The Three Musketeers: Chapter 20 Summary & Analysis

By 8 a.m., d’Artagnan and his friends have made it to Chantilly where they stop at an inn for breakfast. While they are eating, a man tries to interact with d’Artagnan and the musketeers. The man proposes a toast to the cardinal and Porthos tells him that they will only toast to the cardinal if he will toast to the king in return. This starts a fight and both the stranger and Porthos pull out their swords. Fearing more trouble is on the way, the other two musketeers and d’Artagnan flee, along with their respective servants.

After they are on the road for a while, the musketeers and d’Artagnan stop and wait to see if Porthos will rejoin them. However, he doesn’t, so they have to keep moving. After traveling a bit further, the group comes upon several men working on the road. Their work causes Aramis’s boots to get dirty and so he curses at them. In response, the men grab guns and start shooting at the musketeers. Aramis and Mousqueton are shot, and the latter falls off of his horse. Aramis manages to stay upright and make it to the next city. However, he has to stay behind so that he can recover. Bazin stays back with him.

By midnight, the remaining members of the group reach Amiens. They decide to spend the night at a hotel but become suspicious when their host acts excessively nice. Because they are suspicious, d’Artagnan and Athos insist on sleeping in the same room and they ask Grimaud and Planchet to guard them and their horses. At 4 a.m., Planchet goes outside to find that Grimaud’s been knocked unconscious. He also sees that the horses have been sabotaged. Then, when Athos and d’Artagnan go to pay the bill, the innkeeper picks a fight with them and yells that they need to be arrested. Suddenly, a number of men show up and attack Athos and d’Artagnan. Athos stays behind to fight the men, while d’Artagnan and Planchet grab horses that belong to someone else and flee.

Planchet and d’Artagnan ride the horses all the way to Calais, a seaside city where they can find safe passage to England. Together, d’Artagnan and Planchet head to the docks where they see a man eager to sail to England. However, when the man tells the captain of a ship that he is traveling to England on the cardinal’s orders, the captain tells him that no ships are allowed to leave the docks without the cardinal’s permission. The man has a letter granting him permission to travel, but the captain says he’ll need to get it signed by the governor of the port before the ship can go anywhere.

D’Artagnan suspects that the man was likely sent to interfere with his mission, so he follows him and then encourages him to fight. Annoyed, the man fights d’Artagnan, but quickly loses. Meanwhile, Planchet handles the man’s servant. After the fight, d’Artagnan takes the man’s letter and ties him to a tree. He then travels to the governor’s office to get the letter signed. When he enters the office, d’Artagnan presents himself as Comte de Wardes to match the name he sees on the letter. He also tells the governor that he ran into a man named d’Artagnan on his way to Calais and then gives him a description that matches Comte de Wardes’s appearance.

The next day, d’Artagnan finally makes it to London and immediately heads to find the duke. When he arrives at the duke’s home, he is told that the duke is out hunting. However, d’Artagnan gets one of the duke’s servants to take him to his master. When the duke sees d’Artagnan, he immediately recognizes him and wonders if something has happened to the queen. D'Artagnan tells him that the queen needs his help and then hands him the letter. After reading the letter, the duke heads back to London with d’Artagnan.