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WARNING: This article contains spoilers.
Alexandre Dumas' best known work, The Three Musketeers, gave me an intellectual break. The deeper literary themes of this novel were less apparent, if not less present, than in Gone With the Wind. Of course, Barnes & Noble, in their admirable edition, threw my way a series of concluding questions which did force me to examine more deeply the context in which Dumas wrote.
In this, I mean the conflict between Milady and the Four Musketeers, in which the enemy seemingly rendered weakest by her sex proved to be the most dangerous of enemies. Compare her, perhaps, with Cardinal Richelieu, the enemy who would seem foremost among the villains of the novel. Richelieu is, when taken along with all his resources, the most dangerous of enemies. However, when reduced to himself, without lackeys or political power, Richelieu is a much less formidable foe. Milady de Winter, however, demonstrates that even without outside assistance, she possesses the wherewithal to overcome even the most impossible of circumstances-- for instance, her imprisonment. With only her natural weapons-- her beauty, mind, and voice-- she is able not only to escape her prison, but to manipulate her kind-hearted jailer to committing murder on her behalf.
We return then, to the conflict between Milady and our heroes. Unlike the other agents of the Cardinal, who may be killed in open conflict in the manner common to the male sex, Milady must be eliminated in a manner socially acceptable as regards to the treatment of women. To have killed her in open conflict in the street would have been unthinkable. Rather, the Musketeers were forced to follow the legal system to eliminate an opponent who fights with weapons much unlike their own. It is worth noting that the Musketeers, when confronted with opponents like themselves, emerge the victors with few injuries. Milady, however, though fighting with the more feminine weapons of manipulation and poison, is considered a dangerous opponent throughout.
I believe the analogy made by Dumas regarding this conflict is that of a lion and a serpent. The young lions, the Musketeers, when confronted-with those of their own stature, emerge the victor. But, like the lion who is confronted by a poisonous serpent, he must exercise great care to avoid the fangs of an enemy who does not place value in great size or strength, but rather speed, cunning, and a single, deadly strike.
Therefore, while I still would hesitate to grant that The Three Musketeers possesses any great degree of depth, it is clear that Dumas, in pitting the Musketeers against so foreign an enemy, did great service to the novel. If the role of Milady had been filled instead by a male, he would have proven a less-capable enemy. Failing that, the heroes would have seen the story reduced to a single, dramatic bout of swordplay, in which the great villain falls too easily, or our heroes suffer too harshly.
