How Aramis got his Soutane

 

I do not enter the church – I re-enter it. It was the church that I deserted for the world; for you are aware that I did violence to my inclinations in taking the uniform of a musketeer.

 

These words, spoken by Aramis in Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, explain with perfect clarity the spiritual calling of the young musketeer, but where did Dumas find the inspiration to endow the character of Aramis with a religious vocation?[1]

Aramis, book illustration

   As with Athos, Porthos and, indeed, d’Artagnan himself, Dumas found Aramis in the Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan, a pseudo memoir written by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras. That is to say, he found Aramis’s name.

   Courtilz introduces Aramis as one of three brothers whom d’Artagnan encounters shortly after his arrival in Paris. The other two are Athos and Porthos, although Courtilz is not forthcoming about which of the brothers is the eldest and which the youngest. All three, however, are Musketeers. Indeed, the only information Courtilz gives his readers about Aramis is that he is a Musketeer.

   In the Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan, Aramis is introduced to d’Artagnan by Porthos, the first of the brothers the young cadet meets. As the story continues, Aramis will second d’Artagnan in various duels. The first of these is fought by the Musketeers and d’Artagnan against Cardinal Richelieu’s guards, and it provided Alexandre Dumas with the background for one of the great set pieces of The Three Musketeers. In another duel, Aramis fights alongside a group of Englishmen, one of whom turns out to be Milady’s brother. The final duel is fought after d’Artagnan is attacked in the street, apparently on Milady’s orders. Cornered by the enemy and in danger of being killed, d’Artagnan is forced to call for help, and his cry is answered by Athos, Porthos and Aramis, who fight off the assailants and, with d’Artagnan, save the day. That is the last view Courtilz gives his readers of Aramis, who plays no further part in the story.

   In Courtilz, Aramis has no connection to the church. Instead, Dumas’s inspiration to give Aramis his religious calling came from another character in Courtilz’s Mémoires, Rotondis. Rotondis is the brother of Jussac, Biscarrat and Cahussaz, all three of whom belong to the cardinal’s guards and are among the main participants in the iconic duel that Dumas would make his own. As Courtilz tells the story, Rotondis sees that his brothers are about to fight a duel with the Musketeers and d’Artagnan and are in need of a third. He offers his services despite his being on the eve of obtaining a benefice. He explains to his brothers that his ‘cassock was fastened by one button, and he would take it off to get them out of their difficulty.’[2] In the end, Rotondis is not required to fight, his brothers having found another to take his place, but compare his words with those spoken by Aramis in Twenty Years After. In this scene, the now ordained Aramis offers his sword in the service of Henriette, the queen of England. He assures her that: ‘My cassock only holds by one button, and I am quite ready to become a musketeer again.’[3]

   Dumas establishes very early in The Three Musketeers Aramis’s status as a priest-turned-Musketeer. In one of the first scenes in which Aramis is featured, M. de Treville, the captain of the Musketeers, is angry after learning that Athos, Porthos and Aramis had stayed beyond closing time at a tavern in the Rue Ferou the previous evening. As he rebukes them, he asks Aramis: ‘why the devil did you ask me for a tunic when you look so well in a cassock?’[4]

   The reasons for Aramis’s entry into the Musketeers differs also. In Courtilz de Sandras, Aramis and two of his brothers had been brought from their native Béarn to Paris by M. de Tréville. This was ‘because they had been concerned in some combats which had given them a great reputation in the province.’[5] Dumas, on the other hand, states that the king, Louis XIII, had greatly loved Aramis’s father, who had been killed at the siege of Arras, and it was for this reason that he had been granted the tunic of a Musketeer.[6]

   Dumas leaves it to Aramis himself to explain to his readers how the young man abandoned his vocation and became a Musketeer.[7] The scene takes place when d’Artagnan, having travelled to England to retrieve Queen Anne’s diamonds, returns to France. He seeks out his companions, all three of whom had been prevented from assisting him in the mission. Aramis had been wounded in the shoulder and is recovering at an inn at Crèvœur. As d’Artagnan enters his chamber, he finds his friend in the company of a curate and a superior of the Jesuits. Aramis has decided to take his vows and is discussing the thesis he plans to write in support of his ordination. Needless to say, d’Artagnan persuades him not to take such a step, but not before Aramis recounts his story.

Book illustration, abbé en soutane

   Aramis explains that he had been studying in the seminary since the age of nine. Three days before his twentieth birthday, he was on the eve of being made an abbé. He went, as was his custom, to the home of a friend who lived in the rue Payenne. Here, he would read the Lives of the Saints to the lady of the house. On this particular evening, he had translated the story of Judith into verse and was reading it out, with the lady innocently leaning her head on his shoulder so she could follow the words. At this point the gentleman of the house, an officer, returned. He saw the two together and misread the situation. The officer kept his silence, but when Aramis left, he followed him and caught up with him in the street.

