Good v Evil: 'The Three Musketeers' and Milady

I was going to call this post "Satan in Drag" but decided that wasn't dignified enough. So I went with something tame, boring, and mundane.

Why Satan? Because I was listening to a taped version of Dumas' "Three Musketeers" at about the time I was writing the post on Christian fantasy writers and pointed out that one of the greatest Christian fantasy epics is Milton's "Paradise Lost", not least because of the heroic evil of Satan. He kidnaps the whole story. In fact, without his sterling qualities of courage, will, and determination, there is no story (now nota bene: however much we admire these qualities, and admire them we must, they are amoral virtues).

It occurred to me that Dumas' created a villain at least the equal of Milton's Satan: The Lady De Winter. She is superb. Beautiful, certainly, and usually presented in film versions as the typical femme fatale. But in the novel, D'Artagnan, who fears nothing, is absolutely terrified at the mere mention of her name. He has good reason.

Her strength is prodigious and personal. It owes little to the Cardinal's protection, her social position, or her wealth. It rests on her own beauty, charm and cleverness, but something else, something we can only call 'character'. Consider one episode. She has been betrayed to her brother-in-law, a powerful English earl, who has every reason to hate her. He locks her up in his castle, keeps her absolutely incommunicado, and puts her in the care of an officer who is absolutely loyal to the earl, whom he regards as a father. This officer, Felton, is the first man she has met who is absolutely impervious to her charms.

She is stunned, and in utter despair. She has exactly ten days to escape, assassinate the Duke of Buckingham, and return to France. It is obvious to her she hasn't got a prayer.

Step by step, Dumas shows us how from despair she turns to plans, from inaction to seizing on every trait of Felton she can observe to craft her escape. Within 24 hours she knows the key to his soul, within another 24 she has subverted 10 years of loyalty and holds him within her hand. Dumas makes it clear that this is a work of genius, with qualities of bravery and observation far beyond anything his Musketeers possess.

She is evil of course. Bad to the bone, as we say here. How do we know? Well, Dumas tells us so. But consider. She has put herself under the protection of the Cardinal Richelieu because she has no protector and loyally carries out his orders. And Dumas is ungrudging in his admiration of the Cardinal's work of building a strong France, no matter the cost. The deeds of Milady are simply part of that cost.

Further, consider her background. She was at a young age married to Le Comte de Something or Other, one of the richest and most powerful men in France. She is, by his own account, the perfect wife. Until one day she is accidently knocked cold while they are out riding, and he happens to notice (for the first time!) a brand on her shoulder. Dumas is too discrete to say so, but it the brand that used to mark a prostitute. His honor outraged, le Comte strips her naked and hangs her in the woods until she is dead. She is 18 years old.

What made her a prostitute in this age that had no pity for the weak and the helpless? We are not told. Dumas expects us to assume that it is because she is simply evil. That's all.

Perhaps. But one is left in awe of her qualities of strength. In the modern world she would be the heroine of the story. She and D'Artagnan would ride off into the sunset at the end, if she could be content with a mere hero.

All of this reminds me of one other fictional character, from an alien civilization. This is the Widow Bee in Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee written by a retired government official in China around 1750. A poor widow, she defies the Judge openly and very nearly defeats him. But that is another story and it is late.