The Three Musketeers

Part One · The Boy from Gascony

On the first Monday of April 1625, the little French town of Meung watched a remarkable figure ride in on a yellow pony with a hairless tail. He was eighteen years old, with a long brown face, a sword that slapped against his calves, and a gaze that dared anyone to laugh. His name was d'Artagnan, he came from Gascony in the far south, and he possessed exactly three treasures: fifteen crowns, the ridiculous pony, and a letter of introduction from his father to Monsieur de Tréville, the captain of King Louis the Thirteenth's Musketeers. His father's advice had been equally simple. "Never be afraid of quarrels," he had said, "but seek adventures." In the courtyard of the inn, a pale gentleman with a scar on his temple was mocking the pony's color, and d'Artagnan instantly drew his sword. Before the fight had properly begun, somebody struck him from behind with a stick, and he collapsed, unconscious, on the cobblestones.

When d'Artagnan recovered, his letter had vanished, and the man with the scar was talking through a carriage window to a beautiful pale lady with long golden curls. He heard the stranger call her Milady, and heard her receive instructions from somebody called His Eminence, before the carriage and the stranger galloped off in opposite directions. His Eminence, d'Artagnan would soon discover, was Cardinal Richelieu, the cunning, powerful minister who governed France almost more than the king did, and who had his own regiment of guards that detested the King's Musketeers. In Paris, Monsieur de Tréville welcomed the young Gascon kindly, despite the missing letter, but explained that nobody could join the Musketeers without first proving himself in battle. As they talked, d'Artagnan glanced through the window, recognized the man with the scar strolling past, and dashed out of the room, shouting, "This time he shall not escape me!"

Part Two · All for One

In his haste, d'Artagnan collided with three musketeers in less than a quarter of an hour. First he ran headlong into a dignified musketeer named Athos, striking his wounded shoulder, and Athos coldly challenged him to a duel at noon. Then he became tangled in the enormous cloak of a gigantic musketeer named Porthos, and discovered that Porthos's magnificent golden belt was golden only at the front, and Porthos challenged him for one o'clock. Finally, trying to be helpful, he picked up a lady's lace handkerchief from beneath the boot of an elegant, soft-spoken musketeer named Aramis, who was determined to keep it secret, and Aramis challenged him for two o'clock. So at noon d'Artagnan arrived at the deserted grounds behind a convent, prepared to fight three duels in one afternoon, and probably to die in the first. To his astonishment, Porthos and Aramis arrived too, as Athos's companions. The three musketeers were inseparable friends.

D'Artagnan apologized gracefully for everything except his courage, and he had scarcely crossed swords with Athos when five of the Cardinal's guards appeared, led by a famous swordsman named Jussac. Dueling had been forbidden by royal law, and the guards ordered the musketeers to surrender. Three against five, with Athos already wounded, the musketeers refused, and d'Artagnan made the decision that shaped his entire life. "We are four," he announced, and he stepped to their side. It was a ferocious battle, and the young Gascon fought Jussac himself, dodging and leaping until he slipped beneath Jussac's blade and wounded him. When it was over, the musketeers had triumphed. King Louis, who loved to see the Cardinal's guards defeated, rewarded d'Artagnan with forty gold coins and a place in a regiment of guards, where he could earn his musketeer's cloak. From then on the four were never apart, and their motto became famous: "All for one, one for all!"

They were a most unusual band. Athos was the eldest, about thirty, a nobleman by every gesture, silent and melancholy, who drank too much wine and never spoke of his past. Porthos was a cheerful giant, as strong as an ox and as vain as a peacock, who adored fine clothes and loved to boast about his conquests. Aramis was graceful and mysterious, forever announcing that he was about to abandon the army and become a priest, and forever receiving secret letters from noble ladies. Each of them had a servant, and d'Artagnan hired a clever young man called Planchet. Together the four friends gambled, borrowed, feasted and fought, and whenever money ran short, which was often, they shared whatever they had. Meanwhile d'Artagnan admired the lovely young wife of his landlord. Her name was Constance Bonacieux, and she was a trusted linen-maid to the queen, Anne of Austria, which was how the four friends became entangled in a royal secret.

Part Three · The Queen's Diamonds

The queen had a dangerous friendship. The Duke of Buckingham, the most dazzling nobleman in England, had visited her secretly in Paris, and as a keepsake she had given him a rosewood casket containing twelve diamond studs, which the king himself had given her. The Cardinal's spies informed him of everything, and the Cardinal, who hated the queen, saw his opportunity. He persuaded the king to hold a magnificent ball and to request that the queen wear her diamond studs. If she appeared without them, the king would know she had given them away, and she would be disgraced. Then the Cardinal sent his most dangerous agent to London. She was Milady, the golden-haired lady from Meung, and at a ball in London she cut two of the studs from the Duke's shoulder and slipped away with them. The king's ball was twelve days away. The queen was in despair, and Constance came to d'Artagnan for help.

