Character guide

D'Artagnan

major

Also known as d'Artagnan, M. d'Artagnan, Captain d'Artagnan, Monsieur d'Artagnan

D'Artagnan moves through this world as a man whose voice is recognized before his face — Parry knows him through a bolted door, and even the exiled Charles II remembers him from a Blois antechamber. He serves the crown but not blindly, and his blunt Gascon honesty ('I come on my own part') makes him a hinge between kings, exiles, and old friends. His arrival at a sleeping king's window in fisherman's disguise sets the political machinery of the novel turning.

Athos

major

Also known as Comte de la Fère, Monsieur le Comte, M. de la Fère

Athos has raised Raoul with an inflexible code — refusing Condé's dazzling offers, steering his son through the shifting loyalties of the Fronde so that the young man earns ten victories and no shame. The result is a father and son separated for a year, sustained only by letters, and a household where a gardener's indignant 'Humph!' gives way to wild delight at Raoul's return. His rigid integrity shapes Raoul's character and quietly anchors the novel's moral center.

Porthos

major

Also known as M. Porthos, M. du Vallon, Baron du Vallon

Porthos arrives at Saint-Aignan's door to demand satisfaction for an insult to Raoul, and he will not be talked out of it — not by protestations of innocence, not by a servant's inventory of letters received. He settles onto a couch that creaks but does not give way, and when the missing note is found in a keyhole, he takes it as simple proof he was right all along. His loyalty to his friends is absolute and his methods are gloriously direct, making him both comic relief and a genuinely dangerous man.

Aramis

major

Also known as M. d'Herblay, Abbé Aramis, Bishop of Vannes

Aramis moves through the palace as a name everyone invokes and no one can find — the king calls for him, Anne of Austria blushes at the mention of the old musketeer, and Philippe conducts himself flawlessly using descriptions and keynotes supplied by his absent accomplice. He is the architect of the novel's most audacious scheme, a man whose depth is compared to Richelieu's without Mazarin's avarice. His disappearance at the critical moment is itself a move in a longer game.

Louis XIV

major

Also known as King Louis XIV, Louis, the King

Louis is at the threshold of personal rule, surrounded by courtiers telling him he is the greatest of men, his self-sufficiency ripening toward 'L'État, c'est moi.' Yet the same king who inspires awe is timid before the gentle La Vallière, the only favorite who loves him for himself. His awakening ambition, his entanglement with Madame Henriette and La Vallière, and his rivalry with Fouquet drive the court intrigue that shapes the novel's middle arc.

Philippe

major

Also known as Philippe d'Orléans, the unfortunate Philippe, the false king

Philippe conducts himself so perfectly — the voice, the air, the manners — that family, officers, and servants suspect nothing, and he marvels at Providence's reversal of fortune. But he feels a specter gliding between him and his new glory whenever Aramis fails to appear, and an unexpected Spanish phrase from Anne of Austria nearly undoes him. His borrowed majesty, sustained by an accomplice's descriptions, makes him the novel's most precarious figure.

Nicolas Fouquet

major

Also known as M. Fouquet, Fouquet, Monsieur Fouquet, the Superintendent

Fouquet moves through the court as a patron of artists and a master of lavish display, yet every courtesy he offers Louis XIV is weighed against the suspicion that his fall is already decided. In his tense interview with the young king, he reads danger in a hesitation and chooses, moment by moment, whether to retreat or to play his last cards. His fate anchors the novel's central contest between magnificence and royal absolutism.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

major

Also known as Colbert, M. Colbert, Monsieur Colbert

Colbert stands at Vaux among the splendors of his rival's fête, cold and watchful while everyone else is dazzled, waiting at the corner of an avenue for a sign from the king. Where Fouquet charms and spends, Colbert calculates and endures, and his patient administration of the king's resentment is as deliberate as any poison. His quiet ascendancy gives the novel its engine of political menace.

Raoul de Bragelonne

major

Also known as Raoul, M. de Bragelonne, Vicomte de Bragelonne

Raoul returns from war expecting to marry the woman he loves, only to find his father counseling patience and an illustrious alliance instead. He is a man of the sword and of duty, quick to defend his mother's honor yet unable to press his own suit against Athos's implacable reserve. His devotion, tested by court intrigue and royal desire, makes him the novel's moral center and its most vulnerable heart.

