The Mesmerist's Victim

The mesmerist had galloped on the barb through Versailles in a few seconds and a league on the road to Paris when an idea came as comfort in the midst of his misery at the fear...

Saint Claude Street was in the outskirts on the main road to the Bastile Prison. The house of the Count Felix, alias Baron Balsamo, was a strong building, like a castle; and bes...

Balsamo was punctual and found, at six o’clock, Marat and his servant, a woman of all work, decking up the room with flowers in a vase in honor of the visitor. At sight of the m...

The famous royal special court, the “Bed of Justice,” (which is the French equivalent for the “Star Chamber,”) was held with all the ceremonial which royal pride required on one...

Since the first day of the month, Louis XV., stricken with a sickness of which the physicians dared not at the outset reveal the gravity, had kept his bed, and began look around...

From his garret, Gilbert was watching, or rather devouring Andrea’s room. It would be hard to tell whether his eyes now gazed with love or hatred. But the curtains were drawn an...

Those who went out were brothers of the second and third circles, and left seven who were masters in their lodge. They recognized each other by signs proving they were admitted...

Rousseau had been cheated into going to take breakfast with the royal favorite: he was formally invited by the Dauphiness to come to Trianon to conduct in person one of his oper...

The entire population flocked towards Louis XV. Place, where fireworks were to be let off. A pyrotechnical display was the finish to all grand public ceremonies, and the Parisia...

It is not hard to guess what the dainty duke suffered in passing through the dirty and nauseating Paris of his era to reach the foul hole among ill-kempt houses which was called...

She opened the door herself to him, embraced him, and the pair went up into her rooms. It was only there that she perceived that he was sadder than usual, with sorrow in his smi...

On reaching the Trianon Summerhouse she was told that her mistress was in the grounds with her architect and head-gardener. In the upper story could be heard the whizz of the tu...

The only guest left in the palace was Cardinal Rohan redoubting his gallantry towards the princess, who received him but cooly. As the Dauphin retired he feared it would look ba...

Gilbert took a few steps guardedly and stood behind one of those half-columns carrying a bust which were the ornaments in pairs to doorways of the period. Thus in security, he l...

The day was closing and Dr. Louis, who was trying to read a medical tract as he came along in the twilight to the chapel, was vexed at the interposition of an opaque body to int...

While all these petty plots were going on at Trianon amid the trees and flowers, making things lively for the people of that trifling world, the vast plots of the capital, threa...

At two o’clock in the morning a wan moon was playing through the swift-driving white clouds upon the fatal scene where the merry-makers had trampled and buried one another in th...

The marshal found his royal master in the little parlor, whither a few courtiers had followed him, preferring to lose their meal than have his glances fall on somebody else.

“A last word, my lord,” he said; “I do not know what question you were to put to my sister; at least, spare her the incidents of the horrible scene passing during her unconsciou...

For a week that Gilbert had been in flight from Trianon, he lived in the woods with no other food than the wild roots, plants and fruit. At the last gasp, he went into town to R...

“She has gone up into the room of the arms and the furs, very wornout, from having run so rapidly that I was hardly in time to open the door after I caught sight of her. I was f...

Philip was ignorant of Balsamo’s address but he remembered that of the lady who he said had harbored Andrea. The Marchioness of Savigny’s maid supplied him with the directions,...

Her room, in the corridor of the chapel, was not grand for a rival princess’s lady of attendance but it was a delightful abode for one who liked repose and solitude.

“Here I stand,” he mused, “sad but resolute, and plainly seeing my situation. Lorenza hates me and betrayed me as she vowed she would do. My secret is no longer mine but in the...

She had come to the point, had Andrea, as if to the scaffold. She believed that she would be a bad mother to the offspring of the lowborn lover whom she hated more than ever.

In this time he had grown paler; on his face youth was no more to be viewed than in the strange fire in his eyes and the dead-white and even complexion; his mouth curled by diss...

An old rake, and hardened in cynicism, he seemed the least likely to be so favored, but he maintained himself in the thick of a cluster by his skill and coolness, while incapabl...

At Havre, he found the first ship for America to be the Brig _Adonis_, to set sail that day for New York and Boston. He sent his effects on board and followed with the tide.

At the end of the walk, Andrea perceived her father and the marshal, strolling before the vestibule as they awaited her. They seemed the happiest brace of friends in the world:...

A painful thought struck him that she had feigned to sleep. Thus she would have dispelled all uneasiness, doubts and mistrust in her husband’s mind only to flee at the first cha...

More fortunate than Andrea, Gilbert had in lieu of an ordinary practitioner, a light of medical science to attend to his ails. The eminent Dr Jussieu, a friend of Rousseau’s, th...

The parlor was well lighted, and Balsamo entering could see the grim air of the five men who kept their seats until he was before them and bowed. Then they all rose and returned...

Andrea was in her room, giving a final touch to her rebellious curls when she heard the step of her father, who appeared as she crossed the sill of the antechamber with a book u...

Indifferent to everything since he had learnt of Andrea’s going soon to the court, Gilbert had forgotten the excursion of Rousseau and his brother botanist on Sunday. He would h...

The great clock of Versailles Palace was striking eleven when King Louis XV., coming out of his private apartments, crossed the gallery nearest and called out for the Master of...

A long rank of carriages filled the Forest at Marly where the King was carrying on what was called an afternoon hunt. The Master of the Buckhounds had deer so selected that he c...

The beautiful favorite of Louis XV. had been shown into the parlor where she impatiently waited for Balsamo while turning over the leaves of Holbein’s Dance of Death, which caug...

The conversation was the same as usual among the three at dinner; the duke spoke of his King, the baron of his daughter and Andrea of her brother. Richelieu preached on the same...

When Louis XIV. built Versailles and perceived the discomfort of grandeur, he granted it was the sojourneying-place for a demi-god but no home for a man. So he had the Trianon c...

The knight of Redcastle knew he should find his father at their Paris Lodgings. Since his rupture with Richelieu, he found life insupportable at Versailles and he tried to conqu...

“Do not juggle with balls which you do not know,” said Balsamo, eyeing him with curiosity as he frowned. “In grown men it is nonsense, in the young, rashness. Have pride but don...

Nothing had meanwhile changed in the other part of the house. But the old wizard had seen Balsamo enter his study and carry away the remains of Lorenza, which had recalled him t...

A shiver ran through the watcher as the girl rose from her chair. With her alabaster hands she pulled out her hairpins one by one while the wrapper, slipping down upon her shoul...