The Project Gutenberg eBook, The House of the Combrays, by G. le Notre,
Translated by Mrs. Joseph B. Gilder

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Title: The House of the Combrays

Author: G. le Notre

Release Date: November 15, 2005 [eBook #17067]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS***

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Transcribers note: A number of spelling errors and inconsistencies
of names have been corrected.

THE HOUSE OF THE COMBRAYS

by

G. LE NOTRE

Translated from the French by Mrs. Joseph B. Gilder

New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
1902
Copyright, 1902, by Dodd, Mead & Company
First Edition Published October, 1902

Contents

PREFACE
I. THE TREACHERY OF JEAN-PIERRE QUERELLE
II. THE CAPTURE OF GEORGES CADOUDAL
III. THE COMBRAYS
IV. THE ADVENTURES OF D'ACHE
V. THE AFFAIR OF QUESNAY
VI. THE YELLOW HORSE
VII. MADAME ACQUET
VIII. PAYING THE PENALTY
IX. THE FATE OF D'ACHE
X. THE CHOUANS SET FREE

PREFACE

AN OLD TOWER

One evening in the winter of 1868 or 1869, my father-in-law, Moisson,
with whom I was chatting after dinner, took up a book that was lying on
the table, open at the page where I had stopped reading, and said:

"Ah! you are reading Mme. de la Chanterie?"

"Yes," I replied. "A fine book; do you know it?"

"Of course! I even know the heroine."

"Mme. de la Chanterie!"

"---- By her real name Mme. de Combray. I lived three months in her
house."

"Rue Chanoinesse?"

"No, not in the Rue Chanoinesse, where she did not live, any more than
she was the saintly woman of Balzac's novel;--but at her Chateau of
Tournebut d'Aubevoye near Gaillon!"

"Gracious, Moisson, tell me about it;" and without further solicitation,
Moisson told me the following story:

"My mother was a Brecourt, whose ancestor was a bastard of Gaston
d'Orleans, and she was on this account a royalist, and very proud of her
nobility. The Brecourts, who were fighting people, had never become
ric