Anne of Austria: (1601-66) Anne was the daughter of Phillip III of Spain. She married Louis XIII in 1615, and after his death, ruled as Regent from 1643–61 with Mazarin as her prime minister. Modern historians reckon that she was almost certainly Mazarin’s lover, but no evidence beyond rumor exists of a secret marriage between the two, as Dumas suggests. She died of breast cancer in 1666, though symptoms of her disease did not appear until 1664. She was supposedly in love with the elder Buckingham in around 1646, but nothing suggests that she was actually his mistress, though many thought so. She was, though, in her youth, one of the greatest beauties of all Europe.
Aramis: Aramis’s real name was Henri d’Aramitz. Like his fictional counterpart, he was a clergyman, a Bernais, and like D’Artagnan, he was a Gascon. He joined the musketeers in 1640, married in 1654, had four children, and died around 1674. He was a nephew to M. de Tréville, captain of the musketeers from 1634–1642. He was never, so far as history can tell, involved with the Jesuits. A German named Nickel was Vicar-General from 1652–1664 and from 1664–1681 an Italian named Jean-Paul Oliva headed the order.
Athos: Athos was, in real life, Armand de Sillegue d’Athos d’Auteville. He was born around 1615, joined the musketeers at the age of twenty-five, and died in Paris in 1643. He was probably a nobleman, as Athos was, and was a Gascon, as D’Artagnan was, and was also a cousin to M. de Tréville, captain of the musketeers from 1634–1642. Dumas claimed, in the preface to The Three Musketeers, to be nothing more than the editor of the memoirs of the Comte de la Fere, presumably the same memoirs Athos is seen working on during the course of The Vicomte de Bragelonne.
Baisemeaux: (1613?–97) Francois de Montlezun joined the musketeers in 1634 where he served with our four heroes’ historical counterparts. He purchased the post of governor of the Bastile in 1658 for forty thousand livres, not one hundred and fifty thousand as Dumas claims, and held the post until his death. He left a fortune of two million livres.
Beaufort: (1616–69) Francois de Vendome, the Duc de Beaufort, was a grandson of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d’Estrees. He was jailed in Vincennes in 1643 for plotting against Mazarin, and he escaped in 1648 (with the aid of Athos and Grimaud according to Twenty Years After). After fighting against the king in the Fronde, he reconciled with the throne in 1653. He died at the siege of Candia.
Belliere: (1608–1705) Suzanne de Bruc, Marquis de Plessis-Belliere, called Elise by Dumas, was widowed in 1654. She was very close to Fouquet, and it was she who organized his social engagements, not Madame Fouquet. When Fouquet was arrested in 1661, she was kept under house arrest until 1665.
Bragelonne: Dumas’s source for the character Raoul de Bragelonne comes from a slight mention of a suitor of Louise de Valliere’s while she was still at Blois. The most likely candidate is Jean de Bragelonne, who was an obscure councilor at the parliament at Rennes. However, there were several other Bragelonnes who were also in the area: Jerome, his son Francois, both soldiers, and Jacques, Gaston d’Orleans’s chief steward. Jean was more than likely related to one of these other Bragelonnes, but historians are not certain as to which.
Buckingham: (1627–87) George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, was the son of the George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who figured so prominently in The Three Musketeers, and Katherine Manners, then the richest heiress in England. After his father’s assassination, he was raised alongside the children of Charles I. He was one of the rakes of Charles II’s court—hot-tempered, unpredictable, and bisexual. Though he had great influence over the king, his disputes with the monarch landed him in the Tower on four separate occasions. His love for Henrietta-Anne Stuart was well-attested, and often drove him to extremities of behavior.
Charles II: (1630–85) Charles Stuart fled to France in 1646, returned briefly to Scotland in 1651, where he was crowned, was routed by Cromwell in September, and returned to France until Mazarin signed a treaty with Cromwell in 1655 declaring the deposed monarch persona non grata in France. With Monk’s support, he finally returned to London as a king in 1661. During his reign there were two wars with the Dutch, the great plague occurred, the Habeas Corpus Act was passed, and the Great Fire swept London. The visit to Mazarin depicted at the beginning of The Vicomte de Bragelonne has its basis in an actual visit paid by the deposed monarch to the Cardinal in Spain in 1659. It was only one of many attempts to gain French support.
Chevreuse: (1600–79) Marie-Aime de Rohan Bazon married the Duc de Chevreuse in 1622. She was a close friend of Anne of Austria, and used many lovers in her plots against Richelieu. Although regularly exiled by Louis XIII, she constantly snuck back to court. She was imprisoned in 1628, escaped in 1637, and fled to Spain, and then England, where she was again briefly imprisoned on the Isle of Wight. She moved to Belgium, and was allowed to return to France by Mazarin in 1643. She was quickly exiled again, but allowed to return under the Amnesty of Reuil in 1649. She continued her intrigues during the Fronde and was named as Raoul de Bragelonne’s mother in Twenty Years After.