Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan: A First-Timer's Guide to Dumas's The Three Musketeers

In Alexandre Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers, the three musketeers are Athos, Porthos and Aramis, three of the most formidable soldiers in the King's Musketeers of the Guard. The hero, d'Artagnan, is not one of them at first: he is a young man from Gascony who comes to Paris hoping to join the corps, becomes their close friend, and shares their adventures. The novel was written and published in 1844, is set between 1625 and 1628, and is the first of Dumas's three d'Artagnan Romances. So the title counts three, but the story really follows four friends.

Dumas and his collaborator

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) was a French novelist and playwright and one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical adventure novels, including this one, first came out as newspaper serials. The Three Musketeers appeared in the newspaper Le Siècle between March and July 1844.

Dumas wrote it with Auguste Maquet, who also worked on the sequels and on The Count of Monte Cristo. Maquet would research the history and suggest plot outlines; Dumas expanded them, dropped or added characters and gave the story his own lively style.

In his preface Dumas turned the book's origins into a small story of its own. He said he was inspired by Mémoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan (1700), a historical novel by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, which he found while researching a history of Louis XIV. That part is true; the rest, about discovering a secret manuscript of the Comte de la Fère, is his own invention.

Meet the four friends

• d'Artagnan – impetuous, brave and clever, he is loosely based on a real soldier, Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan.
• Athos – the Comte de la Fère, the oldest of the group, who never got over his marriage to Milady and drinks to forget. He becomes a father figure to d'Artagnan.
• Porthos – a dandy who loves fine clothes and wants to make his fortune; he is the least thoughtful of the four but has great physical strength.
• Aramis – a handsome young man torn between a religious calling and his fondness for women and court intrigue.

The story in brief

In 1625 d'Artagnan rides to Paris with a letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers. On the way, a stranger mocks his horse; the stranger's men beat him, and his letter is stolen. The stranger is the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu.

In Paris, chasing Rochefort, d'Artagnan accidentally offends Athos, Porthos and Aramis one after another and agrees to fight a duel with each of them that same afternoon. Before the first duel can finish, the Cardinal's guards arrive to arrest the musketeers for illegal duelling. D'Artagnan takes the musketeers' side, the four win the fight, and a friendship is born.

The first big adventure is the affair of the queen's diamonds. Queen Anne secretly gives the Duke of Buckingham a set of diamond studs that the king gave her. Richelieu, who wants to weaken her, persuades the king to ask her to wear them at a ball. D'Artagnan races to London with his friends, who are picked off one by one by the Cardinal's men; he arrives, gets the jewels back with Buckingham's help, and saves the queen's honour just in time.

The second half turns darker. D'Artagnan falls in love with Constance Bonacieux, the queen's seamstress, but she is kidnapped. He becomes entangled with Milady de Winter, the Cardinal's beautiful and dangerous spy, and discovers that she bears a fleur-de-lis brand, the mark of a criminal, and that she is Athos's wife, whom he thought dead.

How it ends

During the Siege of La Rochelle, Milady arranges Buckingham's murder through a guard she seduces, then poisons Constance before d'Artagnan can rescue her. The four friends catch Milady, hold their own trial, and have her executed. Back at the siege, d'Artagnan is arrested and brought before Richelieu. He hands over a signed pardon that Athos had taken from Milady. Impressed by his frankness, the Cardinal destroys it and writes him a commission as lieutenant of the Musketeers instead. D'Artagnan offers it to each of his friends, but all refuse, so he accepts the promotion he had wanted, though with a heavy heart.

Real history behind the swordplay

Several characters are real people: King Louis XIII, Queen Anne of Austria, Cardinal Richelieu, the Duke of Buckingham and Monsieur de Tréville. Dumas shows the king as fairly weak and often steered by Richelieu, his chief minister. He also highlights injustices and absurdities of the old monarchy, which gave the book a political edge in 1844, when French republicans and monarchists were still arguing fiercely.

Themes: friendship, loyalty and honour

At heart this is a swashbuckler, a story of heroic swordsmen who fight for justice. Its deepest subject is loyalty between friends: d'Artagnan even turns down a career with the Cardinal's guards because he does not want to lose his companions. Yet the book is not simply cheerful. The heroes duel over small insults, keep strict control over their servants, and take justice into their own hands with Milady, which can trouble modern readers.

Legacy and adaptations

The story continues in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. On screen, it has been filmed many times, from a 1921 silent film with Douglas Fairbanks to Richard Lester's 1973–74 films and a two-part French film released in 2023. The words "All for One" and "One for All", the motto people link with the musketeers, have even become the names of powers in the manga My Hero Academia.

Learn with The Three Musketeers: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
all for one, one for all	everyone supports each other	Our team works all for one, one for all.
to cross swords with someone	to argue or fight with them	He crossed swords with his boss.
to come to someone's rescue	to help someone in trouble	His friends came to his rescue.
a hothead	a person who gets angry quickly	Young d'Artagnan was a real hothead.
to stick together	to stay united and loyal	The four friends always stuck together.

Try this: Describe your closest group of friends in three English sentences, using "stick together" and "come to someone's rescue".