Under the red robe by Stanley John Weyman
‘If you have never robbed a man – or a woman – of honour! If you have never ruined boy or girl, Monsieur de Berault! If you have never pushed another into the pit and gone by it yourself! If – but, for murder?’… Thus the lovely Mademoiselle de Cocheforêt seeks to reach the heart of the ill-famed Gil de Berault, known throughout Paris as ‘The Black Death’. And the hardened duellist sent to spy out and arrest her brother feels the first stirrings of shame. ‘Her gentleness, her pity, her humility softened me, while they convicted me. My God, how, after this, could I do that which I had come to do?’
This swashbuckling story of love and hate, intrigue and adventure, in the reign of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII of France, has been a best-seller ever since its first appearance in 1894. It will delight all peacock readers, boys as well as girls, with a liking for historical novels.
First published January 1, 1894
It was bold to take Richelieu and his time as a subject and thus to challenge comparison with Dumas’s immortal musketeers; but the result justifies the boldness…. The plot is admirably clear and strong, the diction singularly concise and telling, and the stirring events are so managed as not to degenerate into sensationalism. Few better novels of adventure than this have ever been written.
