Queen of the Jesters
Queen of the Jesters
With a Low Warning Roar the beast sprang.
Queen of the Jesters
And Her Strange Adventures
in Old Paris
By
Max Pemberton
Author of “Christine of the Hills”
“A Puritan’s Wife,” etc.
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1897
Copyright, 1897,
By Max Pemberton
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The adventure set out in these pages are taken from certain episodes in the life of Corinne de Montesson, who was long a famous figure in the Paris of Louis XV. Disdaining alike the salons of the great, where her wit would have given her a distinguished place, and the galleries of Versailles, where her indisputable beauty would have commanded a royal welcome, Mademoiselle de Montesson established herself in an old house in Rue St. Paul, and there, surrounded by a little band of wits, scientists, and adventurers, she made it her ambition to become acquainted with the dens of the city. To which end, she practised a generous charity, and rescued more than one notorious rogue from the gibbet. While the lower classes looked upon her now as a worker of miracles, now as a witch, the Court was greedy to hear of those exploits by which her name has come down to us. She had the privilege of entertaining the King on more than one occasion, and enjoyed to the end his support against the Lieutenant of Police, who bewailed her authority over the vagabonds of the city; and against her guardian, the Abbe Morellet, who demanded that she should be sent to a convent of Benedictine nuns. Sufficient to record that her influence was a continuing power in Paris until the year 1779, and that she died at the age of sixty-four years in her château at Fontainebleau.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page I. The Hunger of Ferdinand Dauberval 1 II. The Liberty of the Little Red Man 43 III. A Prison of Swords 83 IV. At the House of the Scarlet Witch 123 V. The Purple Glass 165 VI. The Kingdom of Bourgorieau 203 VII. The Devil's Bowl and the Strange Affair at Fontenay 223 VIII. Yerut the Dwarf 259
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1950, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 73 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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