Plot brief
The poor d'Artagnan travels to Paris to join the Musketeers. He suffers misadventure and is challenged to a duel by each of three musketeers (Athos, Aramis and Porthos). Attacked by the Cardinal's guards, the four unite and escape.
D'Artagnan and Constance help the French queen give a particular piece of jewelry to her paramour, the Duke of Buckingham. The Cardinal learns of this and coaxes the French king to hold a ball where the queen must wear the jewelry; its absence will reveal her infidelity. The four companions retrieve the jewelry from England.
The Cardinal kidnaps Constance who is later rescued by the queen. D'Artagnan meets Milady de Winter and discovers she is a felon, the ex-wife of Athos and the widow of Count de Winter. The Cardinal recruits Milady to kill Buckingham, also granting her a hand-written pardon for the future killing of d'Artagnan. Athos learns of this, takes the pardon but is unable to warn Buckingham. He sends word to Lord de Winter that Milady is arriving; Lord de Winter arrests her on suspicion of killing Count de Winter, his brother.
She seduces her guard, who then assassinates Lord Buckingham, and escapes to the monastery in France where the queen secreted Constance. Milady kills Constance. The four companions arrive and Athos identifies her as a multiple murderess. She is tried and beheaded.
On the road, d'Artagnan is arrested. Taken before the Cardinal, d'Artagnan relates recent events and reveals the Cardinal's pardon. Impressed, the Cardinal offers him a blank musketeer officer's commission. D'Artagnan's friends refuse the commission, each retiring to a new life, telling him to take it himself, and so he takes it and later on he becomes a well known lieutenant.
[edit]Detailed plot summary
In 1625 d'Artagnan, a poor young nobleman, leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris, with the intention of joining the Musketeer of the Guard.
However, en-route, at an inn in Meung-sur-Loire, d'Artagnan overhears an older man making jokes about his horse and, feeling insulted, demands to fight a duel with him. The older man's companions beat d'Artagnan unconscious with sticks and break his sword; his Letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tréville, the commander of the Musketeers, is stolen. D'Artagnan resolves to avenge himself upon the man, who is later revealed to be the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, who is in Meung to pass orders from the Cardinal to Milady de Winter, another of his agents.
In Paris, d'Artagnan visits de Tréville at the headquarters of the Musketeers, but the meeting is overshadowed by the loss of his letter and de Tréville refuses his application to join. From de Tréville's window, d'Artagnan sees Rochefort passing in the street below and rushes out of the building to confront him, but in doing so he separately causes offense to three of the Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who each demand satisfaction; D'Artagnan must duel each of them in turn that afternoon.
When d'Artagnan prepares himself for the first of the three duels, he realises that his counterparts are friends. But just as he and Athos begin to fight, a number of Cardinal Richelieu's guards appear; they try to arrest the three musketeers and d'Artagnan for illegal dueling. Although outnumbered, the four men win the ensuing battle with the guards and leave together.
D'Artagnan hires a servant, Planchet, finds lodgings and joins Monsieur Dessessart's company of Guards, a less prestigious regiment in which he must serve for two years before being considered for the Musketeers. He falls in love at first sight with his landlord's pretty young wife, Constance Bonacieux. She works for the Queen Consort of France, Anne of Austria, who is secretly conducting an affair with the Duke of Buckingham. The Queen has just received a gift from her husband Louis XIII and trying to console her lover she gives him the diamonds as a keepsake. Cardinal Richelieu, who tries to start a war between France and England, wants to reveal that. Quickly he organises an event and talks the King into demanding that his wife wear the diamonds at this opportunity.
Constance doesn't succeed in sending her cowardly husband to London, but D'Artagnan and his friends decide to help. On their mission they are frequently attacked by the cardinal's henchmen and therefore only d'Artagnan arrives in London. He retrieves the jewels from the Duke of Buckingham and returns them to Queen Anne, just in time to save her façade of honour.
D'Artagnan looks after his friends, who have just recovered from their injuries. He brings them back to Paris and meets Milady de Winter. D'Artagnan quickly develops a crush on the beautiful lady but learns from her handmaiden that she is an agent for the cardinal. He also discovers a fleur-de-lis branded on Milady's shoulder, marking her as a felon. D'Artagnan eludes her attempt on his life and is ordered to the siege of La Rochelle.
Milady fails continuously in killing d'Artagnan and he is informed that the Queen has managed to save Constance from the prison. In an inn the musketeers also overhear the Cardinal asking Milady to murder the Duke of Buckingham (who supports the Protestant rebels at La Rochelle). He even gives her a categorical pardon in written form, but Athos takes it from her and finds a way to have the Duke of Buckingham warned. Milady is imprisoned on arrival in England but soon seduces her guard, Felton (a fictionalization of the real John Felton), and persuades him both to allow her escape and to kill Buckingham, which he does.
On her return to France Milady hides in a convent, where she discovers Constance Bonacieux is also staying. The naive Constance clings to Milady, who sees a chance to get back at d'Artagnan who has crossed her plans with his friends more than once, and fatally poisons Constance before d'Artagnan can retrieve her.
The Musketeers manage to find Milady before she can be rewarded and sheltered by Cardinal Richelieu. They come with an official executioner, put her to trial and sentence her to death. After her execution the four friends return to the siege of La Rochelle. They encounter the dodgy gentleman who has bothered d'Artagnan all the way. The Count of Rochefort arrests d'Artagnan and takes him straight to the Cardinal. When asked about Milady's fate, d'Artagnan can save himself by delivering the Cardinal's endorsement, which had been written for Milady and certifies that the deeds of the carrier are by all means approved by the Cardinal.
The siege of La Rochelle ends in 1628, which also marks the end of the book. Aramis retires to a monastery, Porthos marries his wealthy mistress, and Athos remains with the Musketeers with D'Artagnan as his superior until 1633, when Athos retires to his mansion in the countryside.
The now four Musketeers will meet again in Twenty Years After.
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