Three Musketeers hero d’Artagnan’s skeleton discovered in Netherlands

The French soldier who inspired Alexandre Dumas, immortalized on stage, in film, and even as a brave cartoon dog, may rise again centuries after a musket ball to the throat ended his swashbuckling career.

Workers repairing a church in the Dutch city of Maastricht have discovered a skeleton that may belong to Charles de Batz-Castelmore, better known as d’Artagnan. The 17th-century Gascon nobleman’s adventures led Dumas to make him the hero of The Three Musketeers.

The real-life d’Artagnan served as a musketeer and spy for King Louis XIV until his death in 1673 during the Siege of Maastricht. Now, 353 years later, a collection of bones found beneath a subsided church floor may have finally solved the riddle of his final resting place.

Wim Dijkman, a retired archaeologist who spent 28 years searching for the musketeer, was summoned to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the city’s Wolder neighborhood after the discovery. Deacon Jos Valke told local broadcaster L1 Nieuws, “A section of the floor in the church had subsided, and during the repair work, we discovered a skeleton. I immediately called Wim because he has been working on d’Artagnan for more than 20 years.”

According to Valke, several signs point to the remains being those of the famous musketeer. “He lay buried under the altar in consecrated ground,” Valke noted. “There was a French coin from that period in the grave, and the bullet that killed him was lying at chest level, exactly as described in history books. The indications are very strong.”

The skeleton has since been moved to an archaeological institute in Deventer. A DNA sample extracted on March 13 is currently being analyzed in a Munich lab, where it will be compared against descendants of d’Artagnan’s father to confirm a match.

While Dijkman acknowledged the magnitude of the find, he remains professional. “It is an incredibly exciting story,” he told L1 Nieuws. “This is about the most famous person linked to Maastricht. [But] I’m always very cautious; I’m a scientist.”

Interest in the discovery extends far beyond the Netherlands. Dijkman added, “All kinds of analyses and investigations are underway both domestically and abroad. It has truly turned into a top-level investigation. We want to be absolutely certain that it is d’Artagnan.”

The soldier achieved massive posthumous fame after Dumas published The Three Musketeers in 1844. Dumas was inspired by the Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan, a 1700 semi-fictionalized account by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras. Over the last century, the novel has seen countless adaptations, with actors like Douglas Fairbanks, Michael York, Chris O’Donnell, Logan Lerman, and François Civil portraying the hero. In the early 1980s, the character was even reimagined as a sword-wielding beagle in the animated series Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds.