[ "Keep this in remembrance of this day." ]
[Transcriber's note:
Gaps in the source book's page numbering indicate that four illustrations were missing. Physical damage seems to indicate that the frontispiece may also have been missing. Since there was no list of illustrations in the book, it is not known what their captions were. Short transcriber's notes indicate the locations of the missing illustrations.]
CHAPTER I.
I Go to Paris.
"Let the boy go to Paris," exclaimed our guest, Roland Belloc. "I warrant he'll find a path that will lead him to fortune."
"He is young," said my father doubtfully.
"He will be killed," cried my mother, while I stood upright against the wall and looked at Roland gratefully.
It was in 1650, in the days of the Regency, and all France was in an uproar. Our most gracious monarch, Louis XIV., was then a boy of twelve, and his Queen-Mother, Anne of Austria, ruled the country. She had a host of enemies, and only one friend, Cardinal Mazarin, a wily Italian priest, who was perhaps the actual master of France.
Roland Belloc, who was the Cardinal's man, had been staying for a day or two in my father's company. He was a real soldier of fortune, strong as a bull, a fine swordsman, and afraid of no man living. He told us many startling tales of Paris.