   ‘Monsieur l’abbé,’ he said, ‘do you like being caned?’

   ‘I cannot say,’ replied Aramis, ‘no one has ever dared to give me one.’

   ‘Well, listen to me, monsieur l’abbé’ said the officer. ‘If you return to this house again, I will dare to cane you myself.’

   Aramis was afraid, so much so that he could find no answer to this insult. The officer laughed at him before turning on his heel and going back into his house. Aramis returned to the seminary. As a ‘gentleman born,’ his pride was naturally hurt, but he said nothing to anyone about the incident. Instead, he spoke to his superiors and told them that he did not feel sufficiently prepared for ordination. At his request, they agreed to postpone the ceremony for one year.

   Aramis used the time well. He sought out the best fencing master in Paris and took a lesson every day for the whole of that year. Then on the anniversary of the day he had been insulted, he hung up his cassock on a peg and assumed the costume of a cavalier. He went to a ball given by one of his friends, where he knew he would meet again the officer who had insulted him. Indeed the officer was there, entertaining a lady with a ballad. Aramis interrupted him.

   ‘Sir, do you still object to my going to a certain house in the rue Payenne, and would you cane me if I took it into my head to disobey you?’

   The officer looked at him in astonishment. He asked Aramis what he wanted, adding that he did not know him.

   Aramis replied that he was the little abbé who read the Lives of the Saints and who had translated Judith into verse.

   At this, the officer remembered. He sneered and asked Aramis what he wanted.

   Aramis answered that he wanted the officer to take a walk with him, at which the officer assured him that he would be happy to do so in the morning. Aramis, however, insisted that they go at that moment.

   The two men left the ball and Aramis took the officer into the rue Payenne. It was the exact spot and the same hour as the insult had taken place a year before. Under the brilliant light of the moon, the two men drew their swords, ‘and at the first pass,’ Aramis told d’Artagnan, ‘I killed him.’

   The affair caused a scandal, so much so that Aramis was obliged to abandon his calling to the priesthood, at least for a while. By this time he had already made the acquaintance of Athos and Porthos, who had taught him, ‘in addition to my fencing lessons, some merry thrusts.’ It was they who influenced his decision to become a Musketeer.

   Although he had seemingly put his vocation behind him, Aramis maintained close links with the church throughout his military career. His intention had always been to take holy orders, an objective he finally realises at the very end of The Three Musketeers.  The last time he and d’Artagnan speak, Aramis tells his friend that he intends to join the Lazarists. Here, Dumas makes one of his famous timeslips. Founded by Saint Vincent de Paul in 1624, the Lazarists were approved in 1633, too late for Aramis to join the order in 1628.

   The last sight the reader has of him, Aramis has taken a journey to Lorraine, after which he is heard of no more. He had even stopped writing to his friends. Later, they learn from Madame de Chevreuse, his former mistress, that he had taken the habit and entered a monastery at Nancy.

   Aramis is perhaps the most complex of the three Musketeers, his journey leading him along two distinct paths: that of the church and that of politics. As has been seen, Dumas found Aramis, or, more precisely, an undeveloped character called Aramis, in the pseudo-memoir written by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, but how do the fictional versions of Aramis compare with the historical one?

   It is probably superfluous to say, but the real Aramis was not René, chevalier d’Herblay, the abbé d’Herblay, the grand vicaire at Melun, the bishop of Vannes, the general of the Jesuits or the duke of Almeda. However, as shall be seen, Dumas was not too far off the mark when he decided to give his character of Aramis religious connections.

1750 map, Aramits lies in the centre (David Rumsey)

   Henri d’Aramits was a native of Béarn. He took his name from Aramits [or Aramitz], a small village in the verdant Pyrenean valley of Barétous in the sénéchaussée of Oloron. The village still exists and can be visited today, but the château d’Aramits no longer stands.

   Aramits belonged to the old nobility of France and could trace his ancestry at least as far as the fourteenth century. In 1376, the name of Jean, abbé d’Aramits, is listed among the gentlemen commissioned by Menaud du Beguer, comte de Foix and Béarn. Bringing with him a company of one hundred infantry from the Ossau valley, Jean answered the muster to the army of Gaston Phébus in Morlasà. Five years later, on 22 June 1381, Gaston Phébus honoured Jean by raising the status of his domain.[8]

   At this point, the Aramits family was Catholic, but they converted to l’église reformée during the second half of the sixteenth century. This move was probably inspired by the conversion of the queen of Navarre, Jeanne d’Albret. The region in which Aramits lived became a stronghold for the reformed cause. In 1569, during the Wars of Religion, Charles Durand, Baron du Sénégas, one of the lieutenants of Gabriel de Montgomery, comte de Lorge, entrusted the newly-captured Château de Mauléon to Pierre d’Aramits. Unable to hold the château for more than a few days, Pierre was obliged to abandon it to Catholic troops commanded by Charles de Luxe.[9]

   Pierre d’Aramits married Louise de Sauguis, the daughter of the nobleman, Louis de Tardets, écuyer and abbé laïque of Sauguis. A military man, Tardets had also served during the Wars of Religion in the company of Henri II, king of Navarre. He later served the châtelain of Mauléon in a military capacity. Pierre and Louise had three children: Charles, Marie and Phébus. Neither their dates of birth nor the order in which they came into the world is known. What can be said is that only Charles and Marie survived into adulthood.

