The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) was published in 1844 in a Parisian magazine entitled Siecle. The publication was serialized; meaning each subsequent issue of the magazine contained an additional section of the story. It caused a popular sensation: long lines anticipated each new issue of Siecle. The French public could not get enough of Dumas's writing.
What best explains the enormous popular success of The Three Musketeers, and the fact that it is still so well loved today? The Three Musketeers is a rare treasure--a work that is both "important" and fun. Even more remarkably, The Three Musketeers is "important" because it is fun. We study it because it represents an important development in historical and popular fiction. Parisians stood in line in 1844 because Dumas's developments all come down to one essential point--his stories were more exciting and accessible than those of anyone who had gone before him. However, Dumas does draw on some familiar literary traditions to tell his magical stories.
Dumas's innovations provide us with a wonderful escape into another time and place, but in his own time in France, they may have performed an even more important function. Following the chaos and violence of the French Revolution, 19th century France was a nation in turmoil. The people latched on to Dumas's novels because the novels gave them a sense of their own common history, something that fostered their sense of national pride. The crowning achievement of The Three Musketeers, in this light, is not its picture perfect recreation of the history, manner, or mood of the period it purports to study. Rather, it is Dumas's successful creation of an extraordinarily satisfying and comforting make-believe world which is based on 17th century France. The novel creates a Romance of history that is sweeping, entertaining, and grand, and takes out all the bits that might have made his public uncomfortable. And we still love it today.
The Three Musketeers is a marvelous journey and should be appreciated foremost for its engaging story. The techniques Dumas employed to such success in 1840-- particularly his mastery of the form of the Romance--still work today.
As we saw in the closing portions of the book, Dumas gives us a fully developed Romance within his historical framework. He starts with levity and confidence, and ends with moroseness and doubt. The ending, indeed, seems to question many of the books dearly held values. D'Artagnan becomes a lieutenant in the Musketeers, but his promotion comes from the Cardinal--the Cardinal whom he and his four friends had fought so valiantly against for the first half of the novel. In the epilogue, d'Artagnan befriends the Comte de Rochefort, a Cardinalist agent. Was all that earlier fighting really worth it, then? Or was there something futile in all the Musketeers' efforts? Both the possibility of futility and this return to the normal at the end of a great Quest, characterize the form of the Romance as much as do its lighter aspects. Dumas sees the form through.
With Dumas's historical context in mind, the melancholy of the Romance becomes even more pronounced. It is almost as though Dumas presents this wonderful Romantic adventure, providing people with a chance to escape day to day toil and immerse themselves in better thoughts about their country, and then spurns it. He cannot bring himself to see the lie of Romanticism through to the end. Even bearing in mind that this turn to ambiguity is typical for the end of the Romance, it is hard not to interpret the ending of the novel as Dumas's rejection of Romantic values.
There are two sequels to The Three Musketeers, which Dumas wrote to capitalize on the success of the novel. They are entitled Vingt ans apres,published in 10 volumes in 1845, and Dix ans plus tard, ou le vicomte de Bragelonne, published in 26 parts from 1848-1850. The latter opens in 1660, and tells of a matured, powerful d'Artagnan, captain of the Musketeers. It also contains the account of Porthos's heroic death. But despite these sequels, Dumas never fully recaptured his success of 1844. His estate and his health declined until, after a period of furious attempted productivity to recoup his debts, he died in 1870. The Romance left his life as well.
But The Three Musketeers is not merely a Romance; it is also a great historical novel, and Dumas's interesting approach to history also contributes to the success of his book. While he keeps his characters away from being major players in national events, he is not afraid of brazenly attributing human motives to history. In Dumas's version, France and England very nearly fight a war simply because the Duke of Buckingham loves Anne of Austria: John Fenton assassinates Buckingham because of personal reasons provided by Milady, and so on. Part of the entertainment of The Three Musketeers is that, in seeming to avoid the great events and focus on petty affairs, Dumas explains the great events more satisfyingly and entertainingly than any direct explanation of affairs of state could hope to do. History does not have a face-- d'Artagnan has a face, and a handsome one at that.
Dumas's formula serves his story well. His incorporation of Romanticism into the historical novel lifted an entire genre of literature into public adulation, and gave the French people a story that reassured them about their country even as it brought them away from their country's troubles. Popular literature must be considered on two fronts: aesthetically and socially, as literature and as a popular artifact. The best popular literature, like the work of Alexandre Dumas, supercedes the latter category to come into our minds as a work of literature in its own right. It is not necessary to know about Dumas's life, or about French history, or about the genre of Romance, to enjoy The Three Musketeers. The superlative entertainment of the novel speaks for itself--which is why it remains so important and so interesting to study it.
In this first section of his story, Dumas wastes no time setting up what is going to be the fundamental political rivalry of The Three Musketeers, the one that will drive the story. This rivalry is between King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, nominally the King's most trusted advisor. As Dumas presents things, this is the situation: France is divided between Royalists, who support the King, and Cardinalists, who support Richelieu. Richelieu is the more powerful of the two men--he is far more intelligent, and his network of influence is greater. The King's primary pull is the fact that he is the King-- he represents the monarchy and, therefore, the history and values of France. What Dumas presents here is a clear division between these two factions, and a clear statement that the Musketeers represent a stronghold of Royalist sentiment. Every conflict in the story is couched in these terms- from d'Artagnan's very first encounter of the book, with the Man from Meung--a Cardinalist agent.
