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Gaston de Marsac is an old fashioned gentleman with hardly any money, and younger men laugh at his worn out clothes. Then the king gives him a dangerous job: guard a brave young lady on a journey through country full of enemies. Gaston has a sword, good manners, and more courage than anyone guessed. This is a story of duels, chases, and a hero who proves that honor never goes out of fashion.
The book is presented as the memoirs of Gaston de Marsac, an aging gentleman of France in the years of the religious wars. Told in the first person, it follows his recall from poverty and obscurity to a mission of trust: escorting Mademoiselle de la Vire through a countryside where every road and inn may hide an enemy.
Structurally it is a journey novel, a chain of rides, ambushes, duels, and narrow escapes, with Henry of Navarre moving through it toward his crown. Its themes are unfashionable ones, honor, courtesy, loyalty, and courage, treated without a trace of irony. Marsac's old fashioned manners are not decoration: they are his strategy, his disguise, and his weapon.
Published in 1893, A Gentleman of France was one of the great popular successes of its decade, and it helped revive the swashbuckling romance in English fiction. It lasts because Weyman writes action with unusual clarity and because his hero is genuinely unusual: a middle aged man whose decency, patience, and good breeding outfight younger and flashier swords. Readers who love Dumas will feel at home, and will find a warmer heart beating here.
Gaston de Marsac is fifty, poor, and a gentleman of the old school in a France tearing itself apart with religious war. Stanley Weyman published A Gentleman of France in 1893, and it became one of the best loved swashbucklers of its decade. Mocked as a threadbare relic, Marsac is handed a desperate mission: escorting the spirited Mademoiselle de la Vire through enemy country in the service of Henry of Navarre.
This shelf keeps A Gentleman of France because it is the swashbuckler perfected: proof that a hero past fifty, without money or fashion, can carry a romance on courtesy and courage alone. Stanley Weyman published the novel in 1893, and it was among the most loved historical romances of its decade, the book that earned him comparison with Dumas. The narrator is Gaston de Marsac, a gentleman of the old school recalled from poverty to serve Henry of Navarre in the wars of religion. His mission, escorting the young and spirited Mademoiselle de la Vire through hostile country, gives the book its shape: a journey of ambushes, duels, disguises, and escapes, with the fate of a kingdom riding along in the saddlebags. Expect clarity and pace. Weyman wastes nothing, every chapter ends on a hook, every courtesy conceals a calculation, and Marsac's old world manners prove to be the sharpest equipment on the road. It earns its place on this shelf as the high water mark of the English historical romance between Scott and the moderns, and as the warmest hearted of all the cloak and sword novels, a book readers finish with genuine affection for its hero.
Edition: Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 1939.
The first chapter
Transcriber’s Note:
In this Etext, text in italics has been written in capital letters.
Many French words in the text have accents, etc. which have been omitted.
CONTENTS
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE.
CHAPTER I. THE SPORT OF FOOLS.
CHAPTER II. THE KING OF NAVARRE.
CHAPTER III. BOOT AND SADDLE.
CHAPTER IV. MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE.
CHAPTER V. THE ROAD TO BLOIS.
CHAPTER VI. MY MOTHER’S LODGING.
CHAPTER VII. SIMON FLEIX
CHAPTER VIII. AN EMPTY ROOM.
CHAPTER IX. THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D’ARCY.
CHAPTER X. THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS.
CHAPTER XI. THE MAN AT THE DOOR.
CHAPTER XII. MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY.
CHAPTER XIII. AT ROSNY.
CHAPTER XIV. M. DE RAMBOUILLET.
CHAPTER XV. VILAIN HERODES.
CHAPTER XVI. IN THE KING’S CHAMBER.
CHAPTER XVII. THE JACOBIN MONK.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE.
CHAPTER XIX. MEN CALL IT CHANCE.
CHAPTER XX. THE KING’S FACE.
CHAPTER XXI. TWO WOMEN.
CHAPTER XXII. ‘LA FEMME DISPOSE.’
CHAPTER XXIII. THE LAST VALOIS.
CHAPTER XXIV. A ROYAL PERIL.
CHAPTER XXV. TERMS OF SURRENDER.
CHAPTER XXVI. MEDITATIONS.
CHAPTER XXVII. TO ME, MY FRIENDS!
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CASTLE ON THE HILL.
CHAPTER XXIX. PESTILENCE AND FAMINE.
CHAPTER XXX. STRICKEN.
CHAPTER XXXI. UNDER THE GREENWOOD.
CHAPTER XXXII. A TAVERN BRAWL.
CHAPTER XXXIII. AT MEUDON.
CHAPTER XXXIV. ’TIS AN ILL WIND.’
CHAPTER XXXV. ‘LE ROI EST MORT!’
CHAPTER XXXVI. ‘VIVE LE ROI!’
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE.
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1893. Author died 1928. Public domain. Share this book: WhatsApp
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