Monsieur Henri: A Foot-Note to French History

"MONSIEUR HENRI": A FOOT-NOTE TO FRENCH HISTORY. B

This ebook is dedicated to
Emmy
friend, colleague, mentor, role model,
who fell off the planet far too soon.

TO
MADAME MARIE-ANGE BONDROIT
R.S.C.J.

When you were first an exile, and at Elmhurst, I was a child. Six studious years we had together, many games, a tiff or two, much silent love. It is because I do not forget any of them, and because it may stand as a little token of an honorable and lifelong debt, that to you, my dear old friend, without asking your leave, I dedicate this book.

“I have looked narrowly into this war of La VendÉe, full as it is of scenes and faces; I have thought of it by day, and dreamed of it by night. It is not cold, commonplace war, waged for ambition and policy, nor for commercial advantage; it is a war deep-rooted in the soil and in the conscience of man; a war all for family and fatherland, in the antique impassioned way; a Homeric war, inspiring dread and admiration, pity and love.... Everything in it calls for the palette and the lyre.”—A Republican officer, quoted by AbbÉ Deniau, Histoire de la Guerre de la VendÉe.

“And mark you, undemonstrative men would have spoiled the situation. The finest action is the better for a piece of purple.”—Robert Louis Stevenson, in The English Admirals.

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