The character of D’Artagnan is, of course, the focus of the Romances. Dumas frequently admitted that D’Artagnan was the man he could never be. In The Vicomte de Bragelonne, the character expands even further. Although his primary symbolic representation is that of the virtue of Loyalty, he is not devoid of other virtues. He has his share of Cunning, Nobility, and Strength, as well as the virtues of the other characters. He’s a sort of Everyman, superior in every respect, and the only man that can tame him is Louis, the greatest French monarch of them all. The scene in which D’Artagnan goes to the scene of the duel between De Wardes and De Guiche, and from the forensic evidence manages to piece together the details exactly, predates the classic detective fiction that was becoming popular in the States with Edgar Allen Poe’s murders in the Rue Morgue. He has learned to maneuver in royal circles with infinite grace and delicacy, and until the end he boasts that he can always make the king do what he wants. Even outside the D’Artagnan Romances, he has gotten around. He’s found his way onto the big screen countless times, most recently in two major films in the 1990s. He’s found his way onto the stage, not only in Dumas’s own adaptations of the Musketeers saga, but as a walk-on character in Cyrano de Bergerac by Rostand, for example. Many talented authors, in many different ages, have lent their pens to continuations to the saga. Paul Feval and a M. Lassez wrote a series of eight novels based on the adventures of D’Artagnan with a young Cyrano de Bergerac. These are supposedly tales of Grimaud’s, Athos’s servant, related to Athos, and Aramis even makes an appearance. Roger Nimier’s last book was D’Artagnan amoureux, set shortly after The Three Musketeers. He had planned more in the series, but unfortunately died in 1956. The 1993 winner of le Prix Interallie was a novel entitled Le dernier amour d’Aramis by Jean-Pierre Dufreigne, which focuses on Aramis, the most mysterious of the four and the one whose past remains the greatest mystery. Although Dumas’s portrayal of the character of D’Artagnan is the most famous, it was not the first. Dumas got much of his initial material from a book written by a soldier, Courtilz de Sandras, who supplemented his income by writing historical fictions. He published his fictional Memoirs of M. d’Artagnan in 1700, and Dumas, after reading the first volume, used much of the material as his basis for the first part of The Three Musketeers. The real D’Artagnan, although he was Captain-Lieutenant of the musketeers, and he did arrest Fouquet and escort him to prison, was far from the dashing hero Dumas made him. As for the other characters, particularly Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, they also appeared in this fictional memoir, and lacking even the scant details about them that subsequent historians have managed to bring to the light of day, Dumas’s ever-fertile imagination made them three of the most famous men in history.
As a closing, instead of more of my thoughts on the novels, I instead quote what Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about The Vicomte de Bragelonne: “My acquaintance with the VICOMTE began, somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, when I had the advantage of studying certain illustrated dessert plates in a hotel at Nice. The name of d’Artagnan in the legends I already saluted like an old friend, for I had met it the year before in a work of Miss Yonge’s. My first perusal was in one of those pirated editions that swarmed at that time out of Brussels, and ran to such a troop of neat and dwarfish volumes. I understood but little of the merits of the book; my strongest memory is of the execution of d’Eymeric and Lyodot—a strange testimony to the dulness of a boy, who could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in the Place de Grêve, and forget d’Artagnan’s visits to the two financiers. My next reading was in winter-time, when I lived alone upon the Pentlands. I would return in the early night from one of my patrols with the shepherd; a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly retriever scurry upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I would sit down with the VICOMTE for a long, silent, solitary lamp-light evening by the fire. And yet I know not why I call it silent, when it was enlivened with such a clatter of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and such a stir of talk; or why I call those evenings solitary in which I gained so many friends. I would rise from my book and pull the blind aside, and see the snow and the glittering hollies chequer a Scotch garden, and the winter moonlight brighten the white hills. Thence I would turn again to that crowded and sunny field of life in which it was so easy to forget myself, my cares, and my surroundings: a place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech. I carried the thread of that epic into my slumbers, I woke with it unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book again at breakfast, it was with a pang that I must lay it down and turn to my own labours; for no part of the world has ever seemed to me so charming as these pages, and not even my friends are quite so real, perhaps quite so dear, as d’Artagnan.
“Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief intervals in my favourite book; and I have now just risen from my last (let me call it my fifth) perusal, having liked it better and admired it more seriously than ever. Perhaps I have a sense of ownership, being so well known in these six volumes. Perhaps I think that d’Artagnan delights to have me read of him, and Louis Quatorze is gratified, and Fouquet throws me a look, and Aramis, although he knows I do not love him, yet plays to me with his best graces, as to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am not careful, something may befall me like what befell George IV. about the battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the VICOMTE one of the first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. “
So many readers have thought the same over the last century and a half, and many more will in the times to come. Like Dumas itself, the work has many flaws. There are errors in history, chronology, and in some places Dumas even writes the wrong year or gets confused about a character’s age. Dumas always cared more about the drama, the suspense, the history he was creating, rather than the sometimes boring facts of actual history. He took his historical sketch and filled it out from his own imagination, creating characters whose actions changed history within the novels, and who have enlivened history ever since.
There has been much confusion over the years as to which books form the “Musketeers Series” or the D’Artagnan Romances, as they are referred to by scholars. The greatest confusion lies in the manner in which editors split the lengthy third volume of the series. The title of the whole work is The Vicomte de Bragelonne, however, its subtitle is Ten Years Later, and so some older editions use that as the title. Also, the novel is split into three, four, or five volumes, depending on the edition. When split into three volumes, the titles are: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Valliere, and The Man in the Iron Mask. In four volumes the titles are: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise de la Valliere, and The Man in the Iron Mask. The copies of The Man in the Iron Mask that are sold in bookstores today correspond to the last volume of the four-volume edition. The five-volume editions rarely give separate titles to the volumes. Also adding to the confusion is the fact that Dumas considered The Three Musketeers to be two books: The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. The split occurs, naturally, shortly after D’Artagnan is made a musketeer. Some older editions split this book in this fashion. Also, there are two other books that feature the characters of the D’Artagnan Romances that are, however, falsely attributed to Dumas. These two titles are D’Artagnan and the King-Maker and The Son of Porthos. Not only do these novels outright contradict the earlier books in the series, but they were clearly not written by Alexandre Dumas. Many catalogues, however, list them among Dumas’s works. Most commonly, though, the entire D’Artagnan Romances are found in five books, with The Vicomte de Bragelonne being split into three volumes. Here is a listing of them in chronological order, with possible subdivisions listed in parenthesis:
The Three Musketeers — serialized 1844
(The Four Musketeers)
Twenty Years After — serialized 1845
The Vicomte de Bragelonne — serialized 1847–1850
(Ten Years Later)
Louise de la Valliere
The Man in the Iron Mask
For the purposes of the Project Gutenberg etexts, The Vicomte de Bragelonne was split into four texts, using the same divisions as the four-volume editions. However, another text exists, entitled Ten Years Later, which was published by Project Gutenberg before Twenty Years After, even though it occurs later in the story. While it is correct in claiming that it is a sequel to The Three Musketeers, it neglects to acknowledge that Twenty Years After comes between The Three Musketeers and that etext. This etext also, like some novel editions, uses the title Ten Years Later to refer to The Vicomte de Bragelonne as a whole, and it covers portions of the etexts The Vicomte de Bragelonne and the newer Ten Years Later.
What follows are some short biographical details about the real personages behind the characters created by Dumas. Although some of them do not appear in The Vicomte de Bragelonne, they are referred to frequently, and so they were included.