The Marquise De Ganges
()
About this ebook
Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas was born in 1802. After a childhood of extreme poverty, he took work as a clerk, and met the renowned actor Talma, and began to write short pieces for the theatre. After twenty years of success as a playwright, Dumas turned his hand to novel-writing, and penned such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), La Reine Margot (1845) and The Black Tulip (1850). After enduring a short period of bankruptcy, Dumas began to travel extensively, still keeping up a prodigious output of journalism, short fiction and novels. He fathered an illegitimate child, also called Alexandre, who would grow up to write La Dame aux Camélias. He died in Dieppe in 1870.
Read more from Alexandre Dumas
The Wolf Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Sphinx Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Nutcracker of Nuremberg - Illustrated with Silhouettes Cut by Else Hasselriis Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Lady of the Camellias: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCount Of Monte Cristo Manga Classics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood Royal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetween Two Kings: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Three Musketeers: Bilingual Edition (English – French) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Count Of Monte Cristo: The Wild And Wanton Edition Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Count Of Monte Cristo: The Wild And Wanton Edition Volume 3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Count Of Monte Cristo: The Wild And Wanton Edition Volume 4 Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Count Of Monte Cristo: The Wild And Wanton Edition Volume 5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Count Of Monte Cristo: The Wild and Wanton Edition Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Short Stories Of Alexandre Dumas: "All generalizations are dangerous, even this one." Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Tales of Adventure: Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, The Confidence-Man, The Mark of Zorro, and The Three Musketeers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Marquise De Ganges
Titles in the series (18)
The Borgias Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUrbain Grandier Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cenci Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary Stuart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMassacres of the South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLa Constantin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNisida Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKarl-Ludwig Sand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDerues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJoan of Naples Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Marquise De Brinvilliers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Countess De Saint-Geran Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMan in the Iron Mask (an Essay) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMartin Guerre Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAli Pacha Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVaninka Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Marquise De Ganges Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
The Marquise De Ganges Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marquise De Ganges Celebrated Crimes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Marquise de Ganges (Celebrated Crimes Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Sister's Love: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wife of Sir Isaac Harman Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman: The past is but the past of a beginning. Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Stolen Singer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Europeans: “It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBreath and Bones Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Countess De Saint-Geran Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsServants of Sin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Modern Mephistopheles by Louisa May Alcott (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomething Childish and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat the Swallow Sang: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rescue Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Grey Woman & Other Tales: "The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen Thoughts Will Soar: A romance of the immediate future Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Million Dollar Mystery Novelized from the Scenario of F. Lonergan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Europeans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Episode under the Terror Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCarnival Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsServants of Sin: A Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Title Market Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Queen's Error Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mystery of Edwin Drood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Human Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Bid for Fortune or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Say and Seal, Volume I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn a Glass Darkly - Volume III of III Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond the City: "Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden (Original Classic Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Titus Groan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Marquise De Ganges
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Marquise De Ganges - Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas
The Marquise De Ganges
SAGA Egmont
The Marquise De Ganges
Translated by I. G. Burnham
Original title: La Marquise de Ganges
Original language: French
The characters and use of language in the work do not express the views of the publisher. The work is published as a historical document that describes its contemporary human perception.
Cover image: Shutterstock
Copyright © 1839-1841, 2021 SAGA Egmont
All rights reserved
ISBN: 9788726672039
1st ebook edition
Format: EPUB 3.0
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievial system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor, be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This work is republished as a historical document. It contains contemporary use of language.
www.sagaegmont.com
Saga Egmont - a part of Egmont, www.egmont.com
The Marquise De Ganges—1657
T oward the close of the year 1657, a very plain carriage, with no arms painted on it, stopped, about eight o'clock one evening, before the door of a house in the rue Hautefeuille, at which two other coaches were already standing. A lackey at once got down to open the carriage door; but a sweet, though rather tremulous voice stopped him, saying, Wait, while I see whether this is the place.
Then a head, muffled so closely in a black satin mantle that no feature could be distinguished, was thrust from one of the carriage windows, and looking around, seemed to seek for some decisive sign on the house front. The unknown lady appeared to be satisfied by her inspection, for she turned back to her companion.
It is here,
said she. There is the sign.
As a result of this certainty, the carriage door was opened, the two women alighted, and after having once more raised their eyes to a strip of wood, some six or eight feet long by two broad, which was nailed above the windows of the second storey, and bore the inscription, Madame Voison, midwife,
stole quickly into a passage, the door of which was unfastened, and in which there was just so much light as enabled persons passing in or out to find their way along the narrow winding stair that led from the ground floor to the fifth story.
The two strangers, one of whom appeared to be of far higher rank than the other, did not stop, as might have been expected, at the door corresponding with the inscription that had guided them, but, on the contrary, went on to the next floor.
Here, upon the landing, was a kind of dwarf, oddly dressed after the fashion of sixteenth-century Venetian buffoons, who, when he saw the two women coming, stretched out a wand, as though to prevent them from going farther, and asked what they wanted.
To consult the spirit,
replied the woman of the sweet and tremulous voice.
Come in and wait,
returned the dwarf, lifting a panel of tapestry and ushering the two women into a waiting-room.
The women obeyed, and remained for about half an hour, seeing and hearing nothing. At last a door, concealed by the tapestry, was suddenly opened; a voice uttered the word Enter,
and the two women were introduced into a second room, hung with black, and lighted solely by a three-branched lamp that hung from the ceiling. The door closed behind them, and the clients found themselves face to face with the sibyl.
She was a woman of about twenty-five or twenty-six, who, unlike other women, evidently desired to appear older than she was. She was dressed in black; her hair hung in plaits; her neck, arms, and feet were bare; the belt at her waist was clasped by a large garnet which threw out sombre fires. In her hand she held a wand, and she was raised on a sort of platform which stood for the tripod of the ancients, and from which came acrid and penetrating fumes; she was, moreover, fairly handsome, although her features were common, the eyes only excepted, and these, by some trick of the toilet, no doubt, looked inordinately large, and, like the garnet in her belt, emitted strange lights.
When the two visitors came in, they found the soothsayer leaning her forehead on her hand, as though absorbed in thought. Fearing to rouse her from her ecstasy, they waited in silence until it should please her to change her position. At the end of ten minutes she raised her head, and seemed only now to become aware that two persons were standing before her.
What is wanted of me again?
she asked, and shall I have rest only in the grave?
Forgive me, madame,
said the sweet-voiced unknown, but I am wishing to know——
Silence!
said the sibyl, in a solemn voice. I will not know your affairs. It is to the spirit that you must address yourself; he is a jealous spirit, who forbids his secrets to be shared; I can but pray to him for you, and obey his will.
At these words, she left her tripod, passed into an adjoining room, and soon returned, looking even paler and more anxious than before, and carrying in one hand a burning chafing dish, in the other a red paper. The three flames of the lamp grew fainter at the same moment, and the room was left lighted up only by the chafing dish; every object now assumed a fantastic air that did not fail to disquiet the two visitors, but it was too late to draw back.
The soothsayer placed the chafing dish in the middle of the room, presented the paper to the young woman who had spoken, and said to her—
Write down what you wish to know.
The woman took the paper with a steadier hand than might have been expected, seated herself at a table, and wrote:—
"Am I young? Am I beautiful? Am I maid, wife, or widow? This is for the past.
Shall I marry, or marry again? Shall I live long, or shall I die young? This is for the future.
Then, stretching out her hand to the soothsayer, she asked—
What am I to do now with this?
Roll that letter around this ball,
answered the other, handing to the unknown a little ball of virgin wax.