Talk:Twenty Years After

Mordaunt's first victim
I doubt I am spoiling anything for anyone, but just in case...SPOILER AHEAD.

Right. The first victim of Mordaunt in Twenty Years After is the executioner who, at the behest of the Musketeers, beheads Milady at the end of The Three Musketeers as punishment for her many crimes (including, as it turns out, one for which the executioner has personal reasons for vengeance as well). In The Three Musketeers, he is said to be able to mete out the death penalty without himself being guilty of murder because in real life he is actually the official executioner of Lille as well.

In Twenty Years After, this same person is said to be the executioner of Bethune, not Lille. Barring the possibility that the executioner changed the town for which he acted as official executioner during the 20 years that separate the timeline of the two books (which I realize is a possibility, albeit a remote one), has anyone ever explained how Dumas (who wrote the two books within a short time span of each other) mixed up the names of the two towns? --Partnerfrance (talk) 17:58, 24 November 2018 (UTC)