三个火枪手英文版

是以法国国王路易十三和手握重兵、权倾朝野的首相黎塞留红衣主教的矛盾为背景，穿插群臣派系的明争暗斗，围绕宫廷里的秘史轶闻，展开了极饶趣味的故事。
　　书中的主人公少年勇士达达尼昂，怀揣其父留给他的十五个埃居，骑一匹长毛瘦马，告别家乡及亲人，远赴巴黎，希望在同乡父执的特雷维尔为队长的国王火枪队里当一名火枪手。在队长府上，他遇上阿托斯，波托斯和阿拉米斯三个火枪手，通过欧洲骑士风行的决斗，四人结成生死与共的知己。

　　其时，国王路易十三，王后安娜·奥地利，以及首相黎塞留三分国权，彼此有隙。国王对达达尼昂几次打败首相部下暗自褒奖，而首相却怀恨在心。恰逢安娜·奥地利王后的　旧时情人英国白金汉公爵对她情丝未断，王后便以金刚钻坠相赠以表怀念。主教遂利用契机构陷，向国王屡进谗言，要国王派人组织宫廷舞会，让王后配带国王送给她的那条金刚钻坠以正虚实。王后眼见舞会日期逼近，惶然无计，幸得心腹侍女波那瑟献计设法，请达达尼昂帮忙相助。达达尼昂对波那瑟一见钟情，颇相见恨晚，便不顾个人安危，满口答应，在三个朋友的全力支持下，四人分头赴英。经过一路曲折离奇的磨难，唯有达达尼昂如期抵达，向白金汉说明原委，及时索回金刚钻坠，解救了王后的燃眉之急，粉碎了红衣主教的阴谋诡计。
　　红衣主教黎塞留对安娜·奥地利也早已有意，但一直未获王后垂青。于是他妒火中烧，移恨于情敌白金汉公爵，利用新旧教徒的矛盾引发的法英战争，妄图除掉白金汉以解心头之恨。为达此目的质所在。主观地运用的这种灵活性=折衷主义与诡辩。"，他网罗一批心腹党羽，其中最得力的亲信便是佳丽米拉迪。此女天生丽质，艳若桃李，但却两面三刀，口蜜腹剑，心狠手辣，毒如蛇蝎。达达尼昂为其美貌所动，巧构计谋，潜入内室，诱她失身。就在云雨交欢之中，达达尼昂偶然发现米拉迪肩烙一朵百合花，那是当时欧洲女子犯罪的耻辱刑迹。隐藏数年的这个机密的暴露，使她对达达尼昂恨之入骨，不共戴天，几次设陷阱暗害，但均未成功。
　　在以围困拉罗舍尔城为战事焦点的法英对垒中，黎塞留和白金汉各为两国披挂上阵的主帅。黎塞留暗派米拉迪赴英卧底，乘机行刺白金汉；米拉迪提出以杀死达达尼昂为交换条件。她一踏上英国的土地，即被预先得到达达尼昂通知的温特勋爵抓获，遂遭其软禁。囚禁中，她极尽卖弄风骚和花言巧语之能事，诱惑了温特勋爵的心腹看守费尔顿，后者自告奋勇救米拉迪出获，并侥幸刺死了白金汉。米拉迪在归法途中，巧进修道院，找到了受王后派人庇护的达达尼昂的情妇波那瑟，将她毒死。达达尼昂、阿托斯、波托斯、阿拉米斯四位朋友昼夜兼程，苦苦追踪，会同温特勋爵和一名刽子手，终于在利斯河畔抓到企图 潜逃比利时的米拉迪。六位仇人齐讨共诛，揭开了米拉迪的老底：原来她早已遁入空门，但她不甘青春寂寞，诱惑了一个小教士与其同居。因败坏教门清规，教士身陷囹圄，她也被刽子手--小教士的胞兄烙下了一朵百合花。教士越狱逃跑，携带米拉迪私奔他乡，刽子手因受株连入狱，替弟顶罪。在异乡，米拉迪嫌贫爱富，又抛弃了小教士，和当地一位少年拉费尔伯爵结婚，弄得后者倾家荡产又弃他而去。拉费尔伯爵恨之切切，便化名阿托斯投军，进了国王火枪队，以慰失恋受骗之苦。米拉迪逃到英国，骗取温特勋爵伯兄之爱成婚，并生有一子。但为了独占丈夫及兄弟之遗产，她又谋害了第二个丈夫。她罪恶累累，
　　天怒人怨，当即在利斯河畔被杀正法。至此，达达尼昂、阿托斯、波托斯、阿拉米斯、温特勋爵和刽子手各自都报仇雪恨，了却夙愿。黎塞留得知心腹米拉迪遇害一事中，达达尼昂是主谋，便命亲信罗什福尔将他捉拿。达达尼昂不卑不亢，坦言相陈，明示原委。黎塞留见他视死如归，义勇无双，少年有为，　深为感动，非但不加罪行诛，反而擢升其火枪队副官。阿托斯、波托斯、阿拉米斯三人或归乡里，或娶孀妇，或皈教门，萍飘絮飞，全书就此结局。

Chapter 1 - The Three Presents of M. D’Artagnan the Elder

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the bourg of Meung, in which the author of the Romance of the Rose was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying towards the High Street, leaving their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and, supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with a musket or a partizan, directed their steps towards the hostelry of the Franc Meunier, before which was gathered, increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of curiosity.
