448CHAPTER XXXIVA GARRET IN PRAGUE
The great parties at Chambord followed and lasted all through June. They were like the one in December, but they were not illuminated by the wit, the beauty, the ineffable charm of Francezka. It may be imagined how little I enjoyed them. My heart was like lead in my bosom. Every waking hour, and often in my dreams, I saw Francezka’s face as I had last seen it, pale and despairing.
There was something else besides pleasuring at Chambord; the fêtes were meant to disguise more serious events. On an August morning at daylight Count Saxe changed his ball costume for his riding dress and set forth to take command of the van of Marshal Belle-Isle’s army, which was to cross the Rhine at Fort Louis, thirty miles below Strasburg. Gaston Cheverny was not to be with us. He was to go with the army of Marshal Maillebois, which was to cross the Rhine near Düsseldorf.
Count Saxe had been in a quandary about inviting Gaston Cheverny to resume his old place as aide-de-camp. There could be no doubt that Gaston merited much from Count Saxe, as it was owing to Count Saxe’s own imprudence in remaining unguarded at Hüningen449that Gaston Cheverny had been lost to life and love for seven years. Yet my master felt toward him the same coldness of heart that I did. It is true that Gaston’s alleged inability to use his right arm properly would be a drawback, but one likely to be passed over by any commander who really wished his services, and especially by Count Saxe, taking the past into consideration. In truth there was every reason why Count Saxe should again offer a place in his military family to Gaston Cheverny. But he felt a singular indisposition to do it.
Gaston, ever quick of wit, relieved Count Saxe of his awkward predicament. He wrote, saying that Marshal Maillebois had made him an admirable offer, and while he recognized Count Saxe’s right to his services, he scarcely thought anything so promising could be given him in the army of Marshal Belle-Isle. My master jumped at this easy way out of his difficulty and wrote, desiring Gaston Cheverny to suit himself. At the same time he inclosed a letter highly recommending Gaston to Marshal Maillebois. Every word in that letter, which I wrote myself, was true, because it referred to the Gaston Cheverny we had known before 1740.
Gaston replied most handsomely, and so the matter was settled to everybody’s satisfaction. But it gave me a feeling of stupefaction that the person we were trying to part from decently, and to avoid with the greatest seeming tenderness, was the Gaston Cheverny whom I had loved the instant my eyes had rested on him, whom my master had bade me capture for Courland, who had served us as loyally as man could serve in all those adventurous days, who had been Count Saxe’s right-hand man, and whose readiness and devotion to Count450Saxe had cost such a price as Gaston had paid. It was staggering.
On that rosy August dawn Count Saxe, with a small escort, started for the Rhine by way of Châlons. This did not take us near Brabant, and there seemed no chance of my seeing Francezka. This gave me great uneasiness of mind. I was haunted by a whole troop of malignant fears, of dreadful apprehensions about that being, so ineffably dear to me. And these hideous shapes marched with me, and kept watch over me, and visited me nightly in my dreams. And to no one, not even to Count Saxe, could I speak of them! I could only go on steadfastly doing my duty.
We reached Fort Louis, and Count Saxe being put in command of the vanguard, consisting of about fifteen thousand men, of Marshal Belle-Isle’s army, we began the crossing of the river. We knew we were playing a game of war with loaded dice, but soldiers must not inquire too curiously into their orders. Marshal Belle-Isle had gone to Germany the year before with a basket of eggs, which he reckoned as full-grown chickens, but the eggs mostly addled and would not hatch, so the game with the loaded dice was substituted.
We were on the march early in September, through the blue Bavarian mountains, where the air, though sharp, was like good wine, and then into the wild Bohemian country, full of rocks and bogs and black chasms, and shaggy mountains, ever colder and bleaker, ever farther and farther away from our base. Marshal Saxe was troubled with the company of the King of Saxony, whom Marshal Belle-Isle made King of Moravia;451as Count Saxe said: “He is King of Moravia very much as I am Duke of Courland.”
