When I read the book in my youth, I remember being surprised not only by the lack of muskets, but also that it was more about D'Artagnan than about the titular Three Musketeers.
Anyway, if you think about it, it makes sense: muskets were a new and unproven technology that still needed a lot of development to actually become usable firearms. While you were busy lighting the fuse on your musket, your opponent could attack and kill you with his sword. So, of course, the king's elite troops needed to be equipped with these "high-tech" weapons for prestige reasons, but due to their impracticality, it's not surprising that they didn't actually see much use...
The whole point of The Three Musketeers is that they are men out of their time, surely.
Nobody drinks and carouses like they do, nobody has their sense of chivalry and old-fashioned justice. And they are lost. They are musketeers but they think muskets are uncouth.
D'Artagnan is there to remind them of who they were and could be again.
But he's also a cutout for the reader who wishes they were there.
This trope has been parodied in various ways since, not least I think in the form of "person who confuses actors for the people they play and convinces them they know as much about the job as the characters they play". Which has itself been parodied in Three Amigos! and also in Galaxy Quest.
When I read the book in my youth, I remember being surprised not only by the lack of muskets, but also that it was more about D'Artagnan than about the titular Three Musketeers.
Anyway, if you think about it, it makes sense: muskets were a new and unproven technology that still needed a lot of development to actually become usable firearms. While you were busy lighting the fuse on your musket, your opponent could attack and kill you with his sword. So, of course, the king's elite troops needed to be equipped with these "high-tech" weapons for prestige reasons, but due to their impracticality, it's not surprising that they didn't actually see much use...
The whole point of The Three Musketeers is that they are men out of their time, surely.
Nobody drinks and carouses like they do, nobody has their sense of chivalry and old-fashioned justice. And they are lost. They are musketeers but they think muskets are uncouth.
D'Artagnan is there to remind them of who they were and could be again.
But he's also a cutout for the reader who wishes they were there.
This trope has been parodied in various ways since, not least I think in the form of "person who confuses actors for the people they play and convinces them they know as much about the job as the characters they play". Which has itself been parodied in Three Amigos! and also in Galaxy Quest.