Musketeers

The Musketeers appear as a collective instrument of royal authority, intervening when dissent, captivity, or personal allegiance threatens the order imposed around the court. The scenes do not describe their command structure or establish that every guard belongs to their company. Instead, they show specific acts of enforcement: a musketeer ends a public refrain, musketeers transport captives and separate them from one another, and an armed escort accompanies Marie-Josèphe de la Croix. Their narrative significance lies in this practical reach, from regulating a crowd to controlling access and movement.

Public Order and Royal Authority

During an appeal to Louis XIV, visitors whisper and then repeat their plea that the captive sea monster be spared. Marie-Josèphe recognizes that their goodwill may worsen the situation, but the crowd’s refrain continues until a musketeer strides toward the disturbance. The whispers stop. The intervention is brief and no blow is described; its effect is enough to end the public expression of opposition. In this scene, the Musketeers need not debate the crowd or answer its appeal. Their approach changes what the spectators are willing to say in the King’s presence.

That moment distinguishes the crowd’s moral appeal from the means by which royal authority is maintained. The visitors hope their collective voice might influence the decision, while the musketeer’s advance restores silence. The episode does not establish that the Musketeers decide the sea monster’s fate. It shows instead how their physical presence limits the space in which others can challenge a royal judgment.

Custody and the Movement of Captives

At another point, royal guards surround a group of captives and march them to a guard room in the State Apartments. The narration specifies that musketeers have to carry Sherzad, while Lucien de Barenton, Count de Chrétien, keeps pace by leaning heavily on his sword-cane. The captives do not move under their own control: they are surrounded, escorted, and brought into a guarded interior. The difference in their condition is also clear. Lucien manages to walk, but Sherzad must be carried.

Once inside, the musketeers drop Sherzad and move away, unnerved by the sea woman’s condition and uncanny keening. Their unease does not undo their role in delivering her into custody. Marie-Josèphe asks them to give Sherzad water, warning that she will grow ill without it; Yves de la Croix asks for water and permission for the group to sit after travelling through the night. The scene therefore places an immediate need for care inside a process of coercive transport. The musketeers have brought the captives to the guard room, while the requests for water and rest come from those held there.

Separation and Restricted Access

The Musketeers also enforce separation within the group. They take Lucien and Yves away and forbid Marie-Josèphe to exchange even a word with either of them. Two guards then escort her to Madame’s apartments. The narrative distinguishes the Musketeers who remove the men from the guards who accompany Marie-Josèphe; it does not explicitly identify those guards as Musketeers. What the sequence makes plain is the broader system of controlled access: the three are moved to different places, and speech between them is prohibited.

The separation turns custody into more than confinement in a single room. The men’s removal prevents Marie-Josèphe from communicating with them, while her own escorted transfer places her under watch elsewhere. When she later sees Sherzad in the cage, a guard unlocks it to let Marie-Josèphe out and locks it again behind her. That passage concerns a guard rather than a specifically named Musketeer, but it echoes the same controlled pattern of movement: a person may be released from one enclosure only under supervision, and the barrier closes again immediately.

Narrative Function

Across these episodes, the Musketeers are shown through actions rather than individual histories. A single advance checks the visitors’ refrain; a group transports captives into the State Apartments; and armed personnel prevent imprisoned people from speaking to one another. Each intervention narrows someone else’s choices, whether the choice is to speak publicly, move freely, rest, or maintain contact with an ally.

The scenes also preserve a distinction between enforcing custody and determining its purpose. The Musketeers carry out orders and control the immediate conditions of royal power, but the cited moments do not show them making the decisions that place the sea people in danger or decide their ultimate fate. Their significance is consequently institutional and dramatic: they make the court’s commands effective in the physical world, while their presence marks the boundary between those who can give orders and those whose movement and speech are subject to them.