Book review
Les Trois Mousquetaires
Vingt Ans Apres
Le Vicomte de Bragelonne
This delightful, ironic, comic tale is far different in the French original than in the numerous Hollywood adaptations and even than the standard English translation (Penguin). D’Artagnan is introduced as an ’18-year-old Don Quixote.’ He has a crooked nose and rides a horse as pathetic as Quixote’s Rozinante. His father is alive and has never been to court. The sword his father gave him is broken by p. 5. He is very naive, but is quick to learn. He has exalted romantic notions of bravery and honor and love, but is very ambitious and more in love with his idea of himself than with the women who cross his path.
The Musketeers are a bunch of drunken bums, always getting into trouble, and acting the part of gigolos — asking for and expecting money and jewels from the rich married ladies they court. The King is an idiot. The quest that the Musketeers go on is a farce (that they take quite seriously). They are defending the honor of the Queen who has been flirting with the prime minister of France’s greatest enemy, England; and although they are the ‘king’s’ Musketeers, they are working for the Queen against the King. The Queen also is a Spaniard, who has written to her brother in Spain asking him to go to war against France. Buckingham is a pompous conceited ass. He gets a kick out of seducing ladies and would like to think of himself as irresistible. He tries to impress the Queen by saying he is going to start a war between England and France just so he will be sent to Paris as ambassador to negotiate the peace when it’s over, and that will give him an opportunity to be near her. She is very impressed with this absurd gesture of passion.
These brave mustketeers are willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of the Queen (or the King). They are quite serious (and quite impressed with their own valor and seriousness) — but the quest is like jousting with windmills.
In the first half of the book (the adventure of the Queen’s diamonds), the style of the narrative is delightfully ironic. Occasionally D’Artagnan (by far the most intelligent of the Musketeers) get a whiff of the irony ‘He was amazed at what fragile and unknown threads the destinies of a people and the life of men are sometimes suspended from.’ This part of the book has far more in common with the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, and Cervantes than with adventure/suspense novels of the vein of Tom Clancy.
By the second half (the tale of de Winter), the characters of the Musketeers (and even of their lackeys) have been firmly established, and the story takes off. But the underlying irony continues — the Queen and Buckingham and Louis XIII are all frivolous fools whose shenanigans lead to the deaths and miseries of many ordinary well-meaning, honorable, and brave people. Richelieu is actually the savior of France, and a very reasonable, if devious man. Richelieu has nothing personal against D’Artagnan. He recognizes D’Artagnan’s abilities as a man who can devotedly follow orders, and would like to recruit him. As for de Winter, her personal wickedness is essential for saving France — she brings about the assassination of Buckingham (whom the Puritans, with good reason, consider to be satanic) and hence ends the war between England and France (saving many lives). So questions of personal morality are often at odds with national goals and the needs of the many.
Note, too, that D’Artagnan is no saint, nor is he a genius. Despite his flashes of insight and tactical cleverness, he has no grasp of the overall international political situation, of the large-scale implications of his acts of personal bravery and personal loyalty (only Richelieu seems to understand that.) His ‘love’ for Constance is very much a la Don Quixote — he is in love with an idea of himself being in love: knight serving lady. He hardly knows her. And after her second kidnapping, there are long stretches when he seems to completely forget about her (allegedly because he doesn’t know where she is and hence can’t take direct action to save her). He is fascinated by de Winter, and is passionately drawn to her in the flesh, despite himself. In order to get to her, he is willing to lie and trick and use people (including her), without any scruples. His treatment of de Winter’s maid (Ketty) is incredible. He seduces her, tells her he loves her, etc., all in order to get into bed with de Winter. And at the end of the book, with both Constance and de Winter dead; there is no mention at all of what became of Ketty.