In terms of historical accuracy, Dumas presentation of his setting is more or less reliable. The historical tradition does indeed remember Louis XIII as a somewhat insipid ruler, and Richelieu was the dominant figure of the age. And there did exist a split within the government; the King had his followers, and the Cardinal his. The two men were not in open conflict--indeed, the King bowed to the Cardinal in most things--but their followers often were, particularly the King's Musketeers and the Cardinal's Guards, just as Dumas indicates.
A complaint that is sometimes laid against Dumas's writing--both in The Three Musketeers and in his work as a whole--is that his plots are overwrought, indulgent, and excessive. He spends a massive amount of time in exposition, and his character explanations occasionally are devoted to "telling" rather than "showing" (the description of the Duke of Buckingham is a good example). The simple explanation for all of this is that The Three Musketeers was written to be published, not as a single book, but in a number of magazine installments.
Generally, any plot can be broken down into three main parts. The first part is devoted to the introduction of characters and the development of the fundamental issues of the plot. The second part is devoted to the development of the intricacies of the plot. The third part is devoted to the denouement and aftermath of the plot.
In The Three Musketeers, Dumas takes this three act structure and expands it. This is a common aspect of any Romance--the story always seems to extend, rather than developing and ending. Of course, in Dumas's case, this extension was perfectly suited to the demands of serial publication. A serial publication is designed to be cut up, not into three major parts, but into dozens of tiny parts (originally 8, as a matter of fact), with each section published separately. So the prevalence of sub-plots and side-stories is great, as these smaller things can satisfy the dramatic needs of a single installment. Additionally, one should remember that, from a business perspective, the longer the novel-in-installment is, the better.
Dumas reached the height of his fame with The Three Musketeers, but he was an extremely highly regarded name in Paris (primarily as a playwright) before its publication. The installments sold extremely well, and sales improved as the story continued and Dumas's fame widened. He got paid more the more installments he had; his magazine sold more the more installments he had, etc. It is possible to place too much weight on this latter consideration, but one should be aware of it.
As a historical novel, The Three Musketeers organizes its story around some of the major characters and events of 17th century French history. Cardinal Richelieu, Anne of Austria, and other important characters really lived and acted at least roughly the way they do in the novel. In fact, the historical basis of Dumas's story extends all the way to his initial idea for the novel--even to the Musketeers and d'Artagnan themselves.
The Three Musketeers is inspired by a 17th century work entitledMemoires de d'Artagnan by Gatien de Cortilz de Sandras, which Dumas and Maquet stumbled across in their research. This work essentially became an outline for part I of The Three Musketeers. At the time, Dumas did not believe that the Cortilz novel was historical, but thought he was simply plagiarizing and developing a previous writer's work. But Dumas claimed in his original introduction to The Three Musketeers that he thought the work was historical, not wanting to seem plagiaristic himself. Ironically, the Memoires are, in fact, historically based.
D'Artagnan, the hero of The Three Musketeers, was really Charles de Batz-Castelmore, and hailed from Gascony, just as Dumas writes. He took the name of Sieur of Artagnan from a property his mother's family owned. He left Gascony not in 1625, as in the novel, but in 1640. He had a distinguished career not under Louis XIII and Richelieu, but their successors Mazarin and Louis XIV, and he rose through the ranks to great distinction until he died in service in 1673 at the Siege of Maestricht.
Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are also based on real Musketeers. Porthos was Isaac de Portau, a member of the Captain des Essarts's company of the King's Guards until 1643, and then a Musketeer with d'Artagnan (Charles Castelmore, that is). Aramis was Henry d'Aramitz, related to Monsieur de Treville, and Musketeer from 1640 on--we know little of him beyond that. Athos was Armand de Sillegue, Seigner d'Athos et d'Autevielle, also related to Treville. He was a King's Musketeer who died in Paris in 1643, but little is known beyond that--there is some indication on his death certificate that he died as a result of a duel.
The major historical figures in the novel are all more or less accurate, in terms of the basic facts presented. Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, Cardinal Richelieu, and Monsieur de Treville are all presented without grave historical inaccuracies. And there were, indeed, King's Musketeers under Louis XIII--they existed as a sort of training ground for the elite of the French army, and served as the King's personal escort in peacetime. Treville and the Cardinal were great adversaries, as Dumas portrays them--in fact, Treville was involved in a 1642 plot to assassinate the Cardinal, and Louis XIII was forced to banish his friend. And Richelieu did have his own, similarly elite, company of Guards, which did have a great rivalry with the Musketeers, as Dumas describes.
In general, then, we see that Dumas's novel is at least based in history, although he takes great departures. The one great exception to this is Lady de Winter. Courtilz's "Milady" is an entirely private individual, one of the Queen's exiled ladies-in-waiting, with whom his d'Artagnan does indeed have an unscrupulous affair. But she has nothing to do with the Cardinal; certain faux-memoirs that Dumas used provided the detail of a lady "Clarick" who is associated with the theft of the diamond brooch from Buckingham that Dumas relates. Dumas fuses these elements, then, and creates an entirely fictitious character with his Milady. It is interesting that this fictitious character is allowed to so totally dominate part II of the novel, and this certainly says something about Dumas's loyalty to historicity. Milady became a fascinating character, and Dumas was far more concerned with creating interesting fiction, and tying that into history, than in remaining blindly loyal to history.
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