Athos on Twenty Years After: Character Thursday (21)

Since Twenty Years After is one sequel of a serialized novels under the title: The D’Artagnan Romances, I will analyze one of its numerous characters: Athos, not only from his appearance in this particular book, but I gather what I have learned from all The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Man In The Iron Mask—in which books I think the four musketeers had played their greater role.  

From the four musketeers—Athos, Porthos, Aramis, D’Artagnan—Athos is the eldest in age, the noblest in personage, and the mildest in heart. No wonder, he was considered the leader of this group of loyal friends. D’Artagnan always placed Athos as a father figure in his heart, and had always loved him the most, compared to the other two. Athos too, often called D’Artagnan as ‘my son’. I see Athos as a fatherly figure from how he felt about Raoul—the young man he had taken under his guard, but who has a perfect resemblance with him (he was actually Athos’ son). It is interesting that after twenty years of separation, D’Artagnan, at their first reunion, saw Athos with great surprise…

“Strange thing! Athos had hardly aged at all…”

And what do you think had caused this renewed life of Athos? It is love! Yes, his love for Raoul was so great that I wonder, could it be a father has such an emotional love that—I think—resembles a love of a mother to a son? And more than love, I can say that Athos adored his son. This, which I see more in The Man In The Iron Mask, I think, was the one of Athos’ weaknesses. In short, I think Athos has a tender heart, too tender sometimes, so that when he should act firmly, he failed to do so because of his tender heart, which might cause a bigger risk for him. This is revealed when Athos and Aramis met the son of Milady who wanted to take revenge. Aramis in his sharpness had prepared an ambush, but Athos forbade him to kill an innocent man, although later on he regretted his tender-hearted. For an ordinary man, of course the quality Athos had in him is the highest we can expect from a man, however if I put his tender heart in his chevalier context, then I think it could be a weakness.

Athos in The Man In The Iron Mask movie

If Athos has one weakness, he possessed a lot of strong personalities. He is the noblest man in the Kingdom, the bravest and one of the best swordsmanship. The Comte de la Fère—Athos’ real name—has a noble appearance in him, that everybody who looked at him would directly reckon that he was a nobleman. But the nobility he possessed was not only in his appearance, but more in his soul. Let’s take a look at one of Athos’ advice to Raoul…

“Raoul, learn ever to separate the king and the principle of royalty; the king is but man; royalty is the spirit of God. When you are in doubt as to which you should serve, forsake the material appearance for the invisible principle, for this is everything. Only God has wished to render this principle palpable by incarnating it in a man.”

Athos believed that he should serve the principle of royalty—which reflected the spirit of God—instead of the man who lead the royalty, who could have been corrupted in soul. It was perhaps the reason why he rejected D’Artagnan’s offer to serve Cardinal Mazarin.

Athos was also a loyal and trustful man who appraised friendship higher than anyone else. When there was a dispute between the four musketeers, it was Athos who stood up to save them from fighting each other. I can say that Athos was the key of their unity. You can read what he has said at the crucial moment in my former post.

Until now I always see Athos as a calm, serious man with self control, pure in heart, high in dignity, and always keep his own principle. However from Twenty Years After I began to know more of him. In The Man In The Iron Mask, I just found out that Athos has a son, and ever since I kept wondering, who might be Raoul’s mother. I never think it was Milady, but I have never read that Athos had another mistress. The answer revealed in this book. I will not spoil the truth to you J, but just want to say that…ehm…I have never thought Athos as a wild young man (he has always been a wise man, even when he was a young musketeer!), but..that’s the truth, and it only make me see Athos as a man J. Oh, and have I mentioned that Athos was the most handsome of the four musketeers? Here I give you the clue….

Matthew Macfadyen as Athos in the newest adaptation
of The Three Musketeers

In short, Athos was never my idol from the four musketeers, and the farther I read Twenty Years After, the more I see him getting weaker. Athos seemed to be indifferent to his surroundings, and just focused on his beloved son and his noble principles. I see him made blunders several times in the four musketeers’ adventures, that once made D’Artagnan and Aramis lost patience on him. He also became more ‘divine’ than ever, that a stabbing or a murder scene could trouble him. I mean…it’s perhaps good to be closer to God or to be ‘more Christian’ (even more than the Abbe D’Herblay! J), but come on Athos, you are a chevalier! While reading bible, I expect to read the deeds of saints, but this is a heroic-adventure novel, and I definitely hope for some more heroic actions! So, I’m sorry, I lost my respect to Athos here, maybe you’re just getting old for a chevalier!

