Prestige · $2.99/month
Chapter audio, theme analysis, and downloads
Alexandre Dumas
The bastion holds a dozen corpses, French and Rochellais. Athos takes command. While Grimaud spreads breakfast, the four gather twelve guns and a hundred charges. Athos will not have the bodies thrown down. They may serve. He posts Grimaud in a turret with a loaf, two cutlets, and a bottle, then sits the others on the ground like tailors. Through the loopholes five hundred men in camp take them for heroes or madmen. D'Artagnan asks for the secret. Athos says he saw Milady last night at the Red Dovecot. She is already off the French shore. She asked the cardinal for D'Artagnan's head, after the two shots and the poisoned wine. Porthos and Aramis heard her. D'Artagnan names his four enemies: the man of Meung, De Wardes, Milady, and the cardinal. Athos says they are four as well, one for one. Then Grimaud reports a troop: sixteen pioneers and four soldiers, five hundred paces off.
Athos drinks to D'Artagnan's health and walks onto the breach with his hat in his hand. He asks the workmen to wait until breakfast is done, or to drink to the King of France. Four balls flatten around him. The friends answer. The brigadier and several pioneers fall. The rest run. The four make a sortie for muskets and a half-pike. Grimaud ties a napkin to the pike and plants it. Half the camp cheers. Athos then says he cares little if she kills Buckingham. The duke is English and fights them. What he took from her is the cardinal's blank paper, the licence that would have let her kill D'Artagnan and perhaps the rest. He shows it. D'Artagnan wants it torn. Athos will not give it up for gold. A second troop of garrison soldiers comes on. Athos will not leave: breakfast is unfinished, they have more to say, and the hour is not up. They fire as long as they have loaded guns, then push a strip of wall into the ditch. Three or four Rochellais limp back to the city. Athos looks at his watch. The wager is won.
D'Artagnan wants to go to England and find Buckingham. Athos calls that treason now that they are at war. Porthos offers to get leave and strangle her. Aramis wants the queen told through a clever person at Tours. Athos says a letter to Paris would be known in two hours. The man to warn is Lord de Winter in London. He can watch his sister-in-law and put her where she cannot act. They will write that night. Lackeys can ride if the masters cannot leave camp. Then a cloud comes over them: they have no money. Black and red points move from the city. Grimaud sets the corpses against the wall with hats and guns. Athos runs back for the napkin flag. Balls whistle around him. None hit. The Rochellais waste a volley on the dead and lose the minutes the four need to walk, not run, to camp.
More than two thousand have watched a breakfast they take for sport. Monsieur de Busigny owns the wager. The cardinal sends La Houdinière, hears the names, and murmurs that these four must be on his side. That evening he tells Monsieur de Tréville to send him the napkin as a standard and to take D'Artagnan into the Musketeers. Tréville invites them to breakfast. D'Artagnan is beside himself. Athos says they can now talk as cardinalists. Dessessart offers help with the new equipment. D'Artagnan asks him only to value the queen's diamond. The next day a valet brings seven thousand livres. That is the price of the ring, and of the road they could not fund from the bastion.
The work that matters often happens in the hour nobody is allowed to overhear. In the bastion Athos shows the cardinal's blank paper, refuses D'Artagnan's wish to tear it, and will not leave until they have named Lord de Winter and the lackeys, even as a second troop climbs the ditch.
Hold the hour you paid for until the real decision is spoken, not only until the shooting stops.
Athos has a phrase the cardinal need not investigate: a family affair. Aramis has the lackeys. Porthos has the diamond. After breakfast with Monsieur de Tréville they meet at Athos's lodging to decide who writes, and who rides.
What this chapter proves — the patterns beneath the scene
In this chapter: Choosing Your Company · Loyalty When It Costs.
The cards below name the patterns this chapter proves — carry them with you into Dumas's yard at Meung, the noon fight, the diamond road, the bastion breakfast, and the trial on the Lys.
Choosing Your Company
The four take the Bastion Saint-Gervais so they can talk without camp walls. Athos will not throw the corpses down. They may serve. Grimaud watches from a turret while the friends eat and write a family letter. The company has become a council.
Key Insight
When the room you share is full of listeners, real company builds a room the listeners cannot enter, even if that room is a ruined bastion.
Loyalty When It Costs
In the bastion they write to Lord de Winter. Planchet takes half the money and a clock. The lackey, not the toast, is the loyal instrument. If he is late, Buckingham dies and Constance stays in reach of a woman who does not forgive.
Key Insight
The cost of loyalty often sits on the person with the least rank. If your plan needs a servant to ride, the honour is his hours, not your phrase.
Chapter 47
As Athos had foreseen, the bastion was only occupied by a dozen corpses, French and Rochellais. “Gentlemen,” said Athos, who had assumed the command of the expedition, “while Grimaud spreads the table, let us begin by collecting the guns and cartridges together. We can talk while performing that necessary task. These gentlemen,” added he, pointing to the bodies, “cannot hear us.” “But we could throw them into the ditch,” said Porthos, “after having assured ourselves they have nothing in their pockets.” “Yes,” said Athos, “that’s Grimaud’s business.” “Well, then,” cried D’Artagnan, “pray let Grimaud search them and throw them over…
Public-domain chapter text, formatted for reading.
List the four plans spoken in the bastion (England, strangling, the queen, Lord de Winter) and mark which Athos kills, which he keeps, and why money then becomes the last wall. Write one sentence naming the decision you would have forced before walking back to camp.
When did you leave a hard talk unfinished because the room started cheering, and what decision had to travel later at a higher cost?
Purchase the complete book to access all chapters and support classic literature
Available in paperback, hardcover, and e-book formats
Other theme-by-theme analyses from this book.
The Cassock He Asked For
Follow the Gascon who wants a cassock and is offered a commission.
A Trial Honour Will Not Name
Sit the trial on the Lys and ask what honour will not name.
Every Smile Hides a Warrant
Hear the court before you trust a smile or a warrant.
A Blank the Cardinal Already Signed
See what it costs to please a king and a cardinal at once.
Deep diving the literary elements.
Guides, life skills, and the full library.More ways to read The Three Musketeers: guides, life skills, and the wider library.
Unlock study guides and downloads, early access, and exclusive content — and support free access for everyone.
