The Three Musketeers, Part II: Dumas and Misogyny

So, sadly, there is more to write about the charming little French novel I recommended to readers a few days ago.  It turns out, this funny little comedy has a rather gruesome ending, with an administration of state-sanctioned capital punishment the ultimate expression of justice and a free France.  Of course, French style, the capital punishment is a beheading, though not with a guillotine, yet, obviously.

This, however, is not the reason why the 'serious' portion of the comedia merited a second post so soon after the first.  The justice is unfortunately served against a woman, whose original crime, the thing which set her off on a feedback loop of growing ostracization and criminalization, is that at age fourteen or sixteen or so she, a young, whip-smart, bombshell French blonde, 'placed' in a Catholic convent as a novice, fucked a seminary student.  That's her ultimate crime, the thing which caused Athos to attempt to hang her; that, rightly or wrongly, prejudiced her English husband's brother toward thinking she'd poisoned the English husband; that puts her in a position where only ruthless obedience to Cardinal Richelieu buys her the privacy to live the life a bombshell twenty-five-year-old, widowed French noblewoman could normally expect to have, assuming she'd escaped convent life.

Here's the story, and remember, that enough of the children's movie is from the book to keep you current with the plot.  Milady de Winter was not actually tried for the theft that led to her branding, it was her lover, who, apparently, took it upon himself to steal valuables from the church of the convent they were trying to escape who was caught, tried and branded for the theft.  The lover's brother, who happens to be the local executioner, and charged with such punishments as branding a fleur de lis on thieves' shoulders, finds her, ties her up and brands her vigilante style, as revenge for having corrupted his brother.

What's a little repulsive about the whole thing--and remember, judging Dumas, while forgetting that he's a Catholic, during the counter-reformation, who's affirming his Catholic faith all the while declaring his political independence from its church, is what's called 'anachronistic' in the study of history, meaning that it's not exactly fair.  What's a little repulsive anyways, is that this is taken to justify all of the other crimes that are heaped upon her in what is, after all, because she's a spy and they have to try her by the old laws of chivalry and execute the beheading before the cardinal can get wind of it and reverse the gears of French justice, a kangaroo court.

Now, keep in mind, this woman has poisoned D'Artagnan's mistress not two days before, and that with the dying woman's word for testimony, which even an American court, today, would accept into evidence.  She's guilty and dead to rights on a capital crime, and she's the only villain in the book who's not an historical figure that Dumas can kill off whenever it pleases him.  But its makes the boring part of the novel that much more difficult to read that this woman, who might honestly be called more a victim than a perpetrator of crimes up, at least, until her marriage to the Count de Winter, gets piled up with these misogynistic, male-sexual-insecurity-rooted accusations for the commission of a crime natural to animal behavior.

Athos, especially, who has persecuted her for six or seven years, based on this brand, which has no legal basis, for a crime that she, herself, did not actually commit, however much the author makes it clear that, for the purposes of the actual character, she would believably have been encouraging the seminarian, even manipulating him into it, falls deeply in your esteem as he presides over her capital punishment for a second time.

I guess I still give the book an over all positive recommendation, I mean, anachrony and all, but its sad about how Athos comes out looking...