I would like to thank all of you who have voted for one of the musketeers I am featuring in Character Thursday. The majority have chosen Athos (which I'm featuring today), and the rest voted for Aramis. Sorry for Porthos, he did not gain any interests from you... 

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.

[Non-English Victorian Author] Alexandre Dumas

Having his works being translated in almost a hundred languages and have been inspired more than 200 motion pictures, we can say that Alexandre Dumas is the most widely read French authors in the world. Born on 24 July 1802, his real name was Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie. His grandfather is a French nobleman, while his grandmother was a slave who born from mix French and African ancestor. Dumas’ father—a general in Napoleon’s army—married to an inn keeper’s daughter. When Thomas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie—Dumas’ father—joined the army, he took his grandfather’s name Dumas.

Unfortunately, Dumas was born during the hardest times of the family, his father being imprisoned, then return home in poor condition, both in health and financial state. After his father died, Dumas’ mother—incapable of giving him proper education—encouraged her son to read everything they could obtain, and told him stories about his late father’s bravery during his service to Napoleon, which later on inspired Dumas’s vivid imagination of adventures.

After the restoration of the monarchy, the twenty years old Dumas—having inherited his family aristocratic reputation—moved to Paris and started a career at Palais Royal in the office of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans and later become King Louis. During this time Dumas began to write for magazines and plays for the theatre. Although he was later famous as a novel writer, Dumas had been famous as a successful dramatist before writing novels. He performed many romantic historical dramas on the Paris stage, and later founded Théâtre Historique at the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, which later became Opéra National.

His Writings

During the early of Victorian era, serial stories became a new trend; and Dumas—saw an opportunity for his career—re-wrote one of his plays into his first serial novel, which was soon followed with his other novels. In writing the novels, Dumas used to use services from assistants and collaborators. One of them was Auguste Maquet who assisted Dumas in outlining the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and assisted him in The Three Musketeers. After the success of both novels, Dumas bought a land and built a château named Château de Monte Cristo (nicknamed Château d'If). Although he had gained a great deal from his writing, Dumas did not maintain his financial very well; he spent a lot to women and his guests at his château has taken advantage of his generosity. Dumas then sold his château and fled to Belgium to escape his creditors. The château has been restored and is now become a museum, opened to public.

Château de Monte Cristo 

A separate building where Dumas could work
privately, nicknamed the "Château d'If."

Dumas’ workplace inside the Château d'If

His personal life

After his marriage with an actress, Ida Ferrier, Dumas kept his love adventures with some women. From them he had at least four illegitimate children; one of them was Dumas’ son with a dressmaker called Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay. In the future—bearing the name of his father—Alexandre Dumas, fils would follow his father’s step to become a writer and playwright.

Alexandre Dumas, père died on 5 December 1870 at his son’s villa. At first he was buried in the cemetery of Villers-Cotterêts, however at 2002 President Jacques Chirac instructed to move his cemetery to the mausoleum of Pantheon, to be placed among his fellow greatest French authors Èmile Zola and Victor Hugo. During the ceremony—which was broadcasted on television—four Republican Guards dressed as Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan brought Dumas’ coffin in a procession towards the Pantheon. In his speech, Chirac also pronounced that ‘a wrong had now been righted’ which was related to the racism thoughts against Dumas (being a mixed race). About this, Dumas himself have written a particular short novel titled Georges, which addressed some of the issues of race and the effects of colonialism. Dumas once remarked to a man who insulted him about his mixed-race background: "My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

His bibliography

Some of Alexandre Dumas’ most famous novels:

The D’Artagnan Romances:

• The Three Musketeers
• Twenty Years After
• The Vicomte of Bragelonne (= Ten Years Later) – usually divided into: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière, and The Man In The Iron Mask.

