Birdnow's Aviary

April 05, 2026

D'Artagnan Body Found?

Timothy Birdnow

WOW! I never knew D'Artagnan was a real person!

Skeleton found in French church believed to be the real life musketeer d'Artagnan

One for all! All for one! Every man for himself!

This is from Not the Bee, so you know it's actual news and not to bee...

If you didn't know, d'Artagnan was not purely a figment of Alexandre Dumas's imagination.

The famed musketeer of the novels was based on real-life musketeer Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan who served as Captain-Lieutenant of the Musketeers at the leisure of Louis XIV.

The real d'Artagnan was recorded as being killed somewhere around Maastricht, so when an unknown skeleton was discovered beneath the tiles of St Peter and Paul Church in the area, archeologists got very excited.

The "Fourth Musketeer" was killed very close to the church where the skeleton was found with a coin proving it was the same time frame and a bullet wound to the throat - exactly as D'Artagnan was killed. Researchers hope to prove this was him by checking the DNA of his descendants (who are actually still around).

Of course Big D has become a legend thanks to Dumas, which must be nice. But he was actually a guy well worth celebrating before his demise.

BTW the Mars corporation completely dissed the poor swordsman, naming their candy bar the THREE Musketeers and ignoring poor D'Artagnan completely. If they were going to do that they should have come out with a "D'Artagnan bar" and maybe made it better than the Three Musketeer bar, which is pretty plain jane if you ask me.

I always like when legend and history wind up coinciding.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:36 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Never could figure out why they called them "musketeers," since (at least) in the book they were always swinging their swords around but never shooting anybody.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at April 06, 2026 12:06 AM (HWHp2)

2 I always thought that too Dana. They seemed particularly musket-free.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at April 06, 2026 09:59 AM (oflqW)

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