The curious case which I am about to place before you, is referred to, very pointedly, and more than once, in the extraordinary essay upon the drugs of the Dark and the Middle Ages, from the pen of Do...

In the eventful year, 1815, I was exactly three-and-twenty, and had just succeeded to a very large sum in consols, and other securities. The first fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to Eng...

The face was, indeed, one to fall in love with at first sight. Those sentiments that take such sudden possession of young men were now dominating my curiosity. My audacity faltered before her; and I f...

When the day drags, when a man is solitary, and in a fever of impatience and suspense; when the minute-hand of his watch travels as slowly as the hour-hand used to do, and the hour-hand has lost all a...

Full of this exciting hope, I sauntered out, upon the steps of the Belle Étoile. It was now night, and a pleasant moonlight over everything. I had entered more into my romance since my arrival, and th...

The French army were in a rather savage temper, just then. The English, especially, had but scant courtesy to expect at their hands. It was plain, however, that the cadaverous gentleman who had just a...

A man who has been posting all day long, and changing the air he breathes every half hour, who is well pleased with himself, and has nothing on earth to trouble him, and who sits alone by a fire in a ...

I was too quick for Colonel Gaillarde. As he raised his sword, reckless of all consequences but my condign punishment, and quite resolved to cleave me to the teeth, I struck him across the side of his...

I have suffered extreme and protracted bodily pain, at different periods of my life, but anything like that misery, thank God, I never endured before or since. I earnestly hope it may not resemble any...

My eventful journey was over, at last. I sat in my hotel window looking out upon brilliant Paris, which had, in a moment, recovered all its gaiety, and more than its accustomed bustle. Everyone has re...

Speaking the language fluently and with unlimited money, there was nothing to prevent my enjoying all that was enjoyable in the French capital. You may easily suppose how two days were passed. At the ...

I took one look about me. The building was picturesque; the trees made it more so. The antique and sequestered character of the scene, contrasted strangely with the glare and bustle of the Parisian li...

No more brilliant spectacle than this masked ball could be imagined. Among other salons and galleries, thrown open, was the enormous perspective of the “Grande Galerie des Glaces,” lighted up on that ...

I forgot for a moment how impervious my mask and domino were to the hard stare of the old campaigner, and was preparing for an animated scuffle. It was only for a moment, of course; but the Count caut...

We wandered through the salons, the Marquis and I. It was no easy matter to find a friend in rooms so crowded. “Stay here,” said the Marquis, “I have thought of a way of finding him. Besides, his jeal...

These fêtes were earlier in those days, and in France, than our modern balls are in London. I consulted my watch. It was a little past twelve. It was a still and sultry night; the magnificent suite of...

There was no danger of the Dragon Volant’s closing its doors on that occasion till three or four in the morning. There were quartered there many servants of great people, whose masters would not leave...

The Marquis called on me next day. My late breakfast was still upon the table. He had come, he said, to ask a favour. An accident had happened to his carriage in the crowd on leaving the ball, and he ...

Our dinner was really good, so were the wines; better, perhaps, at this out-of-the-way inn, than at some of the more pretentious hotels in Paris. The moral effect of a really good dinner is immense⁠—w...

I stood now upon the steps, watching and listening. In a minute or two I heard the crackle of withered sticks trod upon, and, looking in the direction, I saw a figure approaching among the trees, wrap...

I was now upon the road, within two or three hundred yards of the Dragon Volant. I had undertaken an adventure with a vengeance! And by way of prelude, there not improbably awaited me, at my inn, anot...

I awoke very early next morning, and was too excited to sleep again. As soon as I could, without exciting remark, I saw my host. I told him that I was going into town that night, and thence to ⸻, wher...

Down the screw-stair I went in utter darkness; and having reached the stone floor, I discerned the door and groped out the keyhole. With more caution, and less noise than upon the night before, I open...

The room was carpetless. On the floor were a quantity of shavings, and some score of bricks. Beyond these, on a narrow table, lay an object, which I could hardly believe I saw aright. I approached and...

She had scarcely set down my heavy box, which she seemed to have considerable difficulty in raising on the table, when the door of the room in which I had seen the coffin, opened, and a sinister and u...

A moment’s hope, hope violent and fluctuating, hope that was nearly torture, and then came a dialogue, and with it the terrors of despair. “Thank heaven, Planard, you have come at last,” said the Coun...

“Those seem to be good horses, and we change on the way,” said Planard. “You give the men a Napoleon or two; we must do it within three hours and a quarter. Now, come; I’ll lift him, upright, so as to...