Essentially these three chapters serve to tell us more about each of the three musketeers. Chapter 25 gives us additional information about the vain Porthos, Chapter 26 shows us Ararmis’s conflict between love and religion, and Chapter 27 tells us more about Athos’s past, which haunts him and drives him to excessive drinking.
While reading Chapter 25, we should remember that d’Artagnan first encountered Porthos when he collided with him on a stairwell and, by accident, it was revealed that Porthos was wearing a golden shoulder belt that was only half gilded. In that encounter, injured vanity was the principal reason why Porthos challenged d’Artagnan to a duel. Likewise, in this chapter, the emphasis is again on Porthos’s extreme vanity. As noted in the summary, Porthos cannot admit that he was bested in a duel. Likewise, he feels that he needs to brag about his young and beautiful “duchess” when, in reality, his “duchess” is a fiftyish wife of a lawyer. Yet note that d’Artagnan although a young man, is astute enough not to mention the truth to Porthos; he allows Porthos to continue with his fantasies.
Although Dumas revealed to us earlier that Monsieur Bonacieux assisted in his wife’s abduction, it is only in Chapter 25 that d’Artagnan becomes fully aware of this fact. Remembering the description given to him of the fat little man, he looks at Bonacieux’s shoes and realizes that he and Bonacieux have the same kind of red mud on their shoes. “At the same time he also noticed Bonacieux’s shoes and stockings: they were spotted with exactly the same kind of mud. An idea flashed into his mind: that short, fat, gray-haired man, treated without respect by the noblemen who abducted Madame Bonacieux, was Bonacieux himself! The husband had taken part in his wife’s abduction!” D’Artagnan concludes that Bonacieux is a miserable scoundrel.
Chapter 26 reveals the whereabouts of Aramis and focuses on the conflict between love and religion. As long as a person loves, and is loved in return, and knows the whereabouts of his beloved, religious matters rarely fill one with anguish. But if one feels rejected in love, as does Aramis, then a viable alternative to love in this world is a religious life in a monastery. That is, when Aramis thinks that he has been rejected, he turns to religion for solace.
However, when Aramis receives a letter from his beloved—Madame de Chevreuse, the friend of the queen whom the king suspected of connivance and banished to Tours—Aramis becomes ecstatic. He immediately disavows his religious plans and tells d’Artagnan that he is bursting with happiness. He rejects the religiously correct meal of spinach and eggs, and, instead, he orders meat, game, fowl, and the bottle of wine which he rejected only moments earlier. Here, in this typical romantic novel, the power of love once again triumphs.
While d’Artagnan is on his way to find Athos, he wonders why he feels closer to Athos than he does to the other two musketeers; clearly he and Athos are the furthest apart in age. He concludes that he is attracted to Athos because Athos seems so noble in his conduct, has such a distinguished air, and has such sudden flashes of grandeur.
Also, Athos’s face suggests a striking sense of majesty combined with graciousness. At this point, d’Artagnan does not know that Athos is descended from nobility, but he can nevertheless recognize that Athos seems to have noble heritage. Later in the novel, d’Artagnan will not be too surprised when he learns about Athos’s nobility.
Athos, however, does not always “act noble.” Dumas continually characterizes him as a heavy drinker, and part of the humor in Chapter 27 is derived from Athos’s barricading himself, by accident, in a wine cellar. Clearly, Athos does not suffer unduly during his two weeks there; we see that he survives on hams and sausages and consumes over one hundred and fifty bottles of wine. (His servant drinks only from the casks.)
Later, when Athos tells d’Artagnan a story about a young lord who once married a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, he is, of course, telling his own story. But not until the last part of the novel will we discover that this beautiful girl is Milady, Lady de Winter—the evil nemesis to all of the loyalists. The only false part of Athos’s story is his report that he hanged her and that she is dead. Foreshadowings such as this are virtual proof that Dumas had his novel well plotted and did not write, as some critics believe, without knowing where he was going next.
