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The Chouans; A Passion in the Desert ; the Gondreville Mystery ; the Muse of the Department
The Chouans A Passion in the Desert the Gondreville Mystery the Muse of the Department Author:Honoré de Balzac General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1901 Original Publisher: Dana Estes Subjects: Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Literary Criticism / European / French Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the Genera... more »l Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: "Come; they are either going towards Paris, or on their way back to Germany," said Corentin to himself. He sat down, took a note-book from the pocket of his spencer, wrote out two orders in pencil, sealed them, and beckoned to a gendarme. "Ride off to Troyes full speed, wake up the prefect, and tell him to set the semaphore at work as soon as there is light enough." The gendarme galloped off with the message. The meaning of this proceeding and Corentin's intentions were both so plain that the whole household felt something clutch tightly at their hearts; and yet the uneasiness was in some sort an added pang in their anguish, for their eyes were all fixed upon the precious casket. While the two agents spoke together, they furtively read the language of those blazing eyes; and their unfeeling hearts were moved to a sort of cold anger; they enjoyed the consternation about them. The sensations of the sportman and the detective are the same; but while the one exerts all the powers of body and mind to kill a hare, a partridge, or a buck, the concern of the other is to save a government or a prince, and to earn a large reward. And this sport, in which man is the game, is superior to all other sport by the whole distance that separates man from the brute. A spy, moreover, is fain to magnify his part by the greatness and importance of the interests at stake. A man has no need to meddle in such business to realize that there is as much passionate interest thrown into it as ever the hunter ca...« less