The Three Musketeers - FULL
Audio Book - Part 1 of 3 - by
Alexandre Dumas
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The Three Musketeers (
French:
Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, first serialized in March--July
1844. Set in the
17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'
Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to
Paris, to join the
Musketeers of the Guard.
D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends
Athos,
Porthos, and
Aramis, inseparable friends who live by the motto "all for one, one for all" ("un pour tous, tous pour un"), a motto which is first put forth by d'Artagnan.[1]
The story of d'Artagnan is continued in
Twenty Years After and
The Vicomte of Bragelonne:
Ten Years Later. Those three novels by
Dumas are together known as the d'Artagnan
Romances.
The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the newspaper Le Siècle between March and July 1844.
When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers he also was a practising fencer and like many other French gentlemen of his generation he attended the schools for
Canne de combat and
Savate of
Michel Casseux,
Charles Lecour[2] and
Joseph Charlemont (who had been a regular fencing instructor in the
French army).
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In the very first sentences of his preface, Alexandre Dumas indicated as his source Mémoires de
Monsieur d'Artagnan, printed by
Pierre Rouge in
Amsterdam. It was in this book, he said, that d'Artagnan relates his first visit to
M. de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers, where in the antechamber he met three young men with the names Athos, Porthos and Aramis. This information struck the imagination of Dumas so much—he tells us—that he continued his investigation and finally encountered once more the names of the three musketeers in a manuscript with the title Mémoire de M. le comte de la Fère, etc
.. Elated—so continues his yarn—he asked permission to reprint the manuscript. Permission granted:
"Well, it is the first part of this precious manuscript that we offer today to our readers, while giving it back its more convenient title and under the engagement to publish immediately the second part should this first part be successful
. In the meantime, as the godfather is as good as a second father, we invite the reader to address himself to us, and not to the
Comte de
La Fère, about his pleasure or boredom and slept. This being said, let's get on with our story."[3]
The book he referred to was Mémoires de M. d'Artagnan, capitaine lieutenant de la première compagnie des Mousquetaires du Roi (
Memoirs of
Mister d'Artagnan,
Lieutenant Captain of the first company of the
King's Musketeers) by
Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (
Cologne,
1700). The book was borrowed from the
Marseille public library, and the card-index remains to this day; Dumas kept the book when he went back to Paris.[citation needed]
Following Dumas's lead in his preface, Eugène d'
Auriac (de la
Bibliothèque Royale) in 1847 was able to write the biography of d'Artagnan: d'Artagnan, Capitaine-Lieutenant des Mousquetaires-- Sa vie aventureuse-- Ses duels-- etc. based on
Courtilz de Sandras
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PLOT
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, an older man derides d'Artagnan's horse and, feeling insulted, d'Artagnan demands to fight a duel with him. The older man's companions beat d'Artagnan unconscious with a pot and a metal tong that breaks 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.
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Audio is courtesy of Librivox and is in the public domain
- published: 21 Jan 2013
- views: 30665