Summary:

We meet D’artangan making his way to the city of Paris. There he plans to join the musketeers via a letter that he has in his pocket from his father. This plan gets shot down when he is assaulted in the town of meug by a man. D’artagan gets the crap beat out of him and in the next morning wakes up to find his letter gone and his way into the musketeers gone also. When he finally gets to Paris, he runs into 3 musketeers; Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. These three are friends and he proposes a dual with each of them 15 minutes later than the last. When they finally get around to dueling, each of the friends brings the other as a backup. When this is realized, they get into a fight with the cardinals guards. This makes them friends and the cardinal hates them. As the story progresses, D’artagan falls in love with a beautiful young lady. Her husband betrays her to the cardinal for money and D’artagan searches for her throughout the book. Historically this book is actually very accurate. The queen of England is having an affair with the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke is laying siege to the kingdom of France. The Cardinal uses his most prolific spy, a Lady Winter to expose this by taking two diamond studs off a necklace that the queen gave to the Duke. Realizing this, the Queen sends the four friends on a mission to get the studs back, and all but D’artagan are left on the road from fights that they picked while D’artagan ran on with the letter. This plan foils the plot of the Cardinal, and the queen is saved. Shortly afterward D’artagan’s mistress is kidnapped out of a hotel that they were going to share for the night. While doing this he attempts to seduce the Lady Winter, but falls in love with her instead and almost bones her until he sees that she had a brand on her shoulder, which signifies adultery and crime. Then he runs away while she tries to kill him with a knife, which is followed by several other attempts on his life. By this time Athos has found out that Milady Winter is really his ex-wife that he thought had died when he hung her. Milady Winter is then sent to England to kill the duke, but her Brother-in-law catches her before she gets to shore and takes her back to his mansion where she will be imprisoned for fourteen days, then sent to Africa to live in exile. She seduces a guard, sends him to go kill the Duke, and runs away back to France. There she meets D’artagan’s lover who was stolen from the Cardinal by the Queen. Lady Winter becomes good friends with her through trickery and deception. They know that D’artagan and the friends are coming there within a day because they received a letter from them and Milady Winter gets scared because she knows that D’artagan, Athos, and Lord Winter will kill her without a doubt. When she married Lord Winter’s brother in law, it took about two days for him to die of poison. The friends storm the house, and Lady Winter rushes out, but not before poisoning Mrs. Beanux, D’artagan’s lover. She dies in his arms and the Lord Winter rushes in right after the friends get there. They chase Lady Winter down, and on the way they pick up and executioner. They see the Lady through a lighted window and surround the house. Athos approaches the window and she freaks out, but when she opens the door to leave D’artagan is there. They take her out and forgive her for her crimes against them, then chop her head off.