Denis Duval Author:William Makepeace Thackeray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE TRAVELLERS. The poor gentleman was in such haste that the old proverb was realized in his case, and his journey was anything but speedy. A... more »t Nanci he fell ill of a fever, which had nearly carried him off, and in which he unceasingly raved about his child, and called upon his faithless wife to return her. Almost before he was convalescent, he was on his way again, to Boulogne, where he saw that English coast on which he rightly conjectured his fugitive wife was sheltered. And here, from my boyish remembrance, which, respecting these early days, remains extraordinarily clear, I can take up the story, in which I was myself a very young actor, playing in the strange, fantastic, often terrible, drama which ensued a not insignificant part. As I survey it now, the curtainis down, and the play long over; as I think of its surprises, disguises, mysteries, escapes, and dangers, I am amazed myself, and sometimes inclined to be almost as great a fatalist as M. de la Motte, who vowed that a superior Power ruled our actions for us, and declared that he could no more prevent his destiny from accomplishing itself, than he could prevent his hair from growing. What a destiny it was ! What a fatal tragedy was now about to begin! One evening in our Midsummer holidays, in the year 1769, I remember being seated in my little chair at home, with a tempest of rain beating down the street. Wo had customers on most evenings, but there happened to be none on this night; and I remember I was puzzling over a bit of Latin grammar, to which mother used to keep me stoutly when I came home from school. It is fifty years since. I have forgotten who knows how many events of my life, which are not much worth the remembering ; but I have as clearly before my eyes now a little scene which...« less