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The King's Musketeers


Illustration
from The Three Muskeeteers, Grosset and Dunlap, 1950,1953,1981
For this popular pattern, check out my "Costumes" page for "Classic Musketeer Tabard"

The Musketeer legends were the very reason this site was founded! Hence the heart of my cavalier page lies here in the dedication found on the gravestone of the true historical D'Artagnan, Charles de Batz-Castelmore. The whole scope of the Musketeer legends, much like the Arthurian legends, is encapsulated in layers upon layers of the poetic interpretation of history itself. I must confess that I have found many of the movies to be just as entertaining as the books... I will also honestly deny that I am amongst those people who get angry when the movies didn't follow the books. The books, quite frankly, are affected by the times in which they were written - and, sorry, although they are sometimes classified as romances, they are anything but in what we have commonly come to think of in modern times! There are some occasionally chauvinistic remarks and in the books, other than the alluded to love D'Artagnan had for for Constance - you don't see much of it. Even Louise de la Valliere, the love of Raoul in the books, is portrayed as fickle and unloving. Despite the typical book lover's outcry against movie adaptations, I can solemnly swear that I would take the beautiful, if doomed, love between D'Artagnan and Queen Anne in the 1998 Hollywood version of "Man in the Iron Mask over the actual Dumas novels any day.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the books and would heartily recommend them to anyone who enjoys a good historical romp. Also, I won't give anything away, but there are things done by the characters you've come to know in the movies that far exceed the honor (and dastardliness) than have been displayed in the movies. For the most part, I feel that the Musketeer legends have been portrayed in a more comic nature in the movies in general and have lost some of their lustre in respect of the 17th century 'chivalry' that was their original appeal.

So did the Three (Four, actually) Musketeers exist? Well, yes; but for the most part in name only. The true D'Artagnan did live are serve in the King's Musketeers though there was hardly any evidence of him riding into town on an old horse and blundering into Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. As for those three... very few records exist for them except in name alone. Yet I believe the real appeal of the stories is the questions we probably ask ourselves remorsefully in this day and age... Is chivalry in all its forms truly dead? Does honor like this still exist? Does anyone really believe in "One for All and All for One"?

Personal Studies

Fiction
Before the Books of Dumas: Courtilz de Sandras, The First 'Biographer'
Dumas the Romancier...

Fact
The Real D'Artagnan
What About the original Three Musketeers?
Other Players in the Musketeer Epics
The 'Look' of the Musketeers
Man in the Iron Mask - The theories  

Other Sites of Interest

FireBlade Coffeehouse Alexandre Dumas A good batch of historical information about the characters of the books. 

How to Be a Musketeer I usually don't go into the nitty gritty of SCA stuff but this is a really interesting page from England on how to REALLY be a historical musketeer

Monsieur Fouquet I really like this page! For those of you who read Man in the Iron Mask this study on one of the main characters is really fascinating! Kudos to the excellent research and interest the creator of this page has!

 

Don't forget to check the Cavalier links for stuff that might interest you as well!!!!!!