First and last, there is d’Artagnan. D’Artagnan the tactician, quick witted and far seeing, whose bold plans seize the initiative and win the day. D’Artagnan the sensitive, who sees past people’s surfaces and self-deceit to perceive the feelings and motivations beneath. D’Artagnan the natural leader, who despite his youth has an innate feel for command, and the confidence that others instinctively follow. Most of all, he is d’Artagnan the soldier, and his career will embody the triumphs and disappointments of a soldier’s life.
And careers they will have, all four of them—because in these four exemplars, these four facets of the gem of human character, Dumas created his ideal vehicles for addressing what he saw as the central challenge of a life worth living: how to find the courage to adhere to a personal code of honor in the face of pressure from society and oppressive authority. How, in short, to do right. It’s a problem it takes a lifetime to solve, which is why The Three Musketeers has a long series of sequels where The Count of Monte Cristo does not. History moves onward, the musketeers’ lives march on, and each of them wrestles with the challenge of honor in his own way, ultimately both succeeding and failing according to their natures. And herein lies Dumas’s true genius, for from beginning to end, each of these enduring characters is uniquely and lovably himself, imbued with Dumas’s deep love of life and humanity, and marching to the heartbeat of a father’s love for his children.
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION: Why do another English translation of The Three Musketeers, especially when there are fine recent renditions by Richard Pevear and Will Hobson? Because it deserves it, and because most published editions of the novel that you’ll find in bookstores and libraries still use translations that were prepared in the 1840s or 1850s, respectable but creaky adaptations endlessly recycled and reprinted, versions that simply don’t properly convey the energy and tone of Dumas’s original work. Though to be fair, those Victorian-era translators knew their business, and delivered exactly what their readers were looking for: historical dramas at the time were expected to be told in the stiff, elevated diction of writers like Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, and the translators saw it as their job to render Dumas’s unconventionally active prose into the more passive style then prevailing. But in doing so these early translations lost much of Dumas’s distinctive voice and tone, that warmth and vibrancy that leaps off the page in the original French. And that’s a real disservice to today’s readers, denying them some of the key virtues of this really quite modern writer. In translating this, one of my favorite works of fiction, I felt my most important task was to identify Dumas’s genuine voice and bring it to current-day readers of English, so they can meet the man on his own terms and really appreciate what he has to offer.
The original novel exists in several variations; where there were inconsistencies, to resolve them I usually relied on the edition compiled by Charles Samaran for Éditions Garnier in 1956. Dumas wrote very quickly, and sometimes character and place names vary in the original from one chapter to the next, when the author didn’t accurately remember what he’d written earlier in the process. For consistency and clarity I’ve regularized these variants, usually selecting the spelling that’s best known or that is historically correct for the period. By the standards of the mid-nineteenth century the novel took a rather frank approach to sexuality; those scenes, which were mostly or wholly elided from the Victorian translations, have been restored in this version. Not least important, I’ve also kept in all the jokes. Dumas was a very funny man, and I have no patience with translators who note that a gag “is a Gallicism that cannot be properly rendered into English.” Weak! Dumas wasn’t above stooping to make a terrible French pun, in which case I considered it my solemn obligation to provide some matching wordplay in English. Because literary translation is a noble calling, and sometimes your sacred duty to the reader requires you to make a terrible, terrible pun.
—LAWRENCE ELLSWORTH
Author’s Preface
. . . In which it is shown that, despite having names ending in OS and IS, the heroes of the history we are about to have the honor to relate to our readers have nothing to do with mythology.
A while ago, while doing research for my history of Louis XIV in the Bibliothèque Royale, I stumbled across the Memoirs of Monsieur d’Artagnan,2 printed by Pierre Rouge, in Amsterdam—where most of the works were printed during that period, when authors who wished to tell the truth did so at the risk of a prolonged stay in the Bastille. This title fascinated me, and with the kind permission of the archivist I took it home, where I devoured it.
It is not my intention to analyze this curious work here, and I will content myself with recommending it to those of my readers who appreciate the vivid depiction of previous times. They will find in it character portraits sketched by the hand of a master; and although these outlines may be, for the most part, traced on barracks doors or tavern walls, they will not find the depictions of Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, Richelieu, Mazarin, or the courtiers of the period, any less authentic than in Monsieur Anquetil’s history.
But as everyone knows, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is not always what impresses the general reader. So, while admiring the details of the story, as others might, I was most taken with something that almost certainly no one else has noted.
D’Artagnan relates that on his first visit to Monsieur de Tréville, the Captain of the King’s Musketeers,3 he met three young men in the antechamber who served in the illustrious corps he hoped to enter, men whose names were Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.
I must confess to being struck by these three strange names—and it immediately occurred to me that these were probably pseudonyms d’Artagnan had used to disguise their real, perhaps illustrious family names. Or they might perhaps be names the three had assumed on the day when, from caprice, restlessness, or lack of fortune, they had donned the musketeer’s simple tabard.
From then on I couldn’t rest until I succeeded in finding, in some work of the period, some reference to these extraordinary names that had so aroused my curiosity.
