Dutch Volunteers Unearth Possible d'Artagnan Skeleton, Awaiting Test Results Within Weeks
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 13
Dutch Volunteers Unearth Possible d'Artagnan Skeleton, Awaiting Test Results Within Weeks
5 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 13
Wolder volunteers say a skeleton found beneath St. Peter and Paul’s Church may be Charles de Batz de Castelmore — Count d’Artagnan — though identity tests are still pending.
Centuries-old local tradition held that the Louis XIV musketeer was buried there, prompting residents and church deacon Jos Valke to organize a nonprofit search earlier this year.
Metal detectors helped locate the old church foundation, and loose chapel floor stones led the group to human remains; a skull was unearthed by February and the possible match announced in March.
Results are expected within the next few weeks, a potentially significant step in confirming the burial site of the historical figure later fictionalized as the fourth musketeer in Alexandre Dumas’s novel.
A French coin and musket ball were found with the bones, but is this proof of the legendary musketeer?
Will bureaucratic hurdles and degraded DNA shatter the centuries-old legend of d'Artagnan's final resting place?
If science proves this is d'Artagnan, will the man's real story overshadow the fictional legend we all know?