At last, in the midst of the storms, the snows, the fierce winds of November in that wild Bohemian country, we found ourselves set down before Prague. And Prague we must take or starve—starve all of us—men and horses together.
There was a multitude of counselors, each counseling some different form of folly, and only my master, with one or two to support him steadfastly proclaiming that we must take Prague or be lost. There were innumerable objections made; it was a stupendous undertaking, for we had nothing fit for besieging, only our good swords and Maurice of Saxe to lead us. But at last, seeing ruin advancing upon us in the shape of an Austrian army, while starvation stood sentry over us, the King of Saxony and the rest of them were visited with a great light and concluded to let my master have his way; and the night of the twenty-seventh of November, 1741, was fixed upon to assault the town. It was a cold, clear night, with a moon that made all things white and light.
At midnight, when the town was sleeping, and only the sentries waked and walked, a tremendous cannonade broke out all around the walls, heaviest toward the south. This was but a sham attack, but the best part of the garrison hastened there to repel it. And then Count Saxe, advancing from the gardens and cottages on the Wischerad side, came to the walls. The men rushed forward with the scaling ladders, but they were full ten feet too short. Despair and blankness fell upon452us, until Count Saxe, seeing a great, weird Thing standing gaunt and black in the white moonlight—this Thing, the gallows tree—cried out cheerfully:
“See, my lads, yonder are likely to be some short ladders; these we will splice with rope, and so make the scalade!”
And it was done, Count Saxe himself being the first man on the rampart. He had for his body-guard, my Uhlans—men fit to be the body-guard of Mars himself. But the gods of war are invisibly protected. All the books upon war say that generals should take care of their skins. I have often noticed, however, that generals who try to take care of their skins usually get shot every time they go within the enemy’s range.
Count Saxe, however, without getting a single scratch, found himself at the head of his men in the great open market-place, where the French made their rendezvous, and there we soon found ten thousand of our fifteen thousand brave fellows. Prague was ours, and almost without the loss of a man, so masterly had been Count Saxe’s dispositions.
There is something appalling in the sight of a town taken in the night. Although Prague was supposed to be taken by assault, it was really carried by strategy, and there were none of the horrors of a capture by storming. But the horrible fears of the inhabitants, the terrors of the women and children, the dreadful midnight awakening—all, all, have in them something calculated to affright the soul.
These things passed through my mind, when, with my men posted according to Count Saxe’s orders, I listened to the cries, the screams of frightened creatures,453and imagined the shuddering terrors behind the walls of those tall old houses, their peaks shining in the white moonlight. And then, by an accident in handling a torch, one of those tall old houses by the market-place caught fire. Instantly, it was like Bedlam; at every one of the many windows appeared people shrieking, praying, crying. And glancing into one of those windows, where an old woman was screaming frantically, I saw a strange, a mysterious sight: upon a wretched bed lay a sick man—lay Gaston Cheverny!
I had not been brought up in the streets of Paris and forced to soldier it since my fourteenth year without becoming tolerably free from superstition. This sudden glimpse of Gaston Cheverny lying ill in a miserable garret in Prague, when I supposed him on the personal staff of Marshal Maillebois, did not prevent me from taking all possible measures to save that quarter of the town from burning, and striving to allay the panic. Both I found almost impossible. The old house blazed like tinder, the flames reddening the moonlit sky. I gave orders to blow up the houses on each side, in order to save the town. The horrible explosions, the smoke and smell of powder, the shrieking, terrified people, the soldiers battling with mob and fire—the mob believing the soldiers to have started the fire—were hideous. I have been in many a worse place than the market-place of Prague on that bleak November night, but never one which had a greater outward aspect of horror.