Louise de La Vallière

major

Also known as La Vallière, Mademoiselle de La Vallière, Louise

Louise arrives at court with a childish flame already kindled for Louis XIV, and her modesty makes her the perfect screen for the flirtations of grander women. She is the only favorite who loves the king for himself, and the only one who will be ashamed of being loved back. Her quiet presence turns the court's games of gallantry into a contest of genuine hearts.

Anne of Austria

supporting

Also known as Queen Anne of Austria, Anne, the Queen Mother

Anne has spent years balancing the crown against the cardinal who governed it, and her advice to Louis now rankles in Mazarin's heart as he drafts his final will. She no longer appears in the cardinal's apartments, propriety her pretext, influence her loss. Her withdrawal marks the passing of one political age and the beginning of another, sharper one.

Jules Mazarin

supporting

Also known as Cardinal Mazarin, Mazarin, M. le Cardinal

Mazarin spends his final night painted, joking, and revising his will, keeping Colbert posted like a sentinel at his door while the young king paces and waits for news. Even in agony he plays out the comedy of power, ordering a Titian revarnished and spreading false bulletins of recovery. His death is the hinge on which the novel's political world swings open.

Charles II

supporting

Also known as King Charles II, Charles, Charles Stuart

Charles II moves through The Vicomte de Bragelonne as a monarch without a kingdom, his Restoration hanging on French gold, English generals, and the patience of allies who weigh his friendship against their own advantage. His sister Henrietta is his closest instrument at the French court, and through her he reaches toward the political machinery of Versailles. His presence turns the novel's early diplomacy into a high-stakes gamble, where a single shift in allegiance could redraw the map of Europe.

General Monck

supporting

Also known as Monck, M. Monck, this brave M. Monck

Monck stands at the hinge of the Restoration, a commander whose allegiance is courted by every faction and whose decision will determine whether Charles Stuart regains his throne. He is no romantic conspirator but a practical man of arms, weighing duty against opportunity in a country exhausted by revolution. His choice ripples through the novel's political spine, making him one of the quiet fulcrums on which the entire English plot turns.

Henrietta of England

supporting

Also known as Madame Henrietta, Madame, Henrietta

Henrietta — called Madame — is the glittering center of the French court, sister to an exiled king and wife to the king's jealous brother. Her flirtation with Louis XIV becomes the scandal that reshapes every private loyalty around her, while de Guiche's hopeless devotion burns beneath the surface. She matters because she turns courtly amusement into political weather, and the storm she raises will sweep up La Vallière, Raoul, and the king himself.

Philippe d'Orléans

supporting

Also known as Monsieur, the Duke of Orléans, Philip

Philippe d'Orléans — Monsieur — is brother to Louis XIV, a prince whose rank is immense and whose power is nil, a position that breeds both resentment and a taste for petty intrigue. His marriage to Henrietta places him at the center of the court's most dangerous flirtation, and his jealousy is a force the king must manage as carefully as any foreign enemy. He matters because the royal family's private fractures are the fault lines along which the novel's political drama runs.

De Guiche

supporting

Also known as Comte de Guiche, M. de Guiche, Guiche

The Comte de Guiche is Raoul's loyal friend and Madame Henrietta's hopeless admirer, caught between the code of honor he owes his comrade and the passion he cannot master. In his tense exchanges with de Wardes, he parries every insinuation about Madame while privately sweating through his own secrets. He matters because his divided heart makes him the novel's most sympathetic witness to the court's corruption, a man who sees the trap closing and cannot step free.

Mademoiselle de Montalais

supporting

Also known as Montalais, Aure, Mademoiselle Aure de Montalais

Montalais is La Vallière's confidante and the court's most efficient conduit of scandal, perched on garden walls to trade intelligence with Malicorne about who loves whom and who is being used as a screen. She is charming, quick, and morally flexible, more interested in the game than its casualties. She matters because her whispered reports to La Vallière set the emotional machinery of the court in motion, and her loyalty is always negotiable.

Planchet

supporting

Also known as M. Planchet, the Sieur Planchet, Master Planchet

Planchet has climbed from fetching his master's boots to weighing sugar and counting coin, a respectable tradesman with a shopkeeper's caution and a soldier's memory. The distance between his counter and the court does not stop him from being drawn back into dangerous errands when d'Artagnan comes calling. His hard-won prosperity makes every favor he grants a small act of courage, and his presence reminds us that the musketeers' legend was built on the backs of men who had everything to lose.

