Relatively few literary characters could boast such fame as d'Artagnan, a character in the novels of A. Dumas - father "The Three Musketeers", "Twenty years later"and" The Vicomte de Bragelonne". This character had a historical prototype - the real d'Artagnan, who lived and acted in the XVII century. The adventures of the first have long been a bright page of world literature, and the adventures of the second were quite remarkable episodes of history

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the era when absolute monarchy was established in France. The real d'Artagnan, a true son of his time, who rose from a little-known descendant of an impoverished provincial noble family to a general, served this monarchy faithfully. If we remember that this was the time of the formation of the French bourgeoisie as a class and the attempts of kings who ruled indefinitely to assert their rule, balancing between two social forces-the feudal lords and the bourgeois 1; that France waged long and bloody wars; that the country itself developed a sharp class and political struggle-it will be clear why such a figure as d'Artagnan, may be of definite interest.

However, it is not so easy to trace his actions. They were partly obscured by the creative designs of a number of masters of the pen, which is opened by the writer of the late XVII-early XVIII centuries G. Curtil. In the middle of this series is Dumas the father, and the authors of numerous historiographical and literary essays of the past and present centuries complete it. Their creators, having understood some basic facts, simultaneously contradict each other in essential details, complicating an already complicated issue. First of all, we note the frequent mixing in one prototype of a literary hero of at least three actually existing military and political figures, so that the real d'Artagnan (before the XVIII century, this surname was written somewhat differently, but it was read d'Artagnan) is literally one in three persons.

Let's dissect this "trinity". All the d'Artagnans were related to the eponymous feudal estate in the present department of Hautes-Pyrenees (Tarbes arrondissement, Vicant-Bigorre canton). By the end of the last century, the village of D'Artagnan, which had long fallen into disrepair, was home to a little over 600 people. But in the Middle Ages, the local castle was a county stronghold in Bearnais, this southern part of Gascony . The Gasques (Gascons) - the northern, French wing of the Pyrenean Basques, mixed with the Gauls and Visigoths, still retained by the XVII century. linguistic and cultural-ethnic differences of a special nationality, which was quickly drawn into the general French life. When the King of Navarre and part-owner of Gascony became King Henry IV of France, other inhabitants of the southern region followed him to the north. They patronized each other, dragged their comrades "up", together gave their competitors a leg up and formed a real community in Paris. Since Henry IV and his son Louis XIII trusted their fellow countrymen more, the royal Mounted Musketeers unit (officially named royal in 1622), which served at court, consisted almost exclusively of Gascons, and they took a unique chance and, imitating their crowned compatriots, made a Parisian career. There were also quite a few Gascons among the Royal Guards. In these companies, later regiments, all the d'Artagnans of interest also served.

This family earldom came to them through the female line, from the Montesquieu-Fezansac family. The town of Montesquieu, which at the beginning of the 20th century had less than 1 thousand inhabitants, is located in the department of Gers 3 . It was the ancient capital of the barony of Armagnac, from which in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the "Armagnacs" - noble bands of titled bandits-left for the high road. The most famous of the Comtes d'Artagnan of that era, Pierre de Montesquieu (1645-1725), was just a native of Armagnac. First a royal page, and then a musketeer, he fought for the interests of the French monarchy on the fields of Flanders, Burgundy and Holland, fought in 1667 at Douai, Tournai and Lille, in 1668-at Besancon, and at the turn of the XVIII century. for participation in a number of military campaigns was introduced to a select number of military rulers of the provinces. As Major General 4, then Lieutenant General, authorized officer

1 See K. Marx and F. Engels, Op. 21, p. 172.

2 M. Bois, C. Durier. Les Hautes-Pyrenees, etude historique et geographique du departement. Tarbes. 1884.

3 H. Polge. Auch et la Gascogne, le Gers en quatre jours. Toulouse. 1958.

4 A Major General was then called a "field marshal" (le marechal des camps), above which was a lieutenant general. Even higher is the Marshal of France, otherwise Marshal of the King (R.-P. Daniel. Histoire de la milice francaise. Vol. II. P. 1721). By the way, the hero Dumas, who became only a "field marshal", that is, the second general from below (the junior was considered a brigadier), was by no means a marshal in our understanding of the word. So all such interpretations that occur in Dumas, in his translators into Russian, and in non-specialists, are erroneous.