Toward daylight, ashes and ruins replaced the fire, trembling terror and pale exhaustion, the frantic alarm of the people, and the quarter was saved. Through it454all, I had Gaston Cheverny in my mind. I could not understand how he, an officer in Marshal Maillebois’s army, could be in Prague at all, but I had seen him in the glare of the blazing building as plainly as if the sun had been at the noon mark.
In the gray of the dawn, I began to investigate concerning Gaston, but he could not be found. I thought it not strange that in so much danger, terror and confusion he had disappeared for a time, but I confidently reckoned on his being found within a few days. Next day, I put the official inquiry on foot, but there was no record of any such person having been in Prague. It was difficult to account, under any circumstances, for Gaston’s being there. Yet, had not these eyes seen him? It was one more mystery and misery about this man, once the frankest, freest, most open-hearted of men. It did not lessen those vague and terrible fears which had haunted me about Francezka.
The next few days were busy enough, and I scarce rested by night or day. A week passed, and, hearing nothing of Gaston Cheverny, I tried to persuade myself that my eyes had been deceived. Truly, although I have been a thousand times in places of much greater danger, I do not think I have ever known greater excitement, or conditions when a man could be more readily deceived than that midnight in the market-place of Prague. I said this to myself many times. It is strange how a man will argue with himself to believe a thing which he can not believe, and will silence, without convincing, himself.
I was revolving these things in my mind one night, about a week afterward, on my way alone through the455narrow, dark unlighted streets, lying black in the shadows of the overhanging houses. And then there passed across my path, a figure in a ragged black cloak—a figure with the face of Gaston Cheverny. I followed him, but I seemed to be following a ghost; for in the tangle of streets and lanes, he was lost to me. I spent two full hours hunting this shade; but had it been actually a ghost it could not have disappeared more completely.
I went to Count Saxe’s quarters. It was then near midnight, and Count Saxe had gone to bed; but on the table, wide open, with some other letters for me to read, was a letter from Gaston Cheverny to Count Saxe, dated the very day before the capture of Prague.
So I was deceived. He was not and never had been in Prague. I had been deceived by some chance resemblance. It was upon events like these that Madame Riano based her absurd belief in second sight.
But let it not appear that I am a man easily deluded when I declare that from the hour I saw the man I took for Gaston Cheverny in the burning house at Prague, I knew that Francezka was in sore distress, and even in need of her poor Babache. Something within me was ever calling—calling, in Francezka’s name—“Come to me!”
There are degrees in these superstitions of the heart. Sometimes they usurp the scepter of the brain. Then, indeed, are they dangerous and foolish. Again, it is known to be only the cry of the heart; and the poor, tormented heart waits patiently upon its master, the brain. So it was with me. Deep as was my yearning to see Francezka, I said no word of it to the most456indulgent of masters, until the time was ripe that I might go. Francezka herself was governed by the law of common sense; she would not wish me to come to her when it was against my duty. So I fulfilled all my duty, in spite of the burden of the spirit—the strange, almost irresistible call for me to leave all and go straight to Francezka, until I could, in honor, ask for leave.
We were settled then in winter quarters. We had heard twice in this time from Gaston Cheverny. Being near home, in the borders of Hanover, for the winter, he had got leave—so he wrote—and would spend six weeks at the château of Capello, with Francezka. He wished that Count Saxe and I might take advantage of the lull in hostilities and come to Capello.
It was when I was in the act of reading this letter that my reserve broke down, and I told Count Saxe all—all—and that I desired to go to Francezka. And then, for the first time since I was a little, smooth-cheeked boy, playing in the weedy gardens of the Marais with Adrienne Lecouvreur, I wept like a woman. Count Saxe sat and looked at me with more than a brother’s tenderness. He knew I was not a coward, for I had led his Uhlans, and what he said to me was this:
“Lose not a moment in going, Babache. It is because you love her so much that you know she is in distress. I think you would know as much, if it were I instead of Francezka.”
Which was true. I can not believe that Count Saxe should need me, and I not know it, were I at the other end of the world.
