Summary
The narrative picks up with Monsieur Bonancieux, who has been imprisoned in the Bastille after his arrest. Bonancieux is questioned about the circumstances of his wife's abduction and tells his interrogators everything he knows. He learns the next day that his wife actually escaped, and renounces her actions, trying to curry favor with the Cardinal and his men. Bonancieux is also confused because his jailers bring Athos into the cell, introducing him as D'Artagnan. He points out the error to the jail keepers. Later that night, Bonancieux is taken out and driven through the streets. He believes he is being taken to be executed.
However, Bonancieux is shocked to be taken into a beautiful apartment where he meets Cardinal Richelieu himself. The Cardinal accuses Bonancieux of conspiring against him and Bonancieux anxiously explains all that he knows: his wife claimed that the Cardinal lured the Duke of Buckingham to France as part of a plot against the Queen. Bonancieux also explains that he doesn't know the location of his wife. Richelieu summons a man named Rochefort into the room and Bonancieux identifies Rochefort as the man who abducted his wife (and is therefore also the man from Meung). However, when the Cardinal gives orders for Rochefort to be arrested, Bonancieux takes back his claim. The Cardinal eventually gives him some money and sends him off, secure that Bonancieux is now loyal to him, and can be used to spy on Madame Bonancieux.
Meanwhile, Richelieu has learned about the meeting between the Queen and Buckingham from his network of spies. His spies inform him that the gold casket which the Queen gave to the Duke contains diamond studs. To cover the absence of the casket, the Queen has said that she sent it to the goldsmith to have it repaired. The Cardinal dispatches a letter to one of his associates, Milady, in London, instructing her to steal two of the diamond studs off of the Duke of Buckingham.
Back among the musketeers, Treville goes to the Louvre, trying to find out where Athos has been imprisoned. However, he arrives to find the King is angry because of a conversation with the Cardinal. The King is jealous of his wife, and dislikes and mistrusts her friend, Madame de Chevreuse, who has been exiled. The Cardinal tells King Louis that Madame Bonacieux was acting as a messenger for the two women, and that just when the Cardinal was about to arrest her, a musketeer intervened. However, Treville stands up for Athos and the other musketeers, demanding that Athos either be given a fair trial or released. After a lengthy argument, Treville is finally able to secure a release for Athos.
However, the Cardinal has other schemes. He tells the King that the Duke of Buckingham has been in Paris recently, sending King Louis into a jealous rage. After the Cardinal hints that Queen Anne has been seen writing many letters, the King becomes obsessed with the idea of seeing her personal papers. The Cardinal sends Chancellor Seguier to the Queen's rooms, where he embarrasses her by searching until he finds a letter from Queen Anne to her brother, the King of Spain. In the letter, she asks him to declare war on France and help her get rid of the Cardinal. When Seguier takes the letter to King Louis, the King is relieved that his wife seems to be plotting rather than having an affair. He does offer to punish her, but the Cardinal suggests that the King throw a large party and make an effort to reconcile with his wife. Cannily, the Cardinal tells the King that he should also ask Queen Anne to wear her diamonds to the party.
Analysis
In this section, Monsieur Bonancieux and King Louis are paralleled as disloyal and fickle husbands. Monsieur Bonancieux was initially concerned about his wife's disappearance, but as soon as he finds himself in danger, he is quick to prioritize his well-being. Bonancieux is willing to renounce his wife, and retract his claims against the man who kidnapped her, all to save his own skin. On one hand, the Cardinal is a master manipulator, and a terrifying man, so Bonancieux genuinely fears for his life. However, in contrast to the steadfast gallantry of D'Artagnan, the musketeers, and Buckingham, Bonancieux displays a lack of honor and chivalry through his willingness to sacrifice his wife rather than himself. In general, Bonancieux's cowardice and lack of strategic intelligence render him easily subject to the Cardinal's plots.
King Louis is more cunning, but even he ends up being manipulated by Cardinal Richelieu. The King both mistrusts his wife, and yet also desires to have complete loyalty and control over her affections. Queen Anne's status as a foreigner (she was an Austrian princess before her marriage) makes her a somewhat threatening presence in the royal court, especially with the political tensions between members of her family (the powerful Hapsburg dynasty, who controlled Austria and Spain at this time) and France. As an isolated foreigner whose family interests are in direct opposition to those of the French crown, it makes sense both why Anne would mistrust the Cardinal, and find herself drawn to Buckingham. Because the Cardinal has a shrewd awareness of the King's psychology, he can readily trick and manipulate the King. Even in a world where physical strength and skill with a sword can win a lot of power, information and manipulation still seem to primarily determine who has the most influence.
While other men figure as potential romantic rivals, the King is also deeply threatened by female characters like Madame Chevreuse and Madame Bonancieux. In the novel, it is not entirely clear why he is so threatened by Madame Chevreuse; he may fear that she is facilitating Queen Anne's ability to engage in political schemes, or have extramarital affairs, or both. Dumas based this character on a historical figure, a French noblewoman named Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse. The Duchess of Chevreuse was indeed a close friend of Queen Anne, and was banished from court after the Queen fell while playing a game with her and suffered a miscarriage. Although this detail does not occur in Dumas's novel, part of the historical reason why Louis XIII and Anne had an unhappy marriage was due to the fact that she did not give birth to a living child until they had been married for more than 20 years. Since part of Anne's sacred duty as Queen was to produce male heirs, and a crown prince was important for the political security of the kingdom, this absence created significant stress. It may have also made Louis more vulnerable, and more susceptible to the wiles of the Cardinal.
The idea that women are just as capable of scheming and keeping secrets as men foreshadows important future plot developments. Madame Bonancieux, Queen Anne, and the mysterious Madame Chevreuse all seem to be women who made up their own minds and took action to do what they wanted. Madame Bonancieux and Madame Chevreuse display the same loyalty to their mistress that the musketeers show to Treville and the King, but in the world of women, it is love and not power that determines the rules of the game. However, the Queen's lady in waiting, and the Cardinal's agent, Milady, are equally capable of participating in counterplots. Part of why the cunning Cardinal enlists Milady to be the one to steal the diamond studs from Buckingham is that she is unlikely to be perceived as a threat. As a beautiful woman, she will be able to get physically close to the Duke in a way that would be much more challenging for a man. Since the Duke of Buckingham's taste for beautiful women is what has created this trap in the first place, the Cardinal continues to exploit this weakness as he plots to expose and shame both Buckingham and the Queen.
