Musketeer, The

Photograph taken November 18, 2006 by Sander Spek depicts the dArtagnan statue by Charles de Batz de Castelmore in Maastricht, Holland.  Image online, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

If you give me six lines written by
an honest man,
I will find something in them
to hang him.

Attributed to Cardinal Richelieu

Sixteenth-century France was at war with herself. The battle was over religion.

Henri IV, before he was king, was leader of the Huguenots (another name for French Protestants). But when Henri of Navarre (as he was called before he took the throne of France) realized he could only rule the country if he renounced his faith, the future king became a Catholic. As Henri reportedly said, "Paris was worth a Mass."

To make sure his former co-religionists could worship freely, however, Henri IV signed the Edict of Nantes. Although that proclamation permitted religious tolerance, the plight of Huguenots worsened after the king was assassinated. Their stronghold, the Atlantic port city of La Rochelle, was attacked by Louis XIII’s troops.

Some of those troops were called Musketeers.

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Original Release Date:  September, 2001
Updated Quarterly, or as Needed