In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some city or other enregistered in its archives an event of this kind. There were nobles, who made war against one another; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, who made war against the king. Then in addition to these concealed or public, secret or patent wars, there were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody. The citizens always took up arms against thieves, wolves, or scoundrels, often against nobles or Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against the cardinal or Spain. It resulted, therefore, from this habit, that on the said first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the citizens, on hearing the clamour, and seeing neither the red and yellow standard nor the livery of the Duc de Richelieu, rushed toward the hostelry of the Franc-Meunier.
On reaching there the cause of this hubbub was apparent to all.
A young man—we can sketch his portrait at a dash: imagine Don Quixote at eighteen; Don Quixote without his corselet, without his coat of mail, without his cuisses; Don Quixote clothed in a woollen doublet the blue colour of which had faded into a nameless shade between lees of wine and a heavenly azure; face long and brown; high cheekbones, indicating craftiness; the maxillary muscles enormously developed, an infallible sign by which a Gascon may always be detected, even without his cap—and our young man wore a cap ornamented with a kind of feather; his eye open and intelligent; his nose hooked, but finely chiselled. Too big for a youth, too small for a grown man, an experienced eye might have taken him for a farmer’s son upon a journey had it not been for the long sword, which, dangling from a leathern baldic, hit against its owner’s calves as he walked, and against his steed’s rough side when he was on horseback.
For our young man had a steed, which was the observed of all observers. It was a Béarn pony, from twelve to fourteen years old, with yellow coat, not a hair in his tail, but not without wind-galls on his legs, which, though going with his head lower than his knees, rendering a martingale quite unnecessary, contrived, nevertheless. to perform his eight leagues a day.
And this feeling was the more painful to young D’Artagnan—for so was the Don Quixote of this second Rosinante named—because he was conscious himself of the ridiculous appearance he made on such a steed, good horseman as he was. He had sighed deeply, therefore, when accepting the gift of the pony from M. d’Artagnan the elder. He was not ignorant that such a beast was worth at least twenty pounds; and the words which accompanied the gift were above all price.
“My son,” said the old Gascon nobleman, in that pure Béarn patois of which Henry IV was never able to rid himself—“my son, this horse was born in your father’s house about thirteen years ago, and has remained in it ever since, which ought to make you love it. Never sell it—allow it to die tranquilly and honourably of old age; and if you make a campaign with it, take as much care of it as you would of an old servant. At court, provided you ever have the honour to go there,” continued M. d’Artagnan the elder, “an honour to which, remember, your ancient nobility gives you the right, sustain worthily your name of gentleman, which has been worthily borne by your ancestors for more than five hundred years, both for your own sake and for those who belong to you. By the latter I mean your relatives and friends. Endure nothing from any one except the cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, you understand, by his courage alone, that a gentleman makes his way to-day. I have but one more word to add, and that is to propose an example to you—not mine, for I myself have never appeared at court, and have only taken part in religious wars as a volunteer; I speak of M. de Tréville, who was formerly my neighbour, and who had the honour to be, as a child, the playfellow of our king, Louis XIII, whom God preserve! Sometimes their play degenerated into battles, and in these battles the king was not always the stronger. The blows which he received from him caused him to entertain great esteem and friendship for M. de Tréville. Afterwards, M. de Tréville fought with others: during his first journey to Paris, five times; from the death of the late king to the majority of the young one, without reckoning wars and sieges, seven times; and from that majority up to the present day, a hundred times perhaps! So that in spite of edicts, ordinances, and decrees, behold him captain of the musketeers—that is to say, leader of a legion of C?sars, whom the king holds in great esteem, and whom the cardinal dreads—he who dreads little, as every one knows. Moreover, M. de Tréville gains ten thousand crowns a year; he is, therefore, a very great noble. He began as you begin; go to him with this letter, and make him your model, in order that you may do as he has done.”