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As the king ,he had almost unlimited power in Artois and Brabant. 5 When he became Marshal of France in 1709 (at which time he officially changed his name from d'Artagnan to Montesquieu), he rose even higher and took orders in Brittany ,Languedoc, and Provence, and in 1720 he entered the regency council under the infant Louis XV. Various episodes of the turbulent life of this Gascon were later used in detail in the modeling of the image of a literary hero. But on the whole, we have the"other" d'Artagnan, although he played a more important role in the history of France than the character of famous novels.

Another d'Artagnan of that era was also a contemporary of his unintentional rivals for future fame, and also contributed by the very fact of his existence a certain amount of confusion to the question of the prototype of the literary hero. Born Joseph de Montesquieu, this Count d'Artagnan (1651-1728) became a 17-year-old musketeer, served in the army, in the guard and again as a musketeer, and reached, like his namesakes, not only general ranks, but even officers in the troops of the royal retinue (the position of an average officer of the Musketeers it was considered higher than the field general's rank). Thus, he received the rank of captain of the Guards in 1682, cornet (that is, only ensign) of the Musketeer cavalry in 1685, brigadier general in 1691, second lieutenant of the Musketeers in 1694, Major general in 1696, captain-lieutenant of the 1st company of Musketeers in 1716.7 It is interesting that both Pierre and Joseph fought under the command of the third, "main" d'Artagnan, and Joseph was his first cousin on his mother's side, and after his death adopted the title d'Artagnan.

Before moving on to this third (but far from the last) owner of such a well-known surname, whose place in the study is particularly significant, it is advisable to say how he got into the literature. This credit goes to Gasian Curtil de Sandra (1644-1712), a contemporary of all three of the original d'Artagnans. By 1678, he had reached the rank of regimental captain, but abandoned his military career for the sake of journalism. Having acquaintances among the highest nobility, Courtil carefully collected rumors and gossip for many years, wrote down other people's stories and chronicles of the day, took an interest in family archives, purchased rare publications, and as a result accumulated a lot of interesting information. He wrote dozens of novels, essays, pamphlets and feuilletons on historical, political, military and amorous topics, making public many secrets, intrigues and intimate things from the life of the French court, Paris and hundreds of different people. After his death, 40 volumes of manuscripts remained, which would have been enough colorful material for more than one writer. In France, under Louis XIV, it was absolutely impossible to print all this. And a Curtille in 1683. he went to Holland, where he began a series of publications, sometimes under his own name, sometimes under the pseudonym Montfort, and sometimes anonymously, and a significant part of his writings, which were published in Amsterdam and Leiden, have the output of the fictional publisher Pierre Marteau in Cologne. As soon as Curtil returned to his homeland, they arrested him to scare him. When he was released, he went back to Holland and did not let go of his pen until 1702. Returning to Paris for the second time, he spent nine years in the Bastille, shortly after which he died .

Among his writings was the following: "Memoirs of M. d'Artagnan, Lieutenant-Commander of the first company of the Royal Musketeers, containing many private and secret things that happened during the reign of Louis the Great." 9 The first volume covers the period up to 1649, the second-up to 1655, the third-up to 1673. The author, as we can see, is an officer of the Musketeers who lived almost shortly before the book was published. In addition, the chiefs of the most honorable branch of the army were then known to everyone in France. These circumstances allowed contemporaries to check the reality of the facts given in the essay and to count

5 P. Anselme. Histoire genealogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France. T. VII. P. 1733, p. 684.

6 H. Leclercq. Histoire de la Regence pendant la minorite de Louis XV. Vol. 2. P. 1921.

7 G. Sigaux. Preface au C de Sandras. Memoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan. Mayenne. 1965, p. 18.

8 J. -M. Querard. La France litteraire. T. XI: A-Razy. P. 1854; В. М. Woodbridge. Gatien de Courtilz, sieur du Verger. P. 1925.

