The Four Musketeers

The Four Musketeers (also known as The Four Musketeers (The Revenge of Milady)) is a 1974 British swashbuckler film that serves as a sequel to the 1973 film The Three Musketeers, and covers the second half of Dumas' 1844 novel The Three Musketeers. Fifteen years after completion of The Four Musketeers, much of the cast and crew reassembled to film The Return of the Musketeers (1989), loosely based on Dumas' Twenty Years After (1845). Plot During the Anglo-French War (1627–29), which involved suppression of the Protestant rebels of La Rochelle, Cardinal Richelieu continues the machinations he began in The Three Musketeers by ordering the Count de Rochefort to kidnap Constance Bonacieux, dressmaker to Queen Anne of France. The evil Milady de Winter, who wants revenge on junior musketeer d'Artagnan, seduces him to keep him occupied. He soon discovers her true nature, however, and also that she was once married to his fellow musketeer Athos, who had supposedly killed her after discovering that she was a branded criminal. The trio of musketeers — Athos, Porthos, and Aramis — rescue Constance from imprisonment in Rochefort's abode of Saint Cloud and take her to safety in the convent of Armentières. De Winter sends d'Artagnan poisoned wine and a note intended to trick him into thinking that the trio have been imprisoned for drunkenness. On his way to bail them out, d'Artagnan is attacked by Rochefort and his men. The trio join the fight, and Rochefort flees. One of his men is captured and tortured for information, revealing that Richelieu is going to the Dovecote Inn near La Rochelle, but then drinks the poisoned wine and dies, revealing de Winter's trap. The trio then proceed to the inn where they spy on Richelieu. The Cardinal orders de Winter to threaten the Duke of Buckingham with exposure of his affair with the Queen, to discourage him from sending a relief force to aid the rebels; she is to kill the Duke if he does not comply. In return, de Winter asks for a warrant, so she can kill d'Artagnan and Constance. Richelieu reluctantly signs one, wording it in a way that leaves no evidence against himself: "By my order and for the good of the state, the bearer has done what has been done."