The same day the young man set forward on his journey, provided with the three paternal gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen crowns, the horse, and the letter for M. de Tréville, the counsels, as may be supposed, being thrown into the bargain.
As he was alighting from his horse at the gate of the Franc-Meunier, without any one—host, waiter, or hostler—coming to hold his stirrup or take his horse, D’Artagnan spied, through an open window on the ground floor, a man of fine figure and lofty bearing, but of rather grim countenance, talking with two persons who appeared to listen to him most respectfully. D’Artagnan fancied, as was natural for him to do, that he himself must be the object of their conversation, and listened. D’Artagnan was only in part mistaken: he himself was not the subject of remark, but his horse was.
Nevertheless, D’Artagnan was desirous of examining the appearance of this impertinent personage who was laughing at him. He fixed his haughty eye upon the stranger, and perceived a man of from forty to forty-five years of age, with black and piercing eyes, a pale complexion, a strongly-marked nose, and a black and well-shaped moustache. He was dressed in a doublet and hose of violet colour, with aiguillettes of the same, without any other ornaments than the customary slashes through which the shirt appeared. This doublet and hose, though new, look creased, as garments do which have been long packed in a travelling-bag. D’Artagnan noticed all this with the rapidity of a most minute observer, and doubtless from an instinctive feeling that this unknown was destined to have a great influence over his future life.
Now, as at the moment in which D’Artagnan fixed his eyes upon the man in the violet doublet the man made one of his most knowing and profound remarks respecting the Béarnese pony, his two auditors burst out laughing, and he himself, though contrary to his custom suffered a pale smile (if I may be allowed to use such an expression) to stray over his countenance. This time there could be no doubt: D’Artagnan was really insulted. Full, then, of his conviction, he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and endeavouring to copy some of the court airs he had picked up in Gascony among young travelling nobles, he advanced, with one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other resting on his hip.
“I say, sir—you, sir, who are hiding yourself behind that shutter—yes, you, sir, tell me what you are laughing at, and we will laugh together!”
The man withdrew his eyes slowly from the nag to his rider, as if he required some time to ascertain whether it could be to him that such strange reproaches were addressed; then, when he could no longer entertain any doubt of the matter, his eyebrows bent slightly, and after quite a long pause, with an accent of irony and insolence impossible to be described, he replied to D’Artagnan,
“I was not speaking to you, sir!”
“But I am speaking to you!” replied the young man, exasperated by this mixture of insolence and good manners, of politeness and scorn.
The unknown looked at him for a moment longer with his faint smile, and retiring from the window, came out of the hostelry with a slow step, and placed himself before the horse within two paces of D’Artagnan.
“This horse is decidedly, or rather has been in his youth, a buttercup,” resumed the unknown, continuing the remarks he had begun, and addressing himself to his auditors at the window, without seeming in any way to notice the exasperation of D’Artagnan, who, however, remained stiffly standing between them. “It is a colour very well known in botany, but till the present time very rare among horses.”
He had scarcely finished when D’Artagnan made such a furious lunge at him that if he had not sprung nimbly backward it is possible that he would have jested for the last time. The unknown then, perceiving that the matter was going beyond a joke, drew his sword, saluted his adversary, and gravely placed himself on guard. But at the same moment his two auditors, accompanied by the host, fell upon D’Artagnan with sticks, shovels, and tongs. This caused so rapid and complete a diversion to the attack that D’Artagnan’s adversary, while the latter was turning round to face this shower of blows, sheathed his sword with the same precision as before, and from an actor, which he had nearly been, became a spectator of the fight, a r?le in which he acquitted himself with his usual impassibility, muttering, nevertheless,
“A plague upon these Gascons! Put him on his yellow horse again and let him begone!”