Chapter 10: A Mousetrap in the Seventeenth Century

Summary

     Dumas starts the chapter off by explaining what a mousetrap is. In this context, it is a term used by the police about a strategy used to capture a group of people that visits a certain location. When one person is arrested from that location, the arrest is kept secret. Policemen hide inside the house, and leave the door ajar. When anyone enters the house, the door springs closed and they are arrested. The cardinal’s guards have made Bonacieux’s living quarters into one such mousetrap. D’Artagnan, who lives directly above, takes out a floorboard and listens to every interrogation. One day, he hears a woman being captured and arrested. His chivalrous nature kicks in immediately. He tells a worried Planchet to run and get the three Musketeers, and rushes into the mousetrap himself to save the woman. The woman is Madame Bonacieux! D’Artagnan chases the guards out of the house, and comes back to check on the poor woman, who has fainted. 

     He stares at her until she wakes up. She is a pretty lady with dark hair, but does not look as ‘refined’ as the upper-class ladies. She tells d’Artagnan that she escaped from her kidnappers, who were the cardinal’s people. D’Artagnan tells her about her husband’s arrest, and she seems quite concerned about and loving towards him. This doesn’t stop d’Artagnan from liking her. She’s married, man! He gives her Athos’s apartment to stay in (yes, it is empty for some reason) for the night and heads off, as per her instructions, to get the queen’s valet. The valet rushes off to get Madame Bonacieux to a safe location. Meanwhile, d’Artagnan gets himself an alibi. He visits M. de Treville, and sneakily changes the time of his clock so that M. de Treville believes that he talked to d’Artagnan during the time that d’Artagnan was actually storming the mousetrap and rescuing Madame Bonacieux. He chats with M. de Treville, and when the unsuspecting man leaves, he changes the time back to normal. D’Artagnan then runs into the street.

Reaction

     A lot of chapters seem to end with d’Artagnan running into the street! This chapter is even shorter than before, which I didn’t think was possible. D’Artagnan begins to have some character development here, but not necessarily in a good direction. First of all, he calls Planchet stupid for being concerned about him. No one insults Planchet on my watch! Second, he falls in love with a married woman who loves her husband within the course of half an hour. Enough said there. Thirdly, he conceals information from and tricks M. de Treville. That was surprising to me, considering the respect he showed him in previous chapters and all M. de Treville has done for the Fearsome Four. M. de Treville may not have trusted d’Artagnan initially, but he ended up saving the Fearsome Four from the king’s disfavor and this chapter mentions that the four friends drop by to talk to M. de Treville often. Overall, D’Artagnan is getting more confident and less endearing.