The Three Musketeers

by Alexandre Dumas

making researches in the Royal Library for my History of Louis XIV, I stumbled by chance upon the Memoirs of Monsieur D’Artagnan, printed—as were most of the works of that period, in which authors could not tell the truth without the risk of a residence, more or less long, in the Bastille—at Amsterdam, by Pierre Rouge.

Endure nothing from anyone except Monsieur the Cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, please to observe—by his courage alone—that a gentleman can make his way nowadays. Whoever hesitates for a second perhaps allows the bait to escape which during that exact second fortune held out to him.

Never fear quarrels, but seek adventures. I have taught you how to handle a sword; you have thews of iron, a wrist of steel. Fight on all occasions. Fight the more for duels being forbidden, since, consequently, there is twice as much courage in fighting.

With such a vade mecum D’Artagnan was morally and physically an exact copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when our duty of an historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his portrait. Don Quixote took windmills for giants, and sheep for armies; D’Artagnan took every smile for an insult, and every look as a provocation—whence it resulted that from Tarbes to Meung his fist was constantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of his sword; and yet the fist did not descend upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue from its scabbard.

“A weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to overthrow a great design.”

“My letter of recommendation!” cried D’Artagnan, “my letter of recommendation! or, the holy blood, I will spit you all like ortolans!”

The captain of the Musketeers was therefore admired, feared, and loved; and this constitutes the zenith of human fortune.

Notwithstanding all the pains he took, D’Artagnan was unable to learn any more concerning his three new-made friends. He formed, therefore, the resolution of believing for the present all that was said of their past, hoping for more certain and extended revelations in the future. In the meanwhile, he looked upon Athos as an Achilles, Porthos as an Ajax, and Aramis as a Joseph.

“Yes. The cardinal, as it appears, pursues her and persecutes her more than ever. He cannot pardon her the history of the Saraband. You know the history of the Saraband?” “Pardieu! Know it!” replied D’Artagnan, who knew nothing about it, but who wished to appear to know everything that was going on.

Without a blush, men then made their way in the world by the means of women blushing. Such as were only beautiful gave their beauty, whence, without doubt, comes the proverb, “The most beautiful girl in the world can only give what she has.” Such as were rich gave in addition a part of their money; and a vast number of heroes of that gallant period may be cited who would neither have won their spurs in the first place, nor their battles afterwards, without the purse, more or less furnished, which their mistress fastened to the saddle bow.

There are in affluence a crowd of aristocratic cares and caprices which are highly becoming to beauty. A fine and white stocking, a silken robe, a lace kerchief, a pretty slipper on the foot, a tasty ribbon on the head do not make an ugly woman pretty, but they make a pretty woman beautiful, without reckoning the hands, which gain by all this; the hands, among women particularly, to be beautiful must be idle.

happiness, and be unable to give her those thousands of nothings. At least, when the woman is rich and the lover is not, that which he cannot offer she offers to herself; and although it is generally with her husband’s money that she procures herself this indulgence, the gratitude for it seldom reverts to him.

Love is the most selfish of all the passions.

We must never look for discretion in first love. First love is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless this joy be allowed to overflow, it will stifle you.

returned again. D’Artagnan was perplexed. “Shall I go and offer her my services?” thought he. “By her step she must be young; perhaps she is pretty. Oh, yes! But a woman who wanders in the streets at this hour only ventures out to meet her lover. If I should disturb a rendezvous, that would not be the best means of commencing an acquaintance.”

This must be, then, an affair of importance; and what is the most important affair to a woman of twenty-five! Love.

“My dear Madame Bonacieux, you are charming; but at the same time you are one of the most mysterious women.” “Do I lose by that?” “No; you are, on the contrary, adorable.”

“Ah! I wish I had never seen you!” cried D’Artagnan, with that ingenuous roughness which women often prefer to the affectations of politeness, because it betrays the depths of the thought and proves that feeling prevails over reason.

D’Artagnan did not reflect that he had only known the mercer’s pretty wife for three hours; that she owed him nothing but a little gratitude for having delivered her from the men in black, who wished to carry her off, and that she had promised him nothing. He considered himself an outraged, betrayed, and ridiculed lover. Blood and anger mounted to his face; he was resolved to unravel the mystery.

“Only,” replied Tréville, “it is a sad thing that, in the unfortunate times in which we live, the purest life, the most incontestable virtue, cannot exempt a man from infamy and persecution. The army, I will answer for it, will be but little pleased at being exposed to rigorous treatment on account of police affairs.” The expression was imprudent; but Monsieur de Tréville launched it with knowledge of his cause. He was desirous of an explosion, because in that case the mine throws forth fire, and fire enlightens.

“One has never the last word with such a man. But let us be quick—the king may change his mind in an hour; and at all events it is more difficult to replace a man in the Fort l’Évêque or the Bastille, who has got out, than to keep a prisoner there who is in.”

This first moment had been delayed five days, which, under any other circumstances, might have appeared rather long to Monsieur Bonacieux; but he had, in the visit he had made to the cardinal and in the visits Rochefort had made him, ample subjects for reflection, and as everybody knows, nothing makes time pass more quickly than reflection.

A present from an enemy is not a good thing. Are there not some Latin verses upon that subject?

A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true face.

