Kari Maund, Phil Nanson.
The Four Musketeers: the true story of D'Artagnan, Porthos, Aramis and Athos.
Tempus. 2005
The Three Musketeers, first published in serial form in France in 1844, is an abiding classic.
It has been translated into many languages, repeatedly filmed, and its heroes –
D’Artagnan, Porthos, Aramis and Athos – have become literary archetypes.
Yet, outside France, few people are aware that all four are based on historical figures:
Armand d’Athos; Isaac de Portau; Henri d’Aramitz; and Charles de Batz.
All four came from Gascony, and all four were members of the elite Black Musketeer regiment during the 1640s.
The Four Musketeers gives an account of the historical background of the real four musketeers, who came to Paris in the 1640s and thus witnessed some of the most dramatic moments of seventeenth-century France: the last years of Louis XIII and Richelieu, the turbulent rise to power of Cardinal Mazarin and the wars of the young Louis XIV.