The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It recounts the adventures of a young man called d'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a musketeer. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

The Story

The main character, d'Artagnan, comes from a noble, but poor family from Gascony. In April 1626, he leaves home in order to get to Paris and fulfill his greatest dream: become a musketeer. On his way, he has an argument with a mysterious man wearing a black cape and having a scar on his face. Later, he realizes that the man had stolen his recommendation letter for M. de Treville, the captain of the musketeers.

Related Topics:
Gascony - Paris

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In Paris, d'Artagnan goes in audience at M. de Treville, but without the letter, he is received very coldly. The same day, due to his pride, d'Artagnan is challenged to duel by three musketeers: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who happen to be very close friends. The four men meet and d'Artagnan starts fighting Athos. They are interrupted by some of the Cardinal's guards, who threaten to arrest them, for duels were forbidden by law. The three musketeers and d'Artagnan fight the guards and defeat them. This way, the young Gascon earns the grace of M. de Treville and the friendship of Athos, Porthos and Aramis, and he becomes a soldier in the Royal Guard.

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Some time later, he meets his landlord's wife, Constance Bonacieux, whom he falls in love with. She is very close to the Queen Anne of Austria. Unhappy in her marriage with Louis XIII, the Queen loves the English Prime-Minister, the Duke of Buckingham. Constance and d'Artagnan help them meet, and the Queen gives her lover some diamond jewels. But the Cardinal de Richelieu, informed by his spies of the gift, persuades the King to invite the Queen to a ball where she would wear the diamonds.

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It will be d'Artagnan and his friends who will leave for London, to get the diamonds back from Buckingham. The voyage is full of dangers set by the Cardinal. Athos, Porthos and Aramis are wounded on the way and forced to stop, only d'Artagnan arrives in England, takes the jewels and brings them to the Queen Anne, just in time to save her honour.

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The Cardinal's revenge won't be late: the next evening, Constance is kidnapped. D'Artagnan brings his friends back to Paris and then he tries to find her, but it's useless. Meanwhile, he befriends the Count of Winter, an English nobleman who introduces him to his sister-in-law, Milady de Winter. Despite his love for Constance and his suspicions that Milady is the Cardinal's spy and is trying to use him, he finds it very hard to resist to her charms. He almost falls in the trap and believes the Countess of Winter is in love with him, when he accidentally finds a letter of hers to the one she really loved, the Count de Wardes. Helped by Kitty, Milady's chambermaid, who was in love with him, d'Artagnan has his revenge: he spends a night with Milady, pretending to be M. de Wardes. He then tells her the truth, and she tries to kill him with a dagger. In the struggle, d'Artagnan discovers that Milady has a fleur-de-lis marked on her shoulder, the sign of a great crime she had once committed. Remembering a story that Athos had once told him, d'Artagnan suddenly realizes with horror thet Milady was not at all an English noble lady, as he thought, but in fact she was Athos' wife, whom everyone thought dead. He now knows that Milady will never forgive him for having insulted her so dearly, and is relieved to go to La Rochelle where the siege had started, and fight together with his friends.

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He thought that being far from Paris meant being far from Milady's revenge, but he was wrong: she tried to kill him three times, but fortunately she failed. On the other hand, d'Artagnan found out that the Queen had managed to save Constance from the prison where the Cardinal and Milady had thrown her, and that his beloved was now hidden somewhere in a safe place.

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Meanwhile, in an inn near La Rochelle, Athos, Porthos and Aramis accidentally eavesdrop on a conversation between the Cardinal and Milady: Richelieu was ordering the Countess to go to England and kill the Duke of Buckingham. In exchange, she asked him to "take care" of d'Artagnan. The four friends decided to do their best to save the Duke, so they wrote to their friend the Count of Winter (who had returned to England after the war had started) and asked him to stop his sister-in-law. The Count listened to the advice and kidnapped Milady, then he held her prisoner in one of his castles, under the guard of a soldier named Felton.

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In the meantime, at La Rochelle, the Cardinal himself admired d'Artagnan's courage in the fights and suggested M. de Treville to admit him among the musketeers. His greatest dream thus came true and he was extremely happy, for the Queen had finally agreed to tell him where Constance was hiding: she was in a monastery near Bethune, in northern France. D'Artagnan and his friends got permission and left for Bethune to find Constance.

Related Topics:
Bethune - France

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But they had no idea what had happened meanwhile in England: Milady had seduced Felton, her guardian, and convinced him not only to help her escape, but also to kill the Duke of Buckingham. While the naive Felton was committing the crime, Milady returned to France. She wrote to the Cardinal to announce him that his orders had been fulfilled and she looked for a safe place where she could stay until she received her payment for the crime. Fate made that Milady hid in the same monastery where Constance had been sent by the Queen. Not knowing who this stranger really was, the honest Constance opened her soul to Milady. Thus the Countess found out that d'Artagnan was expected to arrive at the monastery from one moment to another and she was able to run away just before his arrival. She was also able to have her revenge: before leaving, she poisoned Constance, who died several minutes later, in the arms of her beloved d'Artagnan. But the Countess didn't remain unpunished: the musketeers soon discovered the house where she was hiding after leaving the monastery and brought an executioner who killed her.

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After Milady's death, the musketeers returned to La Rochelle. On their way, they met the Count of Rochefort, the Cardinal's close advisor, who was going to Milady to pay her, not yet aware that she was dead. Rochefort, who was none other than the man in a black cape who had stolen d'Artagnan's letter in the beginning, also had the order to arrest d'Artagnan if he happened to find him. As they were near La Rochelle, he decided to postpone his voyage to Milady in order to take d'Artagnan to the Cardinal. The young musketeer told the whole truth to Richelieu and the Cardinal, who was in some way relieved to get rid of a servant as dangerous as Milady, decided to forgive d'Artagnan. Not only did he spare his life, but he also promoted him to the rank of lieutenant of musketeers. He was the only one of the four friends that remained in the army: Athos retired on his estates, Porthos married a rich widow and established somewhere at the countryside and Aramis became a priest. Their lives however will cross once again, Twenty Years After.

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