Quentin Durward
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Оглавление
Вальтер Скотт. Quentin Durward
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I: THE CONTRAST
CHAPTER II: THE WANDERER
CHAPTER III: THE CASTLE
CHAPTER IV: THE DEJEUNER
CHAPTER V: THE MAN AT ARMS
CHAPTER VI: THE BOHEMIANS
CHAPTER VII: THE ENROLMENT
CHAPTER VIII: THE ENVOY
CHAPTER IX: THE BOAR HUNT
CHAPTER X: THE SENTINEL
CHAPTER XI: THE HALL OF ROLAND
CHAPTER XII: THE POLITICIAN
CHAPTER XIII: THE JOURNEY
CHAPTER XIV: THE JOURNEY
CHAPTER XV: THE GUIDE
CHAPTER XVI: THE VAGRANT
CHAPTER XVII: THE ESPIED SPY
CHAPTER XVIII: PALMISTRY
CHAPTER XIX: THE CITY
CHAPTER XX: THE BILLET
CHAPTER XXI: THE SACK
CHAPTER XXII: THE REVELLERS
CHAPTER XXIII: THE FLIGHT
CHAPTER XXIV: THE SURRENDER
CHAPTER XXV: THE UNBIDDEN GUEST
CHAPTER XXVI: THE INTERVIEW
CHAPTER XXVII: THE EXPLOSION
CHAPTER XXVIII: UNCERTAINTY
CHAPTER XXIX: RECRIMINATION
CHAPTER XXX: UNCERTAINTY
CHAPTER XXXI: THE INTERVIEW
CHAPTER XXXII: THE INVESTIGATION
CHAPTER XXXIII: THE HERALD
CHAPTER XXXIV: THE EXECUTION
CHAPTER XXXV: A PRIZE FOR HONOUR
CHAPTER XXXVI: THE SALLY
CHAPTER XXXVII: THE SALLY
Отрывок из книги
The latter part of the fifteenth century prepared a train of future events that ended by raising France to that state of formidable power which has ever since been from time to time the principal object of jealousy to the other European nations. Before that period she had to struggle for her very existence with the English already possessed of her fairest provinces while the utmost exertions of her King, and the gallantry of her people, could scarcely protect the remainder from a foreign yoke. Nor was this her sole danger. The princes who possessed the grand fiefs of the crown, and, in particular, the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, had come to wear their feudal bonds so lightly that they had no scruple in lifting the standard against their liege and sovereign lord, the King of France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they reigned as absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of Burgundy, possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest and richest part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful, as to yield nothing to the crown, either in splendour or in strength.
In imitation of the grand feudatories, each inferior vassal of the crown assumed as much independence as his distance from the sovereign power, the extent of his fief, or the strength of his chateau enabled him to maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer amenable to the exercise of the law, perpetrated with impunity the wildest excesses of fantastic oppression and cruelty. In Auvergne alone, a report was made of more than three hundred of these independent nobles, to whom incest, murder, and rapine were the most ordinary and familiar actions.
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“Ah, my young friend,” answered his companion, “my gossip hath somewhat an ugly favour to look upon at the first; but those who become acquainted with him never are known to complain of him.”
Quentin Durward found something singularly and disagreeably significant in the tone with which this was spoken; and, looking suddenly at the speaker, thought he saw in his countenance, in the slight smile that curled his upper lip, and the accompanying twinkle of his keen dark eye, something to justify his unpleasing surprise. “I have heard of robbers,” he thought to himself, “and of wily cheats and cutthroats – what if yonder fellow be a murderer, and this old rascal his decoy duck! I will be on my guard – they will get little by me but good Scottish knocks.”
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