THE THREE MUSKETEERS
By Alexandre Dumas
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| THE THREE MUSKETEERS By Alexandre Dumas |
Book Summary
D'Artagnan, a poor but noble young Gascon, leaves his house to make his fortune in Paris; He carries a letter of introduction to his father's friend, M. de Tréville, captain of the king's musketeers. On the way to Paris, d'Artagnan's impulsive nature gets him into trouble; they beat him and took away his cover letter. In Paris, however, he obtained an interview with M. de Tréville and was promised free admission to the Royal Academy, where he could learn fencing, horse-riding and good manners; later, with experience, d'Artagnan could aspire to become a musketeer.
As Tréville writes a new letter of introduction, d'Artagnan looks out the window and accidentally sees the person who stole it. He runs after him, and as he pursues him, he offends three musketeers: first, he collides with Athos, wounding Athos' injured shoulder again; he then pushes Porthos away and reveals a partially forged golden sash he wears; and, finally, he offends Aramis by inadvertently drawing attention to a lady's handkerchief. He is challenged to a duel by each of the musketeers. After meeting the Musketeers and starting a fight with Athos, the fearsome Cardinal's guards threaten to arrest them all due to a law that prohibits duels. D'Artagnan joins forces with the Musketeers and helps drive out the Cardinal's men. Thus, almost immediately after arriving in Paris, d'Artagnan became close friends with the Three Musketeers.
One day, the old owner of d'Artagnan, Bonacieux, comes to ask him for help; the owner's young wife, Constance, has been kidnapped, probably by the cardinal's men because she is the queen's servant and knows many of the queen's secrets, secrets which the cardinal desperately wants to reveal so he can discredit the queen , who previously rejected his romantic relationships. advances. D'Artagnan succeeds in rescuing Madame Bonacieux from her captors and, in doing so, falls in love with her. Later, when he sees her inadvertently crossing a bridge with an unknown man, he stops them and discovers that the man is an English nobleman, the Duke of Buckingham, the Queen's secret lover; being English, the man is also an enemy of France. That night, the Queen gave the Duke an elegant gift consisting of twelve diamond plaques in a rosewood box.
When the Cardinal, through his vast and extensive network of spies (one of whom is among the Queen's ladies-in-waiting) discovers that the Queen has given Buckingham the diamond plaques, he asks the King to give a fabulous ball and demands that the queen bring him the king's gift: the twelve diamond plates.
The Queen is terrified when she hears about the ball and hears her husband ordering her to wear the diamond tags. You know very well that they are in London, in the possession of the Duke of Buckingham. Meanwhile, the cardinal sends one of his spies, the elegant and beautiful Milady, to London; he orders her to dance with the Duke, cut at least two of the diamond tags, and return them to the Cardinal so he can use them in a blackmail scheme.
Lista para ayudar a la reina a recuperar las etiquetas de diamantes, cueste lo que cueste, Constance Bonacieux the ruega a D'Artagnan que emprenda el peligroso viaje a London para recuperar las etiquetas de diamantes del duque antes del baile y así salvar la reputation de the Queen. D'Artagnan gladly accepts Constance's request and, accompanied by the three musketeers, undertakes the perilous journey to London. Along the way, they are continually ambushed by the Cardinal's spies, and one by one the Musketeers are unable to accompany d'Artagnan to London.
When d'Artagnan arrives in London, he reports the situation to Buckingham, who discovers to his horror that two of the labels are missing. Immediately, he calls his personal jeweler and orders him to work hard to make exact copies. He gives the copies to d'Artagnan, along with the remaining ten labels and a superb set of preset horses that will take d'Artagnan from London to Paris in twelve hours. Thus, the queen can appear on what appear to be the twelve diamond tags, much to the cardinal's amazement. For d'Artagnan's heroic efforts, the queen secretly presents him with a large and magnificent diamond ring.
After accepting a meeting with Constance (which will never take place because she is again kidnapped by the Cardinal's men), d'Artagnan learns that it is dangerous to stay in Paris: the Cardinal knows everything that is goes to Paris; It will not take long to discover the role of d'Artagnan in the escapade of the diamonds. D'Artagnan therefore decides that now would be a good time to find out what happened to his musketeer friends.
He returns to each of the places where he left them, and finding them all safe and sound, they return to Paris, only to find that they must purchase equipment for the king's next military maneuver: the siege of La Rochelle. Each of the musketeers must find a way to get money, which they always lack.
