and long. I have but one word to add, and that is to propose an example to you—
not mine, for I myself have never appeared at court, and have only taken part in
religious wars as a volunteer; I speak of Monsieur de Tréville, who was formerly
my neighbor, and who had the honor to be, as a child, the play-fellow of our
king, Louis XIII, whom God preserve! Sometimes their play degenerated into
battles, and in these battles the king was not always the stronger. The blows
which he received increased greatly his esteem and friendship for Monsieur de
Tréville. Afterward, Monsieur de Tréville fought with others: in his first journey
to Paris, five times; from the death of the late king till the young one came of
age, without reckoning wars and sieges, seven times; and from that date up to the
present day, a hundred times, perhaps! So that in spite of edicts, ordinances, and
decrees, there he is, captain of the Musketeers; that is to say, chief of a legion of
Cæsars, whom the king holds in great esteem and whom the cardinal dreads—he
who dreads nothing, as it is said. Still further, Monsieur de Tréville gains ten
thousand crowns a year; he is therefore a great noble. He began as you begin. Go
to him with this letter, and make him your model in order that you may do as he
has done.”

Upon which M. d’Artagnan the elder girded his own sword round his son,
kissed him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his benediction.

On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who was
waiting for him with the famous recipe of which the counsels we have just
repeated would necessitate frequent employment. The adieux were on this side
longer and more tender than they had been on the other—not that M. d‘Artagnan
did not love his son, who was his only offspring, but M. d’Artagnan was a man,
and he would have considered it unworthy of a man to give way to his feelings;
whereas Mme. d‘Artagnan was a woman, and still more, a mother. She wept
abundantly; and—let us speak it to the praise of M. d’Artagnan the younger—
notwithstanding the efforts he made to remain firm, as a future Musketeer ought,
nature prevailed, and he shed many tears, of which he succeeded with great
difficulty in concealing the half.

The same day the young man set forward on his journey, furnished with the
three paternal gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen crowns, the
horse, and the letter for M. de Treville—the counsels being thrown into the
bargain.

With such a vade mecum D‘Artagnan was morally and physically an exact
copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when our
duty of an historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his portrait. Don
Quixote took windmills for giants, and sheep for armies; D’Artagnan took every
smile for an insult, and every look as a provocation—whence it resulted that
from Tarbes to Meung his fist was constantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of
his sword; and yet the fist did not descend upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue
from its scabbard. It was not that the sight of the wretched pony did not excite
numerous smiles on the countenances of passersby; but as against the side of this
pony raffled a sword of respectable length, and as over this sword gleamed an
eye rather ferocious than haughty, these passersby repressed their hilarity, or if
hilarity prevailed over prudence, they endeavored to laugh only on one side, like
the masks of the ancients. D’Artagnan, then, remained majestic and intact in his
susceptibility, till he came to this unlucky city of Meung.

But there, as he was alighting from his horse at the gate of the Jolly Miller,
without anyone—host, waiter, or hostler—coming to hold his stirrup or take his
horse, D‘Artagnan spied, through an open window on the ground floor, a
gentleman, well-made and of good carriage, although of rather a stern
countenance, talking with two persons who appeared to listen to him with
respect. D’Artagnan fancied quite naturally, according to his custom, that he
must be the object of their conversation, and listened. This time D’Artagnan was
only in part mistaken; he himself was not in question, but his horse was. The
gentleman appeared to be enumerating all his qualities to his auditors; and, as I
have said, the auditors seeming to have great deference for the narrator, they
every moment burst into fits of laughter. Now, as a half-smile was sufficient to
awaken the irascibility of the young man, the effect produced upon him by this
vociferous mirth may be easily imagined.

Nevertheless, D‘Artagnan was desirous of examining the appearance of this
impertinent personage who ridiculed him. He fixed his haughty eye upon the
stranger, and perceived a man of from forty to forty-five years of age, with black
and piercing eyes, pale complexion, a strongly marked nose, and a black and
well-shaped mustache. He was dressed in a doublet and hose of a violet color,
with aiguillettes of the same color, without any other ornaments than the
customary slashes, through which the shirt appeared. This doublet and hose,

though new, were creased, like traveling clothes for a long time packed in a
portmanteau. D’Artagnan made all these remarks with the rapidity of a most
minute observer, and doubtless from an instinctive feeling that this stranger was
destined to have a great influence over his future life.

