French Classics: The Three Musketeers (Part I)

I just finished reading Part I of The Three Musketeers, a masterpiece of French author Alexandre Dumas. Published in 1844, the novel consists of 64 chapters in two parts, with Part I covering Chapters 1-37 and Part II the remaining 27 chapters. The first of the author's three d'Artagnan Romances, The Three Musketeers is among the most widely translated French novels ever written. The version I read was an English translation by William Robson, published in 1894.

As part of my preparation to explore this timeless literary work, I read the biography of the author and learned surprisingly that his name has a matronymic origin, with a meandering, dramatic family history behind. Thomas-Alexandre, father of Alexandre Dumas, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). He was the mixed-race, natural son of the marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie (Antoine), a French nobleman and commissary general in the artillery of the colony, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an enslaved woman of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. In 1775, Antoine took the 14-year-old Thomas-Alexandre with him to France. There, Thomas-Alexandre received his freedom and education at a military school that enabled him to join the French army. Thomas-Alexandre did well in the army and was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first soldier of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army. The family surname (de la Pailleterie), however, was never bestowed upon Thomas-Alexandre, who therefore used "Dumas" as his surname. 

Like his father, Alexandre Dumas adopted Dumas as his surname and began his career by writing articles for magazines and plays for the theatre. He wrote in a wide variety of genres and published a total of 100,000 pages in his lifetime. The Three Musketeers was written in the swashbuckler genre: a genre of European adventure literature featuring a heoric stock protagonist who is skilled in swordsmanship, acrobatics, and guile, and possesses chivalrous ideals. Swashbuckler protagonists are heroic, daring, and idealistic. They rescue damsels in distress, protect the downtrodden, and use duels to defend their honor or that of a lady or to avenge a comrade.

D'Artagnan, the protagonist of the novel, is loosely based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan (1611 – 1673), the French soldier who served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard. A semi-fictionalized memoir of him by French novelist Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (1644 - 1712) formed the basis of Alexandre Dumas’ d'Artagnan Romances, most famously including The Three Musketeers (1844).

Set between 1625 and 1628, The Three Musketeers begins with a young Gascon, d'Artagnan, leaving his provincial home in southwestern France to make his fortune in Paris.  He hopes to join the Musketeers of the Guard, but is not able to join this elite corps immediately. However, he is befriended by three formidable musketeers – Athos, Porthos, and Aramis: "the three musketeers" or "the three inseparables" – and becomes involved in affairs of state and at court.

Among the many themes Alexandre Dumas explored in the novel, I was most impressed by "All for one, and one for all", the unofficial motto of Switzerland, associated with the legendary Swiss hero Arnold von Winkelried. In the book, it was the motto of the four musketeers, namely Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan, who stayed loyal to each other through good times and bad times. In 2002, in honor of his contribution, six Republican Guards carried the coffin of Dumas from its original interment site in Aisne to the Panthéon; the coffin was draped in a blue velvet cloth inscribed with the motto.

While enjoying the fascinating story and plot development of the novel, I also gained insight into France's rich history and culture through extended reading. The first thing I learned was the Maison du Roi, the royal household of the King of France. It comprised the military, domestic, and religious entourage of the French royal family. The Musketeers of the Guard, or King's Musketeers, were an elite fighting company of the military branch of the Maison du Roi.

The Maison du Roi was part of the ancien régime, which literally means "former regime": the political and social system of the Kingdom of France that the French Revolution overturned. The overthrow of the ancien régime was accomplished through the abolition of the feudal system of the French nobility in 1790, the execution of King Louis XVI and declaration of a republic in 1792. "Ancien régime" is now a common metaphor for "a system or mode no longer prevailing."

The Maison du Roi was reinstated during the Bourbon Restoration, the period of French history with the House of Bourbon returning to power after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815. Exiled supporters of the monarchy returned to France, which had been profoundly changed by the French Revolution. Exhausted by the Napoleonic Wars, the kingdom experienced a period of internal and external peace, stable economic prosperity and the preliminaries of industrialisation. However, it was ended by the July Revolution of 1830, marking the beginning of the end of Bourbon rule in France, Spain, Luxembourg, and Italy (Two Sicilies and Parma).

The victory of the July Revolution ushered in the July Monarchy, a liberal constitutional monarchy in France lasting from 9 August 1830 to 24 February 1848, with the Revolution of 1848. Alexandre Dumas also participated in the July Revolution that ousted King Charles X, the last ruler of the House of Bourbon in France. Interestingly, the man who succeeded Charles X and became the "Citizen King" of the July Monarchy, Louis Philippe I, was previously the Duke of Orléans—Dumas' former employer, Louis-Philippe. Many of Dumas' works were completed during the July Monarchy, notably The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

To supplement my reading of the first part of this timeless classic, I watched the 1973 film The Three Musketeers, starring Michael York as d’Artagnan, and Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, and Richard Chamberlain as the three musketeers, alongside Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch, and Faye Dunaway, among other notable actors and actresses. It was a brilliant cast of the time and reminded me of their impressive acting in other films that I watched in my youth. With this nostalgic film, I concluded Part I of my imaginary adventures, and look forward to reading Part II of The Three Musketeers.