Scaramouche | Page 3

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SCARAMOUCHE A Romance of the French Revolution
by Rafael Sabatini

CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE ROBE
I. THE REPUBLICAN
II. THE ARISTOCRAT
III. THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN
IV. THE HERITAGE
V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
VI. THE WINDMILL
VII. THE WIND
VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS
IX. THE AFTERMATH
BOOK II
THE BUSKIN
I. THE TRESPASSERS
II. THE SERVICE OF THESPIS
III. THE COMIC MUSE
IV. EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUS
V. ENTER SCARAMOUCHE
VI. CLIMENE
VII. THE CONQUEST OF NANTES
VIII. THE DREAM
IX. THE AWAKENING
X. CONTRITION
XI. THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU

BOOK III
THE SWORD
I. TRANSITION
II. QUOS DEUS VULT PERDERE
III. PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER
IV. AT MEUDON
V. MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL
VI. POLITICIANS
VII. THE SPADASSINICIDES
VIII. THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
IX. TORN PRIDE
X. THE RETURNING CARRIAGE
XI. INFERENCES
XII. THE OVERWHELMING REASON
XIII. SANCTUARY
XIV. THE BARRIER
XV. SAFE-CONDUCT
XVI. SUNRISE

SCARAMOUCHE

BOOK I: THE ROBE
CHAPTER I
THE REPUBLICAN
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the lad's rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau - as the lad had been named - and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below.
Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school, lodged the while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at the age of fifteen, he had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycee of Louis Le Grand, to study the law which he was now returned to practise in conjunction with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his godfather, M. de Kercadiou, who by placing him once more under the tutelage of Rabouillet would seem thereby quite clearly to be making provision for his future.
Andre-Louis, on his side, had made the most of his opportunities. You behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough to produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of his zestful study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from Seneca to Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction his earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own species. Nor can I discover that anything in his eventful life ever afterwards caused him to waver in that opinion.
In body he was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above middle height, with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and with lank, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. His mouth was long, thin-lipped, and humorous. He was only just redeemed from ugliness by the splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so dark as to be almost black. Of the whimsical quality of his mind and his rare gift of graceful expression, his writings - unfortunately but too scanty