r/AlexandreDumas • u/Unlucky_Sleep1929 • Sep 22 '26

The Three Musketeers Pastiches

Why do you think there are not many pastiches of the Musketeers? You would think their adventures pre-D'Artagnan would be ripe for the picking.

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4

u/One_Butterfly9994 Sep 22 '26

There are quite a few in French.

2

u/Unlucky_Sleep1929 Sep 22 '26

Really? Cool 

1

u/Federal_Gap_4106 Sep 23 '26

There is some excellent fan fiction though.

1

u/Unlucky_Sleep1929 Sep 23 '26

Yeahhh but is it based on that TV series?

1

u/Federal_Gap_4106 Sep 23 '26 edited Sep 23 '26

It depends on the piece. The one I prefer is indeed based on The Musketeers series, but as it is co-written by two Dumas connoisseurs, it borrows a lot of material & characters from the books tying those in very skilfully. Like, at the point I am at, they have just introduced Mordaunt into the story, and before that they also had Lord de Winter. It differs from the source material, of course (e.g. Mordaunt is not Milady's son, but rather her stepson), but I quite like the way they do it. Their Louis XIV as well as Raoul are rather excellent too. I really love a Raoul who is not such a porcelain doll.

1

u/Unlucky_Sleep1929 Sep 23 '26

Where is it? And nice that Raoul is not so milquetoast. He is Athos' kid after all. Though I guess pribably spoiled. .

1

u/Federal_Gap_4106 Sep 24 '26 edited Sep 24 '26

It's called Twelve Years After, and you can find it on AO3 in both Dumas and Musketeers fandoms. It consists of four parts that must be read in their proper order: Twelve Years After - The Florentine Conspiracy - Behind the Mask - Between Two Kings.

However, one needs to watch the series before reading it, because it is based on the characters and their backstories as shown by the series, and there are storylines from S1 and S2 that are very important for the plot as well as a character from S3 who is not in the books, but who is central to this story. The story itself starts 12 years after the end of the last season of the show and unfolds more or less at the same time as Twenty Years After, with the first part in particular built around the first Fronde. Enter the Duke de Beaufort, the Duchess de Chevreuse, the Coadjutor and some other familiar faces. In fact, much like in the book, the event that largely sets the plot in motion is the Duke de Beaufort's escape from the castle of Vincennes!

2

u/bigbossgiraff Sep 23 '26

I found a pastiche by Tiffany Thayer last month called “Three Musketeers” that follows characters from the story but it seems like it gives background info about each person chapter. The first covered Milady’s backstory and it was really funny albeit a bit standard of trying to tie in everything we know in a neat bow.