Part 1

The Three Musketeers

by Alexandre Dumas

Table of Contents

PREFACE CHAPTER ONE THE THREE GIFTS OF M. D’ARTAGNAN FATHER CHAPTER TWO THE ANTECHAMBER OF M. DE TRÉVILLE CHAPTER THREE THE AUDIENCE CHAPTER FOUR THE SHOULDER OF ATHOS, THE BALDRIC OF PORTHOS, AND THE HANDKERCHIEF OF ARAMIS CHAPTER FIVE THE KING’S MUSKETEERS AND M. THE CARDINAL’S GUARDS CHAPTER SIX HIS MAJESTY KING LOUIS THIRTEENTH CHAPTER SEVEN THE INTERIOR OF THE MUSKETEERS CHAPTER EIGHT A LOVE INTRIGUE CHAPTER NINE D’ARTAGNAN EMERGES CHAPTER TEN A MOUSETRAP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY CHAPTER ELEVEN THE PLOT THICKENS CHAPTER TWELVE GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM CHAPTER THIRTEEN MONSIEUR BONACIEUX CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE MAN OF MEUNG CHAPTER FIFTEEN MEN OF ROBE AND MEN OF SWORD CHAPTER SIXTEEN WHEREIN M. THE KEEPER OF THE SEALS SÉGUIER MORE THAN ONCE SOUGHT THE BELL TO RING IT, AS HE HAD FORMERLY DONE CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE BONACIEUX HOUSEHOLD CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE LOVER AND THE HUSBAND CHAPTER NINETEEN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN CHAPTER TWENTY JOURNEY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE THE COUNTESS OF WINTER CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THE BALLET OF LA MERLAISON CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE THE ASSIGNATION CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR THE PAVILION CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE PORTHOS CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX ARAMIS’S THESIS CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN THE WIFE OF ATHOS CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT RETURN CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE THE HUNT FOR EQUIPMENT CHAPTER THIRTY MILADY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE ENGLISH AND FRENCH CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO A PROCURATOR’S DINNER CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE MAID AND MISTRESS CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR WHEREIN IS TREATED THE EQUIPMENT OF ARAMIS AND PORTHOS CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE AT NIGHT ALL CATS ARE GRAY CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX A DREAM OF VENGEANCE CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN MILADY’S SECRET CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT HOW, WITHOUT TROUBLING HIMSELF, ATHOS FOUND HIS EQUIPMENT CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE A VISION CHAPTER FORTY THE CARDINAL CHAPTER FORTY-ONE THE SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE CHAPTER FORTY-TWO THE WINE OF ANJOU CHAPTER FORTY-THREE THE INN OF THE RED DOVECOTE CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR ON THE USEFULNESS OF STOVEPIPES CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE A MARITAL SCENE CHAPTER FORTY-SIX THE BASTION SAINT-GERVAIS CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN THE COUNCIL OF THE MUSKETEERS CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT A FAMILY MATTER CHAPTER FORTY-NINE FATALITY CHAPTER FIFTY A BROTHER’S TALK WITH HIS SISTER CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE OFFICER CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO FIRST DAY OF CAPTIVITY CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE SECOND DAY OF CAPTIVITY CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR THIRD DAY OF CAPTIVITY CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE FOURTH DAY OF CAPTIVITY CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX FIFTH DAY OF CAPTIVITY CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN A DEVICE OF CLASSICAL TRAGEDY CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT ESCAPE CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT PORTSMOUTH ON AUGUST 23, 1628 CHAPTER SIXTY IN FRANCE CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE THE CONVENT OF THE CARMELITES OF BÉTHUNE CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO TWO VARIETIES OF DEMONS CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE A DROP OF WATER CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR THE MAN IN THE RED CLOAK CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE THE JUDGMENT CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX THE EXECUTION CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN CONCLUSION EPILOGUE

PREFACE

IN WHICH IT IS ESTABLISHED THAT, NOTWITHSTANDING THEIR NAMES ENDING IN _OS_ AND IN _IS_, THE HEROES OF THE HISTORY WE ARE ABOUT TO HAVE THE HONOR OF RELATING TO OUR READERS ARE IN NO WAY MYTHOLOGICAL.

