The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

First published:Les Trois Mousquetaires, 1844 (English translation, 1846)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical

Time of plot: 1626

Locale: France

Principal characters

• D’Artagnan, a Gascon adventurer
• Athos, ,
• Porthos, and
• Aramis, the three musketeers
• Constance Bonancieux, the queen’s seamstress
• Cardinal Richelieu, the minister of state
• Lady de Winter, Cardinal Richelieu’s agent

The Story:

In the spring of 1625, a young Gascon named D’Artagnan, on his way to Paris to join the musketeers, proudly rides up to an inn in Meung. He is mounted on an old pony that his father gave him along with some good advice and a letter of introduction to the captain of the musketeers. In Meung he shows his fighting spirit by fiercely challenging to a duel a stranger who seems to be laughing at his orange horse. Before continuing his journey to Paris he has another encounter with the stranger, identified by a scar on his face, and the stranger’s companion, a young and beautiful woman.

Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are the three best blades in the ranks of the musketeers of the guard, in the service of King Louis XIII. D’Artagnan becomes the fourth member of the group within three months of his arrival in Paris. He has earned the love and respect of the other men by challenging each in turn to a duel and then helping them to drive off Cardinal Richelieu’s guards, who wish to arrest them for brawling.

D’Artagnan is not made a musketeer at once; he has to serve an apprenticeship as a cadet in a lesser company of guards before being admitted to the musketeer ranks. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis look forward to the day when he will become their true comrade in arms, and the three take turns accompanying him when he is on guard duty. D’Artagnan is curious about his friends but can learn nothing about them. Athos looks like a nobleman. He is reserved, he never mentions women, and it is said that a great treachery has poisoned his life. Porthos is a squire of dames, bragging incessantly of his loves. Aramis, who always dresses in black, insists that he is a musketeer only temporarily, that he is a churchman at heart and soon will enter a monastery and exchange his plumed hat for a monk’s cowl.

The three musketeers were earlier rewarded in gold by the timid king for their bravery against the cardinal’s guards, but they have since spent all of their money. They are trying to figure a way out of their financial difficulties when Bonancieux, D’Artagnan’s landlord, comes to D’Artagnan because he has heard that his tenant is a brave man. Bonancieux says that his wife, Constance, has been abducted; Constance is a seamstress for the royal court, and her devotion to the queen is well known. The landlord suggests that D’Artagnan find and rescue Constance in payment for long-overdue rent and for financial compensation.

When Bonancieux describes Constance’s abductor, D’Artagnan realizes that he is the man he had challenged at Meung. On these two scores, the Gascon is willing to help the stricken husband, but he becomes even more eager when he discovers that the purpose of the abduction is to force Constance to tell what she knows of a rumored romance between the queen and the duke of Buckingham.

Constance escapes her captors and returns to her home, where the cardinal’s men again try to seize her, only to be attacked and scattered by D’Artagnan, who has overheard the struggle. Later that evening D’Artagnan meets Constance as she is hurrying along alone on the streets at a late hour. He questions her, but she will not say where she is going. He tells her that he loves her, but she gives him no encouragement. Still later that evening he encounters her again as she is leading the duke of Buckingham, in disguise, to the queen.

The queen has sent for Buckingham to beg him to leave the city, where his life is in danger. As they talk she confesses her love for him and gives him as a memento a small rosewood casket containing twelve diamond studs that the king has given her. Buckingham then departs for London. Richelieu, through his spies, learns of the gift, and soon he suggests to the king that he should give a fete and ask the queen to wear her diamond studs. The cardinal then orders Lady de Winter, who is in London, to snip two of the studs from Buckingham’s clothing. This deed gives him a chance to strike at the king, the queen, and also Buckingham. Learning of this scheme, Constance goes to D’Artagnan. D’Artagnan loves Constance, and he wants to serve his queen, so he undertakes to recover the jewels. With his three comrades he starts out for London, but only D’Artagnan arrives there because the group is ambushed by the cardinal’s agents, and the three musketeers are wounded and left behind. D’Artagnan reaches the duke in time to recover the studs and return to Paris with them. Richelieu’s plot is foiled.