9 "Memoires de M. d'Artagnan, capitaine-lieutenant de la premiere compagnie des mousquetaires du rois, contenant quantite de choses particulieres et secretes qui se sont passees sous le regne de Louis le Grand". Cologne. 1700.

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Curtila was a publisher or editor-compiler, who gave some notes the common form of memoirs. It is not by chance that these memoirs are repeatedly cited later in the works of various writers and historians of the beginning of the XVIII century, as indisputable. Written in simple and clear language, containing a series of vivid episodes, although mutually unrelated, but united around a fascinating biography, the memoirs are curious in themselves as a monument of the era. And even if the writer Dumas did not appear later, sooner or later they would still attract the attention of specialists, after which the question of the memoirist's identity would inevitably arise. Among no less than half a dozen d'Artagnans whose biographies are more or less reflected in these memoirs, only one was at the time described the chief commander of the Musketeers. In addition, his life path, more than that of others, approaches the official outline of events to the nodal points of the narrative, allegedly published in Cologne. So we came to the third, basic prototype of the man made famous by Alexandre Dumas.

But in the memoirs of 1700, no genealogical information about the hero is contained. They were identified by crumbs in poorly accessible sources over the past 100 years. His mother was Francoise de Montesquieu, whose family owned the castle of D'Artagnan. His father was Bertrand II, Baron de Batz (more precisely, Baatz), Count de Castelmore, whose ancestors acquired all these titles by buying them from the treasury. They were closely connected by neighborhood, economic and political interests with representatives of the future Bourbon dynasty, and the grandfather of "our" d'Artagnan, Baron Mano III, 10 spent his childhood in the company of King Henry IV and was considered his close companion. Born between 1611 and 1623, the latter's grandson was named Charles. Curiously, neither Courtil nor later Dumas, who forced the Gascon to be born in 1607, give this name. Courtil, who sometimes avoided precision, was able to adapt his actions to the fact that many other members of the Comte d'Artagnan family were still alive and held prominent positions, and Dumas simply did not know the name of his hero...

After leaving Gascony for the capital, Charles de Batz took advantage of the patronage of his uncle at court, drew on the experience of his older brothers who had already served as musketeers, and entered the Guard as a cadet. In the eighteenth century, this concept did not quite coincide with its current meaning. Cadets (that is, literally "kids") were then called young men in military service who were undergoing pre-officer practice. In fact, it meant spending a rather disorderly time among your own kind while you were still in office. The famous military figure of Louis XIV, fortifier and academician S. Vauban spoke about the cadets in this way:: "All these people are for the most part rootless, without merit, do not give anything to the service, they do not notice anything, do not think about anything and do not know anything except fencing, dancing and quarrels, and besides they are also very poorly educated"11 . It was in Paris, where Charles arrived many years later than Dumas wanted, that he finally changed the name from his father's side - the Comte de Castelmore - to the name on his mother's side - the Comte d'Artagnan, since his mother's relatives were more distinguished. He took part in the siege of Arras in 1640, where he went to the school of bravery in the same company with such bullies as S. Cyrano de Bergerac12; became a musketeer in 1644; from 1646 was in the retinue of Cardinal Mazarin and carried out secret assignments in various places; received in 1649 the rank of lieutenant of the guard, in 1650 - captain of the guard, and in 1658 was awarded the rank of second lieutenant of the royal musketeers and could now give orders to the garrison brigadier generals. After Louis XIV added a second black company with a different color cape to the first, grey company of Musketeers, d'Artagnan left the guard forever and served as commander of the "greys", replacing the Duke of Nevers himself. Under 1667, sources mention him as a lieutenant commander of the Musketeers (the king himself was listed as a captain!) and a brigadier general of the army cavalry. At court, he held the posts of chief

