MILADY

Milady Laurence de Winter, often referred to as simply Milady, is a fictional character in the novel The Three Musketeers (1844) by Alexandre Dumas, père, set in 1625 France. She is a spy for Cardinal Richelieu and is one of the dominant antagonists of the story. Her role in the first part of the book is to seduce the English prime minister, the duke of Buckingham, who is also the secret lover of Queen Anne of France. Hoping to blackmail the queen, Richelieu orders Milady to steal two diamonds from a set of matched studs given to Buckingham by the queen, which were a gift to her from her husband, King Louis XIII. Thwarted by d'Artagnan and the other musketeers, Milady's conflict with d'Artagnan carries much of the second half of the novel.

Englishwoman,[2] Milady's beautiful exterior hides a diabolically cunning, manipulative, ruthless and cruel interior; she is remorseless and unrepentant for her countless "misdeeds" and often described as appearing demonic and frighteningly ugly in the instant when she is thwarted in her aims. She is a classic example of a femme fatale.