Why the royal musketeers went without muskets, and how d'Artagnan changed this service

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Watching the movie with D'Artagnan, it was hard not to wonder - who are these Musketeers of the King, that they walk without muskets and roam freely around the city all day, and why is it so important for the main character to become one of them? And the point is that royal musketeers are not the same as mere musketeers. They had their own narrow and very honorable role.

Who are the Musketeers

Ordinary musketeers are a type of infantry armed with the most advanced weapon of the seventeenth century - firearms. Muskets are the grandfathers of guns and rifles. They shot from them, having previously fixed them on a support, like a camera on a tripod. It was difficult to make more shots per minute from a musket (and more often it took two minutes), and the weapon was struck only at a relatively short distance - a hundred meters. The musket and stanchion together were rather bulky things, with which the infantrymen walked not very elegantly.

Musketeers served not only in the French army. They were armed with muskets of the army in the north of India, in the Muslim Safemid state and, of course, in all European countries. As a rule, in battle, the musketeers shot slowly, aiming very carefully, like snipers: one bullet - one person should fall dead.

Royal musketeers

King Louis XIII, the same one played by Oleg Tabakov, had reason to worry about his life on long journeys. All sorts of dukes constantly looked at the royal throne in France - after all, they were also of royal blood. Louis wanted to be sure that leaving the palace would not turn into an accident on the hunt, when several hunters at once unloaded carbines at the king.

He created, following the example of his father, King Henry IV, a personal guard, all of whose duties were precisely to constantly be on the lookout during the field trips and be ready to shoot back in an encirclement or draw their swords for the king. The main difference from Henry's personal guard was the armament - more modern muskets instead of carbines - and good training. The king's musketeers had to shoot equally well and swordsmanship dashingly. They were required to be in perfect physical shape and endless loyalty to the king.

It was according to these criteria that the royal musketeers selected, firstly, very young nobles, secondly, from the very good families who had established themselves as always keeping their honor and loyalty to the king, and thirdly, it is better from the outskirts - ambition and lack of ties with the nobility of central France was the best recommendation that the musketeers in the service would crawl out of their skin. That is why de Treville, and d'Artagnan, and at least two of the three musketeers are Gascons, by our standards it is as if natives of, for example, the Cossack Kuban or Georgian princes came to conquer the capital of the times of the Russian Empire.

Although the royal musketeers did not have to serve directly every day, it was expected that they would spend their free days to keep in shape. Perhaps that is why the book Louis turns a blind eye to the fact that his musketeers violate the ban on dueling - after all, a deadly fight will prepare them for a real battle for the king better than friendly duels.

It is also understandable why in the book the enemies had to attack each of the goodies in a crowd in order to defeat them - after all, the royal musketeers were the best fighters in the country, something like special forces in terms of coolness.

The most modern and trendy

The king's musketeers had the most beautiful uniform in France - at the request of the king himself. She was an azure (bright blue) cape embroidered with silver braids and large white crosses. The cross was sewn from velvet so that it shimmered beautifully, and decorated with golden royal lilies at the ends and scarlet shamrocks in the core.

All royal musketeers had to ride "silver" - that is, gray in the apple or white - horses. During the trips, the king's musketeers were armed to the teeth. First, of course, a musket and two pistols. Secondly, a sword in case of a fight on the ground and a broadsword if you have to fight on horseback. Thirdly, daga is a dagger for the left hand, also for sword fighting. And, of course, a buffalo sling, hung with sacks of bullets and gunpowder.

Despite such requirements for the appearance, weapons and training of musketeers, only a musket was issued to them at the expense of the treasury. The rest of the royal special forces acquired at their own expense (or at the expense of a rich mistress, like Porthos). Where to get money was a constant headache for the royal musketeers.

D'Artagnan's reforms

Fans of the story of the three Musketeers will be pleased to know that over time, a lively young Gascon replaced de Treville at his post. And he carried out a number of significant reforms.

First, d'Artagnan seriously rejuvenated the royal musketeers. Now it was both a guard of very young (with a remarkable reaction) people and something like a military academy. They began to take the musketeers from the age of sixteen to seventeen, and four years later, having received an officer's rank, the guardsman went to any other army unit - there he was received with open arms. Of course, the most skillful and intelligent remained in the royal musketeers.

Secondly, he finally solved the question of where to live, which was always painful for young musketeers, by building the Musketeers' Hotel - that is, something like a good hostel. Thirdly, the company had its own surgeon and pharmacist, which made it possible to quickly receive help for injuries, and not run around the city in search of a free surgeon. In general, d'Artagnan at once solved all those problems, from which, according to Dumas, he suffered very much at first in Paris.

True, movie and book heroes do not always resemble their historical prototypes. What King Louis XIII really was, and why he does not look like the movie hero Tabakov.