More than 350 years after falling victim to a musket ball, the soldier whose life inspired ‘The Three Musketeers’ may have finally been located, peacefully interred beneath a church in the Dutch city of Maastricht.
Workers undertaking repairs at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul discovered more than they bargained for when a sunken section of the floor unveiled a skeleton potentially belonging to Charles de Batz-Castelmore, the Gascon nobleman who served as the real-life inspiration for Alexandre Dumas’s beloved hero, d’Artagnan.
The evidence is compelling. The remains were discovered buried beneath the altar in consecrated ground, a fitting resting place for a man of his stature. Nearby, a 17th-century French coin was unearthed, and most strikingly, the very musket ball that ended his life was found lodged in the chest area – precisely where historical accounts place his fatal wound.
Retired archaeologist Wim Dijkman, who has dedicated 28 years to researching d’Artagnan’s final resting place, was called to the scene almost immediately. A DNA sample is currently undergoing analysis in Munich, with results to be compared against known descendants of the famed musketeer.
Commendably, Dijkman remains cautious. “I am still very careful,” he stated. “I am a scientist.”