The Three Musketeers

“Endure nothing from anyone except Monsieur the Cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, please observe, by his courage alone, that a gentleman can make his way nowadays.”

D’Artagnan’s father advises d’Artagnan to respect the cardinal just as he does the king, which shows a provincial misunderstanding of the intrigue and power struggle going on at court. As a Musketeer-in-training, d’Artagnan will quickly discover seedy truths about the infrastructure of power in France and will find himself working against the cardinal. This quote also emphasizes that courage was considered to be the most important quality for men of action at the time.

“He was thinking of Mme. Bonacieux. For an apprentice Musketeer the young woman was almost an ideal of love. Pretty, mysterious, initiated in almost all the secrets of the court, which reflected such a charming gravity over her pleasing features, it might be surmised that she was not wholly unmoved; and this is an irresistible charm to novices in love. Moreover, d’Artagnan had delivered her from the hands of the demons who wished to search and ill treat her; and this important service had established between them one of those sentiments of gratitude which so easily assume a more tender character.”

For d’Artagnan, the ideal woman is one whose innate humanity is either absent or invisible. He instantly falls in love with Constance based on his own romantic narrative of what she is like: good looking, with an air of mystery and connections to the court. Despite her clearly resourceful, brave, and capable nature, d’Artagnan sees Constance as a damsel in distress, which gives him the opportunity to be a hero—his most preferred way to imagine himself.

“M. de Treville was the father of his soldiers. The lowest or the least known of them, as soon as he assumed the uniform of the company, was as sure of his aid and support as if he had been his own brother.”

Treville embodies the loyalty and heroism of the Musketeers, thus evoking the troop’s most admirable qualities of the Musketeers. Treville’s dedication and genuine care for his men in turn demonstrates honorable behavior to the men who follow him, marking him as a good leader.

“D’Artagnan blushed up to the whites of his eyes. He saw that the duke was searching for a means of making him accept something and the idea that the blood of his friends and himself was about to be paid for with English gold was strangely repugnant to him.”

Dumas emphasizes the ways tension between France and England affects individual people: Here, d’Artagnan is so offended by the idea that he has performed a dangerous mission to benefit an English patron that he refuses the financial reward the duke offers him. It is an insult to his honor: Working for Queen Anne and thus also helping an English nobleman is one thing, but being hired by him is quite another.

“Beyond that hedge, that garden, and that cottage, a dark mist enveloped with its folds that immensity where Paris slept—a vast void from which glittered a few luminous points, the funeral stars of that hell!”

Dumas portrays Paris as beautiful and hellish. This paradoxical characterization emphasizes how multi-layered this setting is: The city is fresh with opportunity, but it can also be dangerous, its streets rife with both allies and enemies.

“A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the ears 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.”

In this novel, the ability to be honest is indicative of character: Brave men are authentic, whereas nefarious and easily bought off men are liars. Here, Dumas points out that inauthenticity cannot endure because eventually, all façades fall apart. This quote foreshadows the future revelation of the true identities and connections of mysterious characters: Athos’s history of domestic violence, Milady’s identity as his wife, and the cardinal’s web of intrigue.

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

Dumas compares love and jealousy with chimeras, or illusory fabrications—both are invented by the mind and possibly have no real existence. This view is supported by d’Artagnan’s fickle attitude toward love and many characters’ tendency to become immediately and sometimes violently jealous—extreme reactions that do not often reflect events as a neutral observer sees them.

“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.”

D’Artagnan’s attraction to Milady is complicated and dangerous. It is simultaneously a desire and a repulsion. Milady is inaccessible to d’Artagnan in ways that other women haven’t been, and this, combined with her violent tendencies and her beauty, makes d’Artagnan’s lust full of disdain—a multivalent emotion that helps explain the extremes to which he goes when Milady does not return his feelings.

“‘People, in general,’ he said, ‘only ask advice not to follow it; or if they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for having given it.’”

Treville’s statement is simultaneously comical and serious. Throughout the novel, Dumas shows d’Artagnan reaching out to people like Treville or the three Musketeers for advice, though he rarely follows their suggested course of action. Men committed to being independent action-minded heroes refuse to listen to others; instead, they insist on figuring things out for themselves, or else resent the people who tried to intervene.

“I am satisfied with having killed that fellow, my boy, seeing that it is blessed bread to kill an Englishman; but if I had pocketed his pistoles, they would have weighed me down like a remorse.”