10 F. -A. Aubert de la Chesnays des Bois. Dictionnaire de la noblesse. Vol. II. P. 1785.

11 Cit. by: G. Mongredien. La Vie quotidienne sous Louis XIV. P. 1948, p. 153.

12 P. Brun. Savinien de Cyrano Bergerac. Gentilhomme parisien. L'Histoire et la legende. De Lebret a M. Rostand. P. 1909, p. 13. The acquaintance of d'Artagnan and de Bergerac, in turn, has grown into legends. They were used by Paul Feval-son and Maximian Lassez, who wrote the novel "D'Artagnan against Cyrano de Bergerac" (P. Feval-fils, M. Lassez. D'Artagnan contre Cyrano de Bergerac. P. 1925).

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the king's birds and the king's dogs, and died in 1673 at the siege of Maastricht, directing the actions of two other d'Artagnans, but a year earlier (and not a few moments, as in Dumas) managed to become a "field marshal", that is, a major general. As for his personal life, although Dumas chose to paint him as a childless bachelor, the Gascon married shortly before his death a wealthy noblewoman, Anne-Charlotte de Chanlessi, and had children, with the Crown Prince and the Duchess de Montpensier participating in the baptism of one of them. [13 ]

Pseudo-Cologne memoirs picked out from his biography individual events that concerned not so much his career (what's special about that?), but rather piquant details of his personal life and court feuds. It is not known whether Courtil personally knew any of the d'Artagnans, or where he obtained the facts for his work. You have to take the writer's word for it. All those who read Dumas can find in Courtil, though framed in other details, events and figures already familiar to them: the journey of a young man from Gascony to Paris, the encounter with a certain Ronay (in Dumas - Rochefort 14) and the loss of a letter to the commander of the Musketeers de Treville, the duel near the Pre-aux-Clercs, the feud with the Cardinal's guards, service in the company of the Royal guards des Essarts, the embrace of a nameless tavern-keeper (Dumas named her Bonacieux), the dreadful milady. The novel "Twenty years later" includes the service of Cardinal Mazarin, a trip across the English Channel in connection with the events of the English Revolution; in the novel "Vicomte de Bragelonne" - the arrest of superintendent of Finance N. Fouquet. At the same time, Curtil writes nothing about the history of the diamond pendants that Anne of Austria gave to the Duke of Buckingham. From this it can be seen that Dumas drew material not only from the "Memoirs of M. d'Artagnan", for diamond pendants appear in the work of P. L. Redrer "Political and love intrigues of the French court", and a number of other facts and episodes are borrowed from the works of "Tragicomic novels" by P. Scarron, "Entertaining Stories" by G. Talman. Reo, etc.; even more plentiful borrowings in the second and third novels of the trilogy 15 .

While dissecting Courtil, Dumas generously used the writer's right to fiction. Suffice it to mention that his literary character arrives in Paris in 1625, while Charles managed to do so only in the 30s of the XVII century, and Pierre and Joseph-in the 60s. But, of course, we have in mind only the fate of the characters, for to say that the Musketeer novels lack more important social phenomena is to demand from the romanticist-voluntarist something that he did not even suspect. Indeed, it would be in vain to look for even a hint of historical laws in Dumas ' writings. In their place, Mr. Chance reigns supreme. It goes without saying that it is absurd to deny the role of accidents in general, because they fill life. But Dumas has never been able to fathom even remotely the fact that the regularity that subordinates them makes its way through the concatenation of accidents. On the pages of his books, the driving force of history is dominated by what lies on the surface-money and emotions, mainly love. And when love still rides intrigue, it can work wonders for him. So for all Dumas's brilliant qualities as a writer, his historical novels are not so much "historical" as " novels."

