The Three Musketeers

In France in 1625, eighteen-year-old d’Artagnan sets out for Paris with a yellow horse, very little money and his father’s advice to fight whenever he can. He hopes to join the king’s musketeers, and takes laughter at his horse as an insult to his honour. Alexandre Dumas’s historical adventure begins with a young man whose courage is considerably better developed than his judgment. His eagerness makes even an introduction a hazardous business.

Paris offers him company equal to his appetite for trouble. Athos speaks little and carries himself with a gravity that commands respect; Porthos enjoys being admired, especially when wearing an expensive sword belt. Aramis talks of entering the Church while remaining attentive to worldly pleasures. Together with d’Artagnan, they can turn a conversation into a quarrel almost without noticing. Their quick exchanges make them entertaining companions, and the practical problems of paying for dinner and keeping a servant bring their grand ambitions down to earth.

Beyond their lodgings, the rivalry between the king’s musketeers and Cardinal Richelieu’s guards makes personal loyalty a political matter. The queen’s household draws these young swordsmen towards a world where a confidence or an errand can carry consequences they barely understand. Dumas moves easily between boastful talk, hurried journeys and rooms where someone is listening at the door. The pace gives you plenty of reasons to turn a page, but it is the company that makes the journey inviting: four men ready to stake their lives on one another, still arguing about how to live.