I’m rereading The Three Musketeers and have got to the part where they’re breakfasting on the battlefield, and D’Artagnan is lamenting the enemies ranged against him – the man he picked a fight with over a joke at a tavern, the man he attacked and robbed on the way to London, the woman de tricked into sex by pretending to be someone else, and the powerful politician whose schemes he’s interfered with, not out of any loyalty to the king, but because he’s trying to get into the pants of his landlord’s wife.
These are all his enemies very much as the consequence of his own actions, and the other three musketeers don’t seem to make significantly better decisions, frequently coming across as violent, lying, philanderers with gambling problems.
The Cardinal in contrast, seems less outrightly villainous than he’s often portrayed, a shrewd but aging minister who’s trying to steer France, which is in a precarious position with enemies on all sides, to a secure position, hampered by rival political factions, a fickle, childish king, and a queen who is both related to many of the enemies, and is having an affair with the prime minister of the country they’re nearly at war with.
Maybe I’m just older and more cynical than when I first read it, but I remember the good and bad guys seemed much more clear cut then. Which other books are good to reassess with a more life-experienced eye?
by Accipitridaen
9 Comments
Dumas was, in my opinion, a realist writing romance. He did an excellent job of portraying both protagonists and antagonists as humans with faults.
Much of the dystopian media I consumed as a young man hits differently now: 1984, Brazil, Animal Farm, Neuromancer. When you’re no longer young and invulnerable, and you see the fruitlessness of revolution, these are harder to read but also steel you to make the changes you can.
Yeah, I was surprised when I read this as an adult how much the Musketeers annoyed me. Some of it was the standard old-timey sexism which is to be expected, but some of D’Artagnan’s shenanigans went way over the line.
I suppose I expected some swashbuckling, assholes with hearts of gold protagonists and that is absolutely not what this book is lol.
I’m reminded of a review someone wrote of the 2000’s *The Musketeer* movie:
“Only the Musketeers can stop the Cardinal’s evil plan to make France stronger, and boost morale, and dispose of the weak and stupid king, and… wait a minute.”
I havenʻt read that one since I was a teenager. Decades ago. Even then I found some of the Musketeersʻ acts questionable. But I thought of it as a view into a very different time and admired their bravado and their zest for living.
Maybe Iʻll reread it.
Hah, think that’s true to life. The Cardinal might have been a bit of a bastard, but darn if he wasn’t an extremely clever and efficient bastard! A lot like Hilary Mantel’s version of Cromwell.
I am not an expert but I believe the general consensus is that Cardinal Richelieu was a boon to France and an improvement over recent kings. Not defending his person just his state craft.
So maybe maybe Dumas left the door open for other interpretations?
Dumas had a lot of respect and, I think, a great fondness for Richelieu. In fact, Dumas wrote an entire book about Cardinal Richelieu–The Red Sphinx–which contained this marvelous line (that because I don’t have it in front of me, I must paraphrase), “All great men have a fault but because Richelieu was *so* great, he had three.”
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I think it’s safe to say that Dumas had a complex view of heroes and villains. Even Lady de Winter was treated sympathetically. When she was finally caught by the Musketeers and Lord de Winter, I was struck by how un-triumphant the capture seemed. They lead her out of the abandoned cabin where she had been hiding and this line continues to stick with me,
“Lord de Winter, d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, went out close behind her. The lackeys followed their masters, and the chamber was left solitary, with its broken window, its open door, and its smoky lamp burning sadly on the table.”
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In other words, I think your post is a great testament to Dumas’ brilliance that his novel can read one way to you at one age and more and more complex when you read it again with more experienced eyes.
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Dumas is, easily, one of my favorite writers of all time.
From what I remember in the 2nd book, there is really no bad blood between the Musketeers and the Cardinal. They see him as a kind of worthy opponent, they have a begrudging mutual respect. It makes for an interesting dynamic between them. In the 2nd book there is a new Cardinal and they compare him very unfavorably to Richelieu.
They’re dudebros. French dudebros. That was my impression anyway.