AS SEEN ON TV: D'ARTAGNAN

D'ARTAGNAN

AS SEEN IN:

'Wishbone'

AS PLAYED BY:

Wishbone

CREATED BY:

Alexandre Dumas

TV DIMENSION:

Not Applicable

STATUS:

Dream Figure

From Wikipedia:

Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan (c. 1611 – 25 June 1673) served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard and died at the Siege of Maastricht in the Franco-Dutch War. A fictionalized account of his life by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras formed the basis for the d'Artagnan Romances of Alexandre Dumas, most famously including "The Three Musketeers". The heavily fictionalized version of d'Artagnan featured in Dumas' works and their subsequent screen adaptations is now far more widely known than the real historical figure.

The real d'Artagnan's life was used as the basis for Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras' novel "Les mémoires de M. d'Artagnan". Alexandre Dumas in turn used de Sandras' novel as the main source for his d'Artagnan Romances ("The Three Musketeers", "Twenty Years After", and "The Vicomte de Bragelonne"), which cover d'Artagnan's career from his humble life's beginnings in Gascony to his death at Maastricht. Although Dumas knew that de Sandras' version was heavily fictionalised, in the preface to "The Three Musketeers" he affected to believe that the memoirs were real, in order to make his novel more believable.

D'Artagnan is initially portrayed by Dumas as a hotheaded youth, and tries to engage the Comte de Rochefort and the three musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis in single combat. He quickly becomes friends with the musketeers, and has a series of adventures which put him at odds with Cardinal Richelieu, then First Minister of France. In the end, Richelieu is impressed by d'Artagnan, and makes him a Lieutenant of the Musketeers. This begins his long career of military service, as detailed in the sequels to Dumas' famous novel.

BCnU!