The Three Musketeers, Vol. II by Alexandre Dumas, Fiction, Classics, Historical, Action & Adventure

by Alexandre Dumas

Overview

In March 1844 the French magazine Le Siecle, printed the first installment of a story by Alexandre Dumas. It was based, Dumas claimed, on some manuscripts he had found a year earlier in the Bibliotheque Nationale while researching a history he planned to write on Louis XIV. The serial chronicled the adventures of D'Artagnan -- a young swordsman intent on joining the king's musketeers. Young D'Artagnan becomes embroiled in court intrigues, international politics, and ill-fated affairs between royal lovers. This volume of the serial -- The Three Musketeers is set in the year 1625. The D'Artagnan arrives in Paris at the tender age of 18, and that very day gives offese to three musketeers -- Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Duels are agreed -- but interrupted by five of the Cardinal's guards. Instead of dueling, the four are attacked. D'Artagnan acquits himself impressively: his youthful courage becomes apparent during the battle. The four become friends, and, when asked by D'Artagnan's landlord to find his missing wife, embark upon an adventure that takes them across both France and England in order to thwart the plans of the Cardinal Richelieu. Along the way, they encounter a beautiful young spy, whom they know at first only as Milady, who will stop at nothing to disgrace Queen Anne of Austria before her husband, Louis XIII, and take revenge upon the musketeers. (Volume II of II.)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592248636
Publisher:	Borgo Press
Publication date:	11/01/2002
Pages:	340
Sales rank:	941,070
Product dimensions:	6.08(w) x 9.08(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Alexandre Dumas (1802 - 1870) was a French writer. His works have been translated into nearly 100 languages and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas' last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005, becoming a bestseller. It was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. He also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totaled 100,000 pages.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
The three gifts of monsieur d'artagnan the elder

On the first Monday of April, 1625, the market town of Meting, birthplace of the author of the Roman de Ia Rose, seemed to be in as great a turmoil as if the Huguenots had come to turn it into a second La Rochelle. A number of townsmen, seeing women running in the direction of the main street and hearing children shouting on doorsteps, hastened to put on their breastplates and, steadying their rather uncertain self-assurance with a musket or a halberd, made their way toward the inn, the Hotellerie du Franc Meunier, in front of which a noisy, dense, and curious throng was growing larger by the minute.

Panics were frequent in those times, and few days went by when an event of this kind was not recorded in the archives of one town or another. Noblemen fought among themselves; the king was at war with the cardinal; the Spanish were at war with the king. And then, besides all this secret or open warfare, there were robbers, beggars, Huguenots, wolves, and lackeys, who were at war with everyone. The townsmen always took up arms against robbers, wolves, and lackeys, often against noblemen and Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against the cardinal or the Spanish. It was because of these habits that the townsmen, on that first Monday of April, 1625, bearing a commotion and seeing neither a red and yellow Spanish flag nor the livery of Cardinal Richelieu, hurried toward the Franc Meunier inn.

When they arrived there, they were able to see the cause of the tumult.

A young man ... Let us sketch a rapid portrait of him. Imagine Don Quixote at eighteen, a Don Quixotewithout chain mail or thigh pieces, wearing a woolen doublet whose original blue had been transformed into an elusive shade between purple and azure. He had a long, dark face with prominent cheekbones, a mark of shrewdness; his jaw muscles were heavily developed, an infallible sign by which one can recognize a Gascon, even without a beret, and our young man wore a beret adorned with some sort of feather. His eyes were frank and intelligent; his nose was hooked, but finely drawn; he was too big for an adolescent and too small for a full-grown man. An untrained eye might have taken him for a farmer's son on a journey if it had not been for the sword that bung from a shoulder belt, slapping against his calves when he walked, and against his shaggy horse when he rode.

For the young man had a mount, one that could not fail to attract attention: a small Bearn horse twelve to fourteen years old, with a yellowish coat, an almost hairless tail and sores on his legs. He walked with his head lower than his knees, which made a martingale unnecessary, but he could still do twenty miles a day. Unfortunately his good qualities were hidden by his strange color and his outlandish gait. He had come into Meting a quarter of an hour earlier through the Beaugency gate, and since in those days everyone was a practiced judge of horses, his appearance had caused a sensation that cast disfavor on his rider.

This was all the more painful to young d'Artagnan (such was the name of the Don Quixote astride that other Rosinante) because he was well aware of how ridiculous his horse made him seem, even though he was an excellent rider. That was why he had sighed when he had accepted the horse as a gift from his father. He knew that such an animal was worth at least twenty livres; the words that had accompanied the gift, however, were priceless.

