Bazin

Bazin is the valet of Aramis, a Musketeer perpetually torn between military life and the Church. More than a servant, Bazin is the embodiment of his master's clerical vocation, a man whose entire identity is staked on Aramis's eventual ordination. His unwavering fidelity, his pious habits, and his ambitious dreams for the future make him a distinctive figure among the lackeys of the four inseparables—a man who serves not just a master but a calling, and who suffers each time that calling is deferred.

Identity and Background

Bazin is a Berrichon, from the province of Berry, and is described as being thirty-five or forty years old, mild, peaceable, and sleek. He is always clothed in black, as becomes the servant of a churchman, and he employs the leisure his master leaves him in the perusal of pious works. He provides rigorously for two a dinner of few dishes but excellent ones, and for the rest, he is dumb, blind, and deaf, and of unimpeachable fidelity. This portrait establishes him as the perfect attendant for a man of the cloth—quiet, devout, and utterly reliable. His own ambitions, however, are far from modest. Bazin has read history and knows that Sixtus V became Pope after having kept pigs; as he means to enter the Church at the same time as Aramis, he does not despair of becoming Pope in his turn, or at least a cardinal. This secret aspiration gives his service a dimension of personal investment: he is not merely serving a master but grooming a future prince of the Church, and himself a future prince's attendant.

Life and Plot Trajectory

Bazin's emotional arc is governed entirely by Aramis's vacillations between the Musketeers and the clergy. For much of the novel, he endures his master's military service with barely concealed distress, his soul in constant jeopardy, as he says, because of the worldly dangers of a Musketeer's life. The daily-renewed promise that the moment of ordination would not long be delayed alone keeps him in service. When Aramis is wounded and falls into a deep melancholy, Bazin sees his long-awaited opportunity. He guards the door of his master's chamber at Crevecoeur with the intrepidity of a man who finally sees his goal within reach, barring d'Artagnan's entry and declaring that Aramis is engaged in a pious conference with the curate of Montdidier and the superior of the Jesuits of Amiens. During this conference, Bazin stands listening with pious jubilation, and when the two ecclesiastics leave, he springs toward them, takes their books, and walks respectfully before them to clear their way. The height of his joy comes when Aramis, under the influence of the letter from Marie Michon and the gold it brings, abruptly abandons his clerical plans. Bazin enters to find his master ordering a larded hare, a fat capon, and four bottles of old Burgundy, and is told to take away the spinach and omelet. He looks at his master without comprehending the cause of this change, in a melancholy manner, allowing the omelet to slip into the spinach and the spinach onto the floor. When d'Artagnan later teases him that people of all conditions gain the kingdom of heaven, Bazin almost weeps, lamenting that his master was already such a good theologian that he might have become a bishop, and perhaps a cardinal. His final appearance in the epilogue confirms his fate: Bazin becomes a lay brother, a modest ecclesiastical station that falls far short of the cardinal's hat he had dreamed of, yet a fulfillment of his desire to serve the Church, if not at the height he had hoped.

Key Actions and Objectives

Bazin's primary objective is to see Aramis abandon the Musketeers and take holy orders. He actively facilitates this goal whenever possible. At Crevecoeur, he physically blocks d'Artagnan from interrupting Aramis's theological conference, arguing that it would be the height of indiscretion to disturb his master. He is entrusted with carrying the letter to Marie Michon at Tours, a mission of great delicacy that requires absolute discretion, and he performs it successfully, returning with the answer that brings Aramis his fortune and, briefly, his renewed commitment to the Church. When the four friends prepare for their journey to rescue Constance Bonacieux, Bazin is one of the lackeys considered for the dangerous mission to London, though he is ultimately assigned to the safer route to Tours. His most dramatic moment comes when Aramis, in a fit of worldly enthusiasm, throws his skullcap in Bazin's face and orders him to replace the Lenten fare with a feast. Bazin's silent, melancholy obedience speaks volumes about his dashed hopes.

Relationships and Conflict

Bazin's relationship with Aramis is the central axis of his existence. He is devoted to his master but perpetually frustrated by his worldly entanglements. The conflict is not personal but vocational: Bazin wants a churchman to serve, and Aramis keeps choosing to be a soldier. This tension is comic in its persistence but also reveals the depth of Bazin's commitment. He is contrasted with the other lackeys—Grimaud's taciturn obedience, Mousqueton's roguish resourcefulness, Planchet's shrewd bravery—by his piety and his intellectual pretensions. He is the only lackey who reads, and he reads pious works. His relationship with d'Artagnan is cordial but marked by the Gascon's teasing; d'Artagnan enjoys provoking Bazin by pointing out that even cardinals go to war, as Cardinal de la Valette does, and asking his lackey how often he has had to prepare lint for him.

Change and Ending

Bazin's trajectory is one of gradual disillusionment tempered by partial fulfillment. He begins as a patient servant, endures years of deferred hope, reaches a peak of ecstatic anticipation at Crevecoeur, suffers a crushing reversal when Aramis abandons his clerical plans for a feast, and finally, after the siege of La Rochelle, sees his master retire into a convent—though which convent, nobody knows. Bazin himself becomes a lay brother. This ending is a compromise: he does not become the attendant of a cardinal, but he does finally serve the Church. His story is a quiet, comic counterpoint to the grand adventures of his master, a reminder that even the most faithful servants have their own hopes and disappointments.

Narrative Role and Evaluation

Bazin functions primarily as a comic foil to Aramis's irresolution. His single-minded piety and his despair at each worldly relapse provide a running gag that underscores Aramis's character. He is also a practical instrument: he carries letters, guards doors, and performs the errands that keep the plot moving. More subtly, he represents the theme of vocation—the tension between worldly ambition and spiritual calling—that is central to Aramis's arc. His own ambition to rise through the Church hierarchy mirrors the social climbing of the main characters, but in a reduced, almost parodic key. Bazin is a minor character, but a memorable one, whose loyalty and longing give him a quiet dignity amid the novel's tumult.