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 THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS

CHAPTER I

ENEATH the shadow of St. Sulpice the ancient mansion of the d’Esparvieu family rears its austere three stories between a forecourt and a garden hemmed in, as the years have elapsed, by ever loftier and more intrusive buildings, wherein, nevertheless, two tall chestnut trees still lift their withered heads.

Here from 1825 to 1857 dwelt the great man of the family, Alexandre Bussart d’Esparvieu, of the Council of State under the Government of July, Member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, and author of an Essay on the Civil and Religious Institutions of Nations, in three octavo volumes, a work unfortunately left incomplete.