Athos explains the ins and outs of Musketeer honor culture. Pointed at France’s enemies, he is happy to kill indiscriminately—in this case, fighting the English gives him an opportunity to prove his valor and showcase French courage and fighting skills. The Musketeers take their role as representatives of France very seriously. However, Athos refuses direct payment for killing—that would make him an assassin rather than a soldier, ruining his honorable standing. In this, the Musketeers differ from the cardinal’s network of spies and agents.

“Of the important cities given up by Henry IV to the Huguenots as places of safety, there only remained La Rochelle. It became necessary, therefore, to destroy this last bulwark of Calvinism—a dangerous leaven with which the ferments of civil revolt and foreign war were constantly mingling.”

Religious and international disputes provide a consistent background conflict throughout this novel. As the Protestant Reformation wound its way through Europe, national identity became closely woven with religious affiliation. La Rochelle is a nexus of several disputes. Claimed by both French Protestants, it rebels against French Catholicism. At the same time, it is being buttressed and supplied by Protestant England, which sees it as a potential staging ground for invasion. The combination of external and internal tension is dangerous—Dumas compares the situation to an out-of-control dough, or beer, whose fermenting and rise are hard to contain.

“The king, even while obeying him like a child, hated him as a child hates his master, and would abandon him to the personal vengeance of Monsieur and the queen. He would then be lost, and France, perhaps, with him. All this must be prepared against.”

Dumas captures the reliance of King Louis on Cardinal Richelieu, and vice versa. Because of their religious positions (God-anointed ruler and head of the Catholic Church in France), the king and the cardinal should be important allies. However, in practice, they are constantly in competition for dominance. The comparison of their power dynamic to that of pupil and teacher—or possibly apprentice and master—highlights the resentment of the king toward the cardinal’s influence. The characterization is telling: Louis is a petulant, willful, and impolitic inheritor of the crown, while Richelieu has carefully worked his way up the hierarchy, proving his long-game approach and strategic mind.

“We have only lived up to the present time because we believed each other dead, and because a remembrance is less oppressive than a living creature, though a remembrance is sometimes devouring.”

When they come face-to-face for the first time since he tried to kill her, Athos ruefully tells Milady that their survival depends on the other’s non-existence. But this isn’t really true: Athos has always been haunted by the failure of his marriage and by his murder of his wife—it is this memory that renders him permanently morose and brooding. Dumas stresses that while we imagine memory as less oppressive than reality, this is not always the case.

“Athos had invented the phrase, family affair. A family affair was not subject to the investigation of the cardinal; a family affair concerned nobody. People might employ themselves in a family affair before all the world. Therefore Athos had invented the phrase, family affair.”

What sets the three Musketeers and d’Artagnan apart from the rest of their elite corps is the fact that they consider themselves a found family. Although they have responsibilities to Treville, and the king, they commit themselves much more to their small, deeply connected group. They’re not just friends or brothers-in-arms, they are like true brothers. This term “family affair” implies that their missions are secret and sacrosanct—something that they deploy with honor, but which Dumas questions when the men deliver vigilante justice to Milady. Whether for good or ill, the closeness of d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis is integral to the novel.

“Breathing that sea breeze, so much more invigorating and balsamic as the land is approached, contemplating all the power of those preparations she was commissioned to destroy, all the power of that army which she was to combat alone—she, a woman with a few bags of gold—Milady compared herself mentally to Judith, the terrible Jewess, when she penetrated the camp of the Assyrians and beheld the enormous mass of chariots, horses, men, and arms, which a gesture of her hand was to dissipate like a cloud of smoke.”

This quote highlights Milady’s intrinsic power—she is so capable that she evokes a legendary biblical figure. Milady is cunning, intelligent, ambitious, and brave—qualities that allow her to see herself as Judith, a woman who saved her people from persecution and certain death by using her beauty to charm the military leader of the Assyrians and then behead him. Like the heroic Judith, Milady uses her looks to take advantage of men, but unlike her, Milady is working mostly for herself.

“And yet, if she were a man she would attempt all this, and perhaps might succeed; why, then, did heaven make the mistake of placing that manlike soul in that frail and delicate body?”

Like other female antagonists—most notably, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, Milady rues having been born a woman. She believes that as a man with the same fortitude, cunning, and courage, she would have been able to climb the social and political ladder much more successfully. In the 17th century, patriarchal and misogynistic ideas of what women were capable of kept women out of leadership roles. Having internalized these ideas, Milady sees her strength and ambition as masculine. She feels cheated by her society of double standards.

“Milady dreamed that she at length had d’Artagnan in her power, that she was present at his execution; and it was the sight of his odious blood, flowing beneath the ax of the headsman, which spread that charming smile upon her lips.”

