420
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9<s.iL'Nov.i9,'98.
the nature or extent of Dumas's obligation. Not a
common book in France is the 'Memoires,' and in
this country it is all but inaccessible. Those who
are content to wade through a book which is as
licentious as Grammont's memoirs without being
so witty, and which is at times coarse enough for
Rabelais or M. Zola, will find in a perusal of the
three volumes, the first of which only has yet
appeared, a vivid picture of life in Paris in the
middle of the seventeenth century, and will obtain
some few not very important, but not wholly nuga-
tory notes on our own civil war, together with some
comments of a shrewd and not too friendly observer
upon English habits and manners. Now, moreover,
at a time when half a dozen theatres are presenting
Dumas, and when further adaptations ot his work
are in prospect or in preparation, it is pleasant to
contemplate the workmanship of the great master
of romance, and admire the skill with which he turns
lead into gold. What is most stimulating in Dumas's
story does not, and could not, appear in what
purports to be a memoir of D'Artagnan. At the
period when the chief hero of the ' Trois Mousque-
taires' is represented as protecting the loves of
Buckingham and Anne of Austria, participating in
the siege of La Rochelle, conducting a discreditable
amour with Miladi, and all but witnessing the assas-
sination of Buckingham, the real D'Artagnan, sub-
sequently the captain-lieutenant of the first company
of the King's Musketeers, the man commissioned
to arrest Fouquet, was but five years old. The
picture of the raw Gascon youth is, however, faith-
ful enough, and his association with Athos, Porthos,
and Aramis, who are herein stated to have been
brothers, was almost as close as Dumas states. The
characters of these three herpes have been idealized,
and the incredibly romantic adventures assigned
them in the novel are not narrated in the chronicle.
Miladi, however, appears in a very modified form,
and M. de Treville, who was a real personage as,
indeed, were all four musketeers. Some of the
most startling things in Dumas are, moreover, given
in this more or less veracious chronicle. We thus
find, extraordinary as it may seem, that Louis XIII.,
stung to political jealousy of the correspond-
ence between Anne of Austria and her brother,
ordered his Chancellor to examine the person of the
queen to see if she had upon her any concealed
letters. D'Artagnan is, naturally, a little ribald
concerning the execution of this commission. He
declares that the neck and arms of the queen "were
well rounded, and both were of a whiteness which
surpassed that of the lily" ; and though no one was
able to supply exact information, he found reason
to conclude that what was "beneath the linen was
not less fair than that which was visible."
The materials for these memoirs Courtilz de Sandras claims to have derived from the papers of D'Artagnan which came into his possession after the hero's death. Nothing of his own has, he assures us, been given except the connecting links which assign the whole sequence. Not very modest is D'Artagnan in the narration of his facile con- quests. Modesty, however, is not characteristic of the middle of the seventeenth century, and was scarcely to be hoped in the case of a cadet of a Bearnais family and a musketeer of the king. The historical aspects of the book have great interest, and the statements, if they could be trusted, would be important. D'Artagnan paid more than one visit to London, and took part, as he tells us, in one combat of King Charles's men against the army of
Essex. He appears to have had some knowledge
of Charles, though this is not certain, and obtained
a very friendly reception from Cromwell, to whom,
in 1656, Mazariri sent him on a private mission.
With exiled English royalty in Paris he appears to
have been on fairly intimate terms. What he says
about the English whom he met, and concerning
English men and institutions generally, may be read
with pleasure and profit. The translation by Mr.
Nevill is spirited and accurate. In reading the
translation we have reread a considerable part of
the original. Therein though in the second part
of the work, the translation of which has not yet
appeared we come upon the earliest mention
yet chronicled of a hackney coach. This philo-
logists may care to see. We give it, accordingly,
for their benefit, as it appears, vol. ii. p. 490: " Au
lieu d'un Char de triomphe, comme je m'attendois
d'en trouver un, je ne trouvai que ce qui s'appelle
un Hackney-coach en ce pai's-Ia; Hackney-coach
veut dire un Carosse de ipiiage, non pas comme
nous en avons en France qui sont assez propres, &
que nous appellons Caresses de remise, mais un
miserable fiacre tels que Ton en voit aujourd i'hui
sur la place du Pallais Royal, ou devant 1'Eglise
des grands Augustins."
MESSRS. PICKERING & CHATTO have issued a large and very interesting illustrated catalogue of book rarities at present offered for sale by them.
to jffms0ttfcmfs.
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