Aramis on Twenty Years After: Character Thursday (22)

For me, Aramis is always the most intriguing character among the four musketeers. It’s not easy to describe his personal character; if you were asked, what kind of man Aramis is, well…it’s quite difficult to answer in one short sentence. May I just say that Aramis has a flamboyant character? Nevertheless, I am trying to describe him as best as I could, from what I have learned from Twenty Years After and The Man In The Iron Mask (I did not mention Three Musketeers because I did not find the characters being much revealed in that book).

Aramis was described by d’Artagnan as an elegant man with beautiful black hair, elegant figure and lady’s hands. I wonder..has he a handsome and attractive face too? Certainly, for if not, how can all the women got attracted to him easily? :) I noticed in this book, that Aramis often produce that mysterious smile of him, that I suspected to be his main weapon to steal women’s heart….

Do you find Luke Evans to well represent Aramis?

Unlike d’Artagnan, Aramis’ service for the Kingdom was not pure devotion. He is an ambitious man with his own purposes. We can say Aramis has a high ego, and always act for his own interest. However, his true ambition is not quite clear either; it seems that Aramis was always torn between his desire to serve the Church, and to become a chevalier. It’s interesting to look upon d’Artagnan’s comment about his friend:

“I am thinking, my dear fellow, that when you were a musketeer you were forever becoming the abbé, and now you are an abbé you appear to me to have a strong leaning to the musketeers.”

And what was Aramis’ answer to that?

“That is true. Man is a strange creature, made up of contrasts. Since I have been an abbé I dream only of battles.”

But the contrast—as he said himself—is not only that. No matter how often he was called as the Abbé D’Herblay, I can never picture him as an abbé. On the contrary, I always see Aramis as a womanizer. He has made a lot of affair with charming duchess and noble ladies (even when he was already an abbé!). -Also, I have never seen him in any occasion act as an abbé, there is no preaching-like in his words; in short…there is not any indication that can lead us to imagine Aramis as an abbé. His lifestyle, for example, is far from the humble qualities we usually find in God’s servant.

Here’s d’Artagnan observation on Aramis’ bedroom,

“He (d’Artagnan) had never seen a room at the same time more warlike and more elegant. At each corner were trophies of arms… It is true that in addition there was nothing to indicate the abode of an abbé; the hangings were damask, the carpets came from Alençon, and the bed especially seemed more fit for an elegant lady, with its lace hangings and its counterpane, than for a man who had taken a vow to gain heaven by abstinence and hardship.”

Aramis is a man of contradictory and he has a quality of kept hiding his interests in a mask of calm and noble man that he often wears. I remember from The Man In The Iron Mask, d’Artagnan felt that Aramis must have been planning something big, but he could never guessed anything. When Aramis said anything, I can’t but thinking, does he really mean that? Or what he’s really up to?

Although he has a noble taste, but his heart is far from being noble. Aramis is an ambitious man, who always thinks of himself and his interest. How he could always keep his friendship with the three other musketeers, I can’t imagine. Among the bound of their friendship, I think, Aramis’s part is the weakest.

One interesting thing from The Three Musketeers, is the love affair Aramis had with Madame de Chevreuse. Later in the Twenty Years After, I learned that Madame de Chevreuse, in her exile, has had a one-night love affair with Athos. This is one thing Aramis never knew about his former lover, ah yes…in Twenty Years After he has found a new lover, Madame de Longueville :). Can you imagine what he would think or say, if he gets to reveal who Raoul’s mother is?....

That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you read? See the details of Character Thursday first.