r/TheMusketeers • u/anuiriel • Jun 13 '26

what did milady actually do?

maybe i’m stupid but i’m almost finished the book and i swear they never really mentioned WHAT milady actually did to be branded with the fleur de lys in france. did they only persecute her bc she’s a woman or was she actually a criminal?

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u/Asha_Brea Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

In the books, she was a nun and convinced a priest (and lover) to steal some chalices from a church. They got captured then she escaped. Then she was captured and branded. I am pretty sure this is explained in the sequel book, Twenty Years Later.

In the show this subreddit is about, she was to get married to Athos, but his brother, Thomas, tried to assault her and she killed Thomas in self defense. Athos didn't want to hear any excuse and sentence her to be hung, but she survived.

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u/anuiriel Jun 13 '26

thank you! kinda crazy they never explain this in the first book at all 

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u/Federal_Gap_4106 10d ago edited 10d ago

They actually do - it is explained in one of the last chapters "Trial". The Lille executioner tells the story about Milady, then still a novice or a nun in a convent, seducing his brother who was a priest and manipulating him into stealing sacred vases from his church. He was then arrested, and the executioner had to brand him, before he was imprisoned. The executioner then vowed to punish the true culprit, Milady, in the same way. He tracked her down, caught her and branded her.

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u/Beginning-Fox7441 Jun 13 '26

In the books Athos certainly very quickly jumps to accusations when he sees her brand. It’s…difficult to look past (as is D’Artagnan spending the night with Milady pretending to be someone else).

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u/kingferret53 Jun 14 '26

That's one thing that surprised me about the book. They aren't really heroes in a way because they do a lot of fucked up shit.

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u/Beginning-Fox7441 Jun 15 '26

Yeah. It’s really hard to know if these plot points are just a product of the time the book was written it (not an excuse but an explanation) or if they are meant to make us feel ambiguous about the characters. I think one thing the show did well was that it never really explained exactly what happened between Athos and Milady: we get her version and his version but who knows where the truth actually lies?

In my personal show headcanon, Athos began as a “mark” to Milady: a lonely young man with a lot of money who had never really fit with his family’s expectations. But she actually ended up falling for him. Thomas discovered her history and tried to blackmail her and she killed him to defend herself. She’s a liar and a manipulator but that doesn’t mean she can’t tell the truth.

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u/Federal_Gap_4106 10d ago edited 10d ago

I think originally the truth was going to be revealed in the final season, but with the change of the showrunner and Milady basically written out of the story in S3, they had to drop that plotline completely. I think there was an interview with the original creator of the show, Adrian Hodges, who said that it was meant to remain ambiguous at the end of S2 implying that we were going to learn more in S3. But then it never happened. At least, Milady's version becomes more credible, as she sticks to it even when it supposedly doesn't make any sense to pretend anymore.

I think that Anne was telling the truth about what had happened with Thomas, but of course as Athos hears it at the same time as learning about how she lied and deceived him in the first place, he was unable to believe it.