Putting the story into historical context, D’Artagnan comes from Bearn, a territory bordered on three sides by Gascony and on the fourth by the Pyrennees in Spain, and which included the cities of Pau, Nerac, Tarbes, Orthez, and Lourdes. This territory was the center of Huguenot (Protestant) activity in the French religious civil wars just a few years before. For about 50 years (about 1560-1610) no Catholic mass was performed there, b.ecause of the influence of the protestant Jeanne d’Albret, mother of Henry IV (Henry of Navarre). Interestingly, Dumas says nothing about the religious issue, focusing instead on personal ideals, personal concepts of loyalty and what is right. This must be deliberate. With the siege of Rochelle, the overthrow of Charles I, etc., organized religion is just one of the elements of political power politics. Personal belief does matter (the Puritan pursuaded by Lady de Winter to kill Buckingham), but it is a question of character, a predictable element of personality that is the source of individual pride, but also is subject to manipulation by the unscrupulous.
The world Dumas portrays in the Three Musketeers resembles the modern corporate world, where princes of business, with personal ties of friendship, vie among one another and pursue their personal ambitions, with no regard for their subjects/employees.
In the sequel, Vingt An Apres, the Musketters remain true to their personal homor and duty when public duty is a complex mess. This story takes place about twenty years after the first (hence the title). The moral landscape is even more complex than before — or rather the Musketeers are more aware of the complexities. They now realize that while Cardinal Richelieu was a villain, he was also a great man. His successor, Cardinal Mazarin, is simply petty. They miss Richelieu.
Also, the Queen (Anne of Austria), the vain coquette whose honor the Mustketeers had saved at great risk to themselves, has secretly marred Cardinal Mazarin (who not having taken religious vows is, in fact, free to marry), and she has turned on her old friends.
In the third book of the series, Le Vicomte to Bragelonne, thanks largely to Athos, the Musketeers restore Charles II to the throne of England. Aramis becomes the head of the Jesuits — richer and more powerful than the King of France. Portos becomes a wealthy landowner. D’Artagnan becomes a general. There’s enough story here for half a dozen full-length movies.
Here, too (in Bragelonne), is the tale of The Man in the Iron Mask — but a very different story than we have seen from Hollywood. Aramis (as head of the Jesuits) sets up the situation, having plotted for years the overthrow of the Louis XIV, in order to assume control of the country with his puppet, the king’s twin, on the throne. The twin is imprisoned in the Bastille, but without the knowledge of the king. There he is treated with kindness and respect, and with no mask. When Aramis’ plot goes awry, because D’Artagnan realizes what is happening and intervenes to save Louis, Porthos winds up dead, and the twin is sent back to prison, this time to a small barren island and this time forced to wear the iron mask, because of his treason. Aramis escapes to Spain, and later returns to France in triumph as an ambassador from Spain. It’s an emotional rollcoaster ride — a couple thousand pages of delight. You come to know these characters very well, and get wrapped up in their ups and downs, their moral qualms, their selfless heroism, their petty vanity, their blindness to the broader implications of the political events in which they play major roles.
Note — Dumas in French is a great read for a non-French-speaking person. The language is clear and direct, with almost no colloquialism or slang. Dumas simply and directly tells his story, without any fancy linguistic flourishes. He is also very easy to appreciate in translation — which makes it all the harder to understand why the available English translations seem to miss the comic, ironic tone, and why the sequels are so hard to find.
Similarly, Jack London, Ernest Hemmingway, Edgar Allan Poe, and Dashiel Hammett are extremely popular and well-respected abroad because their clear, direct narrative style is very easy for foreigners to understand, and because their books translate o well.
A final thought: Dumas reminds me a bit of Robert Parker. His books pack far more action and take place on a far broader field, but much of the appeal comes from your familiarity with the main characters — wanting to see them in new circumstances, doing new things that teach you still more about them. And the characters in both Parker and Dumas are primarily defined by their internal moral codes, and the stories are designed put those codes to the test, repeatedly.
- Goodreads rating – 4.09
- SUMMARY – Richard Seltzer