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Black Tulip

La Reine Margot

Source:

Wikipedia

Online-literature.org

Entrée toBlack Paris™

Literary Classics Challenge - Friday Progress (6)

A Woman Reading - Ivan Olinsky

This month has been crawling quite slowly… I mean both in my real and in literary life. Especially in literary I think, because I’ve spent the first two whole weeks to finish The Old Curiosity Shop [see my review], which by the way, worth the time and effort. Although it is quite engaging—like all Dickens’ serious novels—I could enjoy the story at the same time. I think OCS is the best Dickens I have read so far, for although A Tale of Two Cities is equal in writing quality, but I found OCS is more deeply touching my soul. The characters are more memorable too, compared to Tale of Two Cities—which only have Sydney Carton as the most memorable one.

Finished with OCS, I directly buried in Twenty Years After, the sequel of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. After the slow pace of Dickens, Dumas takes me directly into a fresh gallop J. In only 6 days I have been proceeding to more than 300 pages (from 688!), it’s quite fast for me to read classics!

I wish to finish Twenty Years by around next week, but I will perhaps slip one or two Victorian classics short stories during this weekend. How about you? How is your classics reading for this week?

The Dispute Of Four Old Friends: My Reflection on Twenty Years After

I have not even got into the middle of this book yet, but I have been quite moved by the friendship of these four noble men: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan, twenty years after their golden era of King’s Musketeers. The slogan of “all for one and one for all” seems to stick forever in my heart.

Twenty Years After depicted these four men in their later lives after Cardinal Richelieu dead. D’Artagnan was still the lieutenant of King’s Musketeers, while Athos and Porthos have been enjoying their retirement and prosperity, and Aramis has been giving himself to serve the Chucrh as an abbé. Now the new cardinal wanted to use their service again, and instructed D’Artagnan to gather his three friends. In this task, D’Artagnan only succeeded to persuade Porthos, while Athos and Aramis both rejected to join. Not only that, it appeared latter that Athos and Aramis was working on something against the Cardinal, but they did not tell D’Artagnan about this.

These four inseparable friends were now worked for two opposite sides. To avoid from killing each other, they agreed to have a reconciliation meeting. This meeting turned out to be the most interesting scene so far (I’m on page 279). From this meeting, I realized why it is very easy to make friends when we are in our 20s, but very difficult to maintain it to get through when we are approaching our 40s (I proved it myself). One of the reasons was clearly reflected in what D’Artagnan said in the meeting…

"It is not civil wars which disunite us; it is that we are all twenty years older. The loyal outburst of youth have gone, and given place to the din of interests, the breath of ambition, and the counsels of egotism.” ~D’Artagnan.

And was confirmed by Aramis…

“Men are so constituted, and are not always twenty years old.” ~Aramis.

The fact is, when we reach the 30s, we used to pursue our own interests. Most of us have been married (or at least are thinking to have a family), that our career or business would be our priority. Idealism had been replaced with interest. In this story, D’Artagnan was all thinking about his career in the kingdom, Porthos was seeking his barony, something that he have not possessed yet, while Aramis has his own ambition to pursue a higher position in Church. Maybe it’s only Athos who did not have any strong interest, but his own principle.  

Back to the four friends’ dispute, the tender-hearted Athos could not accept that their meeting should be filled with suspicion, so when Aramis suggested him to bring his weapon for the meeting, the idea broke Athos’ heart…

“Oh, Aramis, upon my soul you make me feel very unhappy! You are disenchanting a heart not quite dead to friendship. I would almost prefer, I swear to you, that my heart should be plucked from my breast.” ~Athos.

Now, when I am analyzing the situation, it is difficult indeed to stay on either side. I am perhaps rather joining D’Artagnan’s (and Porthos) side, for at least he was openly telling the truth when he recruited Athos and Aramis. I agree what D’Artagnan said to Athos…

“When I visited you at the Château de Bragelonne, I made you some propositions which you clearly understood, and instead of replying to me as to an old friend, you replied as to a child, and our friendship, of which you boast, was not broken yesterday by crossing swords, but by your dissimulation.” ~D’Artagnan.

