Excerpt from Fontenay, the Swordsman: A Military Novel It is the autumn of the year 1808, and the declining sun gilds with its slanting beams the lofty trees in Mal maison Park. Then immense and worthy of pride, these gardens were destroyed in 1870, during the Franco German war. The whole plain of Rueil had been annexed and a lawn spread till out of sight behind the palace, shaded by groves here and there and watered by streams of rapid course which fell in cascades into a limpid lake. Such a diversified garden contrasted strongly with the majestic, set plantations of timber and trimmed boxwood clumps of solemn Versailles. The Empress Josephine wished it thus; she delighted in having it embellished, and preferred, to the splendors of the Tuileries palace, this smiling refuge where she had lived her happiest years when only the first consul's wife. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.