The Forest of Swords

The Forest of Swords, by Joseph A. Altsheler

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forest of Swords, by Joseph A. Altsheler 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: The Forest of Swords A Story of Paris and the Marne
Author: Joseph A. Altsheler
Release Date: May 3, 2005 [EBook #15760]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOREST OF SWORDS ***

Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, Jon King and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

THE FOREST OF SWORDS

BOOKS BY JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR SERIES
The Hunters of the Hills The Shadow of the North The Rulers of the Lakes The Masters of the Peaks The Lords of the Wild The Sun of Quebec
THE YOUNG TRAILERS SERIES
The Young Trailers The Free Rangers The Forest Runners The Riflemen of the Ohio The Keepers of the Trail The Scouts of the Valley The Eyes of the Woods The Border Watch
THE TEXAN SERIES
The Texan Star The Texan Triumph The Texan Scouts
THE CIVIL WAR SERIES
The Guns of Bull Run The Star of Gettysburg The Guns of Shiloh The Rock of Chickamauga The Scouts of Stonewall The Shades of the Wilderness The Sword of Antietam The Tree of Appomattox
THE GREAT WEST SERIES
The Lost Hunters The Great Sioux Trail
THE WORLD WAR SERIES
The Guns of Europe The Hosts of the Air The Forest of Swords
BOOKS NOT IN SERIES
Apache Gold A Soldier of Manhattan The Quest of the Four The Sun of Saratoga The Last of the Chiefs A Herald of the West In Circling Camps The Wilderness Road The Last Rebel My Captive The Candidate
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
New York London

[Illustration: "He heard a shock near him and, ... saw a huddled mass of wreckage."]

WORLD WAR SERIES
THE FOREST OF SWORDS
A STORY OF PARIS AND THE MARNE
BY
JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
AUTHOR OF "THE GUNS OF EUROPE," "THE STAR OF GETTYSBURG," ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1928
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America

FOREWORD
"The Forest of Swords," while an independent story, based upon the World War, continues the fortunes of John Scott, Philip Lannes, and their friends who have appeared already in "The Guns of Europe." As was stated in the first volume, the author was in Austria and Germany for a month after the war began, and then went to England. He saw the arrival of the Emperor, Francis Joseph, in Vienna, the first striking event in the gigantic struggle, and witnessed the mobilization of their armies by three great nations.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. IN PARIS 1 II. THE MESSAGE 30 III. IN THE FRENCH CAMP 53 IV. THE INVISIBLE HAND 76 V. SEEN FROM ABOVE 99 VI. IN HOSTILE HANDS 121 VII. THE TWO PRINCES 146 VIII. THE SPORT OF KINGS 167 IX. THE PUZZLING SIGNAL 186 X. OLD FRIENDS 209 XI. THE CONTINUING BATTLE 231 XII. JULIE LANNES 247 XIII. THE MIDDLE AGES 268 XIV. A PROMISE KEPT 291 XV. THE RESCUE 311

THE FOREST OF SWORDS
CHAPTER I
IN PARIS
John Scott and Philip Lannes walked together down a great boulevard of Paris. The young American's heart was filled with grief and anger. The Frenchman felt the same grief, but mingled with it was a fierce, burning passion, so deep and bitter that it took a much stronger word than anger to describe it.
Both had heard that morning the mutter of cannon on the horizon, and they knew the German conquerors were advancing. They were always advancing. Nothing had stopped them. The metal and masonry of the defenses at Li��ge had crumbled before their huge guns like china breaking under stone. The giant shells had scooped out the forts at Maubeuge, Maubeuge the untakable, as if they had been mere eggshells, and the mighty Teutonic host came on, almost without a check.
John had read of the German march on Paris, nearly a half-century before, how everything had been made complete by the genius of Bismarck and von Moltke, how the ready had sprung upon and crushed the unready, but the present swoop of the imperial eagle seemed far more vast and terrible than the earlier rush could have been.
A month and the legions were already before the City of Light. Men with glasses could see from the top of the Eiffel Tower the gray ranks that were to hem in devoted Paris once more, and the government had fled already to Bordeaux. It seemed that everything was lost before the war was fairly begun. The coming of the English army, far too small in numbers, had availed nothing. It had been swept up with the others, escaping from capture or destruction only by a hair,