Home › The Three Musketeers › The Three Musketeers: Winter

The Three Musketeers: Winter

A spy reported this to Richelieu, who saw in it an opportunity to attack the king, the queen, and the duke all at once. First Richelieu asked the king to give a ballet for the queen and to ask her to wear the diamond studs, and then he sent a message to Lady de Winter in London, telling her to steal two of the studs from Buckingham. Learning of this plot through Mme. Bonancieux, d'Artagnan resolved to serve both his lady and his queen by recovering the jewels. For London the four comrades set out. Beset by the cardinal's men on the road, three were wounded, and only d'Artagnan reached London. There was just time to replace the stolen studs and return to Paris, which d'Artagnan reached on the night of the ballet, foiling Richelieu's plot. He now set out to find his comrades. Porthos he found in bed at an inn, Aramis disputing with doctors of theology, and Athos drunk in a wine-cellar, airing his secret sorrow and defying the landlord to eject him. In his youth, Athos confessed, he had been tricked into marriage with a beautiful fiend, who, he later discovered, carried on her shoulder the executioner's brand, the fleur-de-lys. Horror-stricken, he had slain her.