https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loranga,_Masarin_och_Dartanjan...
So, he became a priest? (Father Ted [a literary classic] reference)
Galileo had (illegitimate) daughters but was unable to find husbands for them, so their remaining options were to become nuns. One seems to have quite brilliant, but the other a drunk:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Daughter
Back in the day the Church was the social safety net of society, so many folks ended up in monasteries as a form of charity for folks that would perhaps otherwise would have no other way to support themselves.
Monasteries were not orphanages. You could sometimes dump a baby off there (they had deposit bins specifically for that), but they wouldn't raise it. They would usually find somebody else to take care of it.
Monasteries did not have accept older children or adults, either. Children given to the church would often come with money for their care and feeding. The poor would often get turned away.
A monastery could be a safe place to house offspring who didn't have a family who could (publicly) support them. They were also good places for second sons and other spare children, and with enough money donated they could work their way up in the church hierarchy to do the family some good.
But it was a lousy social safety net.
So, I immediately looked it up. There was a real d'Artagnan, he was kind of a big deal, so Dumas wrote some stories based on a fictionalized version of the real d'Artagnan.
Cardinal Mazarin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Mazarin
Athos - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_d%27Athos
Porthos - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_de_Porthau
Aramis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_d%27Aramitz
Comte de Troisville (D'artagnan's mentor) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comte_de_Troisville
All highly fictionalized and I have had trouble finding information on the real counterparts (aside from the Cardinal). I started learning about that period of history after listening to the D'Artagnan Romances in audiobook form.
The other interesting thing is Gatien de Courtilz de Sanras wrote semi-fictional accounts of D'Artagnan, published 27 years after D'artagnan's death and 144 years before Dumas' The Three Musketeers ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatien_de_Courtilz_de_Sandras ).
And he was more than a big deal. One of the most powerful people in Europe at the time.
A hero and a heroic death in a pointless war.
(For those interested, Jerzy Hoffman has produced excellent film adaptations of these books, two while navigating communist censorship, which is why they were filmed in reverse order. In reading order:
- "With Fire and Sword" (1999) [1]
- "The Deluge" (1974) [0] (trailer for the significantly shortened 2014 director's cut [3])
- "The Colonel Wołodyjowski" [2]
In my opinion, and this is widely regarded to be the case, the original 5+ hour "The Deluge" is the best of the three and frankly one of the best movies I've ever watched.)
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqdrKEEt_nc
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCESk2joFo8