United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Whilst Berquin's trial was thus coming to an end, Francis I. was entering France once more in freedom, crying, "So I am king again!" During the latter days of March, amongst the numerous personages who came to congratulate him was John de Selve, premier president of the Parliament of Paris. The king gave him a very cold reception.
One of her acts of beneficence is recorded in Berquin's Ami des Enfans, but even her own children cannot tell in which story it is. Her daughter, Madame Gautier, gains upon our esteem every day. Turn the handle of the magic-lanthorn: who is this graceful figure, with all the elegance of court manners, and all the simplicity of domestic virtue? She is Madame de Pastoret.
In De Berquin, and in Barbemouche as well, vengeance cried for my immediate death. Moreover, my death would remove the chief obstacle to De Berquin's having his will concerning Mlle. de Varion. For an instant, I thought he might let me live that I might tell him her whereabouts, but I perceived that my presence was indication to him that she was near at hand.
The matter thus reopened pursued its course slowly; twelve judges were appointed to give a definite decision; and the king himself nominated six, amongst whom he placed Berquin's friend, William Bude. Various incidents unconnected with religious disputes supervened.
"The woman who told our hiding-place!" said Frojac. Could it be? Was she another Mademoiselle d'Arency? Had she thought that, after De Berquin's accusation, any attempt on her part to draw me from my men would convict her in my eyes; that indeed I might come at any moment to believe in the treachery of which he had warned me?
"We found these wretches in the woods," explained Sabray. "They are Catholics, although that one tried to hide his cross and shouted, 'Down with the mass! when we told them to surrender in the name of the Sieur de la Tournoire." "It is true that I was a Catholic," whined the bedraggled fop who had belonged to De Berquin's band of four; "but I was just about to abjure when these men came up."
Among the means resorted to for assisting the many interesting victims of the Revolution, were representations, given under the direction of Le Texier, of Berquin's and Madame de Genlis's juvenile dramas, by young French children. These performances, combined with his own extraordinary readings, became one of the fashionable frenzies of the day.
Here the human heart opens partly, disclosing unimaginable depths. Astarte becomes platonic. The miracle of the transformation of monsters by love is being accomplished. Hell is being gilded. The vulture is being metamorphosed into a bluebird. Horror ends in the pastoral. You think you are at Vouglans's and Parent-Duchatelet's; you are at Longus's. Another step and you will stumble into Berquin's.
I had waited about half an hour, when, again, the sound of breaking leaves and sticks warned me that living beings were approaching through the woods. At last I made out the four figures of De Berquin's hirelings as they cautiously paused at the edge of the open space. Apparently assured by the silence that their presence was unsuspected, they came on to the inn.
She must have left while I was interrogating De Berquin's three henchmen in their cell or while I had stood with Blaise in the garden, reproving him for his suspicions of her. "And because he assailed her loyalty I killed that man!" I said aloud, forgetful, for the time, of the presence of Blaise and Frojac, Maugert, Hugo, and the gypsy girl.
Word Of The Day