The Man In The Iron Mask

Alexandre Dumas

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1850

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Chapters 37-41Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 37 Summary

As Fouquet travels to Nantes, he hires a lighter to transport him and his company down the river. As they sail, his crew spots a larger vessel approaching them, and Fouquet suspects it is Colbert’s ship. Colbert’s lighter is in close pursuit, despite Fouquet’s efforts to slow it down or confuse its crew. When they land at Nantes, Fouquet subtly mocks Colbert for not passing him and for arriving after him despite having 12 rowers on his lighter (Fouquet had only eight). Fouquet takes a carriage up to the castle at Nantes. D’Artagnan and the musketeers arrive; he secures posts for them throughout the castle, and then he makes his way to visit Fouquet.

Chapter 38 Summary

Fouquet thinks D’Artagnan is there to arrest him again, but D’Artagnan assures him that is not the purpose of his visit that evening. D’Artagnan lists the number of musketeers he was ordered to bring, and he also discloses to Fouquet that he has another order to be enacted after the king arrives: no carriage, boat, or horse is to leave Nantes without the king’s written permission. D’Artagnan subtly suggests that Fouquet flee to Belle-Isle before the king arrives and all travel is cut off. However, just as Fouquet is preparing to leave, the king arrives eight hours ahead of schedule.

Chapter 39 Summary

D’Artagnan escorts Fouquet to see the king. On the way, a stranger slips Fouquet a note that informs him that a white horse is waiting behind the esplanade, which will facilitate his escape. Fouquet destroys the note as D’Artagnan approaches to bring him to the king’s chamber. Fouquet tries to defend himself, but King Louis will hear no explanation. Fouquet requests that he have the next day to himself so he may recover from his fever; the king agrees. Then, Fouquet proposes a trip to Belle-Isle, a property he possessed before giving it to the king, but the king has not yet visited to claim it. King Louis dismisses Fouquet for the evening, then discreetly gives D’Artagnan the order to arrest Fouquet and shut him in a special carriage, preventing the inhabitant from tossing notes out of it.

Chapter 40 Summary

As D’Artagnan prepares to follow and arrest Fouquet, he looks out over the streets and sees a white horse galloping away. D’Artagnan walks outside and finds the scraps of the secret note Fouquet tore to shreds before meeting the king. Upon realizing that the white horse’s rider is Fouquet, D’Artagnan gives chase on a black horse of his own. The pursuit is relentless, and he can barely catch up to the white horse. D’Artagnan fires a shot from his pistol and wounds Fouquet’s horse, but the white horse keeps running. At that same moment, D’Artagnan’s black horse drops dead. D’Artagnan continues to chase Fouquet on foot, stripping his heavy armor and weapons so he can run faster. He catches Fouquet as the white horse is nearly dead; the men drink water from the river and begin their long walk back to where the specialized carriage waits in the woods just outside Nantes.

Chapter 41 Summary

The next afternoon, D’Artagnan returns to the castle at Nantes and interrupts a conversation between Colbert and the king. D’Artagnan demands to know if the king gave orders for the musketeers to ransack Colbert’s house and beat his servants for information—the king denies any such order, so D’Artagnan deduces that Colbert must have been the one who gave such “savage orders” (339). D’Artagnan thoroughly scolds Colbert on the misuse of the king’s musketeers. King Louis inquires after Fouquet’s arrest. D’Artagnan says he did arrest him but left him with one of his stupider soldiers and hopes Fouquet can escape. King Louis is astonished by D’Artagnan’s words. After some thought, the king orders D’Artagnan to send more men after Fouquet’s carriage and see that it is escorted to the Bastille in Paris. As for D’Artagnan himself, King Louis orders him to prepare a siege on Belle-Isle.

Chapters 37-41 Analysis

A thrilling chase on horseback—this is the stuff Musketeer novels are made of.

The black and white horses offer the reader a compelling, albeit somewhat confusing, symbology. Black and white typically stand in for binary concepts like good versus evil or right versus wrong. In this scene, D’Artagnan rides the black horse, and Fouquet rides the white horse. Fouquet’s white horse represents his relative innocence to the scheme of which he has been accused of being involved; he did not know of Aramis’s plan until it had already been done, and he then went and promptly undid it. D’Artagnan’s black horse would then represent his participation in a wrongful arrest, despite what the reader knows of him being a good, honest, honorable man. Conversely, given both men’s attitudes toward honor, duty, and honesty, their riding the opposite colors may symbolize how what we think we know has been inverted and that things are not as clear-cut as we once thought they were.

A compelling scene in these chapters is Fouquet’s conversation with the king. King Louis has changed substantially since he was kidnapped, and it seems his changed nature may serve to strengthen his reign. He is no longer the insecure young man concerned with who is interested in his mistress or who is throwing a more lavish party than he can. He is decisive and confident, and he has matured in a way that suggests his ordeal aged him. His command to procure for Fouquet a special carriage with security measures that prevent attempts to pass notes demonstrates an ability to think ahead, to preemptively counter someone’s possible move before they even try it—a kind of forethought the young king did not demonstrate before.