I suspect I'm revealing my ignorance

[conuly]

I've never read The Three Musketeers and am mostly familiar with them from their many many many pop-culture incarnations. If they're musketeers, though... why are they associated with swashbuckling swordfights? Shouldn't they be associated with, um, muskets?

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Muskets weren't even that effective at a distance, unless one had a whole company of guys firing en masses at another company of guys. The Three Musketeers is set in the time of Cardinal Richelieu, the early 17th century, and muskets, having as yet no rifling in the barrel, were inaccurate as well as slow. Hardly a fitting weapon for hot-headed and romantic personal combat; a duel at 20 paces could take all morning before somebody finally scored a hit.
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[conuly]

My kind of duel.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

No, srsly, it'd be like watching golf.

[conuly]

But with fewer deaths, so that's a plus.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Fewer deaths than golf?!

I'm not sure that that would technically be considered a 'plus' for a style of duelling. In fact, I'm not sure that a style of duelling that resulted in fewer deaths than golf would technically be considered 'duelling'.

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[conuly]

But who cleans up the blood?