About a year ago, while doing research at the Royal Library for my history of Louis XIV, I happened to come upon the _Memoirs of M. d’Artagnan_, printed — like the greater part of the works of that period, whose authors were anxious to tell the truth without taking a longer or shorter trip to the Bastille — at Amsterdam, by Pierre Rouge. The title seduced me: I carried them home with the permission of the curator; needless to say, I devoured them.

It is not my intention to give here an analysis of that curious work, and I shall content myself with referring those of my readers who appreciate period pieces to it. They will find there portraits sketched by a master’s hand; and, although the sketches are for the most part drawn upon barrack doors and tavern walls, they will nonetheless recognize, as lifelike as in M. Anquetil’s history, the likenesses of Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, Richelieu, Mazarin, and most of the courtiers of the time.

But, as is known, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is not always what impresses the mass of readers. Now, while admiring, as others will doubtless admire, the details we have pointed out, the thing that occupied us most is a thing to which certainly no one before us had paid the slightest attention.

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

We confess that these three foreign names struck us, and it at once occurred to us that they were but pseudonyms beneath which d’Artagnan had disguised perhaps illustrious names, if, that is, the bearers of these borrowed names had not chosen them themselves on the day when, by caprice, by discontent, or by lack of fortune, they donned the simple cassock of the musketeer.

From that moment we had no peace until we had recovered, in contemporary works, some trace of those extraordinary names that had so aroused our curiosity.

The mere catalogue of the books we read to arrive at this end would fill an entire newspaper sheet, which might perhaps be very instructive, but certainly little amusing to our readers. We shall therefore content ourselves with telling them that at the moment when, discouraged by so many fruitless investigations, we were about to abandon our search, we at last found, guided by the advice of our illustrious and learned friend Paulin Paris, a folio manuscript, numbered 4772 or 4773 — we no longer rightly remember — bearing the title:

“Memoirs of the Count de La Fère, concerning some of the events that took place in France toward the end of the reign of King Louis XIII and the beginning of the reign of King Louis XIV.”

One may guess if our joy was great, when, leafing through this manuscript, our last hope, we found on the twentieth page the name of Athos, on the twenty-seventh the name of Porthos, and on the thirty-first the name of Aramis.

The discovery of a completely unknown manuscript, in an age when historical science is carried to so high a degree, seemed to us almost miraculous. We therefore hastened to solicit permission to have it printed, with the aim of presenting ourselves one day with the baggage of the others at the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, if we did not succeed, a very probable thing, in entering the French Academy with our own baggage. This permission, we must say, was graciously granted us; which we set down here to give public denial to the ill-disposed who pretend that we live under a government rather poorly disposed toward men of letters.

Now, it is the first part of this precious manuscript that we offer today to our readers, restoring to it the title that befits it, and giving our pledge that, if, as we do not doubt, this first part obtains the success it deserves, we shall shortly publish the second.

Meanwhile, as a godfather is a second father, we invite the reader to hold us, and not the Count de La Fère, responsible for his pleasure or his boredom.

That being established, let us pass to our story.

CHAPTER ONE THE THREE GIFTS OF M. D’ARTAGNAN FATHER

On the first Monday of the month of April 1625, the village of Meung, where the author of the _Roman de la Rose_ was born, seemed to be in as complete a turmoil as if the Huguenots had come to make of it a second La Rochelle. Several burghers, seeing the women flee toward the Grande-Rue, hearing the children cry upon the thresholds, hastened to don their cuirasses and, supporting their somewhat uncertain bearing with a musket or a partisan, directed themselves toward the hostelry of the _Franc-Meunier_, before which there pressed, swelling minute by minute, a compact, noisy, and curious crowd.

