Manon Lescaut | Page 3

use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each date you
prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?

The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois Benedictine
College".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

MANON LESCAUT I

Why did he love her? Curious fool, be still! Is human love the fruit of
human will?
BYRON.

Just about six months before my departure for Spain, I first met the
Chevalier des Grieux. Though I rarely quitted my retreat, still the
interest I felt in my child's welfare induced me occasionally to
undertake short journeys, which, however, I took good care to abridge
as much as possible.
I was one day returning from Rouen, where I had been, at her request,
to attend a cause then pending before the Parliament of Normandy,
respecting an inheritance to which I had claims derived from my
maternal grandfather. Having taken the road by Evreux, where I slept
the first night, I on the following day, about dinner-time, reached Passy,
a distance of five or six leagues. I was amazed, on entering this quiet
town, to see all the inhabitants in commotion. They were pouring from
their houses in crowds, towards the gate of a small inn, immediately
before which two covered vans were drawn up. Their horses still in
harness, and reeking from fatigue and heat, showed that the cortege had
only just arrived. I stopped for a moment to learn the cause of the
tumult, but could gain little information from the curious mob as they
rushed by, heedless of my enquiries, and hastening impatiently towards
the inn in the utmost confusion. At length an archer of the civic guard,
wearing his bandolier, and carrying a carbine on his shoulder, appeared
at the gate; so, beckoning him towards me, I begged to know the cause

of the uproar. "Nothing, sir," said he, "but a dozen of the frail
sisterhood, that I and my comrades are conducting to Havre-de-Grace,
whence we are to ship them for America. There are one or two of them
pretty enough; and it is that, apparently, which attracts the curiosity of
these good people."
I should have passed on, satisfied with this explanation, if my attention
had not been arrested by the cries of an old woman, who was coming
out of the inn with her hands clasped, and exclaiming:
"A downright barbarity!--A scene to excite horror and compassion!"
"What may this mean?" I enquired. "Oh! sir; go into the house
yourself," said the woman, and see if it is not a sight to rend your
heart!" Curiosity made me dismount; and leaving my horse to the care
of the ostler, I made my way with some difficulty through the crowd,
and did indeed behold a scene sufficiently touching.
Among the twelve girls, who were chained together by the waist in two
rows, there was one, whose whole air and figure seemed so ill-suited to
her present condition, that under other circumstances I should not have
hesitated to pronounce her a person of high birth. Her excessive grief,
and even the wretchedness of her attire, detracted so little from her
surpassing beauty, that at first sight of her I was inspired with a
mingled feeling of respect and pity.
She tried, as well as the chain would permit her, to turn herself away,
and hide her face from the rude gaze of the spectators. There was
something so unaffected in the effort she made to escape observation,
that it could but have sprung from natural and innate modesty alone.
As the six men who escorted the unhappy train were together in the
room, I took the chief one aside and asked for information respecting
this beautiful girl. All that he could supply was of the most vague kind.
"We brought her," he said, "from the Hospital, by order of the
lieutenant-general of police. There is no reason to suppose that she was
shut up there for good conduct.
I have questioned her often upon the road; but she persists in refusing
even to answer me. Yet, although I received no orders to make any
distinction between her and the others, I cannot help treating her
differently, for she seems to me somewhat superior to her companions.
Yonder is a young man," continued the archer, "who can tell you, better
than I can, the cause