The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe

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Title: The Mysteries of Udolpho

Author: Ann Radcliffe

Posting Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3268]
Release Date: June, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO ***

Produced by Karalee Coleman

THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO

A Romance

Interspersed With Some Pieces of Poetry

By Ann Radcliffe

Fate sits on these dark battlements, and frowns,
And, as the portals open to receive me,
Her voice, in sullen echoes through the courts,
Tells of a nameless deed.

VOLUME 1

CHAPTER I

home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polish'd friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.*
*Thomson

On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony, stood,
in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert. From its windows
were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony stretching
along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vine, and plantations of
olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the majestic Pyrenees,
whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful forms, seen, and
lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren,
and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned
with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to their base. These
tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft green of the pastures
and woods that hung upon their skirts; among whose flocks, and herds,
and simple cottages, the eye, after having scaled the cliffs above,
delighted to repose. To the north, and to the east, the plains of
Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of distance; on the west,
Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay.

M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on the margin
of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that floated on its waves. He
had known life in other forms than those of pastoral simplicity,
having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the world; but the
flattering por