Agnes Sorel

The Hundred Years' War: a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois, rulers of the Kingdom of France, over the succession to the French throne. It was a time of intrigue, plot, murder and romance. Agnes Sorel, aged 20, became the favorite mistress of the King of France, wielding much influence over him and earning many enemies. Her untimely death at the age of 28, just days after bearing him a fourth child, was blamed on dysentery. In this novel, we follow the trials of Jean Charost, secretary to the Duke of Orleans and brother of the king; and see how his life was entwined with that of the beautiful Agnes.


By : George Payne Rainsford James (1799 - 1860)

01 - Chapter I



02 - Chapter II



03 - Chapter III



04 - Chapter IV



05 - Chapter V



06 - Chapter VI



07 - Chapter VII



08 - Chapter VIII



09 - Chapter IX



10 - Chapter X



11 - Chapter XI



12 - Chapter XII



13 - Chapter XIII



14 - Chapter XIV



15 - Chapter XV



16 - Chapter XVI



17 - Chapter XVII



18 - Chapter XVIII



19 - Chapter XIX



20 - Chapter XX



21 - Chapter XXI



22 - Chapter XXII



23 - Chapter XXIII



24 - Chapter XXIV



25 - Chapter XXV



26 - Chapter XXVI



27 - Chapter XXVII



28 - Chapter XXVIII



29 - Chapter XXIX



30 - Chapter XXX



31 - Chapter XXXI



32 - Chapter XXXII



33 - Chapter XXXIII



34 - Chapter XXXIV



35 - Chapter XXXV



36 - Chapter XXXVI



37 - Chapter XXXVII



38 - Chapter XXXVIII



39 - Chapter XXXIX



40 - Chapter XL



41 - Chapter XLI



42 - Chapter XLII



43 - Chapter XLIII



44 - Chapter XLIV



45 - Chapter XLV



46 - Chapter XLVI



47 - Chapter XLVII



48 - Chapter XLVIII



49 - Chapter XLIX



50 - Chapter L



51 - Chapter LI



52 - Chapter LII



53 - Chapter LIII


How strange the sensation would be, how marvelously interesting the scene, were we to wake up from some quiet night's rest and find ourselves suddenly transported four or five hundred years back--living and moving among the men of a former age!

To pass from the British fortress of Gibraltar, with drums and fifes, red coats and bayonets, in a few hours, to the coast of Africa, and find one's self surrounded by Moors and male petticoats, turbans and cimeters, is the greatest transition the world affords at present; but it is nothing to that of which I speak. How marvelously interesting would it be, also, not only to find one's self brought in close contact with the customs, manners, and characteristics of a former age, with all our modern notions strong about us, but to be met at every turn by thoughts, feelings, views, principles, springing out of a totally different state of society, which have all passed away, and moldered, like the garments in which at that time men decorated themselves.

Such, however, is the leap which I wish the reader to take at the present moment; and--although I know it to be impossible for him to divest himself of all those modern impressions which are a part of his identity--to place himself with me in the midst of a former period, and to see himself surrounded for a brief space with the people, and the things, and the thoughts of the fifteenth century.

Let me premise, however, in this prefatory chapter, that the object of an author, in the minute detail of local scenery and ancient customs, which he is sometimes compelled to give, and which are often objected to by the animals with long ears that browse on the borders of Parnassus, is not so much to show his own learning in antiquarian lore, as to imbue his reader with such thoughts and feelings as may enable him to comprehend the motives of the persons acting before his eyes, and the sensations, passions, and prejudices of ages passed away. Were we to take an unsophisticated rustic, and baldly tell him, without any previous intimation of the habits of the time, that the son of a king of England one day went out alone--or, at best, with a little boy in his company--all covered over with iron; that he betook himself to a lone and desolate pass in the mountains, traversed by a high road, and sat upon horseback by the hour together, with a spear in his hand, challenging every body who passed to fight him, the unsophisticated rustic would naturally conclude that the king's son was mad, and would expect to hear of him next in Bedlam, rather than on the throne of England. I let any one tell him previously of the habits, manners, and customs of those days, and the rustic--though he may very well believe that the whole age was mad--will understand and appreciate the motives of the individual, saying to himself, "This man was not a bit madder than the rest."

However, this book is not intended to be a mere painting of the customs of the fifteenth century, but rather a picture of certain characters of that period, dressed somewhat in the garb of the times, and moved by those springs of action which influenced men in the age to which I refer. It has been said, and justly, that human nature is the same in all ages; but as a musical instrument will produce many different tones, according to the hand which touches it, so will human nature present many different aspects, according to the influences by which it is affected. At all events, I claim a right to play my own tune upon my violin, and what skills it if that tune be an air of the olden times. No one need listen who does not like it...

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