Marshal Pierre de Montesquiou d'Artagnan

Le vrai d'Artagnan...

de Pierre de Montesquiou
15€ + 4,57€ de frais de port
Editions Lacour-Ollé, 2002
25, bd Amiral Courbet
30000 NIMES

The writer, who has an intimate knowledge of the long and glorious history of his family, sets out to rectify the false ideas concerning his ancestors that have been put about by some of the great writers from the past.
Saint-Simon’s judgement of the Marshal Pierre de Montesquiou d'Artagnan was both harsh and mistaken, and one can only but agree with the author that the imaginative powers of an unashamed romanticist such as Alexandre Dumas, who traced the life of Charles de Batz-Castelmore, the Marshal’s uncle, are no substitute for the irresistible charm of the truth.
Once again, fiction pales before historic fact. With sparkling scholarship, the author leads us to an original confrontation between legend and history.

The foreword to the book is by Marc Bloch:

Pierre de Montesquiou

Count  d'Artagnan, then Count de Montesquiou (1640 – 12th August, 1725), soldier of France, Musketeer to the King before becoming Marshal of France.

Fourth son of Henry, the Ist Montesquiou, and Lord of Artagnan through his wife, Jeanne, daughter of Jean de Gassion, he was also the cousin of Charles de Batz de Castelmore, the Count d’Artagnan, the celebrated d’Artagnan of the novels of Alexandre Dumas. He served for 23 years as a Musketeer in the French Guards before being promoted to the rank of Brigadier in 1688, Marshal-de-camp in 1691 and Lieutenant-General on the 3rd of January, 1696.

Charles de Batz

His real name was Charles de Batz-Castelmore, Count d'Artagnan, a French soldier born between 1611 and 1615 at the Château of Castelmore, near Lupiac, in Gascogny (which is today the County of Gers) and who died at the siege of Maastricht on the 25th of June, 1673. According to some witnesses, he was killed by a musket ball in the throat, while others claim he was shot in the chest while fighting on what should have been his rest day. The site of his tomb is unknown.  

Let the legend commence.

However, the historian Odile Bordaz thinks she has found d’Artagnan’s tomb in the church of St. Peter and Paul in Wolder, close to Maastricht. In fact, it is in this village that Louis XIV and his Musketeers set up their headquarters, and it was from there that d’Artagnan and his men left to attack the ramparts of the town where he met his death.

In the end, we know little of the real d’Artagnan. There exists a portrait of him who’s authenticity cannot be guaranteed, and the doubtful « memoirs » ,where truth and fiction are mixed, and which appeared in 1700, 27 years after his death. This was the work of Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, who discovered the life of the Gasconny hero during one of his stays in the Bastille, when Besmaux, ex-companion of d’Artagnan, was Governor.

Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas
engraving by HEBERT after BEAUCE

The illustrated First Edition of  The Three Musketeers

This is the occasion for the Company of Musketeers to present a work that it has owned for some years.

It consists of an illustrated First Edition of “The Three Musketeers”, produced in Paris by P.Fellens and Dufour in 1846.

Format in-8 (24 X 16,5 cm), green semi-tanned leather, spine decorated in gold-lettered romantic style.

Athos, Porthos et Aramis

Athos

His full name was Armand de Sillègue d'Athos d'Autevielle. He was born in 1615 in Béarn and died on December 21st, 1643. He was the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas’s fictional character, Athos.

Athos took his name from the small market town of Athos-Aspis on the Gave d'Oloron, close to Sauveterre-de-Béarn and Autevielle. As the youngest son of Adrien de Sillègue, Lord of Athos and Auteveille, he could not hope to be the future Lord of Athos and Auteville, as the title would pass to the eldest son.  He therefore had the choice of entering the army or the church. He was the first cousin once removed of the Monsieur de Tréville, whose patronage enabled him to enter the Regiment of Musketeers in 1640, at the same time as Porthos. All we know of him is that he was a native of the Béarn, and that he died young, no doubt killed on the 21st of December, 1643, during a duel, as recorded in  Births and Deaths Register of the Church of the Saint-Sulpice in Paris.

“Escort, service and burial of the late Armand Athos Dautebielle, Musketeer of the King’s Guard, gentleman of Béarn, taken close to the Clerks Meadow market”. As the “Pré au Clercs” or “Clerks Meadow”, was a famous duelling place it is probable that he died there.

Porthos

His real name was Isaac de Portau. He was born in Pau on the 2nd of February, 1617, but the date of his death is unknown. He was the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas’s fictional character, Porthos.

He came from a Protestant Béarn family, originally from Gan. His father was Secretary to the King and the States of Navarre, and therefore an important person, who was able to buy lordships and to become ennobled.

Like Athos, Porthos decided to go into the army. He entered as a cadet in the Essarts Company of the French Guards. (François de Guillon, Lord of Essarts, was the brother-in-law of Monsieur de Tréville, who recommended him). He was therefore in the Company when d’Artagnan joined in 1640, and they campaigned together. We find him again in Perpignan in 1642 and then in Lyon. Porthos became a Musketeer in 1643, the same year as the death of Athos.

Then all trace of him is lost, and no-one knows what happened to him after, or the circumstances of his death.

Porthos by Wattier

Aramis

Henri d’Aramitz or Aramis, born around 1620, was a lay abbot who inspired the fictional character of Aramis in the novel of Alexandre Dumas.

Like Porthos, Aramis came from a Béarnais Protestant family, but unlike the other Béarnais Musketeers he was of noble military stock. His grandfather, the Huguenot Captain, Pierre d’Aramitz, played a highly active role in the religious wars that wreaked havoc in the Béarn and the Soule at the time of Jeanne d'Albret. Married to Louise de Sauguis, daughter of a lay Abbot of Soule, Pierre had three children. Marie, the youngest, married to Jean du Peyrer in 1597, was the mother of Jean-Armand du Peyrer, the famous Count of Tréville, Captain Lieutenant of the Musketeers, born in Oloron in 1598. Charles, the younger brother, was the first to enter the Company of Musketeers commanded by his nephew since 1634. He married Marie de Rague, daughter of the lord of Espalungue, near Laruns. This union produced two daughters and a son, Henry, who was the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas’s famous character. In May 1640, Henry d'Aramis became the second Musketeer in the family, along with his father who had become Marshal des Logis. Military archives have no mention of the service records of father and son, nor what became of them following the dissolution of their Company in 1646. In 1650, Henry, although a confirmed Protestant, married Jeanne de Béarn-Bonasse, from one of the highest Catholic families of Béarn.