And Count Saxe helping and hastening me in every457way, as became such a soul as his, I set forth at once on my journey. It was the latter part of December when I left Prague behind me.
The journey was a terrible one; the season harsh beyond comparison. The ground was deeply covered with snow, which the wild winds piled in great drifts, in which both men and beasts were sometimes lost. Rain and sleet alternated with snow. The sun scarcely shone at all. The sufferings of dumb creatures were dreadful; horses plunged amid the snow, and died in it; the gaunt cattle froze in the fields; even the birds dropped dead from the icy roofs and trees. I think I never saw so much misery in any journey I ever made, as in that journey to Capello. Even when I reached the flat country of the lower Rhine, there was but little amelioration. I traveled as rapidly as I could, both night and day, but my progress was slow. My eager heart outstripped my laggard body, and it seemed to me that every hour the urgency of Francezka’s call for me grew greater. I could actually hear that sweet, penetrating voice, now full of agony, crying to me, “Babache! Babache! Come quickly—quickly, or you will be too late!”
458CHAPTER XXXVWOULD YOU LEAVE ME NOW
I fought my way to Brussels against the elements, and reached there at sunset of the last day of the year. I had not slept for thirty-six hours, and then it was in the rude cart of a peasant, jolting over the rough highroad. But sleep had departed from me. Up to that time I had managed to get a few hours of rest out of every twenty-four, for I was a soldier and knew how to take hard travel. But if I had been offered the great down bed of Louis le Grand, I could not have slept on that December night, thank God! Had I remained the night in Brussels—had I preferred soft slumber to the dumb cry of Francezka’s soul to mine—what grief! What remorse! Therefore, I took horse again at sun-setting, and did not draw rein until I reached Capello, at nine of the clock.
It was the first time I had seen the place in the icy clutch of winter. I had ever thought it the cheerfullest spot on earth. Nature was all gaiety at Capello. Now she was in a tragic mood, but not the less beautiful. The sky was of a deep, dark blue, jeweled with stars in every part. A radiant, majestic moon rode high, flooding the snowy earth with a pale, unearthly splendor. The château, white and stately, shone dazzling459in this moonlit glow. The bare branches of the forest covered with frost, were like silver lace. All was cold, still, lonely and sad.
I noticed as I approached the château through the great bare avenue of frosted lindens, that the windows were not, as usual, lighted up. Two only were illuminated—the windows of the little yellow saloon, where Francezka spent her evenings when without company.
As ever I drew nearer to Francezka, that need for haste seemed to be more urgent. I dismounted in the courtyard, and ran, rather than walked up the terrace. Through the window, with its undrawn curtains, I saw Francezka and Gaston seated together in the yellow saloon.
I had not meant to watch them. I meant to stop and recover myself a little before presenting myself before them, but I could not keep my eyes away from the scene in the yellow saloon. I believe most persons have felt the fascination of looking at an interior illuminated with fire and candle, as one stands without, and so, unconsciously, I stood and watched Francezka and Gaston Cheverny.
The room presented that charming, luxurious and comfortable air which always distinguished it. A fire was burning on the hearth, and a table with candles and books on it, was drawn up. Gaston sat on one side of it, and Francezka on the other. She wore a robe of some white shimmering stuff, and her rich dark hair was unpowdered. I noticed the little tendrils of hair upon her milk-white neck. In her lap lay an open book, which she was not reading. She was pallid, and had no more that joyous loveliness of flesh and blood which460had once been hers; but never saw I more plainly her mysterious and poetic beauty, which shone forth star-like. And one thing else I saw, and would have seen had it been my first view of her—she had a canker at her heart.
Gaston sat on the other side of the table, looking as usual, handsome and content. He, too, had a book in his hand, which he was not reading. He was furtively watching Francezka. Francezka watched the fire.