However, one amendment should be made to this judgment. Dumas could turn everything upside down when it came to

13 A. Jal. Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d'histoire. P. 1872, pp. 70-73; Gerrard-Gailly. introduction a "Memoires de Charles de Batz-Castelmore Cornte d'Artagnan". P. 1928, passim. Or.The author gives d'Artagnan's autograph in his dictionary, and Gerard-Gailly - his letters. It follows from them that the brave Musketeer was not very literate: he scratched like a chicken with his paw, but probably considered spelling a prejudice.

14 Knowing nothing about Ronay, the writer decided to replace him by using another interesting work of Courtil - "Memoirs of M. Comte de Rochefort" (in the original, the name and title of the latter are given under the initials: "Memoires de M. l. C.d. R.". Cologne.1687). By the way, they are much more famous than the "Memoirs of M. d'Artagnan" and only in the first half-century of their existence they went through 11 editions. Connoisseurs of Western European literature of the 17th century generally consider them the best creation of Curtil (W. Fuger. Die Entstehung des historischen Romans aus der fiktiven Biographie in Frankreich und England. Munchen. 1963, S. 26).

15 See: A. A. Smirnov. Alexandre Dumas and his historical novels. Introductory article to the book: A. Dumas. The Three Musketeers, L. 1928, p. XIX; A. Mauroy. Tri Dumas, Moscow, 1962, pp. 204-206.

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large-scale class fights, about "big politics". But it is surprisingly accurate when describing the color of a Musketeer's cape or the shape of a sword hilt. However, the reason for this is explained not only by his erudition. Dumas had many collaborators, sometimes well-known and sometimes anonymous, who helped him collect the material and give it its original shape .16 Almost all of his 250 or more top literary works Dumas-father wrote in the commonwealth, although the main part of them bears only his name. Co-authors often quarreled, especially over the financial side of the case, but the cooperation was not immediately interrupted. Just when working on The Three Musketeers, Auguste Maquet took on the role of a guide to ancient works, these boxes filled with fascinating episodes.

Maquet was a historiographer of national life, a teacher at the Charlemagne Lyceum. His articles, scattered in various periodicals and devoted to the details of everyday life in the past, are known only to a narrow circle of specialists. They are similar in content to the works of the Russian scientist I. E. Zabelin17 , and in style to A. K. Tolstoy, with the difference that the caliber of the French author is much smaller. The latter's plays and novels were more popular. Not having the fervent imagination and rich language of Dumas, Maquet was very accurate and reliable when describing antique furniture, clothing, buildings, weapons, food, etc. Dumas could argue with Maquet in any way, but absolutely trusted him when he created the material background of the intrigue composed by the author 18 . In addition, Dumas also helped to select the material by the writer Paul Meris and the playwright Jules Lacroix, who consulted his brother, the famous medieval bibliographer Paul Lacroix. This is why the literary d'Artagnan dressed, ate, rode, and fought exactly like his real prototype. So here historians have nothing to blame Dumas.

The Three Musketeers was first published in 1844, Twenty Years Later in 1845, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne between 1848 and 1850. In the introduction to the novel, the writer says that when he found the Memoirs of Monsieur d'Artagnan in the library, he read them with interest and drew attention to the mysterious pseudonyms of the three Musketeers - Athos, Porthos, Aramis. For a long time he searched for a solution, until he came across, with the help of the learned man Paulin Paris 19, the manuscript " Memorial note of M. Comte de La Fere on certain events that happened in France at the end of the reign of King Louis XIII and the beginning of the reign of King Louis XIV." This count deciphers three pseudonyms, and his manuscript is so interesting that Dumas decided to submit it to the general court 20 . Thus, although the writer mentioned Courtil's work, he immediately diverted the readers ' attention to another source. Of course, he would have devised a different disguise if he had known that the real Athos, who represented the Comte de La Fere, 21 could not possibly have written anything about the reign of Louis XIV. , for he died after a duel in the same year 1643, when Louis XIII. died and when "our" d'Artagnan was still alive. I didn't even become a Musketeer.

