Category: Historical Novels
In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemed to have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel. It was sodden through and through, as with the lees of wine; it was stained and shamed with the smells of hams and cheeses; it was thick and heavy as if w...
In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemed to have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel. It was sodden through and through, as with the lees of...
2. Chapter 2As Tristan spoke the tavern latch rattled, the tavern door was flung noisily open, and the king's gaze rested on a strange figure framed in the entry. The man was of middle heig...
3. Chapter 3The door opened and a woman entered the room, a woman closely muffled after the fashion adopted by discreet ladies when they walked abroad in Paris in the fifteenth century. She...
4. Chapter 4Once again the door swung on its hinges admitting a very tall, powerful man, dressed like a common soldier, his brawny bulk panoplied in steel and leather. He glanced about him...
5. Chapter 5Louis loved roses. All that was royal in his nature went out to the royal flower; whatever desire of beauty lay hidden in his heart found its gratification in its splendid colou...
6. Chapter 6On the terrace the fair girl leaned and looked over at the garden and its golden occupant. To the eyes of Villon her beauty had never seemed rarer, and the wild passion which ha...
7. Chapter 7A touch on the shoulder roused Villon from his honeyed meditations, and he turned with a start to find the sable figure of the king at his side and the sinister visage smiling u...
8. Chapter 8It is a thousand pities that the materials for building up a practical presentment of the real life-story of Master François Villon are so slight, that in the historical sense t...
9. Chapter 9On the seventh day of Villon's week of wonder, his glory was at its greatest. No fairer day had traced that radiant month of June and no more splendid pageantry had adorned the...
10. Chapter 10The rose garden seemed to be as quiet as a church-yard. No sound was heard save the faint soughing of the evening wind among the rose bushes, no sight resembling humanity visibl...
11. Chapter 11The sham king leaped to his feet, still laughing, flung off the black cap with its little row of leaden saints and the rusty black mantle which mimicked the king's habit, and st...
12. Chapter 12"She had God's breath in her body, sire," he said. Then drawing his hand across his forehead as if to dissipate the sad fancies that oppressed him, he went on:
13. Chapter 13Through the silent streets of Paris a slender line of steel moved slowly--the thread of which Master François Villon was the needle pricked to sew the realm of France together....
14. Chapter 14The yellow dawn, rippling over Paris, found her streets strangely silent, strangely quiet. A few good citizens were abed, but most good citizens were abroad on that kindly June...
15. Chapter 15As Villon ended a great peal of music came from the church, the magnificent music of a Te Deum Laudamus; while from the soldiers who choked the archway, a glowing sea of steel,...
16. Chapter 16It fell this time upon fresh ears, the ears of an old woman who was patiently pushing her way through the crowd in her effort to reach her humble lodging. She had succeeded in m...