After a time—I know not how long—Francezka laid her book down softly, went to her open harpsichord, and sitting before it, played with her usual skill. I recognized the air; it was that old, old one of Blondel’s,O Richard, O mon roi!
Gaston shifted a little in his chair. He had ever showed an indifference to the song, which once had been so dear to them, and had been so full of meaning for them. There was a look of uneasiness in his face, and he began for the first time to read attentively, his brows drawn together, while Francezka’s fingers delicately played this quaint air.
Francezka played some other airs, lightly, gracefully, softly, pausing between them, meditating, with one hand on the keys of the harpsichord, and the other hanging down. The hand that hung down moved a little, as if in the act of patting a dog’s head. I was reminded of poor Bold—it was as if Francezka were thinking of this lost friend. She gave me the impression of a person who feels herself alone and debates with herself.
When she ceased to play this fitful soft music, she rose and went to the window which looked toward the461lake. She shaded her face with her hands, so she could see the still, pale glory of the night, and the lake, lying in melancholy beauty under the soft shining stars. There was a deep and perfect silence within and without, and it seemed to cast a spell upon Francezka and upon me, so near together, and she all unknowing.
And then, feeling rather than seeing some one near me, I turned and saw a figure in a black cloak pass me; the same figure that had passed before me in the shadowy streets of Prague—the man I thought to be Gaston Cheverny. He walked straight to the great door of the château, and without knocking, opened it as if he were the master of all there. And then, as I stood unable to move, with all my faculties concentrated in my eyes, I saw the door of the yellow saloon open. I saw the real Gaston Cheverny enter. I saw Francezka turn toward the opening door. I saw the man I had supposed for nearly two years to be Gaston Cheverny rise from his chair—and he was, in truth, Regnard Cheverny. It was impossible to mistake one for the other, standing together, face to face. It became a miracle how Regnard had ever managed to deceive his whole world into thinking him Gaston Cheverny. All the differences between them came out and seemed to clamor for recognition. The expression of the eye was different; the whole of the actual man in each was dissimilar; and how this could have been covered up by the mere likeness in shape, in voice, in feature—no one could tell.
Gaston was Gaston. He was pale and thin, and looked ten years older than he should, but there was no mistaking him. I know not how I found myself462standing on the threshold of the room. Gaston had advanced to the middle, and held out his arms to Francezka.
“I know all,” he cried, “poor, faithful soul! For you there is an unchanging love. There is nothing to forgive—nothing—nothing!”
Francezka stood as if turned to stone for a moment—one of those moments in which Time seems no more. Then she moved a little back, averting her face from Gaston, with a look, never to be forgotten—love, shame, despair—crying aloud from her eyes. But as Gaston spoke, she turned again, full toward him, and raised both of her white arms.
“Dearest,” she cried, in her old, sweet, penetrating voice. “I do not ask why you did not come before. You could not—you could not come until now!”
At that, Regnard stepped forward, and raised his hand to separate the two.
“Wait,” he said to Gaston. “She was your wife for one week. She has been my wife nearly two years. She shall remain so. I, too, loved her well, from my boyhood—and was it to be expected that I should let that childish fancy for you stand between her and me, when I thought you dead?”
I think neither Gaston nor Francezka heard him; but suddenly as a bird flies from its perch, so Francezka flew to Gaston and rested her head upon his breast. Not even Regnard dared to lay a sacrilegious hand upon her there.
“I have been the most miserable woman on God’s earth,” she said to Gaston, raising her head, and looking him full in the face—“and I can not survive this463hour. Do not ask me to live—I can not live. I was thinking, just now, as I sat and played the air we loved so well, that I must, this very night, seek rest in death—for I suspected the truth only a little while ago. But, love, this hour atones for much. You know now how I loved you—how I remembered you. If I was dull of apprehension—if, after seven years, I accepted too quickly the deception practised on me—well, it was because I loved you so well. But I must depart; there is no place on earth for me.”
For answer Gaston kissed her tenderly.
