A Citizen of Calais

By Marie Belloc Lowndes

"A Citizen of Calais" by Marie Belloc Lowndes. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 4064066310660

Marie Belloc Lowndes

Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947) was an English novelist. Born in London, she was raised in La-Celle-Saint-Cloud, France by a French father and English mother. Her brother, Hilaire Belloc, would later become a prominent writer, activist, and politician. Her mother Bessie Parkes, a principled feminist, was the great granddaughter of influential philosopher Joseph Priestley, whose work had a profound influence on modern chemistry, Christianity, and political liberalism. From a young age, Belloc Lowndes worked to live up to her family name, publishing biographies, memoirs, novels, and plays nearly every year until her death, beginning in 1898. Known for her mystery novels, often based on real events, Belloc Lowndes earned praise from Ernest Hemingway and continues to be recognized as a leading writer of the early twentieth century. The Lodger (1913), her most well-known work, is a retelling of the story of Jack the Ripper, and has been adapted for film several times by such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Maurice Elvey, and John Brahm.

Book preview

Marie Belloc Lowndes

A Citizen of Calais

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066310660

Table of Contents

Cover

Titlepage

Text

JACQUES de WISSANT stood in his wife's boudoir. It was a strange and beautiful room, likely to linger in the memory of those who knew its strange and beautiful mistress. The walls were draped with old Persian shawls, the furniture was of red Chinese lacquer. Pale blue and faded yellow silk cushions softened the formal angularity of the wide cane-seated couch and low square chairs. There was a deep crystal bowl filled with midsummer flowering roses on the table, laden with books, by which Claire often sat long hours, reading poetry and prose written by authors of whom her husband had only vaguely heard, but of whom he definitely disapproved.

It was nine o'clock in the morning of a hot August day. The window was wide open, and there floated in from the garden, which sloped away to the edge and, indeed, over the low, crumbling cliff, fragrant salt-laden odors, dominated by the clean, sharp scent thrown from huge shrubs of red and white geraniums.

But Jacques de Wissant was unconscious, uncaring of the beauty round him, either in the room or without; and when, at last, he walked forward to the window, his face hardened as his eyes instinctively sought out the spot where, built on the edge of the great expanse of sand to the left, lay the quarters of the Submarine Flotilla. These buildings were actually on his land, and he had eagerly assented to their being placed there; yet now he would have given much—and he was a careful man—to have had them swept away, transferred to the other side of Calais. Down there, within but a few minutes' walk, dwelt Jacques de Wissant's secret foe; for the man of whom he was acutely, miserably jealous was Commander Dupré, the naval officer commanding the Submarine Station . The owner of the Pavillon de Wissant seldom entered the room where he now stood impatiently waiting for his wife, and he never did so without looking round him with distaste, and remembering with an odd, wistful feeling the room as it had been in his mother's time. Then le boudoir de Madame had reflected the tastes and simple interests of an old-fashioned, provincial lady born in the year that Louis Philippe came to the throne. The man standing there greatly preferred the room as it had been to what it was, now! Over the low marble mantelpiece, where were arranged a trophy of ancient Chinese weapons sent home by Claire de Wissant's admiral father in 1899, there had hung, in Jacques' own childhood, a large engraving of a painting by Delaroche, showing the Citizens of Calais, each with a halter round his neck, prepared for the great sacrifice. Especially prominent among them—or so the grave little boy had always secretly hugged