Josh Banks
Per. 1B
Mr. Harward
Pre 20th Century Book Report
The Swashbuckling Life of d’Artagan
The Three Musketeers was written by Alexander Dumas in 1844, and the book
focuses on a young man named d’Artagnan, who wants to become a musketeer in Monsieur de
Treville’s corps in France. Monsieur de Treville is the man in charge of the musketeers in
France, almost like the president of the corps. In the beginning, d’Artagnan leaves home with
two things from his dad: an old yellow horse and a letter of recommendation from his father to
M. de Treville to be able to join the musketeers. From his mother, d’Artagnan receives a recipe
to a herbal remedy that will heal any type of wound and heal it fast. D’Artagnan then begins his
journey to be in the the musketeers, and meets a few influential people along the way and helps
to solve a mystery.
The first person that d’Artagnan meets is in a city named Meung, and while he is there a
man makes fun of him who looks like a sharp dressed man, with a cape and black hair.
D’Artagnan is a Gascon, and Gascon’s are notorious for their inexorable and fiery resilience, and
when he is made fun of d’Artagnan challenges the man to a fight. Some of the man’s guards
come and beat d’Artagnan, knocking him out. When he wakes up, his letter to M. de Treville is
gone, taken by the man. The Gascon then rushes to find the man, but ends up running into Athos,
Porthos, and Aramis, the three prominent fighters in the musketeer corps in France. D’Artagnan
schedules a fight with Athos at 12 o’clock, one with Porthos at one o’clock, and one with Aramis
at two o’clock that day. At the first fight with Athos, Porthos and Aramis realize that they were
supposed to fight the same man that Athos was about to fight, which was d’Artagnan, but before
the fight several of Cardinal’s men come to arrest the four fighters. The four fight the Cardinal’s
men, and then d’Artagnan is accepted by the three famous fighters.
Next, d’Artagnan is accepted by M. de Treville and goes about being a musketeer. He
meets several new people, and ends up getting a servant named Planchet, and one day
d’Artagnan comes home to discover a beggar, Monsieur Bonacieux in his house asking for help,
claiming his wife had been kidnapped. D’Artagnan then agrees to help the man, but the man
soon taken by guards from the Cardinal, and d’Artagnan lets him be arrested instead of being
arrested himself. The police in France set up a “mousetrap” where anyone who comes to try and
find Madame Bonacieux or Monsieur Bonacieux, they are arrested. D’Artagnan hears the
interviews, and then goes and rescues Madame Bonacieux and tries to save her for a while.
Later, d’Artagnan learns about how the queen of France has been in contact with the Prince of
Buckingham, and how she has given him two diamonds that the Cardinal gave to her. This is the
climax and conflict of the story because it starts the political scandal of the Queen meeting up
with the Prince of Buckingham, which then causes France and Britain to go to war later on. The
Cardinal learns of this misconduct and tells the king, who then sets up a ball and requests the
queen to wear the diamonds. She then sends d’Artagnan to go and get one of the diamonds from
the Prince for a jeweler to make extras for the queen. At the ball, the queen foils the Cardinal’s
plan to expose the missing jewels and the political scandal about the queen by having new
diamonds made. The Cardinal is then furious, and admits defeat.
Later, the Cardinal’s personal assistant, Milady, tries to kill d’Artagnan and his friends,
and in the end the friends find Madame Bonacieux. Milady conspires with the Cardinal to kill the
Prince of Buckingham, and to do anything else she can to get back at d’Artagnan for tricking her
into thinking he was Comte, the man she was in love with. Milady is killed at the end of the
story, and order is returned to France.
The rhetorical strategies that Dumas uses to write the Three Musketeers are numerous.
Namely logos, pathos, figurative language, and a didactic tone for Athos, who is like a father
figure for d’Artagnan. A reader would enjoy this book because it is a very exciting, interesting
book and something that every reader will find enjoyable. Whether it’s action, romance, or a
historically accurate book, the Three Musketeers is the book for the job.