The Queen Pedauque

The Queen Pedauque

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Queen Pedauque, by Anatole France #10 in our series by Anatole France
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Title: The Queen Pedauque
Author: Anatole France
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6571] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 28, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE QUEEN PEDAUQUE
ANATOLE FRANCE
Translated by JOS. A. V. STRITZKO
Introduction by JAMES BRANCH CABELL

I. Why I recount the singular Occurrences of my Life
II. My Home at the Queen Pedauque Cookshop--I turn the Spit and learn to read--Entry of Abbe Jerome Coignard
III. The Story of the Abbe's Life
IV. The Pupil of M. Jerome Coignard--I receive Lessons in Latin, Greek and Life
V. My Nineteenth Birthday--Its Celebration and the Entrance of M. d'Asterac
VI. Arrival at the Castle of M. d'Asterac and Interview with the Cabalist
VII. Dinner and Thoughts on Food
VIII. The Library and its Contents
IX. At Work on Zosimus the Panopolitan--I visit my Home and hear Gossip about M. d'Asterac
X. I see Catherine with Friar Ange and reflect--The Liking of Nymphs for Satyrs--An Alarm of Fire--M. d'Asterac in his Laboratory
XI. The Advent of Spring and its Effects--We visit Mosaide
XII. I take a Walk and meet Mademoiselle Catherine
XIII. Taken by M. d'Asterac to the Isle of Swans I listen to his Discourse on Creation and Salamanders
XIV. Visit to Mademoiselle Catherine--The Row in the Street and my Dismissal
XV. In the Library with M. Jerome Coignard--A Conversation on Morals--Taken to M. d'Asterac's Study-Salamanders again-- The Solar Powder--A Visit and its Consequences
XVI. Jahel comes to my Room--What the Abbe saw on the Stairs--His Encounter with Mosaide
XVII. Outside Mademoiselle Catherine's House--We are invited in by M. d'Anquetil--The Supper--The Visit of the Owner and the horrible Consequences
XVIII. Our return--We smuggle M. d'Anquetil in--M. d'Asterac on Jealousy--M. Jerome Coignard in Trouble-What happened while I was in the Laboratory--Jahel persuaded to elope
XIX. Our last Dinner at M. d'Asterac's Table--Conversation of M. Jerome Coignard and M. d'Asterac--A Message from Home--Catherine in the Spittel--We are wanted for Murder-Our Flight--Jahel causes me much Misery--Account of the Journey-The Abbe Coignard on Towns--Jahel's Midnight Visit--We are followed--The Accident --M. Jerome Coignard is stabbed
XX. Illness of M. Jerome Coignard
XXI. Death of M. Jerome Coignard
XXII. Funeral and Epitaph
XXIII. Farewell to Jahel--Dispersal of the Party.
XXIV. I am pardoned and return to Paris--Again at the Queen Pedauque--I go as Assistant to M. Blaizot--Burning of the Castle of Sablons--Death of Mosaide and of M. d'Asterac.
XXV. I become a Bookseller--I have many learned and witty Customers but none to equal the Abbe Jerome Coignard, D.D., M. A

INTRODUCTION
What one first notes about The Queen Pedauque is the fact that in this ironic and subtle book is presented a story which, curiously enough, is remarkable for its entire innocence of subtlety and irony. Abridge the "plot" into a synopsis, and you will find your digest to be what is manifestly the outline of a straightforward, plumed romance by the elder Dumas.
Indeed, Dumas would have handled the "strange surprising adventures" of Jacques Tournebroche to a nicety, if only Dumas had ever thought to have his collaborators write this brisk tale, wherein d'Astarac and Tournebroche and Mosaide display, even now, a noticeable something in common with the Balsamo and Gilbert and Althotas of the _Memoires d'un Medecin_. One foresees, to be sure, that, with the twin-girthed Creole for guide, M. Jerome Coignard would have waddled into immortality not quite as we know him, but with somewhat more of a fraternal resemblance to the Dom Gorenflot of _La Dame de Monsoreau;_ and that the blood of the abbe's death-wound could never have bedewed the book's final pages, in the teeth of Dumas' economic unwillingness ever to despatch any character who was "good for" a sequel.
And one thinks rather kindlily of The Queen Pedauque as Dumas would have equipped it... Yes, in reading here, it is the most facile and least avoidable of mental exercises to prefigure how excellently Dumas