Angelot: A Story of the First Empire

His wife had brought a bottle of the sparkling white wine of the country, and two tall old treasures of cut glass. The wine slipped out in a merry foam. Angelot lifted his glass...

The sun poured into the little salon, all polished wood and gay-coloured chintz, where Monsieur Joseph de la Marinière and his four friends were talking at the top of their voices.

All the men rose to their feet, except the elder d'Ombré, who had taken a very long draught of his host's good wine, and now stared stupidly at the others. César d'Ombré's eyes...

The Prefect and the General enjoyed their breakfast thoroughly. They sat over it long; so long that Angelot, his hunger satisfied, began to suffer in his young limbs from a terr...

The sun was near setting when the Prefect and his companions rode away from Les Chouettes, their visit having resulted, as it seemed, in nothing worse than annoyance and anxiety.

Monsieur Urbain de la Marinière was always amiable and indulgent. He did not reproach his son for his long absence or ask him to give any account of himself; not, that is, till...

She had a dazzling smile, utterly without sweetness. Madame de la Marinière said it was like the flashing of sunbeams on ice; but it had a much more warming and inspiring effect...

Dark clouds were hanging over Les Chouettes. In the afternoon there had been a thunderstorm, with heavy rain which had refreshed the burnt slopes and filled the stream that woun...

General Ratoneau found himself a hero at Madame de Sainfoy's dinner party, and was gratified. A new-comer, he had hardly yet made his way into provincial society, except by favo...

Madame de Sainfoy herself hardly knew why she wished to consult the family, there and then, on the fate proposed for Hélène. The truth was, she relied on Urbain, and wanted his...

These days before the vintage were very peaceful at La Marinière. Monsieur and Madame Urbain were practical people, and idleness, as a rule, had a bad time of it with them; but...

The shadows were lengthening when Urbain de la Marinière at last left the General's hotel, and walked thoughtfully across the square, past the Prefecture, down the street to fin...

General Ratoneau had gone into the Prefecture in a good humour; he came out in a bad one. The change was not lost on the police agent, still loitering under the shade of the hig...

"Yes, my boy, you were foolish, as well as ungrateful. It was a chance, it was a moment, that will not occur again. It was better that the idea should seem to come from me, not...

"Yes, yes," she said hastily, and smiled brilliantly on Urbain as much as to say, "Dear friend, I was joking. We understand each other.--Tell me everything you did yesterday--wh...

The inside of the Château de Lancilly was a curious labyrinth of arched stone passages paved with brick, cold on the hottest day, with short flights of steps making unexpected c...

After dinner Riette persuaded her father to walk across with her to La Marinière, where they found Monsieur Urbain, his wife and son, spending the evening in their usual sober f...

The family scandal was great. Angelot, if he had ever thought about such possibilities at all, would never have imagined that his relations could be so angry with him; and this...

Georges de Sainfoy had always been his mother's image and idol. It was not wonderful then that he should take her side strongly in this matter of his sister's love affair and ma...

The weather for the vintage was splendid. A slight frost in the morning curled and yellowed the vine-leaves, giving, as it does in these provinces, the last touch of ripeness to...

They had to do with a young man who knew every yard of that wild country far better than they did, and was almost as much a part of it as the birds and beasts that haunted it.

In the old labyrinth of rooms at Les Chouettes, Monsieur Joseph's gun-room was the best hidden from the outside. It had solid shutters, always kept closed and barred; the daylig...

There was no way out of it, without telling all. Fortunately Joseph knew that his secrets were safe with these two, whose hearts were absolutely Royalist, though circumstances h...

All this time, and lately with her son's energetic help, Madame de Sainfoy had been arranging her rooms in the most approved fashion of the day. The new furniture was far less b...

If Angelot expected to find the usual woodland stillness, that night, about the approaches to the Château de Lancilly, he was mistaken. The old place was surrounded; numbers of...

If the old priest had come in faith at Monsieur de Sainfoy's call, not knowing, not even suspecting what was wanted of him, Angelot, who knew all, yet found it impossible to bel...

For Hélène, the next wonder in that autumn night's dream was the arrival at Les Chouettes, the mysterious house which bore the character of a den of Chouans, but the thought of...

At Les Chouettes, in those early hours of the morning, they were waiting for Angelot's return. Monsieur Joseph, the softest-hearted, most open-natured man who ever posed as a da...

Within and without Les Chouettes the men all listened till those sounds died away. Then Simon turned to the little group of gendarmes and said: "Come along, fellows, make a rush...

It was an afternoon late in November. A wild wind was blowing, and shadows were flying across the country and the leafless woods which rushed and cried like the sea. A great ful...