Chapter 66: Execution

Summary

     Yep. The title pretty much sums it up – they band together, tie Milady up, and kill her. It is the worst, most horrifyingly gruesome chapter I have read…ever? I just don’t understand. Why, Dumas?? Dumas, you make my soul weep. Milady killed Madame Bonacieux. I understand that – and as I said last chapter, she ought to be jailed for life and put on heavy guard. BUT – who are these pompous nitwits to judge someone’s life by themselves? And who do they think they are, ganging up on a tied up and terrified person like that? This is a painful, painful chapter, but I’ll try to blog it thoroughly. So they tie Milady up, and drag her out of the cabin. They force Grimaud and Mousqueton to drag Milady along to the river. Milady begs, threatens, and bribes the poor servants. They hesitate slightly – um probably because they are good people! – but Athos just makes the other two servants drag her along. 

     Milady is terrified, and calls them cowards for being ten men ganging up against a woman. Athos tells her that she is not a woman (wow, shut up Athos, you shouldn’t tell anyone that) and that she is a demon, so it is okay if they kill her. Right. The man in the red cloak – let’s call him Jigglypuff, shall we? – grabs her and begins carrying her to the river. Milady is frightened out of her mind, and asks in horror if they are going to drown her. She is pleading so heartrendingly that even d’Artagnan, who isn’t the most sensitive of men, is touched. Somehow, he is the only one (other than the Hungry Quadruplets of Joy; they are not mentioned for the rest of the chapter) who is disturbed by what they are doing, and sits down on a rock, his head buried in his hands. Milady sees his guilt and calls out to him, begging for help. Oh no, Milady begging is going to make me cry. D’Artagnan gets up to help her, but Athos (I’m starting to really dislike Athos here) steps in his way and draws his sword. He refuses to let anyone stop the killing. D’Artagnan, defeated, sinks down to his knees and begins to pray. 

     Before Jigglypuff does his deed of goriness, Athos, d’Artagnan, and Lord de Winter condescendingly pardon Milady. Athos’s pardon of course, is terrible and unfair. Does he realize how unreasonable he’s being? D’Artagnan’s pardon is the nicest, because he asks pardon himself for his “ungentlemanly” trick. It’s still pretty bad though. No d’Artagnan, you do not get to ask her pardon as you let her get murdered. Milady realizes that she going to die unless she can flee, and casts a quick and searching glance all around her to see if she can escape. She sees nothing that can save her. Jigglypuff grabs her and hauls her onto a boat in the river. Athos gives Jigglypuff some money in return, but Jigglypuff ‘nobly’ *snort* throws the money bag in the water. What a waste. I hate everyone. The boat with Jigglypuff and Milady begins to move away from the bank, and everyone watching is so overwhelmed by what is about to happen that they all fall to their knees. No. Get up. Get up and do something, you lousy sacks of snot. 

      Meanwhile, Milady, the wily little devil, has managed to untie her feet and leaps onto the opposite bank, about to escape. However, the bank is slippery and she falls to her knees. Despairing, she clasps her hands and prays to God. As she prays, that awful jerk of a Jigglypuff sneaks up behind her and chops off her head. The observers on the bank hear her cry out and then see her head fall. Jigglypuff then happily takes of his cloak and wraps Milady’s head *shudder* and body in it, and throws her corpse into the water. He calls out something about God but I’m too horrified to care about Jigglypuff. AND THEN DUMAS PROCEEDS TO GET HUNGRY AND TAKE A BREAK TO EAT SOME BREAD AND CHEESE AND WINE AND WHEN HE GETS BACK HE’S ALL SLEEPY FROM THE GOOD FOOD SO HE IS LIKE “SCREW IT” AND JUST SKIPS TO THREE DAYS LATER IN THE PLOT. Because that’s seriously the only explanation I have for the end of this chapter. Dumas, as I mentioned in caps lock rage mode, skips to three days later when the Fearsome Four are back in Paris. He doesn’t mention any guilt, any horror, anything about Lord de Winter, anything about Milady – he better revisit everyone’s reactions in the next chapter. He better.

Reaction

     I hardly know what to say. Again, I am absolutely appalled. The best, most fascinating, most complex character in the novel is dismissed as ‘evil’ and killed unceremoniously. The only modicum of joy I could glean from this chapter was the fact that the Hungry Quadruplets of Joy are not mentioned after Dumas says that they had to drag Milady to the riverbank. In my mind, they just left, unwilling to be bystanders to such nonsense. I hate Jigglypuff.

     The best line was the ending, where Dumas skips ahead. It’s so casual and awful that my jaw literally dropped open in horror, and then I began laughing hysterically because it’s so terrible. Enjoy:

“Three days afterward the four Musketeers were in Paris; they had not exceeded their leave of absence, and that same evening they went to pay their customary visit to M. de Treville.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ said the brave captain, ‘I hope you have been well amused during your excursion.’

‘Prodigiously,’ replied Athos in the name of himself and his comrades.”

PRODIGIOUSLY AMUSED?! Go sit in a corner and eat some paper, Athos.