“You know the proverb ‘Unlucky at play, lucky in love.’ You are too fortunate in your love for play not to take its revenge. What consequence can the reverses of fortune be to you? Have you not, happy rogue that you are—have you not your duchess, who cannot fail to come to your aid?”

Besides, we feel always a sort of mental superiority over those whose lives we know better than they suppose.

“How will you prove,” continued the Jesuit, without allowing him time to speak, “that we ought to regret the world when we offer ourselves to God? Listen to this dilemma: God is God, and the world is the Devil. To regret the world is to regret the Devil; that is my conclusion.”

“This is the point of departure; it is a syllogism. The world is not wanting in attractions. I quit the world; then I make a sacrifice. Now, the Scripture says positively, ‘Make a sacrifice unto the Lord.’”

“The devil!” said D’Artagnan. “Here it is,” said Aramis, with a little look of diffidence, which, however, was not exempt from a shade of hypocrisy: “Vous qui pleurez un passé plein de charmes, Et qui traînez des jours infortunés, Tous vos malheurs se verront terminés, Quand à Dieu seul vous offrirez vos larmes, Vous qui pleurez!” “You who weep for pleasures fled, While dragging on a life of care, All your woes will melt in air, If to God your tears are shed, You who weep!”

“The devil! Why, people jest with death.” “And people are wrong, D’Artagnan; for death is

“And there again you are wrong. A horse slips and injures a joint; a horse stumbles and breaks his knees to the bone; a horse eats out of a manger in which a glandered horse has eaten. There is a horse, or rather a hundred pistoles, lost. A master must feed his horse, while on the contrary, the hundred pistoles feed their master.”

“I have lived very agreeably. I have begun a poem in verses of one syllable. That is rather difficult, but the merit in all things consists in the difficulty. The matter is gallant. I will read you the first canto. It has four hundred lines, and lasts a minute.”

There were only chimeras and illusions; but for real love, for true jealousy, is there any reality except illusions and chimeras?

“I loved Madame Bonacieux with my heart, while I only love Milady with my head,” said he. “In getting introduced to her, my principal object is to ascertain what part she plays at court.”

And yet, notwithstanding this want of respect, he felt an uncontrollable passion for this woman boiling in his veins—passion drunk with contempt; but passion or thirst, as the reader pleases.

A poet is as good as an abbé. Ah! Monsieur Aramis, become a poet, I beg of you.

“There is no harm in trying to buy things cheap, Monsieur Porthos,” said the procurator’s wife, seeking to excuse herself. “No, Madame; but they who so assiduously try to buy things cheap ought to permit others to seek more generous friends.” And Porthos, turning on his heel, made a step to retire.

If rage or sorrow ever torture the heart, it is when a lover receives under a name which is not his own protestations of love addressed to his happy rival.

It would be wrong to judge the actions of one period from the point of view of another. That which would now be considered as disgraceful to a gentleman was at that time quite a simple and natural affair, and the younger sons of the best families were frequently supported by their mistresses.

The heart of the best woman is pitiless toward the sorrows of a rival.

“I faint? I? I? Do you take me for half a woman? When I am insulted I do not faint; I avenge myself!”

“Listen to me, my dear girl,” said the Gascon, who sought for an excuse in his own eyes for breaking the promise he had made Athos; “you must understand it would be impolitic not to accept such a positive invitation. Milady, not seeing me come again, would not be able to understand what could cause the interruption of my visits, and might suspect something; who could say how far the vengeance of such a woman would go?”

“Oh, my God!” said Kitty, “you know how to represent things in such a way that you are always in the right. You are going now to pay your court to her again, and if this time you succeed in pleasing her in your own name and with your own face, it will be much worse than before.”

D’Artagnan knew that while His Eminence was terrible to his enemies, he was strongly attached to his friends.

They were parting to meet again when it pleased God, and if it pleased God. That night, then, was somewhat riotous, as may be imagined. In such cases extreme preoccupation is only to be combated by extreme carelessness.

We have hinted that by the side of these views of the leveling and simplifying minister, which belong to history, the chronicler is forced to recognise the lesser motives of the amorous man and jealous rival. Richelieu, as everyone knows, had loved the queen. Was this love a simple political affair, or was it naturally one of those profound passions which Anne of Austria inspired in those who approached her? That we are not able to say; but at all events, we have seen, by the anterior developments of this story, that Buckingham had the advantage over him, and in two or three circumstances, particularly that of the diamond studs, had, thanks to the devotedness of the three Musketeers and the courage and conduct of D’Artagnan, cruelly mystified him.

“Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we know how to wait.”

“Yes, we. Besides, we are men; and everything considered, it is our lot to risk our lives; but she,” asked he, in an undertone.

The English, who require, above everything, good living in order to be good soldiers, only eating salt meat and bad biscuit, had many invalids in their camp. Still further, the sea, very rough at this period of the year all along the sea coast, destroyed every day some little vessel; and the shore, from the point of l’Aiguillon to the trenches, was at every tide literally covered with the wrecks of pinnacles, roberges, and feluccas. The result was that even if the king’s troops remained quietly in their camp, it was evident that some day or other, Buckingham, who only continued in the Isle from obstinacy, would be obliged to raise the siege.

It is true that the enemies of the cardinal said that it was he himself who set these bungling assassins to work, in order to have, if wanted, the right of using reprisals; but we must not believe everything ministers say, nor everything their enemies say.