The Bouquet Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1832 Excerpt: ...the injuries he had done her.' To the astonishment of all parties, Bertrand in his answer to this 'bill of complaint, ' made no confession of the offences alleged against him, but boldly asserted he was the person he had represented himself to be. He declared the whole affair was a wicked conspiracy contrived by the father of Christine, with the aid of the Sieur d'Anglade, for the purpose of obtaining speedier possession of certain property which would fall to him at his (Bertrand's) death, and that they had prevailed upon his wife, Christine de Rols, who was a person of weak understanding, to join with then. He entered into an account of the reasons which had induced him to leave his home; set forth the various adventures he had gone through; staled how, at the end of seven years, he was seized with an ardent desire to return to his wife and child, and doing so, with what joy he had been received by Christine and his relations, notwithstanding the alterations which time, great fatigue, and the cutting off his hair, had caused. At the close he prayed that 'his wife might be confronted with him, because he could not possibly believe she would persist in denying the truth; that his calumniators, according to the laws of equity, might be condemned to suffer the punishments they called for upon him; that Christine should be taken out of the hands of his enemies, and be restrained from dissipating his effects; and finally, that he should be declared innocent of all the crimes laid to his charge.' The criminal judge cited Bertrand to appear before him, and subjected him to a rigorous private examinafion. He questioned him as to various matters which had happened in Thoulouse when he must have been a boy; the place of his birth, his father, mother, sisters, and oth..