The Four Musketeers
The revenge of Milady - Based on the screenplay by George Mac Donald Fraser
Michael Hardwick
123 pages
Bantam Books - 1975 - États-Unis
Roman
Intérêt: 0
Ce petit roman est la "novellisation" du film The
Four Musketeers de Richard Lester (tourné avec
une brochette impressionnante de stars: Oliver Reed,
Raquel Welch, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York,
Christopher Lee, Geraldine Chaplin, Jean-Pierre Cassel,
Faye Dunaway, Charlton Heston, etc..).
 Convenablement écrit,
le roman n'en a pas moins aucun intérêt. Les distorsions
par rapport à l'histoire originale, qui passent fort
bien dans un film enlevé comme sait en faire Richard
Lester, sonnent ici cruellement faux: incohérences
chronologiques (le récit se concentre sur l'épisode de
La Rochelle et l'affrontement entre d'Artagnan et
Milady, mais est censé se passer après l'affaire des
ferrets de la Reine), transformation de personnages
(Constance Bonacieux apparaît comme totalement demeurée)
et de l'intrigue (c'est Planchet qui est envoyé en
Angleterre prévenir Buckingham des intrigues de Milady).
De bons gags visuels deviennent poussifs quand ils sont
décrits, comme les mousquetaires retranchés dans le
fortin de La Rochelle et renvoyant les bombes jetées par
les Protestants à coup de baguettes de pain, comme s'ils
jouaient au golf...
Un livre à oublier, donc.
Extrait du chapitre trois
Despite the grace of her form and the beauty of her
face, Constance Bonacieux possessed not much intellect.
She was also, to a degree, accident-prone. Stall-holders
in the market where she was well known enjoyed feasting
their eyes on her but tended to wince apprehensively
when she approached their stalls. Almost always the wake
of her passing was marked with vegetables accidentally
knocked off the stalls by her swishing gown, prime
fruits bruised and gashed from falling from her clumsy
grasp, coins dropped between the cobbles and left to the
vendors to find.
On this particular morning she was causing something of
a stir in front of a stall selling live and dead poultry
and game. She had thrust one hand into the innards of a
fowl - a dead one - and, being Constance, found that she
could not withdraw it. The poulterer looked on gloomily
as D'Artagnan came to her assistance, seizing the bird
in both his leather-gloved hands and heaving while
Constance pulled away in the opposite direction. In due
course her hand came out, with a strange sound, and both
she and D'Artagnan almost fell from the impetus.
D'Artagnan replaced the fowl on the stall and smiled
apologetically at the poulterer.
"You don't want it?" the man said, resigned.
D'Artagnan took Constance's arm and led her away. She
began to explain, "My mother always said you could tell
if they were fresh by ... Oh, peaches! Aren't they
beautiful?"
She picked up one and stroked it against her cheek,
watched, fascinated, by the stall-holder.
"Beside you, Constance, my dearest," D'Artagnan
declared, "they look old and wrinkled."
She smiled back affection, and, forgetting the
tenderness of ripe peaches, unthinkingly squeezed it. It
burst.
Her attention was already elsewhere. "Ah, melons," she
cried, moving, and in doing so dislodged a pumpkin which
rolled off the stall and thundered down onto
D'Artagnan's foot. He sighed and fished in his pocket.
He held out a small coin to the stall-holder. "This is
for the fruit Madame buys." He poured more coins into
the man's other hand. "This is for what she destroys."
Constance, oblivious, had picked up two melons and was
holding them up in front of her.
"Do I need melons?" she asked ingenuously. A snigger
went up as bystanders nudged one another. The comparison
was all too plain.
"Decidedly not," D'Artagnan assured her, and scowled at
a man who winked at him.
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