Posted on 08/27/2020 6:04:50 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
Late this night* in 1628 was the fictional execution of The Three Musketeers antagonist Milady de Winter. This conniving minx bears the fleur-de-lis brand of a teenage crime upon her shoulder — a very naughty beauty-mark indeed — but becomes a secret agent of Cardinal Richelieu. (Richelieu is a point of friction for the Musketeers right from the start.)
This novel — which has long been in the public domain (Text at Gutenberg.org or ClassicReader.com | Free audio book at Librivox.org) — features Milady continually bedeviling the protagonist d’Artagnan. He loves her; she keeps trying to kill him. Pretty typical for these grim annals. (She also used to be Athos’s wife, years ago, until he tried to murder her. Long story.)
To skip to the end of things, Milady is portrayed as having orchestrated at Richelieu’s behest the (actual, historical) assassination of the Musketeers’ buddy the (actual, historical) Duke of Buckingham, which Milady accomplishes by seducing and manipulating his (actual, historical) assassin, John Felton. In reality, Felton was motivated by the stirring Republican sentiment that would soon generate a revolution; in Dumas, he’s a horny dupe who beholds his seductress escaping by sea even as he’s placed under arrest.
Buckingham was (actually, historically) murdered on August 23....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
The movie version with Michael York and Charlton Heston is one of my favorites.
“Cardinal, it must be difficult having so many enemies.”
“I have no enemies. France has enemies.”
I’ll never forget Raquel Welch as Constance.
I thought Oliver Reed was great as Athos.
Why the capitalization of Republican? If it is just the political theory then it should be lowercase... unless this is a GOP inspired assassination. Orangemanbad! Orangemanbad!
The destructive aspect of LOVE. Milady loved power — Richelieu’s type of power. No normal man can live up to that standard to win her over. What happens to the frustrated lover that make things worse is to pine for what they can’t have. Love in many respects is not about the person — the beloved — but their status, their social position, their friends & family, etc., that elevate your position in your own eyes. So, it really boils down to two things: 1) insecurity 2) dopamine.
d'Artagnan didn't love the beautiful bitch. He was a horney dude who wanted to--and did--have sex with her.
(He was also making it with her maid, who helped him escape de Winter's murderous knife-wielding wrath when, after accepting Milady's offer of a night of fun in the sack in exchange for d'Artagnan's murdering the Duke of Buckingham, he reneged on his part of the bargain, in the ensuing scuffle discovered her fleur-de-lis, and barely escaped with his life by jumping out of the window, into the streets of Paris, wearing one of the maid's dresses.)
Was that awesome or what?
I mean, you cannot cast a better movie than Christopher Lee as Rochefort, Richard Chamberlain as Aramis, Heston as the Cardinal, and my all time fave Oliver Reed as Athos.
Both “3 Musketeers” and “4 Musketeers” were superb. I do like the Disney version as well, though, with Charlie Sheen, Keifer Sutherland, Chris O’Donnell, Oliver Platt, and Tim Curry. (BTW, did you know Curry suffered a stroke in 2012 and is in a wheelchair? Sad. Great talent).
On, and another BTW, if you’re as big a Reed fan as I am, there is one movie you have to see once. (It’s so gross and disturbing it’s hard to watch a second time: “The Devils” with OR).
Some historians are saying when Ben Franklin went to France and convinced them to helped Americans......
the beleagured peasants were incentivized to foment their own revolution.
Yes, but lacking the White Anglo Saxon Protestant work ethic, the French were bound to drive their revolution into the ditch.
I am a language maven only, not any arbiter of correctness or propriety, FWIW.
I accepted the capitalization as title, or proper name for the movement that culminated in the French Revolution. Do you disagree? I cannot cite right now but I am sure I have seen that many times in English and French. Sure I have also seen it used more often as a simple adjective and not capitalized. Please correct me.
I think I understood the humor behind your comment, and confess to a little chuckle. Thanks
All Cats Are Grey At Night.
“The Devils”, you mean the Ken Russel movie based on the Book, “ The Devils Of Loudun”?
Saw that on the Upper West Side where it played for only a day or two before it vanished...wasn’t shown anywhere else in NYC. Never found anyone else who had seen it in NYC at the time. Pretty over the top even for Ken Russel. Had read Huxley’s some years before the movie.
For those interested in the non-fiction source, the work is currently available for download at:
https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20150909
That’s the one.
I love it (both movies of course). They stuck closely to the book, and what a cast! Fights arranged by William Hobbes. Brilliant.
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