I am rather disappointed to know that Athos lied to D’Artagnan. With Aramis, I can understand, for he was always an opportunist, but Athos? Who—like D’Artagnan said—have always been praising their friendship…., how can he do it to D’Artagnan? Because he was afraid D’Artagnan would double-cross him by reporting to Cardinal? Oh come on Athos, you are a good diplomat; you know how to win D’Artagnan? Is it a sign that trustworthy had begun to disappear? See…how difficult it is to maintain your true friendship when you were overpowered by your own interests?

However, I am quite relieved that Dumas chose to reconcile those four friends through Athos, the leader and father of them all…

“We have lived together, hated and loved together, have spilt our blood, and perhaps, I will add also, there is between us a tie more powerful than that of friendship…” ~Athos.

And once again (I hope in the next chapters), four of them would fight again together for the sake of nothing-but-truth! Come on guys….you can do it!

Dick Swiveller on The Old Curiosity Shop

Usually I limit my Character Thursday to maximum two characters from one book, to avoid over-exposing too often one particular book, which I’m afraid will bore my followers. However this time I will make an exception, I am picking another character—the third—from The Old CuriosityShop, after Little Nell and her grandfather. Why? Because I think Richard ‘Dick’ Swiveller is a unique character—the only one who experienced a character development in this book, so he deserved to be exposed here.

Dick appeared at earlier chapters only as a comical accessories to the main characters. He was brought to the scene by Fred Trent, Nell’s big brother who suspected that their grandfather was actually a very rich man, and all those times had hidden his treasure to be given to Nell when she has grown up. Fred was a bad boy, and in order to persuade his grandfather, he brought his flamboyant and poetical friend, Dick Swiveller. So, we can assume Dick to be one of antagonists, as besides Fred, Dick also worked together with Quilp, the main antagonist of this story.

Dick’s personality is quite a unique and unforgettable one, he is not as perfect as Nell and Kit—I personally never like perfect characters too much, they are only in tales, not in real life—but Dick is not a totally wicked person too as Quilp, he’s just a person who praised pleasure and wealth, not a hard-worker, an opportunist, and was quite indifferent to others or to the world. Dick liked to imagine himself as a rich person, he used to mention his apartment as ‘apartments’, and imagined his bed as a bookcase. He depended his life on his rich aunt’s mercy, and although was not holding any pence in his pocket, he would fulfill his expensive appetite with a luxury dining from different restaurants (and left a lot of debt traces in almost every dining place in London).

As an easy-going person, Dick was very easy to be tempted. When Fred offered him to marry Little Nell to gain her inheritance, Dick—without many considerations—decided to break up his present relationship with Sophie Wackles. Quilp has also used him for his own plan, by getting Dick a job in Sampson Brass’ law office. The indifference in Dick’s character was clearly stated in his own expression:

“There are some people who can be merry and can’t be wise, and some who can be wise (or think thy can) and can’t be merry. I’m one of the first sort.”

Dick Swiveller & Sophie Wackles

I have thought Dick Swiveller as and would be the little villain, someone who would execute the plan to get Kit to his downfall, however something then happened. One night Dick met the little servant of Brass family, a dirty poor-nameless-abused-and-neglected girl who used to live downstairs. His involvement with the Marchioness—a nick name Dick had given the servant girl—was later on proved to be the turning point of Dick’s character development, from an indifferent person, to become someone with more affection for others. He was the one who took the responsibility to take care of Kit’s mother and family when Kit must went to jail. And I think, somehow, Dick felt that Kit was actually innocent, and that there was something wrong with his bosses. Dick also sent a cheerful present for Kit in jail. He was now a kind-hearted person with care for others. His heroic action, however, did not occurred until he suffered a sever fever that almost took his life, if the poor and sweet Marchioness did not take care of him like a mother and nurse. In his sorrow, all his concerns were on the falsely accused Kit. He—along with the Marchioness of course—was the key actor of Kit’s release.

Dick Swiveller in the movie

I was wondering, what was the cause of Dick Swiveller’s change? I guess the poor life of the Marchioness was the trigger. Dick—I think—was quite deeply touched by the injustice and abuses that the Marchioness had lived her life with. And from there, Dick must have changed his mind about the Brass family, and thus saw things with a different point of view, and lead him to doubt that Kit was guilty. After Marchioness scene, Dick’s heart was easier to be moved by a helplessness situation, such as happened to Kit and his mother.