In those times panics were frequent, and few days passed without some town or other recording in its archives some event of this kind. There were lords who warred among themselves; there was the king who made war on the cardinal; there was the Spaniard who made war on the king. Then, besides these covert or open, secret or patent wars, there were also thieves, beggars, Huguenots, wolves, and lackeys, who made war on everyone. The burghers always armed themselves against thieves, against wolves, against lackeys — often against lords and Huguenots — sometimes against the king — but never against the cardinal and the Spaniard. It resulted from this acquired habit that, on the said first Monday of April 1625, the burghers, hearing noise and seeing neither the yellow and red guidon nor the livery of the Duke of Richelieu, precipitated themselves toward the hotel of the _Franc-Meunier_.

Arrived there, each could see and recognize the cause of the uproar.

A young man… — let us trace his portrait in a single stroke of the pen: picture to yourselves Don Quixote at eighteen years of age, a dismounted Don Quixote, without breastplate and without cuisses, Don Quixote clad in a woolen doublet whose blue color had turned into an indefinable shade of wine-lees and celestial azure. A long, brown face; the cheekbones prominent, a sign of cunning; the jaw muscles enormously developed, an infallible mark by which one recognizes a Gascon, even without a beret, and our young man wore a beret adorned with a sort of feather; an open and intelligent eye; a hooked but finely drawn nose; too tall for an adolescent, too short for a full-grown man, and whom a little practiced eye would have taken for a farmer’s son on a journey, had it not been for his long sword, which, hanging from a leather baldric, struck the calves of its owner when he was on foot, and the bristling coat of his mount when he was on horseback.

For our young man had a mount, and this mount was even remarkable, so much so that it was remarked: it was a Béarn pony, aged twelve or fourteen years, yellow of coat, without hair on its tail, but not without spavins on its legs, and which, while walking with its head lower than its knees — which rendered the martingale useless — nevertheless made its eight leagues a day. Unfortunately the qualities of this horse were so well hidden beneath its strange coat and incongruous gait, that in a time when everyone knew horses, the appearance of the said pony at Meung, where it had entered about a quarter of an hour before by the Beaugency gate, produced a sensation whose disfavor rebounded upon its rider.

And this sensation had been all the more painful to the young d’Artagnan (such was the name of the Don Quixote of this other Rosinante), as he did not hide from himself the ridiculous aspect that, good horseman though he was, such a mount gave him; he had also sighed deeply in accepting the gift that M. d’Artagnan father had made him. He was not ignorant that such a beast was worth at least twenty livres: true, the words with which the gift had been accompanied were beyond price.

“My son,” had said the Gascon gentleman — in that pure Béarn patois which Henri IV had never been able to rid himself of — “my son, this horse was born in your father’s house some thirteen years ago, and has remained there since, which should lead you to love it. Never sell it; let it die peacefully and honorably of old age, and if you go campaigning with it, spare it as you would spare an old servant. At court,” continued M. d’Artagnan father, “if indeed you have the honor to go there — an honor, moreover, to which your old nobility gives you rights — uphold worthily your name as a gentleman, which has been worthily borne by your ancestors for more than five hundred years. For you and for your own — by your own, I mean your relatives and friends — never endure anything from anyone but M. the cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, understand me well, by his courage alone, that a gentleman makes his way today. Whoever trembles for a second perhaps lets escape the bait that, during that very second, fortune held out to him. You are young; you must be brave for two reasons: the first, that you are a Gascon, and the second, that you are my son. Fear not occasions and seek adventures. I have had you taught to handle the sword; you have an iron calf, a steel wrist; fight at every opportunity; fight all the more in that duels are forbidden, and that consequently there is twice the courage in fighting. I have, my son, only to give you fifteen écus, my horse, and the counsel you have just heard. Your mother will add thereto the recipe of a certain balm she holds from a Bohemian, and which has miraculous virtue to heal any wound that does not reach the heart. Profit by the whole, and live happily and long. — I have but one word more to add, and it is an example I propose to you, not my own, for I myself never appeared at court and did only the wars of religion as a volunteer; I speak of M. de Tréville, who was formerly my neighbor, and who had the honor to play as a child with our king Louis the Thirteenth, whom God preserve! Sometimes their games degenerated into battles, and in these battles the king was not always the stronger. The blows he received from them gave him much esteem and friendship for M. de Tréville. Later, M. de Tréville fought against others on his first journey to Paris, five times; from the death of the late king to the majority of the young one, not counting wars and sieges, seven times; and from that majority to today, a hundred times perhaps! — Thus, despite edicts, ordinances, and decrees, there he is, captain of the musketeers, that is to say, chief of a legion of Caesars, whom the king holds in very great esteem, and whom M. the cardinal fears — he who fears little, as everyone knows. Moreover, M. de Tréville earns ten thousand écus a year; he is therefore a very great lord. — He began as you do; go see him with this letter, and model yourself upon him, so as to do as he has done.”