The novel made a splash. The name of d'Artagnan was on everyone's lips. In a very short time, the bourgeois excitement made the fourth Musketeer a national hero and placed him on a pedestal almost next to the Maid of Orleans. The public wanted to know where and when her idol actually acted. And the trilogy has not yet come to an end, as lovers of historical truth have already got into the old chronicles. A serious man like Eugene d, curator of the print department at the Royal Library.'Oryak, publishes a two-volume book-

16 E. de Mirecourt. Fabrique de romans: Maison Alexandre Dumas et compagnie. P. 1845.

17 In particular, his two-volume works " Domestic life of the Russian people in the XVI and XVII centuries "(Moscow, 1862-1869) and "History of Russian Life since Ancient Times" (Moscow, 1876-1879).

18 G. Simon. Histoire d'une collaboration: Alexandre Dumas et Auguste Maquet. Documents inedits. P. 1919.

19 Alexis-Paulin Paris-member of the Academy of Inscriptions, lecturer in medieval literature at the Collège de France (G. Paris. Notice sur Paulin Paris. Extrait de Г "Histoire litterairet; de France", t. XXIX. P. 1885).

20 A. Dumas. Les trois mousquetaires. Vol. 1 R. 1844, pp. I-II, VII-IX.

21 La Fere is a cantonal capital in the Laanse arrondissement of the Aisne department. The castle and palace in it were built by the feudal lords of Coucy, then passed from hand to hand, and during the Huguenot wars they were taken over by the Ligers. After the capture of the village in 1596 by the troops of Henry IV, the palace and castle belonged to the state. No counts de La Fere ever existed in the Athos family (see La Grande Encyclopedie, T. 17, P. 1886, pp. 269-270).

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gu 22, with which, in fact, "artagnanovedenie"began. Having failed to discover the origins of Dumas ' competence, he nevertheless established the reality of d'Artagnan's existence and republished Courtil's notes. Here readers began to throw questions at Dumas himself. The latter was silent. It is true that in 1868, in the ephemeral moth magazine "Le D'Artagnan" published by him, he published several passing statements about the origin of his characters, but he did not so much clarify the question as obscure it.

Local patriots, especially Gascon local historians, took up the task. Article followed article. Gradually, they achieved the installation of monuments to the Musketeers and the opening of memorial plaques. In addition, a considerable amount of factual material was accumulated. At the beginning of the XX century, studies were published in which the problem was posed quite broadly. All the characters of the trilogy, together and separately, were studied on the basis of various sources. On this path, specialists have made tangible progress. So, Jean de Jorgin traced the pedigree and career of de Treville (in fact - Troisville), and also established who was called Athos, Porthos and Aramis. It turned out that these were not pseudonyms at all, as Dumas believed, but the real names of three people, Gascons like d'Artagnan. Athos is de Treville's great-nephew, Armand de Sillege d'Athos d'hautvielle, descendant of a wealthy bourgeois who acquired a noble title for money. Porthos is the son of a Protestant military official, Isaac de Porto. Aramis is the son of the quartermaster of the Musketeer company and the cousin (or nephew )of Henri d'aramitz de Treville.

Fundamental was the work of a major archivist and source scientist Charles Samaran24 . Summing up what science had already accumulated, he also made independent research, including a survey of hundreds of obscure publications over two centuries, and gave a detailed account of d'Artagnan's birthplace and relatives, his life in Paris, his service in the Guards and Musketeers, his domestic life, and his role in the struggle between the two finance ministers - Colbert and Fouquet, the rise of his military star, his activities as ruler of the city of Lille, and the death of the French army during the second Dutch campaign. Since then, no researcher has been able to add anything tangible to the results obtained by Samara. Even the English "Dumas Association", which published a special magazine 2-4 times a year25, did not do this .

