The Elusive Pimpernel
The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, available in Auren as a public-domain ebook in the United States.
I
On! ever on! in that wild, surging torrent; sowing the wind of anarchy, of terrorism, of lust of blood and hate, and reaping a hurricane of destruction and of horror.
On! ever on! France, with Paris and all her children still rushes blindly, madly on; defies the powerful coalition—Austria, England, Spain, Prussia, all joined together to stem the flow of carnage—defies the Universe and defies God!
Paris this September 1793!—or shall we call it Vendemiaire, Year I of the Republic?—call it what we will! Paris! a city of bloodshed, of humanity in its lowest, most degraded aspect. France herself a gigantic self-devouring monster, her fairest cities destroyed, Lyons razed to the ground, Toulon, Marseilles, masses of blackened ruins, her bravest sons turned to lustful brutes or to abject cowards seeking safety at the cost of any humiliation.
Edition source: Standard Ebooks
