Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  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

  Copyright @ 2004 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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  The Three Musketeers

  ISBN-13: 9’78-1-59308-148-5

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43329-8

  ISBN-10: 1-59308-148-0

  LC Control Number 2004102769

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

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  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

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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 receiv
ed 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- 1815 The years surrounding the French Revolution and the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte produce upheavals in French society. In literature, 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.

  1817-1820 Dumas takes a job as a solicitor’s clerk in Villers-Cotterêts. At eighteen he meets Adolphe de Leuven, a young exiled Swedish aristocrat through whom Dumas is introduced to the Parisian theater scene.

  1822-1823 Dumas relocates to Paris. With help from his father’s military 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.)

  1825-1829 Dumas begins to write plays, often in collaboration with others such as 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.

  1830-1836 During the Revolution of 1830, Dumas supports the liberal campaign of 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.

  1840-1846 Dumas turns his attention to the novel. Newspaper serialization takes 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.

  1847-1850 Dumas reaches his peak of success. He opens the Theatre Historique in 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- 1870 Dumas travels extensively and produces travel books. From 1853 to 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 (M
arch 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