1 May

1 May 1628 was the fixed date for the opening of the French royal army's campaign against the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle. This deadline, communicated by Monsieur de Treville to the four friends, transformed their financial anxieties into a desperate scramble for equipment and set in motion the chain of events that would lead to the final, tragic phase of their adventures.

The Campaign Deadline and Its Consequences

Monsieur de Treville informed d'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis that his Majesty had a fixed intention to open the campaign on the first of May, and that they must immediately prepare their outfits. The news plunged the four friends into a state of bewilderment, for they had spent or gambled away most of the money they had acquired. Athos, with characteristic fatalism, declared that if he could not find the means to equip himself within the fortnight, he would seek a quarrel with four of the cardinal's Guards or eight Englishmen and fight until he was killed, thus performing his duty without the expense of an outfit. Porthos, however, was more resourceful: he announced that he would follow up on an idea, which soon led him to the procurator's wife, Madame Coquenard, from whom he extracted the funds for his equipment. Aramis, anxious and negligently dressed, said nothing, while d'Artagnan, though preoccupied with his own financial straits, was equally tormented by his failure to find any trace of Constance Bonacieux.

The Urgency of Equipment

The four friends calculated that each required at least fifteen hundred livres for a proper outfit, a sum that seemed impossibly large given their empty purses. D'Artagnan, who had just been promised entry into the Musketeers, was the most preoccupied, for his vanity as a Gascon made him eager to appear well-equipped. The lackeys shared their masters' distress: Mousqueton collected a store of crusts, Bazin never quit the churches, Planchet watched the flight of flies, and Grimaud heaved sighs enough to soften the stones. The three friends—Athos having sworn not to stir a foot to equip himself—wandered the streets looking at the pavement as if to see whether the passengers had not left a purse behind them. It was in this atmosphere of desperation that Porthos first acted on his idea, going to the church of St. Leu where he encountered Madame Coquenard and began the negotiations that would eventually yield him a horse, a mule, and eight hundred livres in cash.

The Deadline as a Catalyst for Action

The campaign deadline of 1 May served as a powerful catalyst, forcing each of the four friends to find creative solutions to their financial problems. D'Artagnan, having sold the queen's diamond for seven thousand livres, was able to equip himself and even to fund the secret missions of Planchet and Bazin to warn Lord de Winter and Madame de Chevreuse about Milady's plans. The urgency of the deadline also meant that the four friends had to act quickly, leaving them little time to reflect on the dangers that awaited them. The campaign itself, which began as scheduled, would ultimately lead to the siege of La Rochelle, the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, the poisoning of Constance Bonacieux, and the trial and execution of Milady. The date of 1 May thus marks the point at which the personal adventures of the four friends became inextricably linked with the great political and military events of the age, and at which their fates were sealed.