56 pages • 1-hour read
The Man In The Iron Mask
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Chapters 51-55Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 51 Summary
Aramis is in shock following Porthos’s death. The Bretons guide him to the canoe, and they set off for open water. Aramis remains quiet during their voyage, which unsettles the superstitious Bretons. After some time, Aramis falls asleep. The Bretons awake him as they are being pursued by a larger ship. Through Aramis’s telescope, the Bretons can see the men aboard preparing a cannon aimed at their canoe. Aramis declares it is better to wait for the ship to catch up since their small canoe cannot outrun it. When the ship reaches them, the commander states he is there to capture Aramis, and Aramis surrenders. Once aboard the ship, Aramis confers with the commandant, who concedes to Aramis’s authority—much to the surprise of the crew and the Bretons. That night when Aramis sleeps, the board of the rail upon which he rests his head is wet with his tears.
Chapter 52 Summary
When D’Artagnan reaches Nantes in the morning, he tries at once to get an audience with the king, but his requests are refused. D’Artagnan thinks that because the king will not see him, he has no further use for him, and this thought prompts D’Artagnan to tender his resignation as captain of the musketeers. Throughout the afternoon, D’Artagnan begins to prepare for life as a civilian. He collects his pistols and some money, and that evening when he is preparing his horse to leave, De Gesvres approaches him, accompanied by several guards. D’Artagnan asks if De Gesvres means to arrest him, but that is not the case. De Gesvres happened to be making his rounds with the guards and decided to simultaneously deliver a message from the king: he wishes to see D’Artagnan at once.
Chapter 53 Summary
In the king’s study, King Louis asks D’Artagnan to explain what happened at Belle-Isle. D’Artagnan says he received no orders to do anything since the king issued orders to the majors and lieutenants in secret. King Louis is frustrated by D’Artagnan’s attitude, but D’Artagnan is just as frustrated by being forced to carry out a directive he felt was wrong. He feels that he should not have been sent to capture or kill his friends and that such an order should not have been given at all since Fouquet, who saved the king from the Bastille, had already argued for their pardon. After some back and forth, King Louis asks D’Artagnan outright if he means to resign, and D’Artagnan says he means to stay in the king’s service because he enjoys it. On a final note to their meeting, D’Artagnan asks the king to pardon Aramis and Porthos—and King Louis agrees. D’Artagnan prepares to leave for Belle-Isle right away to deliver the pardons himself.
Chapter 54 Summary
D’Artagnan arrives at Belle-Isle too late to save Aramis and Porthos. All he can determine is that their canoe was overtaken by a royal vessel some distance away, but beyond that, he learns of no leads he can pursue. D’Artagnan joins the king in Paris and learns that Aramis has fled to Spain. Three men from Fouquet’s Epicureans arrive, and through their tears, they beg the king’s permission to assist Fouquet’s wife, as she has been left with nothing since his arrest and is now facing starvation. King Louis grants their request, urging them to help her in whatever way their hearts urge them to. Once he and D’Artagnan are alone again, King Louis sends him away to get Porthos’s affairs in order and arrange a funeral.
Chapter 55 Summary
At Porthos’s residence, the executor of his estate reads Porthos’s will. All of his properties and possessions are left to Raoul on the condition that he grant D’Artagnan anything among them he so desires. Porthos’s will also left a pension to Aramis, should he need funds in exile. Mouston (in this chapter called Mousqueton) received all of Porthos’s clothes. After the reading finished, Mouston walks upstairs. Moments later, D’Artagnan hears a groan and a thud from the upstairs rooms. In Porthos’s chamber, Mouston piled all the clothes together and laid himself down upon them. At first, D’Artagnan thinks he simply fainted from grief, but Mouston has died, “like the dog who, having lost his master, comes back to die upon his cloak” (435).
Chapters 51-55 Analysis
Aramis’s reaction to Porthos’s death is highly significant because it is the first time the reader sees him express genuine remorse for his actions. Earlier in the novel, Aramis lied to D’Artagnan, manipulating their friendship to earn his trust, and it barely bothered him for a minute. Now, the consequence of such manipulation is his friend’s death, and his responsibility in the matter troubles him greatly. Aramis is silent, distanced, and he even cries. The boat scene as he leaves Belle-Isle is poignant in its depiction of Aramis’s grief; he has lost one of his best friends, and it was due to a situation entirely of his own design. The reader may feel compelled to give Aramis some benefit of the doubt; Porthos could have let himself be captured or given up Aramis to protect himself, but he still chose to stand by his friend in an impossibly tricky way situation.
When D’Artagnan finally receives permission from the king to pardon Porthos and Aramis, he returns to Belle-Isle too late to save either man from death or apparent capture. He does not know that Aramis convinced a military ship to give him passage to an as-yet-undisclosed location. Aramis’s grief over Porthos’s death, however genuine it was, was brief. Just as he used his friendships with Porthos and D’Artagnan to get what he wanted; Aramis flexes his position in the Church to manipulate others into doing the same. D’Artagnan’s grief is the subject of a few sentences in these chapters; he bears it stoically, immersing himself in his duties to the king and preparing the funeral. At Porthos’s funeral and the reading of his will, Mouston suddenly dies from his profound grief over the death of his master. There are two significant instances of foreshadowing in this section: one, D’Artagnan’s arriving too late to an important event; two, someone dying of grief after the death of a loved one.
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