The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
Title: The Three Musketeers.
Author: Alexandre Dumas.
Genre: Fiction, literature, historical fiction, adventure, romance, politics.
Country: France.
Language: French.
Publication Date: 1844.
Summary: Set in 1625-1628, the book recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although D'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age: Athos, Porthos and Aramis, and gets involved in affairs of the state and court.
My rating: 8.5/10.
My Review:
♥ He felt that such a coalition of four young, brave, enterprising, and active men ought to have some better object than swaggering walks, fencing lessons, and more or less witty practical jokes.
In fact, four such men, devoted to one another with their lives as well as their purses; four men always supporting one another, never yielding, executing singly or together the plans they made together; four arms ready to attack at the four cardinal points or to join together in a single attack - four such men must inevitably, surreptitiously or openly, by cunning or by force, clear a way toward the goal they wished to reach, however well it might be defended or however distant it might seem. The only thing that surprised d'Artagnan was that his friends had not yet thought of this.
♥ ...it also seemed that she was not wholly unmoved by him, an irresistible charm for novices in love.
♥ We have observed that young cavaliers received presents from their king without shame; let us add that in those times of lax morality they were no more delicate with respect to their mistresses, and that the latter almost always gave them valuable and durable mementos of this love - as if they tried to compensate for the fragility of their sentiments by the solidity of their gifts.
Without a blush, men then made their way in the world by means of women. Those who were only beautiful gave their beauty, from which doubtless comes the proverb, "The most beautiful girl in the world can only give what she has." Those who were rich gave in addition a part of their money; and there was many a hero in that gallant period who would neither have won his spurs in the first place nor his battles afterward without the more or less full purse that his mistress fastened to the saddle bow.
♥ ...and there was almost no self-interest in the beginning of the love that had been the consequence of that sight. We say almost, because the idea that young, beautiful, kind, and witty woman is at the same time rich takes nothing from the beginning of love, but on the contrary strengthens it.
♥ We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.
♥ "For tell me, where could you find a love like mine - a love that neither time nor absence nor despair can extinguish, a love that contents itself with a lost ribbon, a stray look, or a chance word?
"It is now three years, madame, since I saw you for the first time, and during those three years that is the way I have loved you."
♥ In all of this, as may have been observed, there is one person with whom, despite his precarious position, we seem to have been very little concerned. That person was M. Bonacieux, the respectable martyr of the political and amorous intrigues so inextricably entangled during that licentious and chivalrous period.
♥ The expression was imprudent; but M. de Tréville was fully aware of that when he used it. He wanted an explosion, because that throws forth fire and fire illuminates.
♥ ...as everybody knows, nothing makes time pass more quickly than thinking.
♥ "Are we embarking on a campaign?"
"A most dangerous one, I warn you."
"Bah! But if we do risk being killed," said Porthos, "at least I would like to know why."
"You would not be much the wiser," said Athos.
"I agree with Porthos," said Aramis.
"Does the king give you such reasons? No. He says to you jauntily, 'Gentlemen, there is fighting in Gascony or in Flanders - go there and fight,' and you go there. Why? You do not concern yourself about it."
"D'Artagnan is right," said Athos. "Here are our three leaves of absence from Monsieur de Tréville, and here are three hundred pistoles from I know not where. So let us go and get killed wherever we are told to go. Is life worth the trouble of so many questions? D'Artagnan, I am ready to follow you."
"And so am I," said Porthos.
"And so am I," said Aramis.
♥ With the first rays of day their tongues were loosened; their gaiety revived with the sun. It was like the eve of a battle: their hearts beat quickly, their eyes laughed, and they felt that the life they were perhaps going to lose, was after all a good thing.
♥ Glancing at the handsome young man - who was scarcely twenty-five years old and whom he was leaving bloody, unconscious, and perhaps dead - he sighed at the strange fate that leads men to destroy each other for the interests of people who do not know them and often do not even know that they exist.
♥ "We are safe on this side," said Buckingham, turning to d'Artagnan. "If the studs have not yet gone to Paris, they will not arrive till after you do."
"Why not?"
"I have just placed an embargo on all vessels presently in his Majesty's ports, and without my express permission, no one will dare raise anchor."
D'Artagnan looked with stupefaction at the man who thus used the unlimited power with which he had been invested by a trusting king to further his own amorous intrigues. Buckingham saw by the expression of the young man's face what was passing through his mind, and he smiled.
"Yes," he said, "Anne of Austria is my true queen. At a word from her, I would betray my country, my king, my God. She asked me not to send the Protestants of La Rochelle the assistance I had promised them, and I have not done so. I broke my word, it is true, but of what importance is that? I obeyed her wishes, and have I not been richly paid for that obedience? I owe her portrait to that obedience."
