Will the real d’Artagnan please stand up!

During the 1900’s there has been many Movie and Television, along with Comic Book adaptations of the famous adventure story by Alexandre Dumas. Starting back in the late 1800’s actually, there was a fifteen minute rendition done on the “new” silver screen; however, the musketeers didn’t actually become “movie stars” until the famous Douglas Fairbanks Sr. portrayed him in his 1921 version – that was followed quickly by his 1929 “Iron Mask,” which was its sequel. Through the years, quite a few actors have played the dashing young Gascon (who was on his way to Paris to seek his fame and glory, and who eventually ran into the famous three musketeers: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis), and among those actors who played the young d’Artagnan, we find the dancer Gene Kelly; Cornel Wilde; and even Chris O’Donnell. And we eagerly await the new kid on the block who is now donning the simple garb of the mighty musketeers, to see how well he will do in this new upcoming movie.

But a question remains: was d’Artagnan a real person? Or was he just the figment of the mastermind of an exceptional writer? (What? No candy bar?) And the answer to this, friends, is a simple ‘yes!’ He was indeed a real man, who eventually (as seen in the last sequel: The Man in the Iron Mask) became captain of the famous band!

Monsieur Charles de Batz de Ogier de Castelmore, comte (count) d’Artagnan indeed existed in the flesh, and came to Paris in 1640 to join the Musketeers. There, he really did run into the three men, along with most of the characters in the story! However, and it must be admitted, Alexandre Dumas was NOT writing an actual history! His work was very much fiction, but was based upon actual history, along with many half-fictionalized memoirs of the day ~ even the supposed memoirs of d’Artangnan himself, which was written by the famous novelist Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras in 1700.

I am very much looking forward to the new Musketeer movie coming out in theaters soon (which, interestingly enough, will have Orlando Bloom playing the sly Duke of Buckingham!), and hope that it lives up to the wonderful novel.

All for one . . . .

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