Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One VolumeVoltaire
Philosophy
Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume
Voltaire
French fiction -- Translations into English
"Me? what, must I pay money for having repulsed the English? Must I pay
a tax to be killed for you, whilst you are peaceably giving your
audience here? You are certainly jesting. I require a company of cavalry
for nothing. I require that the king shall set Miss St. Yves at liberty
from the convent, and give her to me in marriage. I want to speak to the
king in favor of fifty thousand families, whom I propose restoring to
him. In a word, I want to be useful. Let me be employed and advanced."
"What is your name, sir, who talk in such a high style?"
"Oh! oh!" answered the Huron; "you have not then read my certificates?
This is the way they are treated. My name is _Hercules de Kerkabon_. I
am christened, and I lodge at the Blue Dial." The clerk concluded, like
the people at Saumur, that his head was turned, and did not pay him any
further attention.
The same day, the Reverend Father de la Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV.,
received his spy's letter, which accused the Breton Kerkabon of favoring
in his heart the Huguenots, and condemning the conduct of the Jesuits.
M. de Louvois had, on his side, received a letter from the inquisitive
bailiff, which depicted the Huron as a wicked, lewd fellow, inclined to
burn convents, and carry off the nuns.
Hercules, after having walked in the gardens of Versailles, which had
become irksome to him; after having supped like a native of Huronia and
Lower Britany: had gone to rest, in the pleasant hope of seeing the king
the next day; of obtaining Miss St. Yves in marriage; of having, at
least, a company of cavalry; and of setting aside the persecution
against the Huguenots. He was rocking himself asleep with these
flattering ideas, when the _Marechaussée_ entered his chamber, and
seized upon his double-charged fusee and his great sabre.
They took an inventory of his ready money, and then conducted him to the
castle erected by King Charles V., son to John II., near the street of
St. Antoine, at the gate des Tournelles.
What was the Huron's astonishment in his way thither the reader is left
to imagine. He at first fancied it was all a dream; and remained for
some time in a state of stupefaction. Presently, transported with rage,
that gave him more than common strength, he collared two of his
conductors who were with him in the coach, flung them out of the door,
cast himself after them, and then dragged the third, who wanted to hold
him. He fell in the attempt, when they tied him, and replaced him in the
carriage.
"This, then," said he, "is what one gets for driving the English out of
Lower Britany! What wouldst thou say, charming Miss St. Yves, if thou
didst see me in this situation?"
They at length arrived at the place of their destination. He was carried
without any noise into the chamber in which he was to be locked up, like
a dead corpse going to the grave. This room was already occupied by an
old solitary student of Port Royal, named Gordon, who had been
languishing here for two years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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