D'Artagnan was amazed to see by what fragile and unknown threads the destinies of nations and the lives of men are suspended.
♥ Everyone knows that God protects drunkards and lovers.
♥ A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the same tears as a sincere man. All falsehood is a mask, and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always distinguish it from the true face.
♥ Our Béarnais was a tactful young man, so he had pretended to believe all that the vainglorious Musketeer had told him: he was convinced that no friendship could hold out against one party's secret being discovered by the other, especially when that secret involves a person's pride. Besides, we always feel superior to those whose lives we know better than they think we do, and because of d'Artagnan's projects of future intrigue and his intention to make his three friends the instruments of his fortune, he was not sorry to get into his grasp beforehand the invisible strings by which he hoped to move them.
♥ Nothing makes time pass more quickly or more shortens a journey than a thought that absorbs all the faculties of the one who thinks. External existence then resembles a sleep of which this thought is the dream. By its influence, time has no measure, space no distance. We depart from one place and arrive at another - that is all. Of the interval between the two, nothing remains in the memory but a vague mist in which a thousand confused images of trees, mountains, and landscapes are merged.
♥ Vous qui pleurez un passé plein de charmes,
Et qui trainez des jours infortunés,
Tous vos malheurs se verront terminés,
Quand à Dieu seul vous offrirez vos larmes,
Vous qui pleurez!
You who weep for pleasure fled,
While dragging on a life of care,
All your woes will melt in the air,
If to god your tears are shed,
You who weep!
♥ "Dust I am, and to dust I return. Life is full of humiliations and sorrows," he continued, becoming still more melancholy: "all the ties that attach man to life break in his hands, particularly the golden ties. Oh, d'Artagnan" - Aramis's voice was now slightly bitter - "take my advice - conceal your wounds when you have any. Silence is the only refuge of the unhappy. Beware of giving anyone the clue to your griefs, for the curious come to suck our tears as flies suck the blood of a wounded deer."
♥ Of all his friends, Athos was the eldest, and the least resembling him in appearance, tastes, and sympathies; yet he entertained a marked preference for that gentleman. His noble and distinguished air, those flashes of greatness which from time to time broke out from the shadows in which he voluntarily hid himself, that unalterable evenness of temper which made him the most pleasant companion in the world, that imaginative and cynical gaiety, that bravery which might have been termed bind if it had not been the result of the rarest coolness - such qualities attracted more than d'Artagnan's esteem or friendship, they attracted his admiration.
...Besides all else - in an age when soldiers did not always live up to the commands of their religion and their conscience, when lovers did not always meet the criteria of our more demanding era, and when the poor did not always obey the Seventh Commandment - Athos's probity was irreproachable. He was a most extraordinary man.
And yet this nature so distinguished, this creature so beautiful, this spirit so fine, was seen to turn insensibly toward a purely material life, as old men turn toward physical and moral imbecility. In his hours of gloom - and those hours were frequent - the whole luminous portion of Athos was extinguished, and his brilliant side disappeared as into a profound darkness.
Then, the demigod vanished, he remained scarcely a man. His head hanging down, his eyes dull, his speech slow and painful, he would spend hours staring at his bottle, his glass, or at Grimaud, who was accustomed to obeying his signals and could read in the faintest glance of his master his least desire, which he satisfied immediately. If the four friends were together at one of those moments, an occasional word thrust forth with considerate effort was Athos's share in the conversation. On the other hand, he drank enough for four, but without showing any effects from the wine other than a more noticeable frown and a deeper sadness.
♥ "Then acknowledge, you stony heart," said d'Artagnan, "that you are wrong to be so hard upon us tender hearts."
"Tender hearts, pierced hearts," Athos responded.
♥ Amid all this, d'Artagnan also noticed that not one woman responded to Porthos's gallantries. The sufferings of the procurator's wife stemmed from a fantasy - but isn't fantasy the basis of all love and jealousy?
♥ "One may gamble with anybody, but one may fight only with equals."
♥ ...he who chases the eagle pays no attention to the sparrow.
♥ "Ah, you do not love me," cried Kitty, "and I am very unhappy!"
To this reproach there is one response that always fools a woman. D'Artagnan replied in such a manner that Kitty remained fooled.
♥ Aramis was again inclining to the priesthood. Athos, according to his system, neither encouraged nor discouraged him, believing that everyone should be left to his own free will. He never gave advice except when it was asked, and even then he had to be asked twice.
"People in general," he said, "only ask advice in order not to follow it - or if they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for having given in.
♥ The four friends were reunited.
Their four faces expressed four different feelings: that of Porthos, tranquility; that of d'Artagnan, hope; that of Aramis, uneasiness; that of Athos, unconcern.