After D’Artagnan has received the thanks of the queen, he is to meet Constance that evening, but Constance is again seized and imprisoned by the cardinal’s spies, one of whom is identified as the man from Meung. D’Artagnan decides that he needs the help of his three friends, and, accompanied by his servant Planchet, he sets out to find them. First he calls at the inn where he had left Porthos and finds him still there, recovering from his wounds. Later, he finds Aramis talking with some doctors of theology and about to renounce the world. Athos has barricaded himself in a wine cellar. In his drunken state, Athos relates a story about a friend of his, a count, who, when he was young, had married a beautiful woman and had made her the first lady in his province. Later, however, he had discovered that she was branded on the shoulder with the fleur-de-lis, the mark of a convicted criminal, and he had hanged her on a tree, leaving her for dead.

Once again the four friends are together. Then D’Artagnan, who has followed Porthos into a church, sees a beautiful woman whom he recognizes as the companion of the man he had met at Meung. He follows her out of the church and sees her get into her coach. Later he and his friends take the same road her coach had taken, and they encounter the coach by the side of the road. The lady is talking to a young man who, D’Artagnan discovers, is her brother-in-law, Lord de Winter. D’Artagnan had earlier become a friend of Lord de Winter after sparing his life in a duel; the lord introduces him to his sister-in-law. D’Artagnan falls in love with Lady de Winter, but she loves another, Monsieur de Wardes, who, unknown to her, has been killed.

D’Artagnan deceives Lady de Winter one night into believing she has an assignation with de Wardes. D’Artagnan presents himself to her disguised as de Wardes that night, and she gives him a magnificent sapphire ring. When D’Artagnan shows the ring to Athos, he recognizes it as one that had belonged to his mother and that he had given to his wife. Athos begins to suspect that his wife is not dead; he suspects that Lady de Winter is his wife.

D’Artagnan overhears Lady de Winter making insulting remarks about him because he spared the life of her brother-in-law. She is Lord de Winter’s heir. D’Artagnan also realizes that Lady de Winter is the cardinal’s spy. At his next meeting with her, D’Artagnan, as himself, confesses his duplicity to her, and she angrily strikes him, causing him to step on the hem of her dress. The material of the dress pulls away from her shoulder, exposing the brand of the fleur-de-lis. As D’Artagnan realizes the truth, Lady de Winter attacks him with a knife and screams that she will get revenge. D’Artagnan flees to Athos.

The war between England and France is reaching a climax, and the siege of La Rochelle is of particular political importance. The four friends prepare to go to La Rochelle. Before they leave, D’Artagnan is called for an interview with the cardinal. Richelieu tries to bribe D’Artagnan to enter his own guards, but D’Artagnan refuses; he departs with the knowledge that his refusal might mean his death. In La Rochelle two young soldiers try to kill D’Artagnan. He learns from them that Lady de Winter had hired them to kill him, and he also learns that she is responsible for the imprisonment of Constance.

The musketeers do not have much to do with the siege, and they lead a carefree life in La Rochelle. One evening, on a lonely road, they encounter two horsemen, one of whom is the cardinal. He is on his way to a nearby inn, and he orders the musketeers to go with him. Lady de Winter is at the inn, and the musketeers overhear the cardinal instructing her to go to London, where she is to tell Buckingham that unless he ends the war, his affair with the queen will be exposed. If he refuses, Lady de Winter is to poison him. As her reward for doing as the cardinal asks, Lady de Winter requests that two of her enemies be killed. These two are Constance, who has been conveyed to a convent by an order the queen obtained from the king, and D’Artagnan. Richelieu then writes out a letter of safe conduct for Lady de Winter.

A few minutes later, Athos is in Lady de Winter’s room; he has recognized her voice. He reveals himself as the count de la Fere, her husband. She is terrified, for she had thought him dead as well. Athos takes the cardinal’s letter of safe conduct from her and orders her to leave France at once under threats of exposure.

The four friends return to the siege of La Rochelle, where they conduct themselves with such bravery that they again draw notice from the cardinal. When the cardinal speaks of them to their captain, the captain tells him that D’Artagnan is not in the service of the musketeers. The cardinal then gives orders that D’Artagnan is to be made a musketeer, and this news, when relayed to D’Artagnan, makes him very happy. The friends write out a message to warn Lord de Winter against his sister-in-law and send Planchet to deliver it. They also send a message to a cousin of Aramis and learn from her the name of the convent in which Constance is confined.