Now, as at the moment in which D‘Artagnan fixed his eyes upon the
gentleman in the violet doublet, the gentleman made one of his most knowing
and profound remarks respecting the Béarnese pony, his two auditors laughed
even louder than before, and he himself, though contrary to his custom, allowed
a pale smile (if I may be allowed to use such an expression) to stray over his
countenance. This time there could be no doubt; D’Artagnan was really insulted.
Full, then, of this conviction, he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and
endeavoring to copy some of the court airs he had picked up in Gascony among
young traveling nobles, he advanced with one hand on the hilt of his sword and
the other resting on his hip. Unfortunately, as he advanced, his anger increased at
every step; and instead of the proper and lofty speech he had prepared as a
prelude to his challenge, he found nothing at the tip of his tongue but a gross
personality, which he accompanied with a furious gesture.

“I say, sir, you, sir, who are hiding yourself behind that shutter—yes, you, sir,
tell me what you are laughing at, and we will laugh together!”

The gentleman raised his eyes slowly from the nag to his cavalier, as if he
required some time to ascertain whether it could be to him that such strange
reproaches were addressed; then, when he could not possibly entertain any doubt
of the matter, his eyebrows slightly bent, and with an accent of irony and
insolence impossible to be described, he replied to D’Artagnan, “I was not
speaking to you, sir.”

“But I am speaking to you!” replied the young man, additionally exasperated
with this mixture of insolence and good manners, of politeness and scorn.

The stranger looked at him again with a slight smile, and retiring from the
window, came out of the hostelry with a slow step, and placed himself before the
horse, within two paces of D’Artagnan. His quiet manner and the ironical
expression of his countenance redoubled the mirth of the persons with whom he
had been talking, and who still remained at the window.

D’Artagnan, seeing him approach, drew his sword a foot out of the scabbard.

“This horse is decidedly, or rather has been in his youth, a buttercup,”
resumed the stranger, continuing the remarks he had begun, and addressing
himself to his auditors at the window, without paying the least attention to the
exasperation of D’Artagnan, who, however, placed himself between him and

them. “It is a color very well known in botany, but till the present time very rare
among horses.”

“There are people who laugh at the horse that would not dare to laugh at the
master,” cried the young emulator of the furious Tréville.

“I do not often laugh, sir,” replied the stranger, “as you may perceive by the
expression of my countenance; but nevertheless I retain the privilege of laughing
when I please.”

“And I,” cried D’Artagnan, “will allow no man to laugh when it displeases
me!”

“Indeed, sir,” continued the stranger, more calm than ever; “well, that is
perfectly right!” and turning on his heel, was about to re-enter the hostelry by the
front gate, beneath which D’Artagnan on arriving had observed a saddled home.

But D’Artagnan was not of a character to allow a man to escape him thus who
had had the insolence to ridicule him. He drew his sword entirely from the
scabbard, and followed him, crying, “Turn, turn, Master Joker, lest I strike you
behind!”

“Strike me!” said the other, turning on his heels, and surveying the young man
with as much astonishment as contempt. “Why, my good fellow, you must be
mad!” Then, in a suppressed tone, as if speaking to himself, “This is annoying,”
continued he. “What a godsend this would be for his Majesty, who is seeking
everywhere for brave fellows to recruit for his Musketeers! ”

He had scarcely finished, when D‘Artagnan made such a furious lunge at him
that if he had not sprung nimbly backward, it is probable he would have jested
for the last time. The stranger, then perceiving that the matter went beyond
raillery, drew his sword, saluted his adversary, and seriously placed himself on
guard. But at the same moment his two auditors, accompanied by the host, fell
upon D’Artagnan with sticks, shovels, and tongs. This caused so rapid and
complete a diversion from the attack that D’Artagnan’s adversary, while the
latter turned round to face this shower of blows, sheathed his sword with the
same precision, and instead of an actor, which he had nearly been, became a
spectator of the fight—a part in which he acquitted himself with his usual
impassiveness, muttering, nevertheless, “A plague upon these Gascons! Replace
him on his orange horse, and let him begone!”