Dick Swiveller & the Marchioness

So, here was Richard ‘Dick’ Swiveller, from zero to hero, and although his change was not so drastically as Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, but still, he deserves to be praised as a hero in this story. And I’m glad that in the end Dickens gave him a woman to love and love him in return, someone who shared his eccentricity and interests. I must admit that I would miss Mr. Swiveller’s character, he’s someone who had given this story more color and more cheerfulness within the gloomy atmosphere we felt with poor Little Nell and the grotesque wickedness of Quilp. Dick Swiveller was indeed the savior of The Old Curiosity Shop, to make us love it more!  

[Non-English Victorian Author] Émile Zola

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” ~ Émile Zola

Still in the event of A Victorian Celebration, I have a plan to explore two non-English Victorian authors of my favourites. This particular post would be about one of them: Émile-Édouard-Charles-Antoine Zola, who is famously called Émile Zola. Born in Paris on April 2, 1840 from an Italian engineer, Zola is mostly recognized for his naturalism theory and his political move in the Dreyfus affair—a case of a falsely-accused man, besides his novels.

Naturalism

Naturalism is an extension of realism movement in literature. “In literature it extended the tradition of realism, aiming at an even more faithful, unselective representation of reality, a veritable “slice of life,” presented without moral judgment. Naturalism differed from realism in its assumption of scientific determinism, which led naturalistic authors to emphasize man’s accidental, physiological nature rather than his moral or rational qualities.” [Encyclopedia Britannica]. It is believed that Émile Zola was the first author to introduce the use of the term ‘naturalism’.

Life and early career

His father died when Zola was four years old, and left the family with a small pension. Actually his mother had wanted Zola to take a law career, but he failed in his examination. Since childhood Zola made friend with Paul Cézanne, a famous artist and a Post-Impressionist painter, who painted Zola together with his writer friend, Paul Alexis on 1869-1870. However, the friendship broke up after Zola fictionalized Cézanne and his Bohemian painter friends’ life in his novel: The Masterpiece (L'Œuvre).

Paul Cézanne, Paul Alexis reading to Emile Zola 

1869-1870

Before starting his writing career seriously, Zola worked as a clerk in shipping firm, then in a publishing company named Hachette. There he made many interesting contacts and learned the new rules of the literary market. He also became a politic journalist for the same publisher, where he never hid his dislike against Napoleon III. When his second novel—an autobiographical one—La Confession de Claude was being published on 1865 and got police attention, he was fired from the publishing company.

His writing

Therese Raquin could be assumed as Zola’s first major novel (his very first book was Contes à Ninon, published in 1864). And after that, in the age of 28, Zola began his plan for a series contained of 20 novels called Les Rougon Macquart, about two branches of a family under the Second Empire: the respectable (legitimate) one—Rougon and the illegitimate one—Macquart, which Zola described as:

"I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world."

Zola has thought from the start the big layout of the stories theme. Being a Naturalist, and in order to make them cover only Truth, Zola had developed a systematic method to create the whole plan. First he collected news articles, investigation notes, and studies by informers, notes on settings or on language, and completed his historical, sociological, or lexical information. The preliminary files also contained plan, list of characters and their individual files. From those preliminary files, Zola then wrote the rough draft of each novel.

If you have read Therese Raquin and L’Assommoir, you would have noticed how thoroughly Zola described the scenes in both novels. It appeared that Zola had seen the particular passage du Pont Neuf (from Therese Raquin) and rue de la Goutte-d’Or (from L’Assommoir) from the eyes of his painter friend, then recreated them in his writings.

Illustration of the passage du Pont Neuf, 

appeared in the opening of chapter 1 of Therese Raquin 

Illustration of rue de la Goutte-d’Or, 

appeared in chapter XII of l’Assommoir

J’Accuse and The Dreyfus Affair

One of his famous attempts in politics—which brought a high risk for his career and life—was his open letter to President Félix Faure which was published on the front page of Paris daily newspaper L’Aurore, on 13 January 1898. J’Accuse..! was the title, in which Zola accused the highest level of French army has been conducting injustice and anti-semitism against Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer in French army. French intelligent had found out that someone had given their military secrets to German embassy, and Dreyfus was put under suspicion and convicted to life-imprisonment although there had not been any direct evidence against him. Zola's intention was that he be prosecuted for libel so that the new evidence in support of Dreyfus would be made public. The Dreyfus Affair became a huge issue at that time, dividing the nation into two sides—reactionary army and church on one side and the more liberal commercial society on the other side.

