Julia Raevskaya
2 hours ago
Books and films about the brave Gascon have often bypassed some of the historical nuances. The story of the adventures of the Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is one of the most popular for film adaptations. Over the past twenty years, 20 films about the adventures of D’Artagnan and his friends have appeared on wide and small screens. It is not surprising that fans are still interested in various nuances regarding the characters and the plot of the immortal novel.
So, for example, very often you can meet the question about the real name of the protagonist of the work of Alexandre Dumas. Some people even get the impression that d’Artagnan is a pseudonym. In fact, the name of the brave musketeer was Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, and he was a real person. Dumas, when writing his work, often drew attention to historical archives, which made his book unique for its time. The novel about the three musketeers is a bizarre combination of historical facts and the author’s fantasy.
By the way, the name d’Artagnan fit into the text of the book for a reason, it was the name of Charles’s mother. According to some historical reports, it was King Louis XIII who insisted that his subject serve in the musketeer corps not under the name of his father. As for D’Artagnan’s friends, they also had historical prototypes. So, Athos was actually called Armand de Silleg, also known as the lord of Athos and d’Avtiville (Athos is a small village in the south-west of France), Porthos – Isaac de Portau, Aramis – Henri d’Aramitz.
As for other real-life characters in Dumas’ novel, everything is interesting with them. Take, for example, the love triangle of Cardinal Richelieu, Queen Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham. The ruler of France, Louis XIII, although he was jealous of his wife, did not feel passion for her. What can not be said, according to some historical reports, Richelieu, whom Anna allegedly not only rejected, but also terribly humiliated, forcing the dance of the sarabande to dance in front of witnesses. One of the main confessors of France really appeared before the queen in green cropped trousers with bells on stockings. When Richelieu realized that he was doing steps with the ladies hiding behind the tapestries, he retired in anger from the queen’s chambers. And he tried to take revenge on her, including defaming the name of the royal person in front of Louis XIII.
However, there is another opinion, according to which Richelieu was not really in love with Anna of Austria, so here everyone has to choose for himself what to believe. By the way, with the real Buckingham, not everything is so simple either. Indeed, one can find information according to which he courted the wife of Louis XIII. Behind her, as well as other prominent beauties of the French court. In the novel, Dumas allowed himself to romanticize this story; many directors followed him along the same path, including our Soviet director Georgy Yungvald-Khilkevich. So, in our film adaptation, the Duke of Buckingham was passionately in love only with Anne of Austria.
Photo source: collage: stills from the film “D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers”