The Soviet reader, who is not familiar with the special French literature, may have found in 1928 the first clear but cursory mention of the exploitation of Dumas-the father of Courtil's notes-in the magnificent study of Dumas ' literary technique by A. A. Smirnov26 . However, at that time, no one compared the novel and its textual predecessor in detail .27 Thus, even in 1941, T. V. Vanovskaya mistakenly believed that Dumas, as a factographer, was nothing more than a plagiarist who "completely" drew material from Courtil, including even "the smallest details"28 . Recently, small articles have begun to appear in various periodicals, the authors of which quite freely and usually in a sensational spirit present the above information about Charles d'Artagnan, taken mainly from second or even third-hand sources .29 Soviet historians have hardly dealt with this story. The exception is the book

22 E. d'auriac. D'Artagnan, capitaine-lieutenant des mousquetaires. Vol. 1-2. P. 1847 (we used the second, one-volume edition: p. 1888).

23 J. de Jaurgain. Troisvilles, d'Artagnan et les Trois Mousquetaires, etude bio-graphique et heraldique. Nouv. ed. P. 1910, pp. 230 - 250.

24 Ch. Samaran. D'Artagnan, capitaine des mousquetaires du rois. Histoire veridique d'un heros de roman. P. 1912 (we used the authentic edition: P, 1939),

25 We know of the first 11 issues of the magazine, which were released in 1955 - 1959: "The Dumasian". Keyghley (Yorks).

26 A. A. Smirnov. Op. ed., p. XIX.

27 See, for example, Y. Danilin. Trading House of A. Dumas and Co. Novy Mir, 1930, No. 2, p. 243.

28 T. V. Vanovskaya. Historical novels by Alexandre Dumas. "Scientific Notes" of Leningrad University, series of Philological Sciences, 1941, issue 8, p. 136. Later, this opinion gradually began to change (see, for example, M. Treskunov's afterword to the book: A. Dumas. Three Musketeers, Moscow, 1959; B. Brodsky, L. Lazebnikova. The true story of the Grey Musketeer Charles d'Artagnan. Nauka i Zhizn, 1964, No. 10).

29 Cf. the anonymous article " The Three Musketeers and d'Artagnan-who are they?" "Yunost", 1960, N 1, pp. 100-101; V. Kvitko. In memory of d'Artagnan. "Nedelya", 1976, N 27, p. 7.

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E. B. Chernyak 30, where the issue is covered, although not in great detail, but very competently. Of considerable interest is the description of the secret tasks that Charles received from Mazarin.

As for the de Batz-d'Artagnan family as a whole, from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, almost all of its members were distinguished by almost fanatical adherence to the Bourbon dynasty. Especially" famous " in this field was Jean de Batz, who during the French bourgeois Revolution of the late XVIII century repeatedly committed counter-revolutionary plots to save Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their entourage taken into custody from the people's court, then fled into exile, returned to the Consulate, and after the Restoration was erected for services to the people. the dynasty, like many of his ancestors, to the rank of general 31 .

In conclusion , a few more words about Charles. It has become trivial that when it comes to the most famous hero of Dumas ' novels, literary critics, as a rule, use the epithet "faithful sword". Indeed, Charles d'Artagnan was, in a certain sense, a" faithful sword", fiercely defending the interests of the feudal class and its state.

30 E. B. Chernyak. Verdict of the Ages, Moscow, 1971, pp. 171-173. We take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to the author for the useful information received from him. Some chronological and other discrepancies between his essay and our note seem to be explained by the fact that we used different sources, and each considers its own more reliable. Such discrepancies are still unavoidable, since there are still many dark places in d'Artagnan's biography.

31 See about him: L. G. Lenotre. Un conspirateur royaliste pendant la Terreur: le baron de Batz (1792 - 95) d'apres des documents inedits. P. 1896.

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