"No. 101"

ONE evening in the January of 1745, the critical year of Fontenoy and of the great Jacobite rising, a middle-aged gentleman, the private secretary of a Secretary of State, was w...

FOR some minutes the pair walked in silence, as if each was still brooding on the mysterious cipher whose treachery to France had brought them together. But presently Statham to...

TWO months later André, Vicomte de Nérac, was riding in the woods around Versailles, and, poverty-stricken, debt-loaded noble as he might be, his heart was gay, for was he not a...

THE March sun was setting on the hamlet of La Rivière, in the pleasant land of Touraine--Touraine the fit home of so many noble châteaux, the cradle of so many of the proudest t...

ANDRÉ rode at a walking pace down the slope to the village, for he wanted to think. He had always prided himself on his knowledge of women; he had imagined he knew Denise as wel...

IT was a strangely superstitious age this age of Louis XV., strangely superstitious and strangely enlightened. On the one side the illuminated philosophers of the rising school...

IN December the Duchesse de Châteauroux, the _maîtresse en titre_ of the King of France, had died, some said of poison, some of a broken heart at her treatment at Metz when she...

THE sun of spring had set on May 10, 1745, the eve of a day memorable in the military annals of the British and French nations. Behind a camp-fire in the entrenchments of Fonten...

THE woman led the way into the kitchen which opened off the tiny passage and André followed her. The two faced each other in silence. Presently she placed the lantern on the rou...

THE dull boom of a gun away on the right greeted André as he flung himself into the saddle, and the trumpets were echoing all along the line from the citadel of Anthoin over the...

“MON DIEU! my dear Abbé,” exclaimed the Comtesse des Forges, dropping her cards to let her languishing, heavy-lidded eyes linger on the smiling face of her latest _protégé_, “yo...

The King was leaning against the mantelpiece talking to Madame de Pompadour smiling from an arm-chair up at him. The bored, impenetrable royal eyes travelled over André’s figure...

ANDRÉ sat down on the stairs in the dark. It is perhaps not surprising that his first thoughts were of “No. 101.” Across his path had fallen for the second time the shadow of th...

THE curtain over the alcove was very cautiously lifted. Madame de Pompadour looked up from her papers. “Good afternoon, Vicomte,” she smiled. “I was expecting you; you observe I...

THE great historical buildings in Paris bear witness with eloquence and beauty to the genius and ambition of the many royal rulers who during three centuries of a wonderfully dr...

THE autumn evening had already closed in on the noble gardens of Versailles. Alleys, parterres, and walks alike were deserted save by the Fountain of Neptune, where on a seat un...

THE Queen’s ladies had been entertaining their friends, and the antechamber was well filled with a company of the most fashionable and powerful of the _noblesse_, particularly o...

AFTER he had left Denise the Chevalier walked for some time in the empty gallery up and down, up and down, striving to master the strong emotion within. But when at last he made...

ANDRÉ had understated the truth to Madame de Pompadour when he said that he had learned much from Yvonne. Bit by bit her simple confessions had convinced him that “The Cock with...

MIDNIGHT had struck, the same night, more than an hour ago; the black and squalid Carrefour of St. Antoine was deserted; the houses that fringed it lay in darkness, yet in the m...

ANDRÉ was not the only person at Versailles who, tortured with perplexity and fear, must now choose between loyalty to a cause or loyalty to the dictates of the heart. Poor Deni...

THE clock in André’s room struck eleven. André pulled the curtains back and surveyed the night. Serene, flawlessly serene, as an October night at Versailles can be. Satisfied th...

THE customary midday service in the chapel at the palace that morning was unusually crowded. Mansart’s dignified and classical architecture in all its frigid splendour is best v...

THE wished-for miracle had happened after all. Yet the news that the King had suddenly fainted, which spread like wildfire through the palace, was at first made light of. “The K...

THE excitement was rather increased than diminished by the report of the King’s recovery. Indeed, throughout, men’s and women’s thoughts were absorbed far more feverishly with t...

When he had reached the stables he could not find Yvonne, but at “The Cock with the Spurs of Gold,” whither he hurried, he was not disappointed. And Yvonne had news to give him...

The sweat dripped off André’s face in the agony of that moment. His fingers, his brain, his body, had turned numb. Think, he could not. He was only conscious of one thought, tha...

ANDRÉ saw in a moment from the Chevalier’s position as he lay face downwards on the bare boards what had happened. The unhappy boy had been stabbed from behind; and he bore plai...

ONSLOW had the advantage of André in his intimate knowledge of the essential facts of the situation; and he had not been for ten years an agent of the secret service, in daily p...

The paper dropped. The writing was his, at least it appeared to be. Could he have written it? He searched his whirling thoughts, recalling the events of this awful night followi...

André bowed again. What a contrast! The salon was as gay and refined as it had been a week ago. All traces of disorder had vanished and Madame herself in her heliotrope silk was...