This quote emphasizes how violent Milady truly is. She doesn’t just want d’Artagnan dead, but takes pleasure in the idea of his flowing blood. Milady is venomously vengeful and escalates conflicts with her thirst for violence. This emphasizes Milady’s role as the antagonist in the novel—even over and above the ostensibly much more powerful cardinal—and the formidable threat she poses to the Musketeers.

“To see this woman, so beautiful, fair as the brightest vision, to see her by turns overcome with grief and threatening; to resist at once the ascendancy of grief and beauty—it was too much for a visionary; it was too much for a brain weakened by the ardent dreams of an ecstatic faith; it was too much for a heart furrowed by the love of heaven that burns, by the hatred of men that devours.”

Here, Dumas considers the link between sexual and religious passion. John Felton buys into Milady’s act because of her beauty and because of her demonstrations of religious ardor. His brain is “weakened by the ardent dreams of an ecstatic faith,” which Milady stokes by telling Felton a titillating story of abduction and rape.

“It was not difficult to conquer, as she had hitherto done, men prompt to let themselves be seduced, and whom the gallant education of a court led quickly into her net. Milady was handsome enough not to find much resistance on the part of the flesh, and she was sufficiently skillful to prevail over all the obstacles of the mind.”

Dumas generalizes that men are easy to delude because of their lack of interest in women’s inner lives and their romantic fantasies—an important trope in the novel. Milady takes advantage of this weakness, having learned how to act the part from courtly romances, and being naturally good at identifying men who will fall for her wiles. Milady may be manipulative, but the novel points out that manipulation takes two. Therefore, the men Milady seduces are also responsible for their gullibility.

“To be a woman condemned to a painful and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an obstacle to the recovery of power. Like all persons of real genius, Milady knew what suited her nature and her means. Poverty was repugnant to her; degradation took away two-thirds of her greatness. Milady was only a queen while among queens. The pleasure of satisfied pride was necessary to her domination.”

Milady’s imprisonment is a rare turn of events in an otherwise successful criminal career. Here, we learn that she is fueled not only by ambition and hunger for power, but by the fear of poverty and degradation. Therefore, staying in Lord de Winter’s prison cell is a huge blow to her. She can only be successful when she is around other powerful people, whom she can manipulate and leverage. The idea that she can only be a queen when surrounded by queens is ironic—queens are typically the only ones with that title.

“Great criminals bear about them a kind of predestination which makes them surmount all obstacles, which makes them escape all dangers, up to the moment which a wearied Providence has marked as the rock of their impious fortunes.”

Milady is a great criminal because of her radical ability to believe in herself in all situations. She is confident that she can get out of any dilemma. Moreover, Dumas implies that Milady’s criminality is an innate trait: Because she is so smart, so cunning, and so confident, she was fated to be an outlaw or waste her gifts.

“Our readers already know how he was recognized by d’Artagnan, and how that recognition by inspiring fear in the four Musketeers had given fresh activity to their journey.”

Dumas has to overcome a difficult obstacle at the end of the novel: He is bound by the events of real history not to have Cardinal Richelieu experience any comeuppance for his machinations. Because of this, Dumas must elevate Milady to be an antagonist terrible enough to warrant being taken down by four armed and dangerous men—our “valiant” protagonists. This is why Dumas is suddenly at pains to reveal that the Musketeers, despite their courage, obstinate confidence, and fierce fighting abilities, are terrified of Milady. Ostensibly this is because she is so debased and cruel that she is unlike any foe they’ve faced before—though in practice, it is hard to imagine what she could actually do to them as a group. It’s true, she often eludes justice, so they doubt they could catch her—but even this idea is dispelled in the novel’s anti-climactic resolution, as the Musketeers overpower and kill Milady in a scene that belies any evidence of their heroism.

“The poor young woman was too pure to suppose that any female could be guilty of such perfidy; besides, the name of the Comtesse de Winter, which she had heard the abbess pronounce, was wholly unknown to her, and she was even ignorant that a woman had had so great and so fatal a share in the misfortune of her life.”

We know that Milady can easily trick men into believing in her and acting in her interests due to her beauty and ability to seduce. But here, Dumas extends her manipulative capabilities to women as well. Just as the men she tricks must be gullible enough to fall for her sexual appeal, so the women she manipulates need to be susceptible to the idea of friendship and female vulnerability. The good-hearted Constance has no reason to distrust a woman she has only just met; her kindness and compassion are her downfall.