Mordaunt's Hypocrisy

I am nearing the end of the book now, and there was one thing about the character of Mordaunt that consistently bothered me, and which made me want to scream at the book sometimes, because I just found it a rather baffling inconsistency within his character.

He was all full of vengeance rage for what became of his mother, and because her crimes robbed him of what should have been his inheritance, and had this murderous loyalty to her in spite of all the crimes which she had committed, and the fact that she brought her own fate down upon herself in the things she had done.

Yet, the fact that his mother killed his father has not the least bit of concern to him. The death of his father meant nothing to him, he was willing to just shrug that off without a thought or a care.

His mother was executed for committing a series of crimes, including cold blooded murder on more than one occasion, while his father was killed out of the cold-blooded selfish greed of his mother, but he finds the offence of his mother greater than that of the offence against his father.

In the introduction to my copy of Twenty Years After, Simone Bertière argues that there is more to Mordaunt than this vengeful man.

She writes that he is, like Milady, the personification of evil and that the musketeers as such fight evil, not only this one person.

The execution of Milady in the first part of the trilogy was not a legal one. Although it looks like it, none of the people there was allowed to judge, and although they used a regular henchman, the result of the trial was preconcluded and all were eager to commit revenge on her: Athos for deceiving him, the henchman for seducing is priest-brother and inducing him to suicide as she left him for Athos, d'Artagnan for killing his Constance, Buckingham almost (posthumously) for killing him (remember it was her who was blamed for the (historically true!) killing of Buckingham by Felton (that in itself was 'evil' who seduced Felton to kill a great embassador and favorite of Charles I).

The musketeers have realised that long ago and at the point they encounter Mordaunt, they start to realise that they have to fight evil in itself, and that that evil has passed from the mother to the son.

I don't know if you have read the last battle?

Anyway, Mordaunt, as the personification of evil, like his mother is not committing revenge for his mother, but the musketeers are followed by karma, as it were. You do not fight the devil by taking its victims and killing them, you fight him by posing the good in front of him. The last battle is a good illustration of that.

By killing Milady before she was even tried, they got bad 'karma' and evil come to look for our musketeers, not Mordaunt himself to take a petty revenge.

Did this help?

Yes it is an interesting point, that for Mardaunt, in spite of his personal claims of vengeance against them for his mother's death, was truly just evil incarnate who had more or less come to "haunt" the musketeers for what they had done.

Though I myself feel they were perfectly justified in the killing of Milady without giving her a trail, and in a way I think it was an act of self-defense, given the chance she would have killed them all, and she could not be trusted to find justice in court, she would have schemed and manipulated and found some way to escape. I had in fact cheered for her death throughout The Three Musketeers.

I have to say Athos is really starting to annoy me in this book with his whole, grief, guilt, remorse, self-pity thing, and his sulking throughout the whole book. While I like Athos, it really served him right when Mordaunt tried to kill him the final battle. He really needs to get over himself, he nearly got all of his friend's killed just because he can't get over the death of a scheming, conniving, murderous woman.

And he still feels guilty about killing Mordaunt when it was a direct act of self-defence, and when Mordaunt tried to kill him directly after Athos alone tried to save his life.

Ah, so you have read it! I did not want to spoil it for you because it was such a compelling part of that book...

You see, Bertière argued (the essay is in translation on the Musketeer-forum I think in one of my posts) that Athos is in fact the sublime, the good in the books. He is the angel, and Mordaunt/Milady are the devil in it (if one wants to call them like that). In that boat, the Good (Athos) wants to do good, but the Bad (Mordaunt) wants to win the battle and in order to rule he needs to kill the Good (Athos). At the point where the two are in the water Dumas had a problem, because he could not have the Good (Athos) do anything bad (kill Mordaunt) because Athos does not do that. (Think of him as some kind of Jean Valjean who, in all his misery, cannot kill Javert or the soldier on the roof). So Dumas solves the problem by having Mordaunt float on the waves as if destiny solved the struggle in favour of the good. And Athos gives a reason for it: Bragelonne. If he had not been there, Athos would not have taken his knife...

The reason why Atos regrets is because he knows it was not right to commit revenge, no matter what she had done. It was not for him, the Good, to be part of that. And it haunts him, as Mordaunt does.

Other than annoying I found Athos to be truly gentle and maybe a little angelic in a way. He thinks. He does what is right in all circumstances, even in difficult political ones (helping the king of England was dangerous with Mazarin helping Cromwell. It could have got Athos into th Bastille for life). D'Artagnan seems puzzled about it, himself being a very enthousiastic person. But the fact is that there is only one who actually is the light of Athos's life, and that is Bragelonne. He is the one that keeps Athos alive.

Did you also find that part where they have to get off the boat and Porthos's two servants don't dare to jump so touching? It made me cry at some point :blush:. When Dumas writes 'He thrust them in the water, and before they could think about drowning they were grabbed by the hair and before they knew it they were sitting in the boat' (or something like that anyway). I found that so touching: Porthos always a big mouth, but when it comes to protection, loyalty and friendship, he is the biggest heart there is in the world. He might be my favorite, together with d'Artagnan.

Will you read the next one too?

Well I have to say, I liked the brooding, silent, emotionally pained Athos of the first book better than the "angelic" a bit too much of a goody-two shoes Athos in the 2nd book. His morals are getting a little too high for me.

Aramis (sp) who was my least favorite of the first book is really starting to grow upon me more in this 2nd book, while Athos who was my favorite of in the first book is beginning to wane in my favor in this book.

I do find his moments of fatherly love with D'Artagnan to be quite touching though. But his pacifism of this book just makes me roll my eyes, though one can reasonably argue that he is indeed taking the harder, and "higher" road, and being more of a man than those who would commit acts of violence and vengeance, I am must more of a shady-middle road person, so sometimes I just want to yell at him to stop acting like such a pussy.

Yes, I do intend to read the next book once I am able to get hold a copy of it, and I still have a few more chapters left in this book to go.

Athos is a little too detached there. In the beginning, he was still understandable, now he is just too far gone.

Aramis also grew on me, particularly for his last intervetion, but afterwards he got up my nose to say the least (bu that's for the next book).

D'Artagnan and Porthos were always my favorites. Porthos first and after that d'Artagnan, because he grows so tremendously into his character. Porthos's lack of understanding is so funny in the first book, but gets a little frightening in the second, I find.

Anayway, I hope you'll find a copy of Bragelonne.

Oh yes, I quite like D'Artagnan quite a bit, in the first book I was a bit more drawn to Athos than D'Artagnan, and in his youth D'Artagnan did irritate me at times with some of his discisions but in this book he does grow even more likeable.

I shall keep an eye out for it when I do have the chance to get to the bookstore again.

Having recently reread this, it's pretty obvious that Athos is behaving this way because he thinks there is a good chance Mordaunt might actually be his son. Especially given the fact that he's developed "single father brain" and now lives for nothing except to serve as a shining example to the one son he's actually raising, it's not surprising that he would feel extra guilty killing Mordaunt. But the fact remains is he does kill him in the end, rather than sacrificing himself to his own principles: cut the old man some slack! :P