Whereupon M. d’Artagnan father girded his own sword upon his son, embraced him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his blessing.

On leaving his father’s chamber, the young man found his mother waiting for him with the famous recipe, whose frequent use the counsels we have just reported must necessarily require. The farewells were on this side longer and tenderer 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 would have regarded it as unworthy of a man to give way to his emotion, whereas Mme d’Artagnan was a woman and, moreover, was a mother. — She wept abundantly, and, let us say to the praise of M. d’Artagnan son, despite the efforts he made to remain firm as befitted a future musketeer, nature prevailed and he shed many tears, of which he scarcely managed to hide half.

The same day the young man set out, furnished with the three paternal gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen écus, the horse, and the letter for M. de Tréville; as may well be thought, the counsels had been thrown in over and above.

With such a _vade mecum_, d’Artagnan found himself, morally as well as physically, an exact copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when our duties as historian made it a necessity to trace his portrait. Don Quixote took windmills for giants and sheep for armies; d’Artagnan took every smile for an insult and every look for a provocation. It resulted therefrom that he kept his fist clenched from Tarbes to Meung, and that, all told, he laid his hand on the hilt of his sword ten times a day; nevertheless the fist descended upon no jaw, and the sword left not its scabbard. Not that the sight of the ill-starred yellow pony failed to spread many smiles upon the faces of the passers-by; but, as above the pony rang a sword of respectable size and above that sword shone an eye rather fierce than proud, the passers-by repressed their mirth, or, if mirth got the better of prudence, they at least tried to laugh on one side only, like the antique masks. D’Artagnan therefore remained majestic and intact in his touchiness until that unhappy town of Meung.

But there, as he dismounted at the door of the _Franc-Meunier_ without anyone — host, waiter, or groom — having come to take the stirrup at the mounting-block, d’Artagnan noticed at a half-open ground-floor window a gentleman of fine figure and lofty bearing, though with a slightly frowning face, who was conversing with two persons who appeared to listen to him with deference. D’Artagnan naturally believed, according to his habit, that he was the object of the conversation, and listened. This time d’Artagnan was mistaken only by half: it was not of him that they spoke, but of his horse. The gentleman appeared to be enumerating to his hearers all its qualities, and as, as I have said, the hearers appeared to have great deference for the narrator, they burst out laughing every moment. Now, as a half-smile sufficed to awaken the irascibility of the young man, one may understand what effect so much noisy hilarity produced upon him.

Nevertheless d’Artagnan first wished to take stock of the physiognomy of the impertinent who was mocking him. He fixed his proud gaze upon the stranger and recognized a man of forty to forty-five years, with black and piercing eyes, a pale complexion, a strongly marked nose, and a black and perfectly trimmed mustache; he was clad in a doublet and breeches of violet with aglets of the same color, without other ornament than the customary slashes through which the shirt showed. These breeches and this doublet, though new, appeared crumpled like traveling clothes long shut up in a portmanteau. D’Artagnan made all these observations with the rapidity of the most minute observer, and no doubt by an instinctive sentiment which told him that this unknown must have a great influence on his future life.

Now, as at the moment when d’Artagnan fixed his gaze upon the gentleman in the violet doublet, the gentleman was making, touching the Béarn pony, one of his most learned and profound demonstrations, his two hearers burst out laughing, and he himself, contrary to his habit, visibly let wander, if one may so speak, a pale smile upon his face. This time there was no doubt: d’Artagnan was truly insulted. Accordingly, full of that conviction, he pushed his beret down over his eyes, and, trying to copy some of the court airs he had caught in Gascony from traveling lords, he advanced, one hand on the guard of his sword and the other upon his hip. Unfortunately, as he advanced, anger blinding him more and more, instead of the dignified and haughty speech he had prepared to formulate his challenge, he found at the tip of his tongue only a coarse personalities which he accompanied with a furious gesture.

