French and Oriental Love in a Harem

and Oriental Love in a Harem,
by Mario Uchard

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Title: French and Oriental Love in a Harem
Author: Mario Uchard
Illustrator: Paul Avril
Release Date: June 19, 2007 [EBook #21868]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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AND ORIENTAL LOVE ***

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French and Oriental Love in a Harem
by
MARIO UCHARD
with Decorations by Paul Avril
[Illustration]
Privately Issued by FALSTAFF PRESS NEW YORK
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
Château de Férouzat, ..., 18...
No indeed, my dear Louis, I am neither dead nor ruined, nor have I
turned pirate, trappist, or rural guard, as you might imagine in order to
explain my silence these four months since I last appeared at your
illustrious studio. No, you witty giber, my fabulous heritage has not
taken wings! I am dwelling neither in China on the Blue River, nor in
Red Oceania, nor in White Lapland. My yacht, built of teak, still lies in
harbour, and is not swaying me over the vasty deep. It is no good your
spinning out laborious and far-fetched hyperboles on the subject of my
uncle's will: your ironical shafts all miss the mark. My uncle's will
surpasses the most astonishing feat of its kind ever accomplished by
notary's pen; and your poor imagination could not invent, or come
anywhere near inventing, such remarkable adventures as those into
which this registered document has led me.
First of all, in order that your feeble intellect may be enabled to rise to
the level of the subject, I must give you some description of "the
Corsair," as you called him after you met him in Paris last winter; for it
is only by comprehending the peculiarities of his life and character that
you can ever hope to understand my adventures.

Unfortunately, at this very point, a considerable difficulty arises, for
my uncle still remains and always will remain a sort of legendary
personage. Born at Marseilles, he was left an orphan at about the age of
fourteen, alone in the world with one little sister still in the cradle,
whom he brought up, and who subsequently became my mother: hence
his tender regard for me. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the fact
that we two constituted the whole family, I only saw him during the
intervals on shore of his sea-faring life. Endowed with truly remarkable
qualities and with an energy that recognized no obstacles, he was the
best fellow in the world, as you must have observed for yourself; but
certainly he was also, from what I know of him, a most original
character. I don't believe that in the course of his eventful career, he
ever did a single act like other men, unless, may be, in the getting of
children--yet even these were only his "god-children." He has left
fourteen in the Department of Le Gard, scattered over the different
estates on which he lived by turns after he had quitted the East; and we
may well believe he would not have stopped short at that number, but
that four months ago, as he was returning from the South Pole, he
happened to die of a sunstroke, at the age of sixty-three. This last touch
completes the picture of his life. As to his history, all that is known of it
is confined to the following facts:
At the age of twenty-two my uncle turned Turk, from political
conviction. This happened under the Bourbons. The character of his
services in Turkey during the contests between Mehemet Ali and the
Sultan was never very clear, and I fancy he was rather muddled about
them himself, for he served both these princes by turns with equal
courage and equal devotion. As it happened, he was on the side of
Ibrahim at the time that the latter defeated the Turks at the battle of
Konieh; but being carried away in that desperate charge which he
himself led, and which decided the victory, my unfortunate uncle
suffered the disgrace of falling wounded into the hands of the
vanquished party. Being a prisoner to Kurchid-Pasha, and his wound
having soon healed, he was expecting to be impaled, when, to his great
joy, his punishment was commuted to that of the galleys. There he
remained three years without succeeding in effecting