The Three Musketeers
Novel by Alexandre Dumas pere, published in French as Les Trois Mousquetaires in 1844. A historical romance, it relates the adventures of four fictional swashbuckling heroes who lived during the reigns of the French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV.  At the beginning of the story D'Artagnan arrives in Paris from Gascony and becomes embroiled in three duels with the three musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. The four become such close friends that when D'Artagnan serves an apprenticeship as a cadet, which he must do before he can become a musketeer, each of his friends takes turns sharing guard duty with him. The daring escapades of the four comrades are played out against a background of court intrigue involving the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.  Dumas wrote two sequels that concerned D'Artagnan and the three musketeers: Vingt Ans apres (1845; Twenty Years After) and Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou dix ans plus tard (1848-50; The Vicomte de Bragelonne; or, Ten Years Later).  --The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature