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50 free The Three Musketeers trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Three Musketeers trivia quiz covers Alexandre Dumas's 1844 swashbuckler and everything it spawned. The easy questions ask who wrote it, where d'Artagnan comes from, the names of the three inseparables, which cardinal schemes against them, what Milady has branded on her shoulder and which jewels d'Artagnan races to London to recover. From there it moves through the plot: the duels, the Siege of La Rochelle, the wager at the bastion, Constance's fate and Milady's trial. The hard end is for people who have read all three d'Artagnan Romances: the ghostwriter who sued for credit and lost, the newspaper that first serialised the story, the real d'Artagnan who died at Maastricht, the 1700 memoir Dumas found in a library, the Beatles connection to the 1973 film, the Salkind clause, the Soviet musical, the future president who played d'Artagnan on stage and why the 3 Musketeers candy bar has that name. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on the novel, Alexandre Dumas, Auguste Maquet, the historical d'Artagnan, the Musketeers of the Guard, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Milady de Winter, the 1973, 1993, 2011 and 2023 films, The Musketeers, Dogtanian and the 3 Musketeers bar before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Count of Monte Cristo, French literature and classic adventure novels quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Three Musketeers, published in 1844, was written by which French author?
Alexandre Dumas
It was the first of his three d'Artagnan Romances and was written with the help of ghostwriter Auguste Maquet.
Q 02The young hero d'Artagnan leaves his family in which region of France to seek his fortune in Paris?
Gascony
His hot Gascon temper gets him into three duels on his first day in the city.
Q 03Which three musketeers befriend d'Artagnan and are known as 'the three inseparables'?
Athos, Porthos and Aramis
D'Artagnan is not actually a musketeer for most of the book; he serves in the less prestigious King's Guards under Des Essarts.
Q 04Which powerful churchman is the musketeers' chief antagonist, scheming against Queen Anne?
Cardinal Richelieu
Dumas gives him a personal motive too: he resents the queen for rebuffing his advances.
Q 05What mark, branded on Milady de Winter's shoulder, reveals her criminal past?
A fleur-de-lis
The executioner who branded her reveals at her trial that she had seduced and abandoned his brother, a priest.
Q 06Which musketeer turns out to be Milady's former husband, having left her for dead in a forest?
Athos
As the Comte de la Fère he abandoned his castle and joined the guards under another name, seeking solace in wine.
Q 07D'Artagnan races to London to recover which gift from the Duke of Buckingham to save the Queen's honour?
Diamond studs
Milady had stolen two of them, but Buckingham had replacements made in time.
Q 08Who is Constance Bonacieux, the woman d'Artagnan falls in love with at first sight?
The Queen's seamstress and confidante
Her husband is d'Artagnan's landlord, and the relationship is never consummated before Milady poisons her.
Q 09How does Milady kill Constance Bonacieux?
Poison
She finds Constance hiding in the same convent and poses as another victim of the Cardinal to gain her trust.
Q 10The novel's climactic military setting is the siege of which Protestant stronghold?
La Rochelle
Athos wagers that the four friends can hold the St Gervais bastion for an hour; they last an hour and a half.
Q 11Milady seduces which puritan guard into helping her escape and assassinating the Duke of Buckingham?
John Felton
Buckingham really was assassinated by a John Felton in 1628; Dumas folded the historical event into his plot.
Q 12At the end of the novel Richelieu gives d'Artagnan a blank commission for which rank?
Lieutenant of musketeers
He offers it to each friend in turn: Athos thinks it beneath him, Porthos is retiring to marry, and Aramis is joining the church.
Q 13D'Artagnan's servant Planchet is hired after one of the musketeers sees him doing what from the Pont de la Tournelle?
Spitting into the river
Q 21The historical d'Artagnan is famous for arresting which disgraced finance minister of Louis XIV?
Nicolas Fouquet
The arrest at Nantes in 1661 followed Fouquet's lavish party at Vaux-le-Vicomte.
Q 22The real Musketeers of the Guard were founded in 1622 when which king armed a company of light cavalry with muskets?
Louis XIII
In 1664 they split into Grey and Black Musketeers, named for the colour of their horses.
Q 23After 1664 the two musketeer companies were known as the Grey and the Black Musketeers, distinguished by what?
The colour of their horses
Porthos took it as a sign of good character; Planchet proves brave, clever and loyal.
Q 14Athos's servant Grimaud is only allowed to speak in emergencies. How does he otherwise communicate?
Sign language
Each musketeer's servant mirrors his master: Aramis's Bazin is pious, Porthos's Mousqueton is a would-be dandy.
Q 15Between which years is the novel set?
1625 and 1628
Its sequel, Twenty Years After, jumps to the Fronde and the English Civil War.
Q 16The novel was first serialised between March and July 1844 in which newspaper?
Le Siècle
Dumas framed the book as a recovered manuscript, the Mémoires of the Comte de la Fère.
Q 17Which collaborator worked with Dumas on The Three Musketeers, its sequels and The Count of Monte Cristo?
Auguste Maquet
He researched and drafted outlines; Dumas expanded them in his own style. Maquet later sued for co-authorship and lost.
Q 18When the ghostwriter went to court demanding co-authorship and royalties, what was the outcome?
Dumas won
One critic summed it up: 'Dumas without Maquet would have been Dumas: what would Maquet have been without Dumas?'
Q 19Dumas said he was inspired by a 1700 'memoir' of d'Artagnan written by which author?
Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras
He found it while researching a history of Louis XIV; the names Athos, Porthos and Aramis appear in it.
Q 20The real Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan died in 1673 at the siege of which city?
Maastricht
He was killed during the Franco-Dutch War, decades after the events of the novel; he was also famous for arresting Nicolas Fouquet.
The Grey Musketeers rode matched grey horses and the Black Musketeers black ones.
Q 24The author's grandmother was an enslaved woman from which colony, now Haiti?
Saint-Domingue
His father, a mixed-race general in Napoleon's army, was the son of a French marquis and Marie-Cessette Dumas.
Q 25In 2002, for the bicentenary of his birth, Dumas's ashes were re-interred in which Paris monument?
The Panthéon
President Jacques Chirac presided, placing him among France's luminaries.
Q 26The sequel Twenty Years After sees the musketeers try in vain to save which doomed monarch?
Charles I of England
They also face Milady's vengeful son Mordaunt during the Fronde and the English Civil War.
Q 27The final d'Artagnan Romance, The Vicomte of Bragelonne, is often split into three volumes, the last of which is titled what?
The Man in the Iron Mask
It ends the saga with Aramis's plot to swap Louis XIV for his twin.
Q 28In the 1998 film of the saga's final volume, who played both Louis XIV and his imprisoned masked twin Philippe?
Leonardo DiCaprio
Byrne played d'Artagnan, Irons Aramis, Malkovich Athos and Gérard Depardieu Porthos.
Q 29Richard Lester's 1973 film was originally proposed in the 1960s as a vehicle for which band?
The Beatles
Lester had directed A Hard Day's Night and Help!; the film eventually starred Michael York, Oliver Reed and Richard Chamberlain.
Q 30The 1973 film's producers split one shoot into two movies without telling the cast, prompting the Screen Actors Guild to require what?
The 'Salkind clause' in contracts
It stipulates that a single production cannot be split into instalments without prior contractual agreement.