When Lady de Winter arrives in England, she is held prisoner by Lord de Winter. Her pretense of religious fervor and her beauty, however, convince her young Puritan jailer of her innocence. After she tells him a fantastic tale to the effect that her downfall has been caused by Buckingham, he helps her to escape. To avenge her, he then goes to Buckingham and stabs him. Having discovered his sister-in-law’s escape, Lord de Winter also hurries to Buckingham, but he arrives too late to save his life. Before Buckingham dies, a messenger from Paris brings him word from the queen of her faithful love.

Lady de Winter escapes to the convent in France where Constance is staying, and there she manages to poison Constance and flee again before the four companions arrive to rescue the queen’s faithful servant. Lord de Winter, also in pursuit of Lady de Winter, arrives a few minutes after they have discovered Constance. Continuing their pursuit of Lady de Winter, they overtake her and hold a trial. They condemn her to die, and she is executed by the public executioner of Lille, who had branded her for her crimes many years before.

On his return to La Rochelle, D’Artagnan is arrested and taken to the cardinal. The man who takes him prisoner is the stranger D’Artagnan had met at Meung, identified now as the Chevalier de Rochefort. The cardinal charges D’Artagnan with treason, but D’Artagnan interrupts and recites the long list of crimes of the woman who has accused him. Then he informs the cardinal of her death and produces the safe-conduct pass, signed by the cardinal, that Athos had taken from the woman. D’Artagnan tells Richelieu that as bearer of the pass he should be allowed to go free. The cardinal is so pleased by the Gascon’s cleverness that he cannot be angry. Instead, he offers D’Artagnan a commission in the musketeers. D’Artagnan offers it to his friends, but each refuses it, insisting that he deserves the rank, an honor that great nobles often seek in vain.

La Rochelle surrenders to the French, and the faithful four disband. Athos returns to his estate, Porthos marries a rich widow, and Aramis becomes an abbé. D’Artagnan becomes a famous soldier. He and de Rochefort, his old enemy, fight three times but finally become good friends.

Bibliography

Hemmings, F. W. J. Alexandre Dumas: The King of Romance. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979. Chapter 9, “The Novelist,” discusses The Three Musketeers at length and describes Dumas’s transition from playwright to novelist. Includes illustrations.

Maund, Kari, and Phil Nanson. The Four Musketeers: The True Story of D’Artagnan, Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Stroud, England: Tempus, 2005. Chronicles the lives and times of the men on whom the characters in Dumas’s novel are based: four men who were members of the elite Black Musketeers in the 1640’s.

Maurois, André. Alexandre Dumas: A Great Life in Brief. Translated by Jack Palmer White. 1955. Reprint. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971. Dramatic biography by one of the most widely recognized authorities on Dumas includes several chapters that discuss aspects of The Three Musketeers.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Titans: A Three-Generation Biography of the Dumas. Translated by Gerard Hopkins. 1957. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971. Definitive biography of Dumas, his swashbuckling father, and his son (Dumas, fils) includes a section that discusses Dumas’s most famous novel, The Three Musketeers, and its sequels.

Poulosky, Laura J. Severed Heads and Martyred Souls: Crime and Capital Punishment in French Romantic Literature. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. Examines the depiction of capital punishment in the works of Dumas and other French Romantic authors.

Ross, Michael. Alexandre Dumas. North Pomfret, Vt.: David& Charles, 1981. Excellent biography highlights Dumas’s collaboration with anonymous writers to produce his prodigious output of five to six hundred novels, plays, travel books, and miscellaneous works. Discusses Dumas’s colorful reputation and the truth about his character.

Schopp, Claude. Alexandre Dumas: Genius of Life. Translated by A. J. Koch. New York: Franklin Watts, 1988. Biography focuses on Dumas’s personal life, which was full of romance and adventure, with many love affairs and duels. Describes how Dumas earned and squandered fortunes and died in poverty. Includes discussion of his writing of The Three Musketeers.

Severson, Marilyn S. Masterpieces of French Literature. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. Includes an analysis of The Three Musketeers that covers its plot, character development, style, and themes and places the novel in its biographical and historical context. Designed for students.