Baisemeaux de Montlezun

supporting

Also known as M. Baisemeaux, Baisemeaux, M. de Baisemeaux

Baisemeaux governs the kingdom's most feared fortress with the fussy anxiety of a man who never expected to hold such power. When Aramis arrives invoking the language of a hidden brotherhood, the governor's bluster collapses into naked terror, revealing that his loyalty to the king is only one of several masters he serves. His sweaty panic in the face of Aramis's silvery interrogation makes him the perfect hinge for the novel's darkest machinery: the prison that holds more than the state admits.

Malicorne

supporting

Also known as M. de Malicorne, M. Malicorne, the cunning Malicorne

Malicorne moves through the court's backstairs and garden walls with the instincts of a broker, matching his beloved Montalais's gossip with his own cool appraisal of advantage. He grasps immediately that La Vallière's careless words, overheard by the king, will crush Raoul de Bragelonne, yet his first instinct is self-preservation, not rescue. His clear-eyed cynicism about love and power gives the reader an honest guide to the moral weather of the court, even as it quietly damns him.

Manicamp

supporting

Also known as Monsieur de Manicamp, M. de Manicamp, the discreet Manicamp

Manicamp drifts through the court with the air of a man who finds effort vulgar, yet his mind works faster than anyone expects. Summoned before the king over a duel, he turns a moment of real danger into a masterclass in discretion, protecting a lady's honor while carefully preserving his own neck. His performance before Louis XIV shows that in this court, wit and timing can be worth more than a blade, and that even the laziest man will rouse himself to save his skin.

Grimaud

supporting

Also known as M. Grimaud, poor Grimaud, honest Grimaud

Grimaud has served Athos so long that speech has become almost unnecessary between them, his loyalty expressed in a glance, a nod, a hand on a bridle. He watches the painful scene between Athos and Raoul over La Vallière with the stillness of furniture, yet nothing escapes him. In a novel full of schemers and talkers, Grimaud's silence is a kind of moral anchor, a reminder of the old, unglamorous fidelity on which the musketeers' world was built.

Mousqueton

supporting

Also known as Monsieur Mousqueton, Mouston

Mousqueton has followed Porthos from garrison poverty to landed ease, his girth and his master's prosperity rising in perfect step. He grumbles about danger and longs for his kitchen, yet when Porthos calls, he saddles up without hesitation. His comic cowardice and genuine loyalty form a gentle counterpoint to the grander passions around him, grounding the musketeers' twilight adventures in the appetites and anxieties of ordinary men.

Bazin

minor

Also known as Master Bazin

Aramis's former servant, now a pious beadle.

Gourville

supporting

Also known as Monsieur Gourville, M. de Gourville, M. Gourville

Gourville moves through Fouquet's household as adviser, errand-runner, and the one man permitted to laugh at a superintendent's dangerous extravagance. He needles Fouquet with dry irony about the abbé's paid ruffians and the king's gold, yet never wavers in service, weighing every risk before his master takes it. In the opening arc of the novel, his caution and clear sight make him the reader's barometer for how close Fouquet stands to ruin.

Parry

minor

Also known as Mr. Parry, the good Parry

The loyal servant of Charles II, who carries messages.

Biscarrat

minor

Also known as Monsieur Biscarrat, Monsieur de Biscarrat

A young officer and friend of the musketeers, involved in the Belle-Isle affair.

De Wardes

minor

Also known as M. de Wardes, Marquis de Wardes

A rival of D'Artagnan and enemy of the musketeers.

Madame de Chevreuse

minor

Also known as Chevreuse, Madame

A former intriguer and friend of Anne of Austria, still active in politics.

Marie de Mancini

minor

Also known as Mademoiselle Marie de Mancini, Marie

The niece of Mazarin and first love of King Louis XIV.

Duke of Buckingham

minor

Also known as Buckingham, Villiers, George Villiers

A handsome and reckless English nobleman who courts Madame Henrietta.

Madame de Bellière

minor

Also known as Madame de Plessis-Bellière, Bellière

A beautiful and devoted friend of Fouquet.

Jean de La Fontaine

minor

Also known as La Fontaine, M. de La Fontaine

A famous poet and friend of Fouquet, part of his literary circle.

Molière

minor

Also known as Monsieur Molière, Jean Poquelin de Molière

A playwright and actor, friend of Fouquet and observer of court life.

Menneville

minor

Also known as M. Menneville, this Menneville

A shady character in the service of Colbert.

Vanel

minor

Also known as Monsieur Vanel, this Vanel

A corrupt financier and enemy of Fouquet.

Marguerite Vanel

minor

Also known as Marguerite

The wife of Vanel, who betrays Fouquet out of jealousy.

