TAILIEUCHUNG - AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY

The autumn of the year 1803 was one of the finest in the early part of that period of the present century which we now call "Empire." Rain had refreshed the earth during the month of October, so that the trees were still green and leafy in November. The French people were beginning to put faith in a secret understanding between the skies and Bonaparte, then declared Consul for life,--a belief in which that man owes part of his prestige; strange to say, on the day the sun failed him, in 1812, his luck ceased!. | AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY 1 . HONORÉ DE BALZAC KATHARINE PRESCOTT WOftMELEY An Historical Mystery BOSTON 18g ROBERTS BROTHERS AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY The Gondreville Mystery by HONORE DE BALZAC Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION To Monsieur de Margone. by HONORE DE BALZAC 2 In grateful remembrance from his guest at the Chateau de Sache. De Balzac. AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY PART I CHAPTER I 3 CHAPTER I JUDAS The autumn of the year 1803 was one of the finest in the early part of that period of the present century which we now call Empire. Rain had refreshed the earth during the month of October so that the trees were still green and leafy in November. The French people were beginning to put faith in a secret understanding between the skies and Bonaparte then declared Consul for life --a belief in which that man owes part of his prestige strange to say on the day the sun failed him in 1812 his luck ceased About four in the afternoon on the fifteenth of November 1803 the sun was casting what looked like scarlet dust upon the venerable tops of four rows of elms in a long baronial avenue and sparkling on the sand and grassy places of an immense rond-point such as we often see in the country where land is cheap enough to be sacrificed to ornament. The air was so pure the atmosphere so tempered that a family was sitting out of doors as if it were summer. A man dressed in a hunting-jacket of green drilling with green buttons and breeches of the same stuff and wearing shoes with thin soles and gaiters to the knee was cleaning a gun with the minute care a skilful huntsman gives to the work in his leisure hours. This man had neither game nor game- bag nor any of the accoutrements which denote either departure for a hunt or the return from it and two women sitting near were looking at him as though beset by a terror they could ill-conceal. Any one observing the scene taking place in this leafy nook would have shuddered as the old mother-in-law and the wife of the man we

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