Castles in the Air

Castles in the Air, by Baroness
Emmuska Orczy

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Castles in the Air, by Baroness
Emmuska Orczy This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Castles in the Air
Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Release Date: May 28, 2004 [EBook #12461]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES
IN THE AIR ***

Produced by Jim Tinsley

FOREWORD
In presenting this engaging rogue to my readers, I feel that I owe them,
if not an apology, at least an explanation for this attempt at enlisting
sympathy in favour of a man who has little to recommend him save his

own unconscious humour. In very truth my good friend Ratichon is an
unblushing liar, thief, a forger--anything you will; his vanity is past
belief, his scruples are non-existent. How he escaped a convict
settlement it is difficult to imagine, and hard to realize that he
died--presumably some years after the event recorded in the last
chapter of his autobiography--a respected member of the community,
honoured by that same society which should have raised a punitive
hand against him. Yet this I believe to be the case. At any rate, in spite
of close research in the police records of the period, I can find no
mention of Hector Ratichon. "Heureux le peuple qui n'a pas d'histoire"
applies, therefore, to him, and we must take it that Fate and his own
sorely troubled country dealt lightly with him.
Which brings me back to my attempt at an explanation. If Fate dealt
kindly, why not we? Since time immemorial there have been worse
scoundrels unhung than Hector Ratichon, and he has the saving grace--
which few possess--of unruffled geniality. Buffeted by Fate, sometimes
starving, always thirsty, he never complains; and there is all through his
autobiography what we might call an "Ah, well!" attitude about his
outlook on life. Because of this, and because his very fatuity makes us
smile, I feel that he deserves forgiveness and even a certain amount of
recognition.
The fragmentary notes, which I have only very slightly modified, came
into my hands by a happy chance one dull post-war November morning
in Paris, when rain, sleet and the north wind drove me for shelter under
the arcades of the Odéon, and a kindly vendor of miscellaneous printed
matter and mouldy MSS. allowed me to rummage amongst a load of
old papers which he was about to consign to the rubbish heap. I
imagine that the notes were set down by the actual person to whom the
genial Hector Ratichon recounted the most conspicuous events of his
chequered career, and as I turned over the torn and musty pages, which
hung together by scraps of mouldy thread, I could not help feeling the
humour--aye! and the pathos--of that drabby side of old Paris which
was being revealed to me through the medium of this rogue's
adventures. And even as, holding the fragments in my hand, I walked
home that morning through the rain something of that same quaint

personality seemed once more to haunt the dank and dreary streets of
the once dazzling Ville Lumière. I seemed to see the shabby
bottle-green coat, the nankeen pantaloons, the down-at-heel shoes of
this "confidant of Kings"; I could hear his unctuous, self-satisfied laugh,
and sensed his furtive footstep whene'er a gendarme came into view. I
saw his ruddy, shiny face beaming at me through the sleet and the rain
as, like a veritable squire of dames, he minced his steps upon the
boulevard, or, like a reckless smuggler, affronted the grave dangers of
mountain fastnesses upon the Juras; and I was quite glad to think that a
life so full of unconscious humour had not been cut short upon the
gallows. And I thought kindly of him, for he had made me smile.
There is nothing fine about him, nothing romantic; nothing in his
actions to cause a single thrill to the nerves of the most unsophisticated
reader. Therefore, I apologize in that I have not held him up to a just
obloquy because of his crimes, and I ask indulgence for his turpitudes
because of the laughter which they provoke.
EMMUSKA ORCZY. Paris, 1921.

CASTLES IN THE AIR
CHAPTER I
A ROLAND FOR HIS OLIVER

1.
My name is Ratichon--Hector Ratichon, at your service, and I make so
bold as to say that not even my worst enemy would think of
minimizing the value of my services to the State. For twenty years now
have I placed my powers at