Just listing all the books I read in this pursuit would fill a whole chapter—which might be instructive, but wouldn’t be very amusing for the reader. It’s enough to relate that, discouraged by my fruitless investigations, I was about to give up the quest when, guided by my knowledgeable friend Paulin Paris, I came across a manuscript in folio. Cataloged either number 4772 or 4773, it bore the title Memoirs of Monsieur le Comte de La Fère,4 Concerning Diverse Events that Occurred in France in the Latter Days of the Reign of King Louis XIII, and at the Commencement of the Reign of King Louis XIV.
This was my last hope. Imagine my joy when, in turning the pages of this manuscript, on page twenty I came across the name of Athos, on twenty-seven the name of Porthos, and on thirty-one the name of Aramis.
The discovery of such a completely unknown manuscript in the present day, when the science of history is pursued so thoroughly, seemed almost miraculous. So I hastened to ask permission to print it, in the hope of one day accepting a membership in the Académie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres (in the all-too-probable event of being denied entry into the Académie Française).5 This permission, I must say, was graciously granted—which gives the lie to those malcontents who claim we live under a government that is less than friendly to men of letters.
Now, what follows is the first part of this precious manuscript, which I offer to the reader with the promise that, if it is received as well as I expect, the second part will follow immediately.
In the meantime, as a godfather is a second father, I request the reader to hold me, and not the Comte de La Fère, responsible for his pleasure or his boredom.
That said, on with the story.
The Three Musketeers
I
The Three Presents of Monsieur d’Artagnan the Elder
On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625,6 the town of Meung appeared to be in such a state of revolt it was almost as if th
e Huguenots had made it into a second La Rochelle. The men of Meung, seeing their women running toward the high street, leaving their babies crying in their doorways, hurriedly donned whatever armor they had. Then, propping up their shaky courage with muskets or pole-arms, they headed for the Inn of the Jolly Miller, in front of which a jostling, noisy, and curious crowd was growing minute by minute.
In those times panics were frequent, and few days passed without some city in France suffering a similar event. Nobles fought each other, the king contended with the cardinal, and the Spanish warred on the king. Besides these conflicts, overt or covert, there were also robbers, vagrants, wolves, rogues, and Huguenots, who were at odds with everybody. The citizens always took up arms against robbers, wolves, or rogues, often against nobles or Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against the cardinal or Spain. So the citizens of Meung, hearing an uproar, and seeing neither the red and yellow flag of Spain nor the livery of Cardinal Richelieu, rushed toward the Jolly Miller.
When they arrived, the cause of the alarm was obvious. A young man—but his portrait can be sketched with a single stroke of the pen: envision Don Quixote at eighteen years old, Don Quixote without armor or helmet, in a woolen doublet once blue, now faded to a nameless color somewhere between that of the sky and the dregs of wine. His face was long and brown, with high cheekbones, a sign of cleverness. He had a strong, muscular jaw, by which one can always tell a Gascon7 even without his beret, which this young man wore adorned with some sort of feather. His eyes were open and intelligent, the nose hooked but finely chiseled. Too big for a youth but not quite a grown man, one might take him for a farmer’s son on a journey, if it weren’t for the long sword hanging from a leather baldric, knocking against its owner’s calves as he walked and slapping the rough side of his mount when he rode.
For this young man had a mount, as remarkable as it was remarked upon. It was a Béarnaise pony, about twelve to fourteen years old, with a yellow hide, a hairless tail, and galls on its legs. It walked with its head lower than its knees, making a head-check rein unnecessary, but despite appearances it somehow managed to cover eight leagues a day. At that time everyone was a connoisseur of horses, but unfortunately the good qualities of this horse were hidden so well beneath its strange color and eccentric gait, its sad appearance gave a poor first impression that naturally extended to its rider.
This poor impression was felt by young d’Artagnan (for that was the name of the Don Quixote on this second Rocinante) all the more painfully as he was well aware that such a horse made even the best horseman look ridiculous. He had sighed a deep sigh when accepting the gift from Monsieur d’Artagnan the elder. But despite its appearance, he knew that even a beast like this was worth at least twenty livres—and that the words he’d received with it were beyond price.
“My son,” the Gascon gentleman had said, in that Béarnaise accent Henri IV had never been able to lose, “my son, this horse was born in the house of your father around thirteen years ago, and here it has remained ever since, which ought to make you love it. Never sell it: allow it to die peacefully and honorably of old age, and if you take it on campaign, care for it as you would an old servant. At Court, should you have the honor to go there,” continued Monsieur d’Artagnan the elder, “an honor to which your ancient nobility gives you the right, uphold your name as a gentleman, a name borne with dignity by your ancestors for five hundred years. For your own sake, and for the sake of your family and friends, endure nothing from anyone but the cardinal and the king. It’s by his courage— mark me!—by his courage alone that a gentleman makes his way these days. He who hesitates for a second may let an opportunity escape that his fortune depends upon. You are young, and you ought to be brave, for two reasons: first, because you’re a Gascon, and second, because you’re my son. Never fear trouble—instead, seek out adventures. I’ve taught you how to handle a sword; you have muscles of iron and a wrist of steel. Fight at every opportunity, fight all the more because duels are forbidden,8 so it’s twice as courageous to fight!
