Excerpt from Scenes of Parisian Life, Vol. 6: History of the Thirteen; Ferragus; La Duchesse De Langeais Since the death of Napoleon, an accident con cerning which the author should still preserve silence, has dissolved the bonds of this life, as secret and curious, as the darkest of the romances of Mrs. Radcliffe. The permission, sufficiently remarkable in itself, to relate, in his own manner, some of the adventures of these men, always with respect for certain proprieties, has only recently been given him by one of these anonymous heroes to whom all branches of society were secretly sub ject, and in whom the author believes himself to have discovered a vague desire for celebrity. This man, in appearance still young, with light hair and blue eyes, whose voice, soft and clear, seemed to reveal a feminine soul, was pale of com plexion and mysterious in his manners; he con versed affably, pretended to be only forty years of age, and might have been a member of the highest class of society. The name which he had assumed appeared to be a fictitious one; in the gay world his person was unknown. Who is he? No one knows. 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.