♥ "I am not sorry to have killed that fellow, my boy, since one Englishman the less is always a blessing. But if I had pocketed his pistolets, they would have weighed me down like remorse."
♥ "Golden dreams!" cried Aramis. "Oh, life is beautiful life! Yes, we are young, yes, we shall yet have happy days!"
♥ This woman exercised an incredible power over him; he hated and adored her at the same time. He would never have believed that two such opposite sentiments could inhabit the same heart and, by their union, constitute so strange, and as it were, diabolical, a passion.
♥ "D'Artagnan," said Athos, taking his hand, "you know I love you. If I had a son, I could not love him better."
♥ It would be wrong to judge the actions of one period from the point of view of another. What would now be considered disgraceful to a gentleman was at that time a very simple and natural affair, and the younger sons of the best families were frequently supported by their mistresses.
♥ The heart of the best woman is pitiless toward the sorrows of a rival.
♥ "What do you want with me?" she said. "Why do you place your hands on me?"
"I thought that Madame was feeling faint, and I wished to help her," responded the maid, frightened at her mistress's terrible expression.
"I feel faint? I? Do you take me for half a woman? When I am insulted I do not faint - I avenge myself!"
♥ Milady smiled strangely.
"Then you love me?" she asked.
"Do I have to tell you so? Have you not seen it?"
"Perhaps. But you know, the more the heart is worth the capture, the more difficult it is to be won."
"Oh, difficulties do not frighten me. I dread only impossibilities."
"Nothing is impossible to true love."
"Nothing, madame?"
"Nothing."
♥ D'Artagnan had gained the summit of all his wishes. It was no longer a rival who was beloved, but himself. A secret voice whispered deep inside him that he was only an instrument of revenge, that he was only being caressed before being used to kill another; but pride, self-love, madness, silenced that voice and stifled its murmurs.
♥ "Each of us will wait at one of the palace gates with three Musketeers behind him, and if we see a suspicious-looking closed carriage come out, we will attack it. We haven't had a skirmish with Monssieur le Cardinal's Guards for a long time - Monsieur de Tréville must think we are dead."
♥ D'Artagnan and Athos mounted, and all four set out together: Athos on a horse he owed to his wife, Aramis on a horse he owed to his mistress, Porthos on a horse he owed to his procurator's wife, and d'Artagnan on a horse he owed to his good fortune - the best possible mistress.
♥ "My friend," said Athos gravely, "remember that it is only the dead we are not likely to meet again on this earth. I think you know that as well as I do."
♥ "D'Artagnan, my friend, you are brave, you are prudent, you have many excellent qualities - but women will be your ruin!"
He had come to his melancholy conclusion as he entered the anteroom.
♥ ...for if I am not mistaken, you came to Paris with an ambition of making your fortune."
"I am at the age of extravagant hopes, monseigneur."
"There are not extravagant hopes except for fools, monsieur, and you are not a fool."
♥ "You wouldn't happen to be so arrogant as to feel that I have not made you an offer equal to your value?" asked the cardinal disdainfully.
"Monseigneur, on the contrary, your Eminence is a hundred times too kind to me, and I think I have not yet proved myself worthy of your goodness. The siege of La Rochelle is about to begin, monseigneur, and you will be able to observe me. If I have the good fortune to distinguish myself in your eyes, then there will at least be some brilliant action to justify the protection with which you honor me. Everything in its own time, monseigneur. Later, I may have the right to give myself, but now I would seem to sell myself."
♥ That night Monsieur Des Essarts's Guards and Monsieur de Tréville's Musketeers, who had all become friendly, gathered together. They were parting and would meet again only when and if it pleased God; the night wad therefore somewhat riotous, for in such cases extreme concern can only be remedied by extreme insouciance.
♥ Besides, since every great action brings its reward, d'Artagnan's behavior restored his peace of mind. In fact, he believed that he might well allow himself to relax his guard, since one of his two enemies was dead and the other now devoted to his interests.
This ease of mind proved one thing - that d'Artagnan did not yet know Milady.
♥ There were also less agreeable visits: there were rumors that the cardinal had on several occasions nearly been assassinated.
It was true that the cardinal's enemies said that it was he himself who had set those bungling assassins to work, in order to have, if necessary, a reason for reprisals; but we must not believe a minister's enemies any more than we believe the minister himself.
♥ "Our situation is truly strange," continued Athos, laughing. "We have been able to go on living only because each believed the other dead, and because a memory is less oppressive than a living person - though a memory can sometimes be quite devastating."
♥ "Then it is useless to struggle any longer. I may as well blow my brains out, and be finished with it," said d'Artagnan, discouraged.
