"Musketeers and Their Swords" Topic

Y'know, the Three Musketeers sure use their swords a lot. In all of those movies, swordfight after swordfight. They are musketeers… Shouldn't they… shoot somebody once in a while?

I haven't read the book in a decade or two. I think in the last movie I watched, I saw one of them shoot a pistol once… Not even a musket. And on horseback yet.

So when I read this Osprey pike-and-shot book this weekend, two things struck me.

1) Hey that musketeer is wearing a sword in that picture!

2) The French pike-and-shot infantry sometimes/often/nominally tried to close to melee without firing? They carried the muskets around to have a swordfight? In the midst of a pike vs. pike scrimmage? Is that why those musketeers in the book/movie were such renowned swordsmen? Was everybody in France in 1630 a badass with a blade? So the musketeers ran between the pikes for protection, but against other musketeers with expended weapons they used a smallsword during close assault?

The royal Musketeers (and they do use muskets and pistols in the books of the D'Artagnan series) were more of a Royal Guard unit then a straight infantry unit. The books of course concentrate on what would generally be considered their "downtime", mounting Guard at the Palace, etc. and engaging in adventures. However, you do see them on active service at the siege of La Rochelle. But Dumas wasn't writing about your common soldier, although the foursome do occasionally run into regular soldiers. And there is a fair amount of shooting in "Twenty Years After" but again if you are looking for a description of piched battles by them you really won't find all that much, apart from some Cavalry action by Athos' foster son and his companion.

But the French Army had regular musketeers as well, BTW D'Artagnan and comrades weren't using small swords but rapiers, something of course that you rarely see in the movies where the preferred weapon is the foil. As for "everyone being a badass" remember that these are all young gentlemen, many petty nobility, raised and trained as what would be the closest that the 17th Century would come to knights errant.

But yes, most musketeers of all nations carried swords as secondary weapons, just as pikemen did.

The Mousquetaires de la Garde to which Dumas characters belong were not only a Guard unit which served in the Maison militaire du roi de France but the company was despite it's name a cavalry unit, not infantry. Sword & pistols would be far more important weapons for them than their muskets.

"and they do use muskets and pistols in the books of the D'Artagnan series"

there is a D'Artagnan series of books! Only books I knew of were the ones by Dumas. so I'm hoping your meaning there are more…

there is a D'Artagnan series of books!

Nope, just the ones by Dumas:

link

Musketeers were the special forces of their day. They were multipurpose soldiers, not only trained to fight as cavalry with sword and pistol, but also on foot with the musket.

Swords were issued to most soldiers because the bayonet had yet to be invented, it was the weapon of last resort for most men. Often these were cheap, mass-produced weapons, usually used in the field as a tool.

Early Pike and Shot were mostly PIKE with a bit of shot. Over the years as firearms improved they became more important and the ratio of pikes to firearms shifted in favour of the latter. Pikes were still very prominent in the early 17th century and were often used as the main thrust of an attack with the shooting troops providing support. By the end of the century this was quickly shifting to all musket armies and the last pikes were phased out in the early 18th century.

I'm not so sure about calling them special forces.
Even the Queen's guard had a pretty well defined role.

Dumas seems to mix his musketeers up with his hussars in a lot of his stories. I wouldn't really count on adventure novels to be totally realistic.

The movie Alatriste has a scene of the battle of Rocroi that shows how the musketeers and pike worked together. Its a Spanish unit rather than a French formation but the concepts will be similar. But that too is based on a novel.

YouTube link

For what it's worth, the BBC America series The Musketeers (not sure the UK network that carried it originally) has the characters make nearly as much use of pistols and longer fire arms.

Peter Capaldi (the new Dr. Who) was also excellent as Cardinal Richelieu.

Chris

Rocroi in "Alatriste" (the movie) is an interpolation of the novels, because the battle is yet future when referred to in the books. Inigo is reflecting back from old age to the years when he was Alatriste's "page", then began his own soldiering career in earnest as he arrived at manhood. This all occurs in the first six novels, which were all that had been written when the movie came out. So Rocroi is mentioned by Inigo, and Alatriste's death there, but it is never described. Therefore, any details supplied by the movie for the battle are from the screen play and directors, plus, it is assumed, historical consultants for accuracy….

As has been pointed out there are only the three by Dumas ,or six, depending on how they're broken up. They are all available on Kindle for free. It's funny that Dumas is generally considered to be a monarchist considering how badly his characters are treated by monarchs.

I think it is also important to remember that pitched field battles were uncommon events for most soldiers, and a lot of skirmishing, foraging, raids etc were more common. Also, I believe the muskets in the books were still matchlocks, a good reason to have another weapon on hand.

For what it's worth, the BBC America series The Musketeers (not sure the UK network that carried it originally) has the characters make nearly as much use of pistols and longer fire arms.

Yep, we had it in the UK. A second series is being (has been?) filmed. No Peter Capaldi though, he was elsewhere in space and time …

Historically, the mounted Musketeers were sort of the dragoons of the King's household, doing the dreary and sometimes dirty work that the Gardes du Corps, recruited from the higher nobility, could not be bothered with. They were the King's enforcers, tasked among other things with apprehending and guarding high-ranking prisoners of state. In wartime, they would take the field with the King, and often lead the assault on the breach in sieges, suffering heavy losses.

As they themselves became an elite body, and an officer training corps for the lesser nobility, the Horse Grenadiers were established in turn to prevent too high a rate of casualties among the Kingdom's hopefuls.

Dumas was writing a historical novel, set in the 17th C. but playing out in the 19th C city he knew and recycling several episodes (including the three duels in one day) from his father's life as a young and aspiring gentleman in pre-Revolution Paris.

Les Mousquetaires were a guard unit made up of petty nobility. They were NOT ordinary infantry musketeers who would indeed be proficient with a musket.

There were hundreds – perhaps thousands – of impoverished second sons of dubious noble background looking for employment in the 1630's. As anything involving trade or a work-related skill was below them, they sought employment as swordsmen, bodyguards, etc. In a brutal and violent age, there was always a need for this kind of young ruffian.

Many aspired to membership in the king's household troops and to achieve this, you needed to stand out from your rivals. You had to be even more dashing, reckless and violent than your peers, to fight duels constantly, to flirt with appropriate women stylishly. It was a lifestyle than spawned its own society and mores.

So a duel or an affaire was a way of marketing yourself to a wealthy employer from the royal family or high aristocracy. Hence, the continual swordplay and high living.