The Three Musketeers - Captain de Tréville

Monsieur de Tréville, real name Jean-Armand du Peyrer, Comte de Troisville, was the respected captain of the musketeers guarding Louis XIII. A close adviser to the King, he is a man of great honour and integrity. He inspires loyalty in his men and gives it back without reserve. Possibly the embodiment of the musketeers' motto "One for all and all for one!".

Captain de Tréville flanked by the musketeers Aramis, Porthos and Athos

 

The Captain is a minor modification of the King and Country Gustavus Adolphus mini. It was chosen due to the colours of the model being a close match for the Musketeer uniform. It only needed a change of hair and the addition of the musketeer cross on the back of the cape. While I'm fine converting the cheaper Lemax figures myself, I wanted this model to be perfect, so I enlisted professional sculptor Ian Mountain, whom I had worked with before, to make the conversion. I then proceeded to paint it to match the rest of the figure. I wanted to give the impression of greying hair to his flowing locks to indicate his seniority. With the changes, he no longer looks obviously like Gustavus, at least to my eye.

"Sire, I have this urgent missive for you." - "What is it? Is Spain on the move again?"

 Frequent duels between musketeers and red guards were a regular point of contention between the Cardinal and the Captain.

"Your musketeers were caught duelling again!You must punish them!" - "I will look into it and give them their just deserts.

"I heard you disobeyed the prohibition of duelling again and fought the Cardinal's guards?" - "Yes, my captain, but..." - "Silence! I only want to hear one thing out of  you... Did you win?" - "We did, sir!" - "Good."

"This is d'Artagnan, captain. He's the one who bested and injured Monsieur de Jussac in single combat." - "No small feat. I hear you want to become a musketeer, boy?" - "More than anything, captain!" - "Well, at least you're a Gascon."

The Three Musketeers - The Royal Carriage

A King always travels in style and none has more style in abundance than King Louis of France. Covered in the royal fleur de lys heraldry, the King's presence is clearly announced and all who witness this carriage's passing will know it holds an important member of the Royal household, most likely the King himself. Not so good for visits to one of the King's mistresses, but no doubt he has more discrete carriages at his disposal should such a need arise.

The King descends from his carriage and is greeted by the Cardinal under the watchful eyes of his faithful musketeers.

The model is based on a Lemax victorian carriage with a heavily modified rider. The casting and painting on the original model was very bad and I did my best to improve it, but some casting flaws were beyond repair. The ugly thread reins were replaced with florist wire. The driver was completely resculpted to wear the King's livery. His hat was donated by a 54mm figure, with some added sculpting to enlarge it.

 

The King and Queen returning from a short ride in the King's carriage. 

The downside of announcing the identity of the passengers is having to deal with the occasional assassination attempt.

 For completeness' sake, this is the Lemax model it was based on, though in reality they don't look quite as nice and clean as in the promotional pictures: