Michel and Angele

Michel and Angele

The Project Gutenberg EBook Michel and Angle, by Parker, Complete
#80 in our series by Gilbert Parker
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Title: Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords], Complete
Author: Gilbert Parker
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6253] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 31,
2002]
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AND ANGELE, COMPLETE ***

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MICHEL AND ANGELE, Complete
[A Ladder of Swords]
By Gilbert Parker

INTRODUCTION
If it does not seem too childish a candour to say so, 'Michel and Angele'
always seems to me like some old letter lifted out of an ancient cabinet
with the faint perfume of bygone days upon it. Perhaps that is because
the story itself had its origin in a true but brief record of some good
Huguenots who fled from France and took refuge in England, to be
found, as the book declares, at the Walloon Church, in Southampton.
The record in the first paragraphs of the first chapter of the book
fascinated my imagination, and I wove round Michel de la Foret and
Angele Aubert a soft, bright cloud of romance which would not leave
my vision until I sat down and wrote out what, in the writing, seemed
to me a true history. It was as though some telepathy between the days
of Elizabeth and our own controlled me--self-hypnotism, I suppose; but
still, there it was. The story, in its original form, was first published in
'Harper's Weekly' under the name of Michel and Angele, but the fear, I
think, that many people would mispronounce the first word of the title,
induced me to change it when, double in length, it became a volume
called 'A Ladder of Swords'.
As it originally appeared, I wrote it in the Island of Jersey, out at the
little Bay of Rozel in a house called La Chaire, a few yards away from
the bay itself, and having a pretty garden with a seat at its highest point,
from which, beyond the little bay, the English Channel ran away to the
Atlantic. It was written in complete seclusion. I had no visitors; there
was no one near, indeed, except the landlord of the little hotel in the

bay, and his wife. All through the Island, however, were people whom I
knew, like the Malet de Carterets, the Lemprieres, and old General
Pipon, for whom the Jersey of three hundred years ago was as near as
the Jersey of to-day, so do the Jersiais prize, cultivate, and conserve
every hour of its recorded history.
As the sea opens out to a vessel making between the promontories to
the main, so, while writing this tale which originally was short, the
larger scheme of 'The Battle of the Strong' spread out before me, luring
me, as though in the distance were the Fortunate Isles. Eight years after
'Michel and Angele' was written and first published in 'Harper's
Weekly', I decided to give it the dignity of a full-grown romance. For
years I had felt that it had the essentials for a larger canvas, and at the
earnest solicitation of Messrs. Harper & Brothers I settled to do what
had long been in my mind. The narrative grew as naturally from what it
was to larger stature as anything that had been devised upon a greater
scale at the beginning; and in London town I had the same joy in the
company of Michel and Angele--and a vastly increased joy in the
company of Lempriere, the hulking, joyous giant--as I had years before
in Jersey itself when the story first stirred in my mind and reached my
pen.
While adverse reviews of the book were few if any, it cannot be said
that this romance is a companion in popularity with, for