On 7 February 1898 Zola was brought to trial for criminal libel, as the reaction of his J’Accuse. He was convicted, but rather than going to jail, Zola fled to England, and only returned to Paris eight months later after charge against him was dismissed.

His Death

On the 29th of September 1902 Zola was found dead at his home in Paris because of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a stopped chimney. It was assumed that his politics enemies were behind the poisoning, although there was no clear evidence against it. However, decades later, a Parisian roofer made a claim during his last minutes of life, to have closed the chimney of Zola’s house for political reasons. Is that true? Sadly—we will never know…

Zola was initially buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris but on 4 June 1908, almost six years after his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon, where he shares a crypt with Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.

His Legacies

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” ~Émile Zola

Every great man must have had people who criticized them. Unlike Charles Dickens, Zola has been criticized to be lack of the power of creating life-like and memorable characters, and to make his characters true to life. Zola himself insisted that he refused to make any of his characters ‘larger than life’, that it was either scientifically or artistically justifiable to create larger-than-life characters. This is what—I think—differ Zola from the most Victorian authors—especially Dickens.

“I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity.” ~Émile Zola

Bibliography:

Les Rougon-Macquart Series

The Fortune of the Rougons - book 1

La Curée - book 2

The Belly of Paris - book 3

La Concuête de Plassans - book 4

La Foute de l'Abbé Mouret - book 5

Son Excellence Eugène Rougon - book 6

L'Assommoir - book 7

Une Page d'Amour - book 8

Nana - book 9

Pot-Bouille (Restless House) - book 10

The Ladies' Paradise - book 11

The Joy of Life - book 12

Germinal - book 13

The Masterpiece - book 14

The Earth - book 15

The Dream - book 16

La Bête Humaine - book 17

L'Argent - book 18

La Débâcle - book 19

Le Docteur Pascal - book 20

Three Cities Trilogy

Lourdes

Paris

Rome

Les Quatre Evangiles Tetralogy

Fécondité (Fruitfullness)

Travail (Work)

Vérité (Truth)

Justice (Justice -- not end)

Other Novels

Thérèse Raquin

The Dreyfus' Affair: "J'Accuse" and Other Writings

Madeleine Férat

The Mysteries of Marseilles

Contes à Ninon

La Confession de Claude

Short Stories

The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories

For A Night of Love

La Mort d'Olivier Becaille

Novella

The Flood

Source:

Wikipedia

ExpositionsVirtuelles – Emile Zola 

Online-literature.com– Emile Zola 

Goodreads

Emile Zola Blog 

Do Me A Favour, Choose One From These Three…

Dear friends and followers,

I am right now reading Alexandre Dumas’ Twenty Years After, the sequel of The Three Musketeers. So, here I am again, meet those four famous gentlemen from France: Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan. As usual, I will pick one or two characters from the book to be featured in my Character Thursday meme. I have planned to pick two characters from Twenty Years After, and will post the first one next Thursday (25/7). The question is, WHO MUST I PICK?

I am now on page 126, and have met all the four musketeers. The problem is, they are all wonderful characters with unique and interesting personality, that I still can’t make my mind of who must I pick for Character Thursday. So, here I offer a chance for all of you to help me.

Who would you like me to pick to be featured in Character Thursday?

I have featured D’Artagnan for The Man In The Iron Mask before and won’t write about him again, so the choice would be on the other (original) three musketeers.

Would you choose:

The calm and noble ATHOS?

The simple and naïve PORTHOS?

Or the elegant and full of intrigues of ARAMIS?

I would appreciate your ideas, you can just simply choose one of them by name only, or you can also give me reason why you chose him. I will pick whoever gets chosen by most of you, to be featured in the Character Thursday. 

Thanks guys… J