I just saw a documentary about the real life of d'Artagnan and his service to Louis XIV.
In my thread about Jean Bart I already mentioned that the gains of Louis XIV for "natural borders" weren't that spectacular, as for  instance he didn't arrived at save natural borders in the Southern Netherlands, letting it open for invasions and attacks in the plains of the north (as for instance Waterloo for Napoleon much later?)
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1622-jean-bart-dunkirk-and-belligerent-europe-1652-1714




I am not sure if these borderchanges were that crucial for the security of France, as for instance the corridor of nowadays Artois and the nowadays Belgium, a corridor in the North of Belgium of a plain leading to the open country of the later emerging German Empire, but also vice versa?

And thanks to his interferences with Charles II and later his brother James II he was among others the cause that William of Orange could lead a coalition against him and even in 1688 succeeded in the Glorious Revolution...

But first the documentary about Charles d'Artagnan and his life

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Batz_de_Castelmore_d%27Artagnan
From the wiki:
Charles de Batz de Castelmore (French pronunciation: ​[ʃaʁl də bats də kastɛlmɔʁ]), also known as d'Artagnan and later Count d'Artagnan (c. 1611 – 25 June 1673), was a French Musketeer who served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard. He died at the siege of Maastricht in the Franco-Dutch War.


For those, who understand French: the documentary, which says more elaborated what in the wiki stays.

Paul, here is a link to the first part of a 3-part series about the Dumas The Three Musketeers on a YouTube channel which used to be called Lost in Adaptation https://youtu.be/MMR6VYe6sfY.  There is something about the real D'Artagnan.  When the Versailles TV series was showing on TV I used to sometimes read the blog partylike1660.com to try and work out what was true and what was embellishment by the TV show. Here's a link to something about the 'real' D'Artagnan on that blog. https://partylike1660.com/charles-de-batz-de-castelmore-the-real-dartagnan/  I'll have to take a look at the arte programme you linked.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Paul, here is a link to the first part of a 3-part series about the Dumas The Three Musketeers on a YouTube channel which used to be called Lost in Adaptation https://youtu.be/MMR6VYe6sfY.  There is something about the real D'Artagnan.  When the Versailles TV series was showing on TV I used to sometimes read the blog partylike1660.com to try and work out what was true and what was embellishment by the TV show. Here's a link to something about the 'real' D'Artagnan on that blog. https://partylike1660.com/charles-de-batz-de-castelmore-the-real-dartagnan/  I'll have to take a look at the arte programme you linked.

Thank you LiR for the link and it summarises what is in the other links. Perhaps more in detail in the French documentary the first part of Dumas of the Three Musketeers (that as my father! always said) that in fact were Four). And all the episodes from the first Dumas book were in fact under Louis XIII and Mazarin. Thus when Louis XIV came effectively to power Charles had had already quite a career as soldier for the "king"...
Kind regards, Paul.

I mentioned late last year that I'd seen the trailer for a new Trois Mousequetaires film in French.  I've come across a video in French about the real D'Artagnan from the ARTE channel (I think Paul used to mention them) and am linking it in case anyone is interested.  https://youtu.be/Gpx_8JVOkhQ  I haven't used the YouTube link in case the people behind the video blank it out on this site.

It's possible that the video I've linked is the one Paul linked which has been blanked out.