The Swashbuckling Press

Anne of Austria: (1601-66) Anne was the daughter of Phillip III of Spain. She married Louis XIII in 1615, and after his death, ruled as Regent from 1643-61, with Mazarin as her prime minister. She was said to have some of the most beautiful hands. Modern historians reckon that she was almost certainly Mazarin's lover, but no evidence beyond rumor exists of a secret marriage between the two, as Dumas suggests. She died of breast cancer in 1666, though symptoms of her disease did not appear until 1664. She was supposedly in love with the elder Buckingham, but nothing suggests that she was actually his mistress, though many thought so, and such an idea led to the story of "The Mysterious Cavalier." by Paul Feval, suggesting that the young Cavalier, named George Villiers, was none other than Anne and Buckingham's love child. Aramis relates, in "The Three Musketeers," that he was one of the soldiers to arrest Buckingham on the night in question, at the garden at Amiens, where the two high officials had an affair that led to the birth of young George. She was, in her youth, one of the greatest beauties of all Europe.

Aramis: His real name was Henri d'Aramitz. Like his fictional counterpart, he was a churchman; and, like D'Artagnan, he was a Gascon (a Bernais). He joined the musketeers in 1640, married in 1654, had four children, and died around 1674. He was a nephew to M. de Treville, captain of the musketeers. He was never, so far as history can tell, involved with the Jesuits. A German named Nickel was Vicar-General from 1652-1664 and from 1664-1681 an Italian named Jean-Paul Oliva headed the order.

Athos: was, in real life, Armand de Sillegue d'Athos d'Auteville. He was born around 1615, joined the Musketeers at the age of twenty-five in the late 1630's or early 1640's, and died in Paris from a duel in 1643. His name was found listed amongst the fallen duellists in a monastery where such acts were recorded. He could really have been a nobleman, just like Dumas' Athos was. But unlike Dumas made him, he was really a Gascon like D'Artagnan was. He was also a cousin to M. de Treville, captain of the musketeers from 1634-1642. Dumas claimed, in the preface to The Three Musketeers, that his story was nothing more than the memoirs of the Comte de la Fere, who (this mysterious comte) becomes Athos in the course of the story. These memoirs, presumably, were the same memoirs Athos is seen working on during the course of The Vicomte de Bragelonne.

Baisemeaux: (1613?-97) Francois de Montlezun joined the musketeers in 1634 where he served with our four heroes' historical counterparts. He purchased the post of governor of the Bastille in 1658 for forty thousand livres, not one hundred and fifty thousand as Dumas claims, and held the post until his death. He left a fortune of two million livres. In the Memoirs of d'Artagnan, it was Baisemeaux, and not Porthos (like Dumas suggests), that had the magnificent golden belt that was only gold on one side. Baisemeaux was also the Musketeer that served with the real d'Artagnan for Mazarin. When Mazarin disbanded the Musketeers in 1642, he asked Monsieur de Treville, captain of the Musketeers, to appoint him his two best soldiers for his personal service. The two men then became known as Mazarin's creatures.

Beaufort: (1616-69) Francois de Vendome, the Duc de Beaufort, was a grandson of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees. He was jailed in Vincennes in 1643 for plotting against Mazarin, and he escaped in 1648 (with the aid of Athos and Grimaud according to Twenty Years After). After fighting against the king in the Fronde, he reconciled with the throne in 1653. He died at the siege of Candia.

Beaumont:Mademoiselle de Beaumont(d.1661) wasthe daughter of Christophe de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont.

Belliere: (1608-1705) Suzanne de Bruc, Marquis de Plessis-Belliere, called Elise by Dumas, was widowed in 1654. She was very close to Fouquet, and it was she who organized his social engagements, not Madame Fouquet. When Fouquet was arrested in 1661, she was kept under house arrest until 1665.

Bragelonne: Dumas's source for the character Raoul de Bragelonne comes from a slight mention of a suitor of Louise de Valliere's while she was still at Blois. The most likely candidate is Jean de Bragelonne, who was an obscure councilor at the parliament at Rennes. However, there were several other Bragelonnes who were also in the area: Jerome, his son Francois, both soldiers, and Jacques, Gaston d'Orleans's chief steward. Jean was more than likely related to one of these other Bragelonnes, but historians are not certain as to which.

Buckingham: (1627-87) George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, was the son of the George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who figured so prominently in The Three Musketeers, and Katherine Manners, then the richest heiress in England. After his father's assassination, he was raised alongside the children of Charles I. He was one of the rakes of Charles II's court - hot-tempered, unpredictable, and bisexual. Though he had great influence over the king, his disputes with the monarch landed him in the Tower on four separate occasions. His love for Henrietta-Anne Stuart was well-attested, and often drove him to extremities of behavior.

Charles II: (1630-85) Charles Stuart fled to France in 1646, returned briefly to Scotland in 1651, where he was crowned, was routed by Cromwell in September, and returned to France until Mazarin signed a treaty with Cromwell in 1655 declaring the deposed monarch persona non grata in France. With Monk's support, he finally returned to London as a king in 1661. During his reign there were two wars with the Dutch, the great plague occurred, the Habeas Corpus Act was passed, and the Great Fire swept London. The visit to Mazarin depicted at the beginning of The Vicomte de Bragelonne has its basis in an actual visit paid by the deposed monarch to the Cardinal in Spain in 1659. It was only one of many attempts to gain French support.

