Nicolette: a tale of old Provence

It was fourteen days after the New Year. Snow had fallen, and the mistral had blown for forty-eight hours unmercifully down the valley. News from Paris had been scanty, but such...

Bertrand came home for his Easter holidays after he had passed out of St. Cyr and received his commission in the King’s bodyguard: an honour which he owed as much to his name as...

And now it is spring once again: a glorious May-day with the sky of an intense blue, and every invisible atom in the translucent air quivering in the heat of the noon-day sun. A...

Grandmama sat very stiff and erect at the head of the table; and Bertrand sat next to her with the big, metal-clasped book still open before him, and a huge key placed upon the...

Midway between Apt and the shores of the Durance, on the southern slope of Luberon there stands an old château. It had once been the fortified stronghold of the proud seigneurs...

The second time that Nicolette saw the lovely Rixende she looked very different from the shrewish, nervous rider who forgot her manners and created such an unfavourable impressi...

It was a very rare thing indeed for discord to hold sway at the mas. Perfect harmony reigned habitually between Jaume Deydier, his daughter and the old servant who had loved and...

“You do not suppose, I imagine,” she went on haughtily, “that I should go curtsying to that lout and humbly beg for his wench’s hand in marriage for my grandson.”

Jaume Deydier did not say anything to Nicolette that evening. After he had deposited her on her bed and handed her over to Margaï he knew that the child would be well and safe....

For a few seconds after Bertrand had gone, Nicolette remained standing where she was, quite still, dry-eyed now, and with lips set; she seemed for the moment not to have realise...

Mother wept, and grandmama was full of wise saws and grandiose speeches. So many gallant officers of the King’s Army having gone to Spain, those of His Majesty’s bodyguard would...

There was the natural longing to keep one’s happiness to oneself just for a little while, and Nicolette decided that it would be better for Bertrand to wait awhile before coming...

Micheline was happy once more. For a little while—oh! a very little while—this afternoon her idol had tottered on the pedestal upon which she had placed him. The brother whom sh...

The first inkling that Nicolette had of the happenings at the château was on Christmas Day itself after High Mass. When she came out of church with her father some of the people...

Strange that it should all have happened in the grey dawn of a cold winter’s morning. Nicolette, when she came home afterwards and thought it all out, marvelled whether the grey...

The shrieking voices were all stilled, but there were murmurings and whisperings in Bertrand’s ears all the while that he made his way down into the valley. He had no definite p...