The Romances of Dumas (Volume 20); Chevalier D'Harmental (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1904. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... LE CHEVALIER D'HARMENTAL. CHAPTER I. CAPTAIN BOQUEFINETTE. On the 22d of March, in the year of our Lord 1718, a young cavalier of high bearing, about twenty-six or twentyeight years of age, mounted on a pure-bred Spanish charger, was waiting, toward eight o'clock in the morning, at that end of the Pont Neuf which abuts on the Quai de l'.Ecole. He was so upright and firm in his saddle that one might have imagined him to have been placed there as a sentinel by the lieutenant-general of police, Messire Voyer d'Argenson. After waiting about half an hour, during which time he impatiently examined the clock of the Samaritaine, his glance, wandering till then, appeared to rest with satisfaction on an individual who, coming from the Place Dauphine, turned to the right and advanced toward him. The man who thus attracted the attention of the young chevalier was a powerfully built fellow of five feet ten, wearing, instead of a peruke, a forest of his own black hair, slightly grizzled, dressed in a manner half bourgeois, half military, ornamented with a shoulder-knot which had once been crimson, but from exposure to sun and rain had become of a dirty orange-color. He was armed with a long sword slung in a belt, which bumped ceaselessly against the calves of his legs. Finally, he wore a hat which once had been adorned with a plume and with lace, and which -- in remembrance, no doubt, of its past splendor -- its owner had tipped so far over his left ear that it seemed as if it could be kept in place only by a miracle of equilibrium. There was altogether in the countenance and in the carriage and bearing of the man (who seemed from forty to forty-five years of age, and who advanced swaggering and keeping the middle of the road, curling his mustache with one hand, and with the ...