Milady de Winter

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Milady de Winter often referred to as simply Milady, is a fictional character in the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père. She acts as a spy for Cardinal Richelieu and is one of the chief antagonists of the story.

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[edit] Character overview

A woman with a checkered past, filled with the seduction and willful destruction of men who will provide her with monetary support, Milady is remorseless and unrepentant for her countless misdeeds. Late in the novel, after the reader is already presented with numerous examples of her villainy, she is revealed to be the wife of Athos, one of the musketeers in the title of the novel. A young teenage nun, she had escaped from her convent with a priest she had seduced, and who had stolen church property to fund their new life in another part of the country, for which both of them were branded by a legal official. She was now living with the priest in Athos' village, pretending to be his sister. Athos, a nobleman, had fallen in love with her despite her obscure origins, and married her. Out in the forest one day, he discovers a brand on her shoulder. Identifying her as a thief and, feeling dishonoured, Athos (then, the Comte de La Fère) hangs her from a tree on the spot and abandons her, but she survives.

[edit] Role in the novel

After being expelled by Athos, she eventually marries the English Lord de Wynter. Soon a widow, she winds up in the employ of Cardinal Richelieu: working as his spy, assassin, and messenger. She steals the jewels that Anne of Austria, wife of King Louis XIII, entrusted to her devoted admirer the English Duke of Buckingham, but the intended scandal is averted.

D'Artagnan himself later meets Milady and falls under her spell, though he also pursues an affair with her maid.

When the Catholic Richelieu lays siege to the Hugenot city of La Rochelle, the Protestant Buckingham leads an unsuccessful expedition to assist the besieged. In a house near La Rochelle, Athos and his friends Porthos and Aramis overhear a conversation between the Cardinal and Milady, plotting to kill Buckingham before he can make another attempt.

Even if he is the enemy of France, the musketeers regard Buckingham the man as a friend. They thus warn him of the threat and upon arriving in England, Milady is arrested and imprisoned in a house by her hostile brother-in-law, the new Lord de Wynter. She seduces her jailer, John Felton, persuading him that she is a Protestant at heart and that Buckingham is persecuting her because she refused his advances. Felton has his own grievances against Buckingham, whom he blames for his lack of promotion in the army. He thus proceeds to murder the Duke (a real-life event), but after carrying out the murder he is aghast to see Milady's ship sailing away without him. He is later hanged.

Returning to France, Milady carries out the murder of d'Artagnan's landlady and lover, Mme Constance Bonacieux, when the two happen upon one another in a convent. For her multiple murders, and for the other deaths she has caused, Milady is judged by the musketeers, Lord de Winter and by the executioner of Lille, the group having proceeded to track and hunt Milady after the death of Constance. The executioner of Lille, who placed the brand upon her shoulder years ago, beheads her in one of the last scenes of the novel.

She uses or is referred to by the following names throughout the novel:

  • Charlotte Backson
  • Anne de Breuil
  • Comtesse de La Fère
  • Milady de Winter, Baroness of Sheffield
  • Milady Clarick

[edit] Her son in the sequel

In the sequel Twenty Years After, Milady's son Mordaunt reprises her role as one of the chief antagonists. As twisted and as deceitful as his mother, he sets about avenging her death, murdering the executioner while posing as a monk taking his confession. He also murders Lord de Winter, Milady's brother-in-law, who raised him.

Mordaunt later gets involved in the English Civil War and executes King Charles I after d'Artagnan and the three former Musketeers have kidnapped the real executioner in order to prevent this.

D'Artagnan and his friends later confront Mordaunt at Cromwell's London residence, but in the course of a duel he escapes through a secret passage.

The Frenchmen and their menservants leave England by ship, but Mordaunt gets aboard and blows it up. As the survivors leave in a rowing boat, Mordaunt pleas for them to let him aboard. With the exception of Athos, they contemptuously reject his appeals. Athos insists on saving him however, but as he helps him into the boat, Mordaunt deliberately drags him back into the water where they struggle and Mordaunt is killed.

Athos rejoins the others claiming that "I had a son... I wanted to live". They assume of course that he means Raoul de Bragelonne, his adopted son (though in fact the product of a one-night stand). Athos further states that "It was not me who killed him... It was fate." (Could it be that he suspects Mordaunt to be his son by Milady? Dumas does not openly state this, though he does drop subtle hints in the text, like Athos expressing satisfaction in Mordaunt's original escape from Cromwell's house.)

(The name Mordaunt is believed to have been taken from one of the characters of The Pirate by Walter Scott [1])

[edit] Film and television

Actresses who have played Milady on screen include:

In the cartoon version, Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, Milady is a female cat, while most of the characters are dogs.

In the movie The Return of the Musketeers, Kim Cattrall plays Milady's daughter Justine de Winter as a female version of Mordaunt.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Notes on the Characters appendix, Vingt Ans après by Alexandre Dumas, père, published by Le Livre de Poche, 1989