"That should be the last folly to commit," said Athos, "since it is the only one for which there is no remedy."
♥ "Gentlemen," said Athos, "the principal question is not which of our four lackeys is the most discreet, the most strong, the most clever, or the most brave, but which of them most loves money."
"What Aramis says is very sensible," said Athos. "We must consider people's faults, not their virtues. Monsieur l'Abbé, you are a great moralist."
♥ ...said Athos, who was an optimist about things and a pessimist about people.
♥ There was a moment of complete silence during which everyone was affected according to his own nature.
♥ "Gentlemen, we must make allowance for accidents! Life is a rosary strung with little miseries, and the philosopher tells them with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am. Sit down and let us drink."
♥ "Tell me what is happening. I have enough courage to face any danger I can foresee, any misfortune I understand."
♥ How many plans for revenge - against Mme. Bonacieux, against Buckingham, above all against d'Artagnan himself - did she conceive by the light of the blazing fury of her passion.
♥ "No violence. Violence is a proof of weakness."
♥ "Felton, my boy, did you not realize that you were assumed to be a novice, and that this was the first act of a play that we shall undoubtedly have the pleasure of following out to the very end?"
"I thought that was so, my lord," said Felton, "but since she is a woman, I wanted to treat her with the care that every gentleman owes to a woman - if not for her sake, at least for his own."
♥ "Weak or strong," she thought, "that man has a spark of pity in his soul. From that spark I will make a flame that will devour him. As for de Winter, he fears me because he knows what to expect of me if I ever escape from his hands, so it is useless to attempt anything with him. But Felton is different. He is a young, naive, pure man who seems to be virtuous - there are ways to destroy such as him."
She went to bed and fell asleep with a smile on her lips. Anyone who would have seen her sleeping might have thought she was a young girl dreaming of the wreath of flowers she was to wear on the next holiday.
♥ "Foolish man!" cried Milady. "Poor foolish man who dares to answer for another man when the wisest of men, those most after God's own heart, hesitate to answer for themselves."
"He is not like the curséd d'Artagnan! A Puritan adores only virgins, and he adores them by praying to them. A Musketeer loves women, and he lobes them by taking them in his arms."
♥ Milady had achieved a half-triumph, and this success redoubled her strength.
It was easy to conquer, as she so often had, men who were used to the gallantries and intrigues of life at court and who were quick to let themselves be seduced. She was beautiful enough not to find much resistance on the part of the flesh, and clever enough to prevail over any obstacles of the mind.
But this time she had to contend with an unsophisticated nature, unswervingly restrained and austere: religion and its observances had made Felton inaccessible to ordinary seduction. His head was so filled with vast tumultuous plans that there was no room for the capriciousness of physical love - that sensation which germinates in leisure and blossoms in corruption. Milady had by her false virtue made a breach in the opinion of a man horribly prejudiced against her, and her beauty had done the same in his chaste and pure heart. She had used resources she had not known she possessed in order to conquer the most rebellious subject that both nature and religion could have faced her with.
♥ She also knew very well that women condemned to deportation had much less powerful means to seduce than the supposedly virtuous woman who lives in fashionable society and whose beauty and style are endorsed by the worldly approval of the aristocratic milieu. To be condemned to painful and disgraceful punishment does not stop a woman from being beautiful but it is an obstacle to the recovery of her power. Like all persons of real genius, Milady knew what suited her nature and her abilities. Poverty was repugnant to her; degradation took away most of her greatness. Milady was a queen only among queens: her satisfaction was dependent on gratified pride, and to command inferior beings was a humiliation rather than a pleasure for her.
♥ "God abandons those who abandon themselves," said Milady.
♥ There are hours that last a year.
♥ There is a kind of predestination that enables great criminals to surmount all obstacles and escape all dangers until the moment when a wearied Providence has decided on their downfall.
♥ ...landing at Boulogne after a two-day crossing, she posed as a Frenchwoman whom the English had persecuted in Portsmouth out of their hatred of France.
She also had the most effective of passports - her beauty, her distinguished manner, and the generosity with which she distributed her pistoles.
♥ "Very good. Adieu, Rochefort."
"Adieu, Countess."
"Give my best to the cardinal."
"Give mine to Satan."
♥ Athos walked slowly and gravely over to his friend and embraced him tenderly. When d'Artagnan burst into wrenching sobs, Athos said to him in his noble and persuasive voice, "My friend, be a man. Women weep for the dead, men avenge them!"
♥ D'Artagnan buried his face against Athos's chest and began to sob again.
"Weep," said Athos, "weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas, I wish I could weep like you!"
♥ Like every weak man, Louis XIII was not a generous one.