   On 12 October 1597, Marie d’Aramits signed a contract of marriage with Jean de Peyrer, seigneur de Troisvilles, and was married soon afterwards. Their son, Arnaud-Jean de Troisvilles, would provide the inspiration for the celebrated Captain de Tréville of The Three Musketeers.

   Charles, the surviving son of Pierre d’Aramits, became the head of the family upon the death of his father. He married Catherine de Rague, daughter of Jean de Rague, écuyer and abbé laïque of Larins and Catherine de Badie-Casabant, heiress to the house of Espalunge. Although Charles took possession of the domain of Espalunge in right of his wife, he felt no need to add its name to his own, and he remained Charles d’Aramits. He also became abbé laïque of Aramits, having acquired the title from Captain Arnaud de La Salle.[10] At an unknown date, Charles joined the Musketeers, serving as maréchal de logis, a senior NCO, under the command his nephew, Troisvilles.[11]

   The marriage of Charles d’Aramits and Catherine de Rague also produced three children, one son and two daughters: Henri, Marie and Jeanne. Henri, the historical figure upon whom the character of Aramis is tentatively based, was born circa 1620. This makes him some seventeen years younger than his fictional counterpart as written by Dumas, but probably nearer to the age of the character created by Courtilz de Sandras. Of his childhood and education nothing is known. It can be accepted that, as the only son, he would have been brought up in the expectation that he would take over the family possessions in due course and trained accordingly. He would also have received at least some military training, including horsemanship and handling weapons, as well as lessons including reading, writing and maths. He would have spoken the Béarnais dialect, with French being virtually a second language.

   Henri d’Aramits joined the Musketeers at some point after May 1640.[12] In the Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan, Courtilz de Sandras asserts that Henri was brought to Paris by Tréville (Troisvilles). Since Henri and Troisvilles were first cousins, this might be true. However, sine Henri’s father was also a Musketeer at this point, he could equally have joined the company at his suggestion. More likely, his entering the Musketeers would have been inevitable. Henri, as has been seen, came from a long line of noblesse d’epée, or military nobility, so joining the most prestigious company in France was an obvious career move. Indeed, it was one of only two career paths open to him, the other being the church. In Henri’s case, the two overlap somewhat.

   No details of Aramits’s military service or the rank he might have achieved appear to have survived, and only brief glimpses of him are allowed to researchers. A tradition in his native Béarn has it that he served alongside his father for a time. Henri d’Aramits returned to Béarn from time to time. One such occasion was in 1650, when he married Jeanne de Béarn-Bonnasse, a local heiress whose family quality and status very much reflected his own.[13] The couple’s coat of arms featured a flame with two palms, positioned horizontally, one above the other.[14] Aramits is seen again two years later, on 19 June 1652, when he and his wife attended the wedding of his sister, Jeanne d’Aramits, to Armand de Casamayor, pastor of the church of Oloron.[15]

   According to Aramits’s will and testament, drawn up on 22 April 1654, the couple had three children, two sons and one daughter, Armand, Clément and Louise. The eldest, Armand, was designated as heir.[16] Why Aramits wrote his will at this time is not known. It might be speculated that he was ill and thought he might die, or perhaps he was taking care of family business before leaving home. However, at this point, the Musketeers had been temporarily disbanded, and would not be reinstated until January 1657. As such, Aramits might have served in another regiment or, like d’Artagnan, served in a civilian capacity. Given the near coincidence of dates, he could have provided some form of service at the coronation of Louis XIV, which took place at Reims in June 1654. Unfortunately, there is no way to know. Whatever the case, Aramits’s fourth and last child, a daughter named Madeleine, was born a few months after he had drawn up his will.

   The last sighting of Aramits occurs on 10 February 1657, when he and Jeanne witnessed the signing of the marriage contract of Jeanne’s sister, Anne de Béarn-Bonnasse to Arnaud de Juncas d’Oloron, a councillor at the parlement.[17]

The château d'Espalungue (La Rép des Pyrénées)

   From his father, Henri d’Aramits inherited the domains of Aramits and Espalungue, and became abbé laïque of Aramits. It is here, as well as his Huguenot heritage, that his religious connections come to the fore. However, as the name suggests, the abbé laïque, or lay father, was not an ordained minister. Instead, it simply meant that the Abbaye, that is, a convent or monastery, formed part of his domain and entitled him to receive the tithes and revenues. This arrangement was a staple of the feudal tradition of Béarn, and there were two such establishments at Aramits: the Abadie-Susan and the Abadie-Jusan.

