Musketeer’s remains apparently found in Dutch church

The suspected remains of Charles de Batz de Castelmore, better known as d’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers, have been found under a Dutch church. Alexandre Dumas’ famous novel and its sequels were based on the fictionalized biography of a real Gascon soldier who rose through the ranks of the royal musketeers under the reign of Louis XIV. While the hero existed — as did Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, or at least musketeers with similar names — most of the actual stories are invented, either by the sensationalist biographer or Dumas himself. D’Artagnan was killed by a musket ball to the throat in the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and excavators believe that a skeleton found in the city was his.