“I have nothing to give you, my son, but fifteen crowns, my horse, and the advice you’ve just heard. Your mother will add a recipe she had from a Bohemian for a certain balm, an ointment with the miraculous virtue of curing any wound that doesn’t reach the heart. Make the best of all this, and live happily and long.
“I have only one more thing to add, which is to recommend a living example for you to emulate. I speak not of myself, for I’ve never appeared at Court, and only took part in the Wars of Religion as a volunteer, but of Monsieur de Tréville, my former neighbor, who had the honor to be a child playmate of our king, Louis XIII—whom God preserve! Sometimes their play degenerated into fights, which the king didn’t always win. The blows he took only increased his esteem and friendship for Monsieur de Tréville.
“Later, on his first adult journey to Paris, Monsieur de Tréville fought five duels; between the death of the late king and when the current one came of age, he fought seven more times; and from then until today, maybe a hundred times more! Thus, despite all edicts, ordinances, and decrees outlawing duels, he is now Captain of the Musketeers—that is to say, chief of a legion of Caesars. The king holds him in high regard, and the cardinal fears him, a man whom it’s said fears nothing. Moreover, Monsieur de Tréville earns ten thousand crowns a year, so he’s a great noble, a Grand. And he began just like you! Go see him, with this letter, and model yourself on him, so you may do as he has done.”
That said, d’Artagnan the elder belted his own sword on his son, kissed him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his blessing.
Leaving his father’s chamber, the young man found his mother waiting for him with the famous recipe that, given the advice he’d just received, ought to see frequent use. The goodbyes on this side were longer and more tender. It’s not that Monsieur d’Artagnan didn’t love his son, but Monsieur d’Artagnan was a man and would have thought it undignified for a man to give way to his emotions— whereas Madame d’Artagnan was a woman, and what was more, a mother. She wept a great deal, and to the credit of Monsieur d’Artagnan the younger, despite his efforts to remain firm (as befit a future musketeer), nature prevailed and the tears flowed, though he managed to conceal half of them.
That same day the young man set out on his journey, provided with the three paternal gifts: the fifteen crowns, the horse, and the letter for Monsieur de Tréville—with the advice thrown into the bargain. With such endowments d’Artagnan was morally and physically an exact copy of the hero of Cervantes.
Don Quixote took windmills for giants and flocks of sheep for armies; d’Artagnan took every smile for an insult and every look for a provocation. So all the way from Tarbes to Meung his hand was constantly doubled into a fist or gripping the hilt of his sword. Yet the fist struck no jaw and the sword was never drawn from its scabbard. It wasn’t that the sight of the wretched yellow pony didn’t raise smiles on the faces of passersby, it was that a sword of intimidating length bumped against the side of that pony, while over the sword glared an eye as fierce as it was proud. So the passersby suppressed their amusement, or if amusement outweighed caution, they laughed out of only one side of their mouths, like the drama masks of the ancients. D’Artagnan therefore kept his dignity and pride intact until he came to the fatal town of Meung.
There, as he was dismounting from his horse at the gate of the Jolly Miller, without host, hostler, or groom coming to hold his stirrup, d’Artagnan saw a gentleman at an open window of the ground floor. Handsome and lordly, though rather grim and stern, he was talking with two men who listened with obvious respect. As was his way, d’Artagnan naturally assumed that he was the subject of their conversation and listened. This time d’Artagnan was half right: it wasn’t him they spoke of, but his horse. The gentleman seemed to be listing its qualities for his audience, who flattered him by laughing at every remark. Given that a half-smile was enough to rile d’Artagnan, one can imagine what effect this outright hilarity had on him.
D’Artagnan took a closer look at this arrogant gent who mocked him. Fixing a haughty eye on the stranger, he saw a man of from forty to forty-five years of age, with black, piercing eyes, a pale complexion, a prominent nose, and a perfectly trimmed black mustache. He wore doublet and breeches of violet, with aiguillettes of the same color, and no other ornaments but the customary slashes in the doublet that displayed the shirt beneath. These breeches and doublet, though new, showed the creases of clothes that had been packed in luggage for a long time. D’Artagnan noted all this quickly but carefully, doubtless from an instinctive feeling that this stranger was to have a great influence over his future life.
As d’Artagnan looked over the man in the violet doublet, that gentleman made his funniest remark yet about the Béarnaise pony. The two men laughed louder than ever, and the stranger himself, contrary to his custom, allowed a pale smile to cross his face. This time, beyond all doubt, d’Artagnan was definitely insulted. Convinced of this, he pulled his beret down over his eyes and advanced with one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other affixed to his hip, trying to imitate some of the Court airs he’d seen displayed in Gascony by traveling noblemen. However, as he advanced he got more and more angry, so that instead of the lofty and dignified speech he’d planned to deliver as a prelude to his challenge, all he could manage was a gross personal insult and a furious gesture.