“Not before I have killed you, poltroon!” cried D’Artagnan, making the best
face possible, and never retreating one step before his three assailants, who
continued to shower blows upon him.

“Another gasconade!” murmured the gentleman. “By my honor, these

Gascons are incorrigible! Keep up the dance, then, since he will have it so.
When he is tired, he will perhaps tell us that he has enough of it.”

But the stranger knew not the headstrong personage he had to do with;
D‘Artagnan was not the man ever to cry for quarter. The fight was therefore
prolonged for some seconds; but at length D’Artagnan dropped his sword, which
was broken in two pieces by the blow of a stick. Another blow full upon his
forehead at the same moment brought him to the ground, covered with blood and
almost fainting.

It was at this moment that people came flocking to the scene of action from all
sides. The host, fearful of consequences, with the help of his servants carried the
wounded man into the kitchen, where some trifling attentions were bestowed
upon him.

As to the gentleman, he resumed his place at the window, and surveyed the
crowd with a certain impatience, evidently annoyed by their remaining
undispersed.

“Well, how is it with this madman?” exclaimed he, turning round as the noise
of the door announced the entrance of the host, who came to inquire if he was
unhurt.

“Your Excellency is safe and sound?” asked the host.

“Oh, yes! perfectly safe and sound, my good host; and I wish to know what is
become of our young man.”

“He is better,” said the host; “he fainted quite away.”

“Indeed!” said the gentleman.

“But before he fainted, he collected all his strength to challenge you, and to
defy you while challenging you.”

“Why, this fellow must be the devil in person!” cried the stranger.

“Oh, no, your Excellency, he is not the devil,” replied the host, with a grin of
contempt; “for during his fainting we rummaged his valise and found nothing
but a clean shirt and eleven crowns—which, however, did not prevent his
saying, as he was fainting, that if such a thing had happened in Paris you should
have instantly repented of it, while here you would only have cause to repent of
it at a later period.”

“Then,” said the stranger, coolly, “he must be some prince in disguise.”

“I have told you this, good sir,” resumed the host, “in order that you may be
on your guard.”

“Did he name no one in his passion?”

“Yes; he struck his pocket and said, ‘We shall see what Monsieur de Tréville
will think of this insult offered to his protégé.’ ”

“Monsieur de Tréville?” said the stranger, becoming attentive, “he put his
hand upon his pocket while pronouncing the name of Monsieur de Tréville?
Now, my dear host, while your young man was insensible, you did not fail, I am
quite sure, to ascertain what that pocket contained. What was there in it?”

“A letter addressed to Monsieur de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers.”

“Indeed! ”

“Exactly as I have the honor to tell your Excellency.”

The host, who was not endowed with great perspicacity, did not observe the
expression which his words had given to the physiognomy of the stranger. The
latter rose from the front of the window, upon the sill of which he had leaned
with his elbow, and knitted his brows like a man disquieted.

“The devil!” murmured he, between his teeth. “Can Tréville have set this
Gascon upon me? He is very young; but a sword thrust is a sword thrust,
whatever be the age of him who gives it, and a youth is less to be suspected than
an older man,” and the stranger fell into a reverie which lasted some minutes. “A
weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to overthrow a great design.

“Host,” said he, “could you not contrive to get rid of this frantic boy for me?
In conscience, I cannot kill him; and yet,” added he, with a coldly menacing
expression, “he annoys me. Where is he?”

“In my wife’s chamber, on the first flight, where they are dressing his
wounds.”

“His things and his bag are with him? Has he taken off his doublet?”

“On the contrary, everything is in the kitchen. But if he annoys you, this
young fool—”

“To be sure he does. He causes a disturbance in your hostelry, which
respectable people cannot put up with. Go; make out my bill, and notify my
servant.”

“What, monsieur, will you leave us so soon?”

“You know that very well, as I gave the order to saddle my horse. Have they
not obeyed me?”

“It is done; as your Excellency may have observed, your horse is in the great
gateway, ready saddled for your departure.”

“That is well; do as I have directed you, then.”

“What the devil!” said the host to himself. “Can he be afraid of this boy?” But