   As to Aramits’s religious leanings, nothing is known. It is possible that he remained true to his Huguenot heritage. On the other hand, he could have converted to Catholicism, perhaps to make his life less complicated in the Musketeers, a Catholic regiment. Had he done so, he would perhaps have been inspired by Henri IV, who considered Paris worth a mass.[18]

   Dumas, however, knew about none of this. He found Aramis and his companions in arms in a pseudo-memoir and was intrigued by their names. He, with his collaborator Auguste Maquet, took the blank canvasses that were these characters and gave them personalities, relationships and stories before searching for a suitable backdrop against which to set them.[19] That he chose to associate Aramis with the church is a happy coincidence inspired by another of Courtilz’s characters, Rotondis.

   When it comes to the death of Henri d’Aramits’s, once again, the researcher is met with silence. Courtilz de Sandras offers no hint that might be followed up. He had quickly dropped his version of Aramis and his ‘brothers’ from his narrative, so no description of his death appears in Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan. In Alexandre Dumas, Aramis, along with his colleagues, survives into the last volume of the Musketeers cycle. However, while Athos, Porthos and d’Artagnan meet their various ends, Aramis alone remains alive at story’s end. The year and circumstances of the historical Aramits’s death must, therefore, remain a mystery. All that can be said is that it took place prior to 1681, which is when his

The gateway to the Abbaye, Aramits (Google Earth)

second son, Clément, inherited the family property. By this time, the eldest son and heir, Armand, had died without issue. The Abbaye d’Aramits, which had been held by the family since at least the fourteenth century, passed into new hands when Aramits’s daughter, Louise, pledged it to her brother-in-law, Antoine de Laure in February 1702.[20] Of the abbey buildings, only the gateway and part of the wall survive. The arch is decorated with the plumed hat of the Musketeer, and two plaques describe the history of the man whose life was lifted out of the ordinary by a master storyteller and transformed into the stuff of legend.

 

Notes

1, Aramis utters these words in chapter 26.

2, Courtilz de Sandras, vol 1, p.19.

3, Dumas, Vingt ans Après, chapter XLV; some English translations place it in chapter XLIV

4, Dumas, Les Trois Mousquetaires, chapter 3.

5, Courtilz de Sandras, p.13.

6, Dumas, Les Trois Mousquetaires, chapter 26.

7, Aramis tells his story in Les Trois Mousquetaires, chapter 26.

8, Jaurgain, pp.218-219.

9, Jaurgain, p.219.

10, Jaurgain, pp.219-220.

11, Jaurgain, p.221.

12, Jaurgain, p.221.

13, Jaurgain, p.226.

14, Jaurgain, p.230.

15, Jaurgain, p.227.

16, Jaurgain, pp.227-228.

17, Jaurgain, p.228.

18, Horne, p.76.

19, Dumas’s method of working and his collaboration with Maquet requires an article of its own.

20, Jaurgain, pp.228-230.

 

Bibliography

Bell, A Craig, Alexandre Dumas, A Biography and Study (London: Cassell, 1950)

Courtilz de Sandras, Gatien de, Mémoires de M. d'Artagnan: capitaine-lieutenant de la 1ère compagnie des mousquetaires du roi, volume I (Paris: Montgredien et C^ie, 1896)

Courtilz de Sandras, Memoirs de Monsieur d’Artagnan, Captain-Lieutenant of the First Company of the King’s Musketeers, translated by Ralph Nevill, volume I (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1903)

Dumas, Alexandre, Les Trois Mousquetaires et Vingt Ans Après, edited by Claude Schopp (Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1991)

Dumas, Alexandre, The Three Musketeers, edited and introduced by David Coward (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1991)

Dumas, Alexandre, The Three Musketeers, translated and edited by Lord Sudley (London: Penguin Books, 1952)

Hall, Geoffrey F. and Joan Sanders, D’Artagnan, the Ultimate Musketeer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1964)

Horne, Alistair, Seven Ages of Paris (New York: Vintage Books, 2004)

Jaurgain, Jean de, Troisvilles, d’Artagnan et les Trois Mousquetaires (Paris: Librairie Ancienne, 1910)

Le Brun, Dominique, Richard Noury, Sure les Traces de d’Artagnan (Toulouse: Éditions Privat, 2006

Maund, Keri and Phil Nanson, The Four Musketeers, (Stroud: Tempus, 2005)

Schopp, Claude, Alexandre Dumas: Genius of Life, translated by A.J. Koch (New York: Franklin Watts, 1988)