In current parlance this novel could be called a bromance adventure story. It is also historical fiction. In researching the movies I came across 2 terse summaries of the story. Appended to the 1973 movie was:
“A young swordsman comes to Paris and faces villains, romance, adventure and intrigue with three Musketeer friends.”
The summary attached to the 2011 movie goes a little deeper:
“The hot-headed young D’Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.”
A little more comprehensive plot summary would be along these lines. A young man from Gascon, D’Artagnan, goes to Paris to seek his fame and fortune. While on his way he has a misadventure involving two unknown personages. Later in the novel we discover these are the Comte de Rochefort and Lady de Winter, both agents of the Cardinal Richelieu. The Musketeers are a unit assigned to guard the palace and the King. The book derives its title from three Musketeers who are inseparable, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. These are assumed names as the Musketeers wish to hide their real identity. D’Artagnan falls in with these three and essentially becomes the fourth Musketeer in this tightly knit group. Also the captain of the Musketeers, Monsieur de Treville, takes a liking to D’Artagnan and becomes his protector.
The Cardinal Richelieu is an advisor to King Louis XIII, and he dominates the weak king. For various reasons the Cardinal seeks to discredit the Queen Anne, the Spanish queen of France. One way he is trying to do this is to bring to the forefront the unconsummated love affair between Queen Anne and Duke of Buckingham, George Villiers. While there are many adventures in the book the one to save the Queen’s dignity is paramount. D’Artagnan must go to England, retrieve some diamonds she has given the Duke so she can wear them at a ball given by the King. Mean time the Cardinal is working to prevent this and to also get part of the diamonds to show the King when the Queen fails to wear her gift. Needless to say D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers succeed and garner the wrath of the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in doing so.
Along the way D’Artagnan falls in love with the wife of his landlord, Madame Bonacieux, which is to have serious consequences. Also D’Artagnan has a “romance” with Lady de Winter, not knowing who she is. This is to have even more serious consequences.
This is a time of civil strife in France between the Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). There is a siege set at La Rochelle, their last stronghold, and of course, the four companions are involved in this. England is to come to the aid of Huguenots. Dumas presents the theory that this was for the Duke of Buckingham to get an opportunity to see Queen Anne again as he had effectually been banned from France.
The Cardinal enlists Lady de Winter to go to England and recruit a zealot or woman to assassinate the Duke of Buckingham. The Musketeers get wind of the plot and sent word to Lady de Winter’s brother-in-law, Lord de Winter. He imprisons Lady de Winter on her arrival in England, but she carries out her mission in an unexpected fashion. Lady de Winter escapes England, and the remainder of the novel deals with Lord de Winter and the four Musketeers bringing her to vigilante justice, an act which will haunt them later.
What struck me as I read the book was how dark the main characters were. I had always had the impression that the Three Musketeers were these bon vivants swashbuckling their way through France.
Athos is the darkest. He is actually a count who married Lady de Winter when she was much younger and using a different name. He discovers after the marriage that she is a branded lady and has her hung. She obviously survives. However, this ruins Athos and he descends into the bottle and hides in the Musketeers. For much of the novel this is an untold secret. Athos being somewhat older than D’Artagnan acts as a father figure/mentor to the younger man.
Porthos is vain and not of a deep intellect. He is carrying on an affair with a much older married woman for her money. He is the least developed character of the three Musketeers.
Aramis was destined to be a priest but left off his theological education after killing a man in a duel. However, he wavers constantly between returning to the priesthood and being a soldier. He is a huge womanizer to boot, and has a mysterious, ongoing affair with a highly placed noblewoman.
D’Artagnan has his dark side also. This is seen early on in the novel. His father gave him an old but valued pony for his trip to Paris. He first extracted a promise from D’Artagnan that he would not sell the pony, and that he would make sure the pony was put out to a gentle pasture for his old age. Upon his arrival in Paris D’Artagnan promptly sells the horse. His initial sexual liaison with Lady de Winter (Milady) was essentially rape by deception. He also uses Lady de Winter’s maid servant horribly in order to get closer to Milady. On a second liaison, this time as his self, he reveals his deception to Milady thinking she loves him. Instead he incurs her wrath, and she expends much effort attempting to have him assassinated.
All four are ready to duel at the least insult. They traverse through the novel leaving bodies everywhere without any apparent remorse.
Each of the Musketeers has a manservant termed a lackey in the novel. They are Planchet, D’Artagnan’s lackey, Grimaud, Athos manservant, Mousqueton, for Porthos, and finally Bazin is Aramis’s servant. Planchet is the most developed character of the four. He occasionally struck me as Sancho Panza to D’Artagnan’s Don Quixote. Grimaud is interesting in that Athos does not allow him to speak and they communicate by looks and signs. Bazin desperately wants his master to return to the priesthood as he himself would like a life in the church.
The other characters in the book are pulled from history. These are Queen Anne of Austria, the Spanish wife of King Louis XIII. Louis XIII is weak and fears Cardinal Richelieu, the real power in France. Of course, there is the Duke of Buckingham, the would be lover of Queen Anne, and the real power in England. There is the Puritan John Felton who is recruited by Milady to assassinate the Duke of Buckingham.
I would not put this up there with the greatest of fiction, but it is important if for no other reason the sheer number of adaptions of the novels that have been made. See a partial list at the end of this blog posting. This is another novel of the period that like Dickens’s work, first appeared in a serialized form. This tends to make the book a little longer than it might otherwise be. Dumas spins an interesting tale that moves on rapidly through, and maintains the reader’s interest. If I have a criticism of his writing style it is of his dialogue. At times it seemed strained, and did not flow smoothly. Perhaps in the original French it is not so.
Bottom line is that this is a very good novel and a fine read. Enjoy.
This book is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free.
Audio book from LibriVox.org : The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
e-Book from Gutenberg.org: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
A partial list of adaptions from the novel:
The Three Musketeers (1993) – Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O’Donnell
The Three Musketeers (2011) – Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch, Richard Chamberlain
The Three Musketeers (1948) – Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, June Allyson
The Three Musketeers (1939) – Don Ameche, The Ritz Brothers, Binnie Barnes
The Three Musketeers (1966) – TV Mini-Series, Jeremy Brett, Brian Blessed, Jeremy Young
The Three Musketeers (1921) – Adolphe Menjou, Mary MacLaren, Nigel De Brulier
The Three Musketeers (1933) – Jack Mulhall, Raymond Hatton, Ralph Bushman. This seems to be set in the French Foreign Legion
The Three Musketeers (1935) – Walter Abel, Paul Lukas, Margot Grahame
The Three Musketeers (2005) – Nastja Arcel, Lars Bom, Lene Maria Christensen . This a puppet version of the story
The Three Musketeers (1987 Animated) – Miguel Guilherme, Tatsuya Matsuda, Noriko Hidaka
A search on IMDB.com revealed at least another 25 or 30 titles. To say it is a popular adaptation is an understatement.