Millman's Tales, Adapted for the Higher Classes of Youth

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PRIDE HUMILITY. Towards the close of the last century, there resided on the domains of his ancestors, in the southern part of Gascony, the Marquis de Carcassone. His family ranked amongst the most illustrious in -France: its founder had distinguished himself in the celebrated battle fought and gained by...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PRIDE HUMILITY. Towards the close of the last century, there resided on the domains of his ancestors, in the southern part of Gascony, the Marquis de Carcassone. His family ranked amongst the most illustrious in -France: its founder had distinguished himself in the celebrated battle fought and gained by Charles Martel, against the Saracens. He had saved the life of his general, and made the noblest of the Emirs a captive. The last sovereign of the Merovingian dynasty, had conferred upon him extensive possessions in Guienne and Gascony; considerable portions of which, had descended to the present Marquis. The mansion of the Marquis, constructed in the reign of Philip Augustus, was a baronial castle of great strength: successive occupants had added to, or altered the structure, according totbeir own caprice, or the fluctuations of architectural taste. It was a perfect quadrangle, sorrounded by a deep moat, passable only by a drawbridge. The vast hall contained the armorial bearings of the family, and the quarterings of those illustrious houses, to which, in the course of many ages, its chiefs had been allied. In niches of the walls, covered with undisturbed dust, were coats of mail, that had been worn by many warriors who had supported the high pretensions of the Carcassone family, in tournaments and battles. From the lofty roof, depended various standards enriched with heraldic lore: swords of an antique fashion, which had once been crimsoned to the hilt, in hostile blood, now rested in a peaceful oblivion. An enormous fire-place, the replenishing of which with fuel, had thinned the neighbouring forests, occupied nearly the whole breadth of the hall, at its furthest extremity. Huge painted windows, in massive sculptured stone mullions, reflected a picturesque and many-co...