Summary
D'Artagnan goes home in the wee hours after the ball and finds a note telling him to go to an address in Saint-Cloud (a suburb near Paris) that night. He assumes the note is from Madame Bonancieux and is delighted, despite the suspicions of his servant Planchet. D'Artagnan plans to spend the day running errands before his tryst; as he leaves the house, he runs into Bonancieux and carelessly mentions that he has just returned home from a journey. D'Artagnan then goes to visit Treville, who tries to caution him. The Cardinal is angry and determined to find out who foiled his plan; Treville suggests D'Artagnan sell the ring he received from the Queen to avoid drawing any attention to himself. Treville also thinks D'Artagnan should try to check in with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, none of whom have returned to Paris yet. D'Artagnan promises to do so the following day, but nothing can deter him from his planned meeting that night.
D'Artagnan and Planchet ride to Saint Cloud together, and D'Artagnan leaves his servant a little ways away, promising to meet up with him in the morning. D'Artagnan waits at the appointed place for more than an hour before becoming alarmed. He climbs into the building through a window and finds a chaotic scene, suggesting someone was violently abducted. D'Artagnan asks several people in the surrounding area and pieces together the story: Constance Bonancieux was waiting for him in the building, when three men entered through the window, abducted her, and drove her away in a carriage. After reuniting with Planchet, D'Artagnan hurries to Treville and tells him the whole story. Treville recommends that D'Artagnan get out of Paris to try and avoid danger.
Back at his lodgings, D'Artagnan encounters Bonancieux and becomes suspicious that the man was involved in the kidnapping of his own wife. However, D'Artagnan is distracted because his servant Planchet reports that the Cardinal's agents have been inquiring about him. Planchet bought them time by lying and saying that his master had set off for Champagne (a region of France). D'Artagnan and Planchet go to reunite with the other musketeers, whom they separated from during the journey to England. First, they go to the inn at Chantilly where Porthos had been wounded in the duel he fought there and has been running up a large bill while recovering. Since he is still convalescing, D'Artagnan and Planchet move on to Crevecoeur, where they left Aramis after he was injured.
Aramis has been devoting himself to studying theology and wants to return to the church, which was his original vocation before he became a musketeer. However, D'Artagnan has a letter for him (readers do not know who the letter is from, but it is implied that a woman wrote it). Aramis becomes much happier after reading the letter, and eager to return to life as a musketeer. Since he is not quite fully healed, D'Artagnan and Planchet continue on without him. They get to Amiens, where they learn that Athos has barricaded himself in the cellar with his servant Grimaud after winning the fight when he was accused of forgery. D'Artagnan convinces Athos to come out, and that night, as the two men drink together, Athos tells a story implying that he was once married and killed his wife after learning that she was a thief. The next morning, D'Artagnan awakens to find that Athos has been gambling with some Englishmen who are also staying at the inn and has lost their horses. They gradually make their way back to Paris, picking up Porthos and Aramis along the way. The four of them arrive basically penniless due to their misadventures. This is particularly problematic because they are expected to report for military duty in about two weeks time, and need money to pay for the equipment and other service requirements.
Analysis
At this point in the novel, D'Artagnan is flush with success. He has bravely carried out a difficult mission, and saved the Queen from embarrassment. It seems logical to both him and readers that this would be the ideal time to consummate his relationship with Constance Bonancieux. She would likely be grateful for his success in the mission, and he has now earned the right to be her lover. However, D'Artagnan's impulsiveness and desire also makes him blind to the potential danger he is in. He has not yet realized how much caution he needs to exert in his new life. The same conditions which would ensure secrecy in his encounter with Constance also mean that he is going to be in a perilous situation.
D'Artagnan is also learning some cunning and strategy: rather than acting rashly when he learns that Constance has been kidnapped, he follows Treville's advice and focuses on safeguarding himself first. As D'Artagnan travels to reunite with the three musketeers, readers see a more complex and vulnerable representation of these characters. Porthos exists mostly to provide comic relief and lacks the complexity of the others. Aramis presents as a deeply pious man who would prefer a life of devotion rather than serving as a musketeer. However, as the episode with the letter makes fairly clear, there is a woman somewhere in whom Aramis has a vested interest. His devotion to her trumps his initial inclination to change his lifestyle, and suggests he may be a romantic dreamer not unlike Buckingham and D'Artagnan.
Athos also seems to have a secret romantic history which is only now coming to the surface. When he reveals some of the dark details of his past to D'Artagnan, he shows that he trusts the younger man. It also implies that he sees D'Artagnan as more of an equal, rather than a junior figure. The implication of Athos' tragic past helps to explain why he is melancholy and often isolates himself. At the same time, Athos' behavior in the story reveals his arrogance, entitlement, and a different type of violence than ritualized sword fighting. It was a severe betrayal for Athos' wife to hide her identity and criminal past, but for most modern readers, it will seem shocking that Athos felt justified in killing her himself without any due process or formal justice. It's not clear whether her crime of theft would typically carry a death sentence, so Athos may have exacted a harsher punishment than would have been possible with an actual trial. Athos' explanation foreshadows the subsequent fate of Milady; she may have escaped the first time a man tried to enforce his personal justice, but she will not escape a second time. This story also shows the darker side of the passionate love affairs represented in the novel. While men like D'Artagnan and Buckingham adore and idealize their mistresses, Athos' story reveals how a man can lash out if his image of his beloved fails to align with reality.
This gap between reality and idealization is also reflected in the problematic financial state of the musketeers. They lack foresight and future planning, which means they often find themselves in precarious situations. Their return to Paris is an ironic reversal of the situation when D'Artagnan first arrived. At that time, they seemed like almost superhuman men, who were suave, brave, chivalrous, and glamorous. By this point, they are trailing sad pasts, broken dreams, and a lack of money to even fulfill the basic obligations of their professional role.
