France. With Monk's support, he finally returned to London as a king in 1661. During his reign there were two wars with the Dutch, the great plague occurred, the Habeas Corpus Act was passed, and the Great Fire swept London. The visit to Mazarin depicted at the beginning of The Vicomte de Bragelonne has its basis in an actual visit paid by the deposed monarch to the Cardinal in Spain in 1659. It was only one of many attempts to gain French support.

Chevreuse: (1600-79) Marie-Aime de Rohan Bazon married the Duc de Chevreuse in 1622. She was a close friend of Anne of Austria, and used many lovers in her plots against Richelieu. Although regularly exiled by Louis XIII, she constantly snuck back to court. She was imprisoned in 1628, escaped in 1637, and fled to Spain, and then England, where she was again briefly imprisoned on the Isle of Wight. She moved to Belgium, and was allowed to return to France by Mazarin in 1643. She was quickly exiled again, but allowed to return under the Amnesty of Reuil in 1649. She continued her intrigues during the Fronde and was named as Raoul de Bragelonne's mother in Twenty Years After.

Colbert: (1619-83) Jean-Baptiste Colbert was born in Reins, the son of a minor official and an agent of Richelieu's. He was employed first by the Secretary of State for War, in 1640, and later became Mazarin's intendant in 1655. He purchased a barony in 1658 and entered the aristocracy. Mazarin's words on his deathbed, recommending Colbert to Louis XIV were portrayed by Dumas with accuracy. Mazarin actually said, "I owe you everything, but I pay my debt to your majesty in giving you Colbert." He became Louis's chief minister in 1661 and immediately began administering the reforms necessary after Fouquet's regime. In a decade, he effectively tripled the revenues. Although he did not personally care for him, Dumas's estimation of Colbert's "glorious works" and projects was fairly accurate - in addition to his building projects he also supported many French industries and sent explorers and colonists to America. Although he built the French navy, he eventually became opposed to the wars of Louis XIV, as they thwarted his efforts to keep the budget balanced.

Conde: (1621-86) Louis de Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien, became Prince de Conde in 1646, on the death of his father. During the 1640s he distinguished himself in several battles and gained a name for his military skills. He believed, however, that he had not been rewarded sufficiently, and alienated both the queen and Mazarin to the extent that he was jailed for a year in 1650. In retaliation he raised an army to take the king away from his advisors, failed, and left France in 1653. He continued to fight in every campaign against France until his rehabilitation in 1659, after which he retired to his estates. He returned to service in 1668 and died in battle in 1674.

D'Artagnan: Charles de Batz-Castlemore, sieur d'Artagnan, was born in Tarbes around 1615. He joined Richelieu's Guards in 1635 and then the musketeers in 1644. During the years 1646-1657, when the musketeers were disbanded in actual history, Mazarin used him as a courier. He was appointed second-in-command to the absentee Captain-Lieutenant of the musketeers (a nephew of Mazarin's who had no interest in the work) in 1657, when the company was reformed. Although he only held the rank of Lieutenant, he was the actual commander of the troops. He married in 1659, had two sons, and separated from his wife in 1665. It was indeed the real D'Artagnan who, in 1661, arrested Fouquet, though not nearly as dramatically as Dumas's depiction, and escorted him first to Angers, and later, after the former minister's trial, to Pignerol. He became Captain- Lieutenant of the musketeers in 1667, in other words, the commander of the musketeers, as the rank of Captain-General was reserved for the king himself. During Louis's invasion of the Dutch Republic, he was briefly governor of Lille in 1672. He was killed at the siege of Maastricht in March of 1673. From his few surviving documents, he appears to have been rather an unimaginative soldier with a great respect for authority. He never lost his Gascon accent, which is detectable even in his letters. His spelling was atrocious even by the standards of the time. Dumas bases his character largely on his own imagination and from another fictional work from 1700 entitled The Memoirs of M. d'Artagnan by Courtilz de Sandras, from which he got the basis for the first few chapters of The Three Musketeers. Dumas never, however, read beyond the first volume of Sandras's work, and vastly altered the material he did read, making it uniquely his own. The character of Milady also comes from Sandras's writings, wherein D'Artagnan encounters a mysterious English noblewoman known only as Miledi.

Fouquet: (1615-80) Raised to power by Mazarin, Nicholas Fouquet was far from the brilliant administrator portrayed by Dumas. He built a vast fortune through blatant abuses of power during his tenure as superintendent of France's finances, and generally dispersed that fortune in the construction of his mansion at Vaux and in his role as a famous patron of the arts. His generous style of management won him admiration, but the members of the court generally resented his obvious corruption. Louis XIV had Fouquet arrested in 1661, more probably from fear of his influence rather than jealousy, though Fouquet did possibly take some liberties with the king's mistress during a royal visit. Belle-Isle was never given to the king; Louis sent a garrison to occupy it after Fouquet had been arrested. Fouquet sold his post of procureur-general to Louis for 1.4 million livres, not Vanel. The real D'Artagnan, Charles de Batz-Castlemore, arrested him in September and escorted him to Pignerol after his three-year trial. Dumas largely altered the character of Fouquet from his historical counterpart, turning him into a Romantic cavalier who had all the qualities Dumas himself admired, and making him a foil for the somewhat lackluster Colbert.

Guiche: (1637-73) Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche, was a soldier, adventurer, and a bisexual. He was part of the entourage of the homosexual Philippe d'Orleans, where many reckoned him the handsomest man at court. He was known for being vain, overbearing, and somewhat contemptuous, but many lovers of both genders often overlooked these flaws. It is generally accepted that he became the lover of Henrietta d'Orleans, but for a time he also paid court to Louise de la Valliere. Guiche was, however, not sufficiently enamored with Louise to challenge the king's affections, and, according to Madame de La Fayette (whose memoirs were one of Dumas's major sources), he "gave her up and even quarreled with her, using her very rudely." He was exiled in 1662 for attempting to come between Louis and Louise. He then fought against the Turks in Poland, against the English for the Dutch, and eventually returned to France in 1669. He returned to court in 1671.

Gourville: (1625-1703) Jean Herault de Gourville participated in the Fronde before coming to work for Fouquet. After Fouquet's arrest he was sentenced to death, but he escaped to Brussels, where he lived by less than honest means.

Henrietta: (1644-1670) Henrietta-Anne Stuart, daughter of Charles I and Henrietta-Maria (Henriette in the text), was left behind at Exeter when her mother fled to France, but her governess smuggled her to France in 1646, where she was raised Catholic. The "privations" which she supposedly endured in France were greatly exaggerated by Dumas. With a reputation for cleverness and beauty, she was married to Philippe d'Orleans in 1661. Shortly afterwards, the obvious attentions of both Buckingham and De Guiche did indeed arouse her husband's jealousy, leading to both Buckingham and De Guiche being persuaded to leave the court. Their marriage, due to Philippe's homosexuality and excessive jealousy, was far short of