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Title: The Immortal
Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877

Author: Alphonse Daudet

Translator: A. W. Verrall And Margaret D. G. Verrall

Release Date: June 12, 2008 [EBook #25766]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE IMMORTAL;

OR, ONE OF THE "FORTY." (L'IMMORTEL.)

By Alphonse Daudet,

Translated From The French By A. W. Verrall And Margaret D. G. Verrall

Rand, McNally & Company, Publishers - 1889

IMMORTAL; OR, THE "FORTY." (L'IMMORTEL)

CHAPTER I.

In the 1880 edition of Men of the Day, under the heading _Astier-Rehu_,
may be read the following notice:--

Astier, commonly called Astier-Rehu (Pierre Alexandre Leonard), Member
of the Academie Francaise, was born in 1816 at Sauvagnat (Puy-de-Dome).
His parents belonged to the class of small farmers. He displayed from
his earliest years a remarkable aptitude for the study of history. His
education, begun at Riom and continued at Louis-le-Grand, where he
was afterwards to re-appear as professor, was more sound than is now
fashionable, and secured his admission to the Ecole Normale Superieure,
from which he went to the Chair of History at the Lycee of Mende. It
was here that he wrote the Essay on Marcus Aurelius, crowned by
the Academie Francaise. Called to Paris the following year by M. de
Salvandy, the young and brilliant professor showed his sense of the
discerning favour extended to him by publishing, in rapid succession,
The Great Ministers of Louis XIV. (crowned by the Academie Francaise),
Bonaparte and the Concordat (crowned by the Academie Francaise), and
the admirable Introduction to the History of the House of Orleans, a
magnificent prologue to the work which was to occupy twenty years of his
life. This time the Academie, having no more crowns to offer him, gave
him a seat among its members. He could scarcely be called a stranger
there, having married Mlle. Rehu, daughter of the lamented Paulin Rehu,
the celebrated architect, member of the Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres, an