“Would you leave me now?” he asked. “Have not I, too, loved you and sought you? And shall not our happiness swallow up our misfortune, and the crimes committed against us, after those crimes are avenged?”
Then, as calmly as a summer day, he placed Francezka in a chair, and, turning to his brother, said:
“To-night, you or I must die.”
“Agreed,” replied Regnard.
He opened a cabinet in the room, took out several swords, and, handing them to Gaston, said:
“Choose which one you will die by.”
Gaston selected one.
“With this will I kill you,” he said.
Neither of them had seen me, although I was in evidence plain enough. I started forward, however, and grasping Gaston’s arm, forced him to look at me.
“Babache,” he said, recognizing me instantly. “The world is not big enough for my brother and for me. It is better to end it now and here. Either let him kill me, or let me kill him; so I pray you, hands off; and if I am the one to die, take care of Francezka.”
464
I thought, too, that the world could not and ought not to hold them both living, and the sooner it was settled which should die that night, the better.
Francezka, meanwhile, sat quite still in the chair where she had been placed. Gaston, turning to her, said, with an air of gentle command:
“Leave. This is no place for you.”
“Stay!” cried Regnard violently. “You are to obey my commands, not his.”
Francezka, without looking toward Regnard, without a shudder or a tremor, rose. I had thought she could neither rise nor move nor speak, but there was not the least sign of weakness about her. She actually stopped and curtsied toward Gaston as she went out. He bowed ceremoniously in response.
I took her hand and led her out into the vast hall, dimly lighted. She did not speak my name, but she held on to my hand. In the tempest of her soul she instinctively clung to one whom she knew to be true. She walked with me steadily across the great hall, and into the Diana gallery, now dark and cold as a vault. She looked like a specter as her white figure glided past the mirrors on the walls.
She continued to grasp my hands as a drowning man grasps his savior. We were too far off from the place of combat to hear anything except the dull shuffling of feet upon the floor. I had not the slightest doubt that in five minutes, at most, Regnard would kill Gaston.
In less than five minutes the door of the yellow saloon opened, and a flood of light poured into the great hall, vacant, dark and silent. Regnard appeared on the threshold.
465
“Come, Madame,” he cried in a loud and triumphant voice. “Come and behold the man you claimed as husband just now!”
Through the open door we could see Gaston, lying huddled in a pool of blood upon the floor of the little room. Blood, too, was on Regnard’s face, but he wiped it off with his handkerchief, and laughed to himself.
I turned to where Francezka had sat, but she was gone. At the end of the hall, I heard the great door clang. At once the thought of the lake suggested itself to me and I ran out of doors. The way Francezka usually took to the lake was by way of the Italian garden. I knew this, but a strange confusion fell upon me when I found myself out of doors, under the blue-black starlit sky. I could not recall the way to the Italian garden—nor yet the lake. At last, it came to me. I saw, afar, through the bare trees, the white statues gleaming, the black cedars, the yew trees—black, too, in the white moonlight.
I ran toward this garden, with its pathway to the lake, and thought every moment I should see before me Francezka’s flying figure. She was ever fleet of foot, and when I remembered this, the heart within me died.
When I reached the statue of Petrarch under which the poor dog lay buried, I stopped and searched the scene with a glance sharpened by agony. The lake lay before me; I heard its voice in the night—that strange voice to which I had often listened with Francezka. And then from the lonely cedars on the bank, I saw Francezka emerge, and, at the same moment, there466was a sound of swift pursuing feet—Regnard, too, had known where to seek her.
Francezka paused one moment on the brink of the lake, and turned her head toward those steadily nearing footsteps. Then she raised her face, raised both arms above her head and clasped them, as if in one last appeal to that Eternal Power, on the bosom of whose mercy she was about to cast herself, not wholly despairing. There was a sound of parting waters—of the black and icy waters—oh, Francezka! Francezka! How sweet must Death have been to thee!
