The red cockade

When we reached the terraced walk, which my father made a little before his death, and which, running under the windows at the rear of the Château, separates the house from the...

It was wonderful how quickly the room filled--filled with angry faces, so that almost before I knew what had happened, I found a crowd round me, asking what it was; M. de St. Al...

The blow, and the insult with which he accompanied it, put an end for the moment to my repentance. But short as was the distance across the floor from the one door to the other,...

There were others who stood also; impressed by a sight which, in the light of the news we had just heard, that astonishing, that amazing news, seemed to have especial significan...

He sat silent so long, with his eyes on the table, that presently I grew nettled; wondering what ailed him, and why he did not speak and say the things that I expected. I had be...

The unlooked-for eloquence which rang in the blacksmith's words, and the assurance of his tone, no less than this startling disclosure of thoughts with which I had never dreamed...

At that time, a brazier in the market-place, and three or four lanterns at street crossings, made up the most of the public lighting. When I paused, therefore, to breathe my hor...

Some called for silence, while others stared at me stupidly, or pointed me out to their fellows; but the greater part took up the woman's cry, and, enraged by my presence, shook...

It was known afterwards that they fell upon the body and tore it, like the dogs they were; but I had seen enough. I reeled back, and for a few moments leaned against the chimney...

Father Benôit had the forethought, when we reached the cross-roads, to leave a man there to await the party from Cahors, and warn them of Mademoiselle's safety; and we had not r...

But he need not have spoken, for the moment his sister had done his bidding she turned from us; before two words had passed his lips she was hurrying back to the house in a pass...

I have said already how all this weighed me down; with what misgivings I looked along the table, from the pale, pinched features of the lawyer to the smug grin of the grocer, or...

For, of all the things that had happened since I left the Committee Room, the Captain's death remained the one most real and most deeply bitten into my mind. He had shared with...

It was August, and the leaves of the chestnuts were still green, when they sacked the St. Alais' house at Cahors, and I fell senseless on the stairs. The ash trees were bare, an...

I met with many strange things on that journey. I found it strange to see, as I went, armed peasants in the fields; to light in each village on men drilling; to enter inns and f...

"Of course, if Madame--if Madame knows nothing of the monk," he said, looking vacantly about the dirty room, "it is clear that--it seems clear that there has been a mistake."

This encounter served neither to raise my spirits nor to remove the apprehensions with which I looked forward to our arrival in places more populous; places where suspicion, onc...

I did not struggle long. The efforts I had made to free myself from the men, and this last exertion of striving to shout, brought the blood to my head; and so exhausted me that...

It will be believed that I looked on the city with no common emotions. I had heard enough at Villeraugues--and to that enough M. de Géol had added by the way a thousand details-...

I had not seen Louis since the day of the duel at Cahors, when, parting from him at the door in the passage by the Cathedral, I had refused to take his hand. Then I had been sor...

But even while I said it, I knew that I lied; and I turned to the window that Benôit might not see my face. Froment! The name alone, now that the hint was supplied, let in the l...

Yet he was not the first to speak. One of the men behind him took a step forward, and cried, "That is the man! See, he still has the gun-barrel."

When the grey dawn, to which so many looked forward, broke slowly over the waking city, it found on the leads of Froment's tower some pale faces; perhaps some sinking hearts. Th...

With that word he thrust me towards the door that led to the inner hall and the postern; and, knowing, as I did, that every moment I delayed might stand for a life, and that wit...

I thank Heaven that I saw little more than I have told. A score of feet trampled on me as the murderers stumbled this way and that, and bruised me and covered me with blood that...