work has many flaws. There are errors in history, chronology, and in some places Dumas even writes the wrong year or gets confused about a character's age. Dumas always cared more about the drama, the suspense, the history he was creating, rather than the sometimes boring facts of actual history. He took his historical sketch and filled it out from his own imagination, creating characters whose actions changed history within the novels, and who have enlivened history ever since.

***

There has been much confusion over the years as to which books form the "Musketeers Series" or the D'Artagnan Romances, as they are referred to by scholars. The greatest confusion lies in the manner in which editors split the lengthy third volume of the series. The title of the whole work is The Vicomte de Bragelonne, however, its subtitle is Ten Years Later, and so some older editions use that as the title. Also, the novel is split into three, four, or five volumes, depending on the edition. When split into three volumes, the titles are: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Valliere, and The Man in the Iron Mask. In four volumes the titles are: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise de la Valliere, and The Man in the Iron Mask. The copies of The Man in the Iron Mask that are sold in bookstores today correspond to the last volume of the four-volume edition. The five-volume editions rarely give separate titles to the volumes. Also adding to the confusion is the fact that Dumas considered The Three Musketeers to be two books: The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. The split occurs, naturally, shortly after D'Artagnan is made a musketeer. Some older editions split this book in this fashion. Also, there are two other books that feature the characters of the D'Artagnan Romances that are, however, falsely attributed to Dumas. These two titles are D'Artagnan and the King-Maker and The Son of Porthos. Not only do these novels outright contradict the earlier books in the series, but they were clearly not written by Alexandre Dumas. Many catalogues, however, list them among Dumas's works. Most commonly, though, the entire D'Artagnan Romances are found in five books, with The Vicomte de Bragelonne being split into three volumes. Here is a listing of them in chronological order, with possible subdivisions listed in parenthesis:

The Three Musketeers - serialized 1844
(The Four Musketeers)
Twenty Years After - serialized 1845
The Vicomte de Bragelonne - serialized 1847-1850
(Ten Years Later)
Louise de la Valliere
The Man in the Iron Mask

For the purposes of the Project Gutenberg etexts, The Vicomte de Bragelonne was split into four texts, using the same divisions as the four-volume editions. However, another text exists, entitled Ten Years Later, which was published by Project Gutenberg before Twenty Years After, even though it occurs later in the story. While it is correct in claiming that it is a sequel to The Three Musketeers, it neglects to acknowledge that Twenty Years After comes between The Three Musketeers and that etext. This etext also, like some novel editions, uses the title Ten Years Later to refer to The Vicomte de Bragelonne as a whole, and it covers portions of the etexts The Vicomte de Bragelonne and the newer Ten Years Later.

***

What follows are some short biographical details about the real personages behind the characters created by Dumas. Although some of them do not appear in The Vicomte de Bragelonne, they are referred to frequently, and so they were included.

Anne of Austria: (1601-66) Anne was the daughter of Phillip III of Spain. She married Louis XIII in 1615, and after his death, ruled as Regent from 1643-61 with Mazarin as her prime minister. Modern historians reckon that she was almost certainly Mazarin's lover, but no evidence beyond rumor exists of a secret marriage between the two, as Dumas suggests. She died of breast cancer in 1666, though symptoms of her disease did not appear until 1664. She was supposedly in love with the elder Buckingham in around 1646, but nothing suggests that she was actually his mistress, though many thought so. She was, though, in her youth, one of the greatest beauties of all Europe.

Aramis: Aramis's real name was Henri d'Aramitz. Like his fictional counterpart, he was a clergyman, a Bernais, and like D'Artagnan, he was a Gascon. He joined the musketeers in 1640, married in 1654, had four children, and died around 1674. He was a nephew to M. de Treville, captain of the musketeers from 1634-1642. He was never, so far as history can tell, involved with the Jesuits. A German named Nickel was Vicar-General from 1652-1664 and from 1664-1681 an Italian named Jean-Paul Oliva headed the order.

Athos: Athos was, in real life, Armand de Sillegue d'Athos d'Auteville. He was born around 1615, joined the musketeers at the age of twenty-five, and died in Paris in 1643. He was probably a nobleman, as Athos was, and was a Gascon, as D'Artagnan was, and was also a cousin to M. de Treville, captain of the musketeers from 1634-1642. Dumas claimed, in the preface to The Three Musketeers, to be nothing more than the editor of the memoirs of the Comte de la Fere, presumably the same memoirs Athos is seen working on during the course of The Vicomte de Bragelonne.

Baisemeaux: (1613?-97) Francois de Montlezun joined the musketeers in 1634 where he served with our four heroes' historical counterparts. He purchased the post of governor of the Bastile in 1658 for forty thousand livres, not one hundred and fifty thousand as Dumas claims, and held the post until his death. He left a fortune of two million livres.

Beaufort: (1616-69) Francois de Vendome, the Duc de Beaufort, was a grandson of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees. He was jailed in Vincennes in 1643 for plotting against Mazarin, and he escaped in 1648 (with the aid of Athos and Grimaud according to Twenty Years After). After fighting against the king in the Fronde, he reconciled with the throne in 1653. He died at the siege of Candia.

Belliere: (1608-1705) Suzanne de Bruc, Marquis de Plessis-Belliere, called Elise by Dumas, was widowed in 1654. She was very close to Fouquet, and it was she who organized his social engagements, not Madame Fouquet. When Fouquet was arrested in 1661, she was kept under house arrest until 1665.

Bragelonne: Dumas's source for the character Raoul de Bragelonne comes from a slight mention of a suitor of Louise de Valliere's while she was still at Blois. The most likely candidate is Jean de Bragelonne, who was an obscure councilor at the parliament at Rennes. However, there were several other Bragelonnes who were also in the area: Jerome, his son Francois, both soldiers, and Jacques, Gaston d'Orleans's chief steward. Jean was more than likely related to one of these other Bragelonnes, but historians are not certain as to which.

Buckingham: (1627-87) George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, was the son of the George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who figured so prominently in The Three Musketeers, and Katherine Manners, then the richest heiress in England. After his father's assassination, he was raised alongside the children of Charles I. He was one of the rakes of Charles II's court - hot-tempered, unpredictable, and bisexual. Though he had great influence over the king, his disputes with the monarch landed him in the Tower on four separate occasions. His love for Henrietta-Anne Stuart was well-attested, and often drove him to extremities of behavior.

Charles II: (1630-85) Charles Stuart fled to France in 1646, returned briefly to Scotland in 1651, where he was crowned, was routed by Cromwell in September, and returned to France until Mazarin signed a treaty with Cromwell in 1655 declaring the deposed monarch persona non grata in