"My son," the Gascon nobleman had said in the Bearn accent that Henry IV never succeeded in losing, "this horse was born on my estate nearly thirteen years ago and has never left it. That should be enough to make you love him. Never sell him, let him die peacefully and honorably of old age, and if you go to war with him, treat him with consideration, as you would treat an old servant. At court, if you have the honor to go there, an honor to which our ancient nobility entitles you, be worthy of your noble name, worthily borne by your ancestors for over five hundred years. For yourself, your relatives, and your friends, never tolerate the slightest affront from anyone except the cardinal or the king. Remember this: it's by courage, and courage alone, that a nobleman makes his way nowadays. Anyone who trembles for even one second may lose the chance that fortune offered him precisely at that second. You're young, and you must be brave for two reasons: first, you're a Gascon; and second, you're my son. Don't be afraid of opportunities, and seek out adventures. I've taught you to use a sword. You have iron legs and a steel wrist. Fight duels at the drop of a hat, especially since duels are forbidden: that means it takes twice as much courage to fight one.

"My son, all I have to give you is fifteen ecus, my horse, and the advice You've just heard. Your mother will give you the recipe for an ointment that a Gypsy woman taught her how to make: it miraculously heals any wound that doesn't reach the heart. Make the most of all these gifts, and have a long, happy life.

"I have only one more thing to add: an example for you to follow. It's not MY own, because I've never appeared at court and I've fought only in the wars of religion as a volunteer. I'm speaking of Monsieur de Treville, who used to be my neighbor and had the honor of playing with our King Louis XIII—may God preserve him!—when they were both children. Sometimes their games turned into fights, and the king didn't always win them. The drubbings be got from Monsieur de Treville made him feel great respect and . . .

Table of Contents

Chapter I	Our Hero Sets Forth	1
Chapter II	Of a Shoulder, a Baldric and a Handkerchief	19
Chapter III	Musketeers and Guards	36
Chapter IV	A Court Intrigue	57
Chapter V	A Seventeenth-Century Mousetrap	72
Chapter VI	Of a Queen, a Haberdasher and a Cardinal	90
Chapter VII	The Chancellor Steps In	106
Chapter VIII	On Her Majesty's Service	129
Chapter IX	The Rendezvous	148
Chapter X	Of Porthos and Aramis	174
Chapter XI	Of Athos and His Wife	190
Chapter XII	Lady Clark	209
Chapter XIII	Milady's Secret	224
Chapter XIV	The Siege of La Rochelle	238
Chapter XV	The Bastion in No Man's Land	253
Chapter XVI	The Council of the Musketeers	261
Chapter XVII	Captivity	265
Chapter XVIII	Escape	270
Chapter XIX	The Man in the Red Cloak	287
	Epilogue	300

Reading Group Guide

1. Discuss Dumas's use of historical events in the novel. Do you think a knowledge of history is necessary or unnecessary in order to enjoy the novel? Discuss the ways in which Dumas alters or takes liberties with real events in order to suit the story. Is his view of history sanitized in any way?

2. Dumas is thought of as the chief popularizer of French Romantic drama. In considering The Three Musketeers, do you think this reputation is an accurate one? How does Dumas use dramatic effect in the novel?

3. Contemporary critics were offended by the scenes depicting vice and violence in the novel. Do you find these scenes arbitrary or not?

4. Many critics have described the musketeers as well-developed stereotypes, but are there ways in which the musketeers transcend these stereotypes? Are there other, perhaps more complex ways of interpreting the four protagonists?

5. Discuss Dumas's female characters, in particular Milady. What is her role in the novel, and what does this reveal about Dumas's views of women, if anything? Does Dumas depict a war between the sexes?

6. How do the chapter endings contribute to Dumas's masterly maintenance of pace? How does this kind of device recall a play, and how does this speak to Dumas's strengths stylistically?

7. In what ways is The Three Musketeers a bildungsroman? Would you characterize the work as a youthful novel?

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6 Up-With swelling musical background, the clash of swordplay, and the occasional thump of a head being cut off, the St. Charles Players bring back the feeling of radio theater in their rendition of the classic tale by Alexandre Dumas. The players' voices emit every nuance required to let listeners experience the swashbuckling deeds of the famous heroic threesome and the boy called D'Artagnan who wants to join their ranks. When the young man arrives in Paris with the wish to enlist with the King's Musketeers, he finds himself challenged to three duels in his first afternoon in the city by men who turn out to be Porthos, Aramis, and Athos-the Three Musketeers. Instead of fighting against them, the twists of fate have D'Artagnan battling for them against the evil Cardinal Richelieu's guards. After demonstrating his worth with a sword, D'Artagnan proves more of his mettle by journeying to England to foil a plot to embarrass France's Queen Anne, the former Anne of Austria. D'Artagnan saves his queen but loses the woman he loves, so he seeks vengeance and, in turn, instills himself firmly in the ranks of the Musketeers. The flavor of the original is evident even though this abridged version includes only highlights in its retelling.-Joanne K. Hammond, Chambersburg Area Middle School, PA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal