"A capable and intelligent... Milady's beautiful exterior hides a diabolically cunning, manipulative, ruthless, and cruel interior; she is remorseless and unrepentant for her countless misdeeds, and is often described as appearing demonic and frighteningly ugly in the instant when she is thwarted. She is a classic example of a femme fatale. Milady goes by numerous aliases so that her identity is concealed for a good part.
As a young Benedictine nun, she seduced the convent's trusting priest, urging him to steal the church's sacred vessels to finance a new life in another part of the country. They fled together, and were soon apprehended. Milady then seduced the jailer's son, and escaped, leaving behind her first lover to be branded for theft. The priest in turn escaped, and the lovers fled to a small town where they posed as a country curate and his sister. The village where they lived was part of Athos's lands, and he became captivated by both her beauty and her intellect. As seigneur of the county, he says he could have seduced her, or taken her by force; but despite the opposition of his family and her obscure origins, he married her giving her his wealth and title and raising her to the nobility... After she was made her husband's heir, he died violently and mysteriously within a matter of hours, leaving her a widow with a young child, who is Lord de Winter's only heir.
She also reveals that she detests d'Artagnan for having spared her brother-in-law's life in another duel, which lost her the income from her son's potential inheritance. Milady tries many methods to murder d'Artagnan. Lord de Winter... He chooses for her jailer a man he thinks will be impervious to her charms, the straitlaced Puritan John Felton. However Milady persuades Felton that she is actually a Puritan as well. Returning to France, Milady murders d'Artagnan's lover Constance, then flees.
When his priest brother escaped from jail to follow Milady, the executioner was condemned to serve his brother's sentence for him. On learning this later, the disgraced priest returned, and surrendered himself, only to hang himself in his cell that same night."
5 авг.' 2025, Wikipedia, "Milady de Winter" (link)