THE END
Transcriber’s Note:Author’s archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved.Author’s punctuation style is preserved.Any missing page numbers in this HTML version refer to blank or un-numbered pages in the original.Illustrations have been kept close to their original positions.Typographical errors were corrected, and these arehighlightedin the text and listed below.Irregularly hyphenated words are listed below.Transcriber’s Changes:Page 55: Was ’Cheverney’ (RegnardCheverny, like his brother, was no man of milk and water, and once seen, was likely to be remembered.)Page 59: Was ’her’ (Monsieur Voltaire pricked uphisears; it was well-known that he loved the society of the great.)Page 148: Was ’led’ (We sat late, and, before we parted, Jacques Haret had arranged to travel with us, riding one of theleadhorses.)Page 150: Was ’toward toward’ (you show great good-willtowardMonsieur Gaston Cheverny—and they are as like as two)Page 175: Was ’good by’ (At last the time came for us to saygoodbyeto the château of Capello, and to start for Paris)Page 263: Was ’must I’ (I can tell you, but I know not how to tell Gaston. Yet,I musttell him some day.)Page 317: Standardised hyphenation: Was ’snuffbox’ (He spoke to her, gave her a silversnuff-boxin default of money)Page 403: Was ’tactiturnity’ (I fell behind all the party, and was rallied by Count Saxe on mytaciturnity)Page 442: Was ’Jacquet’ (he turned again in his chair, but said no word, althoughJacquesHaret’s laughing face was thrust toward him.)Irregular hyphenation:bare-legged and bareleggedsmall-pox and smallpoxdeath-bed and deathbedhead-long and headlongsun-dial and sun dialgood-will and good willhand-clapping and hand clappingright-hand man and right hand manlove-letter(s) and love letter(s)half-light and half lightbaggage-wagons and baggage wagonswell-known and well knownever-present and ever presenthalf-ruined and half ruinedwell-remembered and well remembered
Transcriber’s Note:
Author’s archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved.
Author’s punctuation style is preserved.
Any missing page numbers in this HTML version refer to blank or un-numbered pages in the original.
Illustrations have been kept close to their original positions.
Typographical errors were corrected, and these arehighlightedin the text and listed below.
Irregularly hyphenated words are listed below.
Transcriber’s Changes:
Page 55: Was ’Cheverney’ (RegnardCheverny, like his brother, was no man of milk and water, and once seen, was likely to be remembered.)
Page 59: Was ’her’ (Monsieur Voltaire pricked uphisears; it was well-known that he loved the society of the great.)
Page 148: Was ’led’ (We sat late, and, before we parted, Jacques Haret had arranged to travel with us, riding one of theleadhorses.)
Page 150: Was ’toward toward’ (you show great good-willtowardMonsieur Gaston Cheverny—and they are as like as two)
Page 175: Was ’good by’ (At last the time came for us to saygoodbyeto the château of Capello, and to start for Paris)
Page 263: Was ’must I’ (I can tell you, but I know not how to tell Gaston. Yet,I musttell him some day.)
Page 317: Standardised hyphenation: Was ’snuffbox’ (He spoke to her, gave her a silversnuff-boxin default of money)
Page 403: Was ’tactiturnity’ (I fell behind all the party, and was rallied by Count Saxe on mytaciturnity)
Page 442: Was ’Jacquet’ (he turned again in his chair, but said no word, althoughJacquesHaret’s laughing face was thrust toward him.)
Irregular hyphenation:
bare-legged and barelegged
small-pox and smallpox
death-bed and deathbed
head-long and headlong
sun-dial and sun dial
good-will and good will
hand-clapping and hand clapping
right-hand man and right hand man
love-letter(s) and love letter(s)
half-light and half light
baggage-wagons and baggage wagons
well-known and well known
ever-present and ever present
half-ruined and half ruined
well-remembered and well remembered