Chevreuse: (1600-79) Marie-Aime de Rohan Bazon married the Duc de Chevreuse in 1622. She was a close friend of Anne of Austria, and used many lovers in her plots against Richelieu. Although regularly exiled by Louis XIII, she constantly snuck back to court. She was imprisoned in 1628, escaped in 1637, and fled to Spain, and then England, where she was again briefly imprisoned on the Isle of Wight. She moved to Belgium, and was allowed to return to France by Mazarin in 1643. She was quickly exiled again, but allowed to return under the Amnesty of Reuil in 1649. She continued her intrigues during the Fronde and was named as Raoul de Bragelonne's mother in Twenty Years After.

Cinq-mars: Henri Coeffier d'Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-mars, executed in 1642 for conspiring against Richelieu with Madam de Chevreuse.

Colbert: (1619-83) Jean-Baptiste Colbert was born in Reins, the son of a minor official and an agent of Richelieu's. He was employed first by the Secretary of State for War, in 1640, and later became Mazarin's intendant in 1655. He purchased a barony in 1658 and entered the aristocracy. Mazarin's words on his deathbed, recommending Colbert to Louis XIV were portrayed by Dumas with accuracy. Mazarin actually said, "I owe you everything, but I pay my debt to your majesty in giving you Colbert." He became Louis's chief minister in 1661 and immediately began administering the reforms necessary after Fouquet's regime. In a decade, he effectively tripled the revenues. Although he did not personally care for him, Dumas's estimation of Colbert's "glorious works" and projects was fairly accurate - in addition to his building projects he also supported many French industries and sent explorers and colonists to America. Although he built the French navy, he eventually became opposed to the wars of Louis XIV, as they thwarted his efforts to keep the budget balanced.

Conde: (1621-86) Louis de Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien, became Prince de Conde in 1646, on the death of his father. During the 1640s he distinguished himself in several battles and gained a name for his military skills. He believed, however, that he had not been rewarded sufficiently, and alienated both the queen and Mazarin to the extent that he was jailed for a year in 1650. In retaliation he raised an army to take the king away from his advisors, failed, and left France in 1653. He continued to fight in every campaign against France until his rehabilitation in 1659, after which he retired to his estates. He returned to service in 1668 and died in battle in 1674.

D'Artagnan: Charles de Batz-Castlemore, sieur d'Artagnan, was born in Tarbes around 1615. He joined Richelieu's Guards in 1635 and then the musketeers in 1644. During the years 1646-1657, when the musketeers were disbanded in actual history, Mazarin used him as a courier. He was appointed second-in-command to the absentee Captain-Lieutenant of the musketeers (a nephew of Mazarin's who had no interest in the work) in 1657, when the company was reformed. Although he only held the rank of Lieutenant, he was the actual commander of the troops. He married in 1659, had two sons, and separated from his wife in 1665. It was indeed the real D'Artagnan who, in 1661, arrested Fouquet, though not nearly as dramatically as Dumas's depiction, and escorted him first to Angers, and later, after the former minister's trial, to Pignerol. He became Captain- Lieutenant of the musketeers in 1667, in other words, the commander of the musketeers, as the rank of Captain-General was reserved for the king himself. During Louis's invasion of the Dutch Republic, he was briefly governor of Lille in 1672. He was killed at the siege of Maastricht in March of 1673. From his few surviving documents, he appears to have been rather an unimaginative soldier with a great respect for authority. He never lost his Gascon accent, which is detectable even in his letters. His spelling was atrocious even by the standards of the time. Dumas bases his character largely on his own imagination and from another fictional work from 1700 entitled The Memoirs of M. d'Artagnan by Courtilz de Sandras, from which he got the basis for the first few chapters of The Three Musketeers. Dumas never, however, read beyond the first volume of Sandras's work, and vastly altered the material he did read, making it uniquely his own. The character of Milady also comes from Sandras's writings, wherein D'Artagnan encounters a mysterious English noblewoman known only as Miledi.

Felton: John Felton (1595-1628), the Puritan zealot who murdered the Duke of  Buckingham at Portsmouth in 1628. In Dumas's version of events (The Three Musketeers, chapter 59), Felton was suduced into his act by Milady.

Fouquet: (1615-80) Raised to power by Mazarin, Nicholas Fouquet was far from the brilliant administrator portrayed by Dumas. He built a vast fortune through blatant abuses of power during his tenure as superintendent of France's finances, and generally dispersed that fortune in the construction of his mansion at Vaux and in his role as a famous patron of the arts. His generous style of management won him admiration, but the members of the court generally resented his obvious corruption. Louis XIV had Fouquet arrested in 1661, more probably from fear of his influence rather than jealousy, though Fouquet did possibly take some liberties with the king's mistress during a royal visit. Belle-Isle was never given to the king; Louis sent a garrison to occupy it after Fouquet had been arrested. Fouquet sold his post of procureur-general to Louis for 1.4 million livres, not Vanel. The real D'Artagnan, Charles de Batz-Castlemore, arrested him in September and escorted him to Pignerol after his three-year trial. Dumas largely altered the character of Fouquet from his historical counterpart, turning him into a Romantic cavalier who had all the qualities Dumas himself admired, and making him a foil for the somewhat lackluster Colbert.

Gassion: Jean, Comte de Gassion (1609-47), Marshal of France.

Guise: Henri de Lorraine (1614-64), Duc de Guise.