Athenaïs

minor

Also known as Mademoiselle Athenaïs, the perfidious Athenaïs

A beautiful and ambitious young woman at court.

Mary Grafton

minor

Also known as Miss Mary Grafton, Mary, Miss Grafton

A young Englishwoman, a favorite of Queen Henrietta Maria.

Lucy Stewart

minor

Also known as Miss Stewart, Miss Lucy Stewart, Lucy

A beautiful English lady-in-waiting to Madame Henrietta.

Madame de Montespan

minor

Also known as Madame

A future royal mistress, appearing as a young woman at court.

Le Duc de Beaufort

minor

Also known as M. de Beaufort, Duc d'Alméda

A former Frondeur and grandson of Henry IV, leading an expedition.

Le Prince de Condé

minor

Also known as Condé, M. le Prince

A great general and prince of the blood, a former rebel.

Madame de Motteville

minor

Also known as Motteville, de Motteville

A lady-in-waiting and memoirist to Anne of Austria.

Bernouin

minor

Also known as Monsieur Bernouin

The valet of Cardinal Mazarin.

Guénaud

minor

Also known as M. Guénaud

The physician attending Cardinal Mazarin.

Valot

minor

Also known as M. Valot, Monsieur Valot

The king's physician.

Brienne

minor

Also known as M. de Brienne, M. Brienne

A secretary of state under Mazarin and Louis XIV.

Le Chevalier de Lorraine

minor

Also known as Chevalier, de Lorraine

A favorite and possible lover of Monsieur, involved in court intrigues.

Madame de Navailles

minor

Also known as Madame

The governess of the royal children, a strict courtier.

Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente

minor

Also known as Tonnay-Charente, Mademoiselle

A young lady at court, later known as Madame de Montespan.

Marchiali

minor

The mysterious prisoner in the Bastille, later revealed to be Philippe.

Seldon

minor

Also known as poor Seldon

A fellow prisoner of Marchiali in the Bastille.

Cropole

minor

Also known as Master Cropolé, young Cropolé, Cropoli

An innkeeper at the Corne du Cerf in Melun.

The Théatin

minor

A monk who serves as a messenger and spy for Aramis.

Pittrino

minor

Also known as Signor Pittrino, Master Pittrino

A servant or assistant to Aramis, involved in his schemes.

Vatel

minor

Also known as M. Vatel

The famous maître d'hôtel of Fouquet, known for his perfectionism.

The Abbé Fouquet

minor

Also known as Abbé Fouquet

The brother of Nicolas Fouquet, a churchman.

Jupenet

minor

Also known as M. Jupenet, Master Jupenet

A minor character, possibly a poet or writer.

Loret

minor

Also known as M. Loret

A minor poet and journalist in Fouquet's circle.

Conrart

minor

Also known as M. Conrart

A minor poet and member of the Académie Française.

Pélisson

minor

Also known as Monsieur Pélisson

A loyal friend and secretary to Fouquet.

Lord Rochester

minor

Also known as Rochester, Wilmot

A witty and debauched English poet and courtier.

Percerin

minor

Also known as M. Percerin, the great Percerin

The royal tailor, famous for his skill and wit.

Lyonne

minor

Also known as M. Lyonne, M. de Lyonne

A minister and secretary of state for foreign affairs.

Jonathan

minor

A servant or minor character, possibly a jailer.

Toby

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant or messenger.

Olivain

minor

A servant of Athos.

Basque

minor

A servant of Athos.

Dame Péronne

minor

Also known as Péronne

The wife of Cropole, the innkeeper.

Lenôtre

minor

The famous landscape gardener who designed Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Le Brun

minor

Also known as M. Lebrun

The painter who decorated Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Madame Fouquet

minor

Also known as Madame

The mother of Nicolas Fouquet, a pious and influential woman.

Madame Vanel

minor

Also known as Madame d'Eymeris

The mother of Marguerite Vanel.

D'Eymeris

minor

Also known as poor D'Eymeris

A friend of Fouquet, ruined by Vanel.

Lyodot

minor

Also known as Messieurs Lyodot

A financier and friend of Fouquet, executed by Colbert.

D'Artagnan's Servant

minor

An unnamed servant who assists D'Artagnan.

The Blaisois

minor

Also known as Blaisois, Master Blaisois

A servant of the Bragelonne household.

François

minor

Also known as Master François

A servant or minor character.

Yves

minor

A servant or minor character.

Elise

minor

A servant or minor character.

Gétard

minor

Also known as M. Gétard

A minor character, possibly a servant or official.