When the pope left his good town of Avignon to take up his residence in Rome, certain pilgrims were thrown out who had set out for this country, and would have to pass the high Alps, in order to gain this said town of Rome, where they were going to seek the /remittimus/ of various […]

The old chronicler who furnished the hemp to weave the present story, is said to have lived at the time when the affair occurred in the City of Rouen. In the environs of this fair town, where at the time dwelt Duke Richard, an old man used to beg, whose name was Tryballot, but to […]

During the time when knights courteously offered to each other both help and assistance in seeking their fortune, it happened that in Sicily–which, as you are probably aware, is an island situated in the corner of the Mediterranean Sea, and formerly celebrated–one knight met in a wood another knight, who had the appearance of a […]

The Maid of Portillon, who became as everyone knows, La Tascherette, was, before she became a dyer, a laundress at the said place of Portillon, from which she took her name. If any there be who do not know Tours, it may be as well to state that Portillon is down the Loire, on the […]

One day that it was drizzling with rain–a time when the ladies remain gleefully at home, because they love the damp, and can have at their apron strings the men who are not disagreeable to them–the queen was in her chamber, at the castle of Amboise, against the window curtains. There, seated in her chair, […]

In the good town of Bourges, at the time when that lord the king disported himself there, who afterwards abandoned his search after pleasure to conquer the kingdom, and did indeed conquer it, lived there a provost, entrusted by him with the maintenance of order, and called the provost-royal. From which came, under the glorious […]

During the first years of the thirteenth century after the coming of our Divine Saviour there happened in the City of Paris an amorous adventure, through the deed of a man of Tours, of which the town and even the king’s court was never tired of speaking. As to the clergy, you will see by […]

Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei. PAZ (LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE) I In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourg Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of the Marquis du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a young Polish exile. We ask permission to write these […]

To Monsieur Charles Bernard du Grail. SARRASINE I was buried in one of those profound reveries to which everybody, even a frivolous man, is subject in the midst of the most uproarious festivities. The clock on the Elysee-Bourbon had just struck midnight. Seated in a window recess and concealed behind the undulating folds of a […]

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION To Puttinati, Milanese Sculptor. CHAPTER I PROLOGUE In the year 1800, toward the close of October, a foreigner, accompanied by a woman and a little girl, was standing for a long time in front of the palace of the Tuileries, near the ruins of a house recently pulled down, […]

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION To Theophile Gautier CHAPTER I THE LAST WORD OF TWO GREAT COQUETTES After the disasters of the revolution of July, which destroyed so many aristocratic fortunes dependent on the court, Madame la Princesse de Cadignan was clever enough to attribute to political events the total ruin she had caused […]

To Monsieur le General Baron de Pommereul, a token of the friendship between our fathers, which survives in their sons. –DE BALZAC. There is a special variety of human nature obtained in the Social Kingdom by a process analogous to that of the gardener’s craft in the Vegetable Kingdom, to wit, by the forcing-house–a species […]

Every one knows through what adventure King Francis, the first of that name, was taken like a silly bird and led into the town of Madrid, in Spain. There the Emperor Charles V. kept him carefully locked up, like an article of great value, in one of his castles, in the which our defunct sire, […]

The Abbey of Poissy has been rendered famous by old authors as a place of pleasure, where the misconduct of the nuns first began, and whence proceeded so many good stories calculated to make laymen laugh at the expense of our holy religion. The said abbey by this means became fertile in proverbs, which none […]

Jehan, son of Simon Fourniez, called Simonnin, a citizen of Tours– originally of the village of Moulinot, near to Beaune, whence, in imitation of certain persons, he took the name when he became steward to Louis the Eleventh–had to fly one day into Languedoc with his wife, having fallen into great disgrace, and left his […]

The Lord of Montcontour was a brave soldier of Tours, who in honour of the battle gained by the Duke of Anjou, afterwards our right glorious king, caused to be built at Vouvray the castle thus named, for he had borne himself most bravely in that affair, where he overcame the greatest of heretics, and […]

When, for the last time, came Master Francis Rabelais, to the court of King Henry the Second of the name, it was in that winter when the will of nature compelled him to quit for ever his fleshly garb, and live forever in his writings resplendent with that good philosophy to which we shall always […]

At the time when King Charles the Eighth took it into his head to decorate the castle of Amboise, they came with him certain workmen, master sculptors, good painters, and masons, or architects, who ornamented the galleries with splendid works, which, through neglect, have since been much spoiled. At that time the court was staying […]

The /Inn of the Three Barbels/ was formerly at Tours, the best place in the town for sumptuous fare; and the landlord, reputed the best of cooks, went to prepare wedding breakfasts as far as Chatelherault, Loches, Vendome, and Blois. This said man, an old fox, perfect in his business, never lighted lamps in the […]

In I know not what year a Parisian banker, who had very extensive commercial relations with Germany, was entertaining at dinner one of those friends whom men of business often make in the markets of the world through correspondence; a man hitherto personally unknown to him. This friend, the head of a rather important house […]