Book Review

Book Review

The Man In the Iron Mask

by Alexandre Dumas

     Honor and loyalty. That is what Alexandre Dumas’s The Man In the Iron Mask is all about. Forget the title and forget that it is the final chapter in the saga of the Three Musketeers because really there are four musketeers, not three. In actuality, the musketeers are a massive military platoon that goes to war in the name of the French king anyhow. This novel can be a lot more interesting if you do not allow those labels to mislead your attention. The overriding theme is more important and the secondary theme of aging and intergenerational conflict is significant too.

     First off it must be pointed out that d’Artagnan, the captain of the musketeers, is the main character of this book. As he gets on in years, he tries to maintain his status, earned through past achievements and military glories while serving under King Louis XIII. Problems arise as the newly crowned King Louis XIV challenges his loyalty to the other musketeers named Parthos, Athos, and Aramis. King Louis is young and naive; his decisions are unfair and shortsighted. One of the first big conflicts between the king and d’Artagnan occurs when the ambitious and dishonest Colbert frames the financial surattendant Fouquet. Colbert wants Fouquet’s position so king Louis sends the wily d’Artagnan to arrest him. But Fouquet is extremely loyal to the king and the captain of the musketeers manages to handle the situation so that Fouquet avoids peril for the time being. The honor and loyalty of all three men are put under a microscope.

     The titular Man In the Iron Mask refers to the most exciting section of the novel. Do not expect this to be a fictionalized account of the historic Man In the Iron Mask whose identity remains a secret to this day. Maybe Dumas wrote this as a way of speculating about that non-fictional prisoner’s identity; if he was, it sounds like a conspiracy theory. And Dumas’s story is about a conspiracy, one that is schemed up by Aramis who gets assistance from the herculean giant Porthos. In this fictional narrative, King Louis XIV has a twin brother who has an equal right to the throne and the royal inheritance. Rather than having a sibling rivalry over accession, the twin, named Philippe, was secretly imprisoned in the Bastille. Aramis’s plan is to break him out, kidnap King Louis XIV and place Philippe on the throne. No one would supposedly know the difference since the twins look identical. The plot does not work. Aramis and Porthos get exiled and Philippe gets sent away. King Louis XIV again proves himself to be unjust and cruel, a trait that lasts throughout the entire book, even when he tries to wise up and learn from his mistakes as he grows older. He never truly redeems himself, something that plays out interestingly enough if you know what happened to the real King Louis XIV during the French Revolution.

     The biggest conflict between d’Artagnan and King Louis XIV occurs when the captain is sent to either execute or capture Aramis and Porthos, his two closest and most loyal friends from the previous musketeer stories. This is the second most exciting part of the novel. Trapped off the coast of Brittany on Belle Isle, Aramis and Porthos use guile and guts to fight the troops of musketeers who arrive to take them back to Paris. Ultimately, this passage shows the king where the limitations of his power and intellect lie and he learns where d’Artagnan’s loyalty ultimately is.

     The third most significant story line involves the aging Arthos and his son Raoul whose heart has been broken. La Valliere is the woman he loved but she rejected him to marry King Louis XIV in order to advance her social position. This situation does not work out well for either of them. Arthos and Raoul are so close they almost seem like man and wife rather than father and son. Even so, Raoul decides to go off to Algeria to fight and die as a Christian martyr in a colonial war since he can not have the woman he wants. There is nothing complicated about this story but the detailed and long drawn out description of Arthos’s farewell to Raoul is so vivid and melancholy that it can stay with the reader for a long time.

     One major issue some readers might have with this novel is that it is the end of the story cycle involving the Three (Four) Musketeers. People who have not read the previous books may not appreciate the full meaning of everything that happens in The Man In the Iron Mask. Still, it can be read as a stand alone novel. Dumas gives enough information about the preceding story lines so that the reader does not get completely lost. The characters are well-drawn enough so that you can get a good understanding of who they are without knowing all the details of their past. Another thing that might put readers off is the inherently conservative nature of Dumas’s ideas. This is a story about the aristocratic rulers of France that were torn down during the French Revolution and their morals and ideology reflect a traditional and upper-class mindset. The courageous musketeers fear being called rebels more than anything else, even when it is obvious they dislike King Louis XIV. There is no social justice to be found in these pages but do not forget that Alexandre Dumas himself was of Afro-Caribbean descent.

     In the end, however, this is a good book. The stories are suspenseful, some characters are sympathetic, and their personalities are so clearly described that they are unforgettable by the end of the book. Finally, if you think about the moral dilemmas of d’Artagnan, you might even begin to ask subtle questions about who you are loyal to in life, if anybody, and why.

Dumas, Alexandre. The Man In the Iron Mask. Signet Classics, New York: 1992.