“Ho! Sir,” he cried, “sir, who hide behind that shutter! yes, you, tell me a bit of what you are laughing at, and we shall laugh together.”

The gentleman slowly brought his eyes from the mount to the rider, as if he needed some time to understand that it was to him these strange reproaches were addressed; then, when he could no longer retain any doubt, his brows knit slightly, and after a rather long pause, with an accent of irony and insolence impossible to describe, he answered d’Artagnan:

“I am not speaking to you, monsieur.”

“But I am speaking to you, I!” cried the young man, exasperated by this mixture of insolence and good manners, of propriety and disdain.

The unknown looked at him yet another instant with his slight smile, and, withdrawing from the window, slowly came out of the hostelry to plant himself two paces from d’Artagnan facing the horse. His tranquil bearing and raillery-filled physiognomy had redoubled the hilarity of those with whom he had been talking and who had remained at the window.

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

“This horse is decidedly, or rather was in its youth, a buttercup,” resumed the unknown, continuing the investigations begun and addressing the window-hearers, without seeming at all to notice d’Artagnan’s exasperation, who nonetheless was straightening up between him and them. “It is a color very well known in botany, but hitherto very rare among horses.”

“He laughs at the horse who would not dare laugh at the master!” cried the emulator of Tréville, furious.

“I do not often laugh, monsieur,” resumed the unknown, “as you may see yourself by the air of my face; but I hold nonetheless to preserving the privilege of laughing when it pleases me.”

“And I,” cried d’Artagnan, “will not have anyone laugh when it displeases me!”

“In truth, monsieur?” continued the unknown, calmer than ever. “Well, that is perfectly just.” And turning on his heels, he made ready to re-enter the hostelry by the great door, beneath which d’Artagnan on arriving had noticed a fully saddled horse.

But d’Artagnan was not of a character to let go thus a man who had had the insolence to mock him. He drew his sword entirely from the scabbard and set off in pursuit crying:

“Turn, turn, I say, monsieur the mocker, that I may not strike you from behind.”

“Strike me, I!” said the other, pivoting on his heels and looking at the young man with as much astonishment as contempt. “Come, come, my dear, you are mad!”

Then, half aloud, and as if speaking to himself:

“’Tis a pity,” he continued, “what a find for His Majesty, who seeks brave fellows on all sides to recruit his musketeers!”

He had scarce finished, when d’Artagnan dealt him so furious a thrust that, had he not nimbly leapt backward, it is probable he would have jested for the last time. The unknown then saw that the matter passed raillery, drew his sword, saluted his adversary, and gravely put himself on guard. But at the same moment his two hearers, accompanied by the host, fell upon d’Artagnan with great blows of staves, shovels, and tongs. This made so rapid and complete a diversion from the attack, that the adversary of d’Artagnan, while the latter turned about to face this shower of blows, sheathed his sword with the same precision, and, from the actor he had nearly been, became again spectator of the combat, a role he discharged with his ordinary impassibility, muttering nevertheless:

“The plague take the Gascons! Put him back on his orange horse, and let him begone!”

“Not before I have killed you, coward!” cried d’Artagnan, still facing as best he could and without retreating a step before his three enemies, who plastered him with blows.

“Another Gascon boast,” murmured the gentleman. “On my honor, these Gascons are incorrigible! Continue the dance, then, since he absolutely will have it. When he is weary, he will say he has had enough.”

But the unknown did not yet know what manner of obstinate man he had to deal with; d’Artagnan was not one to ever cry mercy. The combat therefore continued some seconds more; at length d’Artagnan, exhausted, let his sword escape him, which a blow of a staff broke in two pieces. Another blow, which gashed his forehead, overturned him almost at the same instant, all bloody and half-fainting.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”