He must ride to London, she explained, deliver a letter from the queen to the Duke of Buckingham, and return with the studs before the ball. D'Artagnan agreed at once, and Athos, Porthos and Aramis did not even ask the reason; it was enough that their friend was going into danger. The four friends and their servants set out together, because the Cardinal's agents would certainly try to stop them, and if three were captured, the fourth might get through. They were right. At Chantilly a stranger provoked a quarrel with Porthos at the inn, and Porthos stayed behind to fight him. Near Crèvecoeur a gang pretending to repair the road fired on them, and Aramis was wounded in the shoulder and left at an inn. At Amiens the innkeeper accused Athos of paying with false money, and armed men burst in upon him. Only d'Artagnan and Planchet galloped on toward the sea.

At Calais the harbor was closed to anyone without a pass signed by the Cardinal. Another gentleman, the Count de Wardes, was hurrying toward the harbor with exactly such a pass, so d'Artagnan challenged him, defeated him in a desperate fight among the sand dunes, and took his pass. That night he sailed for England, and the next evening he was standing before the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke opened the casket, and turned pale. "Two of my studs are missing!" he cried, and he guessed immediately who had stolen them. Buckingham was a powerful minister, and he acted swiftly. He ordered every port in England closed, so that no ship could carry the stolen diamonds to France, and he summoned his jeweler and locked him in the palace until he had made two new studs exactly like the others. In two days it was done, and nobody could have told the copies from the originals.

Buckingham had arranged fresh horses for d'Artagnan along the entire route, and the young Gascon raced back to Paris, arriving on the very day of the ball. The great hall of the Hôtel de Ville glittered with candles and silk. The king appeared, and then the queen, and the Cardinal, smiling, watched her shoulders with satisfaction, because at first glance the studs were there. Then he presented the king with a small box containing two diamond studs and suggested that his majesty count the queen's. The king counted, and counted again, and found that the queen was wearing all twelve. The Cardinal, hiding his fury beautifully, claimed that he had only wished to make her a present of two more. Later that night, a hand appeared through a tapestry in a dark little room, and d'Artagnan kissed it, and found a diamond ring in his palm. The queen had thanked him.

Part Four · Milady

D'Artagnan had made a terrible enemy. Milady soon discovered who had ruined her mission, and she resolved to destroy him. He learned her secrets, too, and they were darker than he had imagined. On her shoulder she bore a branded lily, the mark that France burned into convicted criminals, and Athos, pale as a ghost, finally confessed his past. Years before, as a young count, he had married a beautiful girl of sixteen, and when he discovered the brand on her shoulder, he had cast her out. He believed she had perished. Milady was that girl. Not long afterward, the four friends were sent to war, because the Protestant city of La Rochelle had rebelled against the king, and the Duke of Buckingham was sending an English fleet to help it. The Cardinal himself commanded the siege, and the musketeers joined the royal army camped around the city's walls.

At La Rochelle, the friends needed somewhere to talk without being overheard, so they made a bet with some officers that they could eat breakfast in the Saint-Gervais bastion, a ruined fort in front of the enemy lines, and stay there for an hour. With their servants carrying the food, they marched out, and while they ate, they fought off attack after attack, shooting from the walls and finally toppling a broken section of wall onto the advancing soldiers. They planted a napkin on the battlement as a flag, and they returned to the camp to tremendous cheers, having stayed an hour and a half. During breakfast they decided their plan. Athos had already taken from Milady a paper signed by the Cardinal, which said that whatever its bearer had done was done by his order and for the good of the state. It was permission for any crime, and Athos had taken it away from her.

Milady crossed to England on the Cardinal's orders to stop Buckingham, but her brother-in-law, Lord de Winter, warned by the musketeers, imprisoned her in his castle. There her guard, a stern young officer named Felton, was charmed by her lies, and he helped her to escape, and then, believing her stories about the Duke, he stabbed Buckingham to death in Portsmouth. Milady fled back to France and hid in a convent at Béthune, where, by terrible chance, the queen had hidden Constance Bonacieux for safety. Milady discovered who the sweet young woman was, and that d'Artagnan was coming to rescue her. When the musketeers galloped up to the convent gate, it was too late. Milady had poisoned Constance and escaped, and d'Artagnan arrived only in time for Constance to die in his arms. The four friends and Lord de Winter pursued Milady through the night and captured her by a dark river, and there they judged her for all her crimes.

When the friends returned to the camp at La Rochelle, the man with the scar was waiting for d'Artagnan. He was Count Rochefort, the Cardinal's loyal servant, and he escorted the Gascon to Richelieu himself. The Cardinal coldly listed d'Artagnan's offenses against him, and d'Artagnan calmly produced the paper Athos had taken from Milady, signed in the Cardinal's own handwriting. Richelieu studied it for a long time. Then, instead of punishing the young man, he tore up the paper and wrote out a commission as a lieutenant in the Musketeers, with the name left blank. He admired courage, he said, even in an enemy. D'Artagnan offered the commission to each of his friends in turn, but Athos refused it, Porthos was retiring to marry a wealthy widow, and Aramis was finally becoming a priest. So Athos wrote d'Artagnan's name in the blank himself. The friends went their separate ways, but they had shared everything, all for one and one for all.