While pondering how to obtain money, d'Artagnan spots Milady by accident and is overwhelmed by her beauty; he follows her and tries to protect her from an annoying man who turns out to be her brother-in-law. The brother-in-law challenges d'Artagnan to a duel and they fight. D'Artagnan overpowers him, but spares his life. In gratitude for his life, d'Artagnan's brother-in-law, Lord de Winter, presents Milady, Lady de Winter. Meanwhile, Milady's maid sees d'Artagnan and falls in love with him, later telling him that Milady is madly in love with Count de Wardes, the man d'Artagnan injured just before embarking for London. He also gives d'Artagnan a love note that Milady wrote to de Wardes. D'Artagnan is so enraged that he forges Wardes' signature on a reply letter to Milady, arranging a dark, nocturnal rendezvous with Milady. While she thinks she is making love with de Wardes, d'Artagnan is going to make love to her passionately.
The plan works, and afterwards Milady is so happy that she gives d'Artagnan an elegant sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds, promising to kill "that stupid d'Artagnan" for hurting de Wardes, the man with whom she thought she was. love. in darkness.
Later, d'Artagnan is furious, and in revenge on her he replies to another love letter from her to de Wardes, signing Wardes' name under a flippant reminder that milady must "wait her turn" . Milady is so outraged that she asks d'Artagnan to kill de Wardes and, as payment in advance, sleeps with him. d'Artagnan is so taken with Milady's beauty that he impulsively reveals that it is not the first time he has made love to her: earlier, when she thought she was making love in the dark with de Wardes, this was not the case. D'Artagnan was in bed with her.
Milady gets up and tries to kill d'Artagnan and as they fight, her nightgown is torn and d'Artagnan sees a convict's mark marked on one of her shoulders. The discovery of this secret is so terrible that my lady swears that d'Artagnan is going to die. However, thanks to a stroke of luck and the help of Kitty, d'Artagnan escapes.
Telling the adventure to Athos later, the pair discover that Milady is Athos' wife, a woman he thought he had hanged after discovering she was a marked criminal. Athos and d'Artagnan decide to sell Milady's "defiled" ring, which originally belonged to the d'Athos family, and now they can both buy his equipment for the siege of La Rochelle. Meanwhile, Porthos got his gear from his old and greedy mistress, and Aramis got his gear from his beloved friend Madame de Chevreuse.
Before d'Artagnan and the musketeers depart in their separate regiments for the siege, the king falls ill and d'Artagnan's party leaves first, leaving the musketeers for the time being to wait for the king. D'Artagnan is alone for his friends and one day he goes off alone, which is not a wise decision, as two of Milady's hitmen shoot him. Later, during a dangerous mission led by d'Artagnan, the same two assassins try to kill him again. When this attempt fails, Milady decides to have poisoned wine delivered to d'Artagnan, compliments of the "three musketeers". D'Artagnan is unaware that the wine is poisoned and is so busy talking that he does not drink the wine immediately. Instead, another soldier drinks the wine and falls dead.
Meanwhile, the Three Musketeers are enjoying their free time, drinking and joking, and stumble upon the Cardinal, who is on his way to a meeting with Milady, who is staying at the inn the Musketeers have just left. The Musketeers accompany the Cardinal and listen through a broken stovepipe to the conversation.
They learn that Milady is going to London to make sure the Duke of Buckingham is killed; in exchange, the cardinal will take revenge on d'Artagnan. The Musketeers immediately decide on a plan to warn d'Artagnan and Buckingham. Thus, when Milady arrives in England, her brother-in-law, de Winter, takes her prisoner. However, she cleverly bribes her jailer, convincing him (a Puritan religious fanatic) that Buckingham deserves to be executed, and he obeys her.
She then flees to France, where she is determined to complete her revenge against d'Artagnan. She goes to the convent where the queen has placed Constance Bonacieux, d'Artagnan's beloved, for her protection, and there Milady wins the young woman's confidence. Just as d'Artagnan and the Musketeers arrive to rescue Constance, Milady poisons her and escapes.
D'Artagnan and the Musketeers hunt her down, accuse her of her many crimes and execute her. When the full story is later revealed to the Cardinal, he is horrified by the extent of Milady's evil death web and extremely impressed by d'Artagnan's commendable actions. As a result, he drafted a commission for d'Artagnan to become a lieutenant in the King's Musketeers. After offering the commission to Athos, Porthos and Aramis and being rejected by all three, d'Artagnan accepts the prestigious commission at the age of twenty-one.
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