Hawley Smart - "Belles and Ringers"

Ignatius Donnelly - "Atlantis: The Antideluvian World"

F. Scott Fitzgerald - "Flappers and Philosophers"

Voltaire - "Le Monde comme il va, vision de Babouc"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

An Enemy To The King

R >> Robert Neilson Stephens >> An Enemy To The King




"The devil!" said I. "La Chatre's soldiers coming back from Maury!"

We had ridden down the descent leading from the chateau along the town
wall, and had left the town some distance behind, so that the mountains
now loomed large before us. But we had not yet passed the place where the
roads converged.

"If we can only get into the mountain road before they reach this one, we
shall not meet them," I went on. "Forward, men!"

"But," said Blaise, astonished and frowning, but riding on beside
me, "they will reach this road before we pass the junction. Do you
wish them to take us in the flank? See, they have seen us and are
pressing forward!"

"If we reach our road in time, we shall lead them a chase. Go to the head
and set the pace at a gallop!"

"And have them overtake us and fall on our rear?"

"You mutinous rascal, don't you see that they are three times our number?
We stand better chance in flight than in fight! But, no, you are right!
They are too near the junction. We must face them. I shall go to the
head. Julie, my betrothed, I must leave you for a time. Roquelin and
Sabray shall fall behind with you, Jeannotte, and the two boys."

"I shall not leave your side!" she said, resolutely.

"Oh, mademoiselle!" cried Jeannotte, in a great fright.

"You may fall back, if you like," said Julie to her. "I shall not."

All this time we were going forward and the governor's troops were
rapidly nearing the junction. We could now plainly hear the noise they
made, which, because of that made by ourselves, we had not heard sooner.
They were looking at us with curiosity, and were evidently determined to
intercept us.

"Julie, consider! There may be great danger."

"If you are endangered, why should not I be? This is not the night,
Ernanton, on which you should ask me to leave you."

"Then I shall at least remain here," said I. "Go to the head, Blaise. But
if there is a challenge, I shall answer it. Perhaps they will not know us
and we can make them think we are friends."

He rode forward with sparkling eyes, although not before casting one
glance of solicitude at Jeannotte, who did not leave her mistress.

The men eagerly looked to their arms as they rode, and they exchanged
conjectures in low, quick tones, casting many a curious look at the
approaching force. Julie and I kept silence, I wondering what would be
the outcome of this encounter.

Suddenly, when the head of their long, somewhat straggling line had just
reached the junction, and Blaise was but a short distance from it, came
from their leader--La Chatre's equerry, I think--the order to halt, and
then the clear, sharp cry:

"Who goes there?"

Before I could answer, a familiar voice near their leader cried out:

"It is his company,--La Tournoire's,--I swear it! I know the big fellow
at the head."

The voice was that of the foppish, cowardly rascal of De Berquin's band.
I now saw that the three fellows left by Blaise at Maury were held as
prisoners by the governor's troops. Poor Jacques, doubtless, thought to
get his freedom or some reward for crying out our identity.

"I shall wring your neck yet, lap-dog!" roared Blaise.

All chance of passing under false colors was now gone. A battle with
thrice our force seemed imminent. What would befall Julie if they should
be too much for us? The thought made me sick with horror. At that instant
I remembered something.

"Halt!" I cried to the men. "I shall return in a moment, sweetheart.
Monsieur, the captain," and I rode forward towards the leader of the
governor's troops, "your informant speaks truly. Permit me to introduce
myself. I am the Sieur de la Tournoire, the person named in that order."
With which I politely handed him the pass that I had forced from La
Chatre, which I had for a time forgotten.

It was about three hours after midnight, and the moon was not yet very
low. The captain, taken by surprise in several respects, mechanically
grasped the document and read it.

"It is a--a pass," he said, presently, staring at it and at me in a
bewildered manner.

"As you see, for myself and all my company," said I; "signed by M. de
la Chatre."

"Yes, it is his signature."

"His seal, also, you will observe."

"I do. Yet, it is strange. Certain orders that I have received,--in fact,
orders to which I have just been attending,--make this very surprising. I
cannot understand--"

"It is very simple. While you were attending to your orders, I was making
a treaty with M. de la Chatre. In accordance with it, he wrote the pass.
He will, doubtless, relate the purport of our interview as soon as you
return to the chateau. I know that he is impatient for your coming.
Therefore, since you have seen the pass, I shall not detain you longer."

"But--I do not know--it is, indeed, the writing of M. de la Chatre--it
seems quite right, yet monsieur, since all is right, you will not
object to returning with me to the chateau that M. de la Chatre may
verify his pass?"

"Since all is right, there is no use in my doing so; and it would be most
annoying to M. de la Chatre to be asked to verify his own writing,
especially as the very object of this pass was to avoid my being delayed
on my march this night."

The captain, a young and handsome gentleman, with a frank look and a
courteous manner, hesitated.

"Monsieur will understand," I went on, "that every minute we stand here
opposes the purpose for which that pass was given."

"I begin to see," he said, with a look of pleasurable discovery. "You
have changed sides, monsieur? You have repented of your errors and have
put your great skill and courage at the service of M. de la Chatre?"

"It is for M. de la Chatre to say what passed between us this evening,"
said I, with a discreet air. "Then _an revoir_, captain! I trust we shall
meet again."

And I took back the pass, and ordered my men forward, as if the young
captain had already given me permission to go on. Then I saluted him, and
returned to Julie. The captain gazed at us in a kind of abstraction as we
passed. His men were as dumbfounded as my own. His foremost horsemen had
heard the short conversation concerning the pass, and were, doubtless, as
much at a loss as their leader was. When we were well in the mountain
road, I heard him give the order to march, and, looking back, I saw them
turn wearily up the road to the chateau. We continued to put distance
between ourselves and Clochonne.

On the northern slope of the mountains, we made but one stop. That was at
Godeau's, where we had a short rest and some wine. I gave the good
Marianne a last gold piece, received her Godspeed, and took up our march,
this time ignoring the forest path to Maury, following the old road
southward instead. It would be time to set up our camp when we should be
out of the province of Berry.

It was while we were yet ascending the northern slope of the mountains,
and the moon still shone now and then from the west through the trees,
that we talked, Julie and I, of the time that lay before us. It mattered
not to me under which form our marriage should be. One creed was to me
only a little the better of the two, in that it involved less of
subjection, but if the outward profession of the other would facilitate
our union, I would make that profession, reserving always my sword and my
true sympathies for the side that my fathers had taken. But when I
proposed this, Julie said that I ought not even to assume the appearance
of having changed my colors, and that it was for her, the woman, to
adopt mine, therefore she would abjure and we should be married as
Protestants. She could answer for the consent of her father, who could
not refuse his preserver and hers. It pleased me that she made no mention
of her lack of dowry, for their little estate would certainly be
confiscated after her father's flight. Judging my love by her own, she
knew that I valued herself alone above all the fortunes in the world. We
would, then, be united as soon as her father, guided by Frojac, should
join us in Guienne. She and her father should then go to Nerac, there to
await my return from the war that was now imminent; for I was to continue
advancing my fortunes by following those of our Henri on the field. Some
day our leader would overcome his enemies and mount the throne that the
fated Henri III.--ailing survivor of three short-lived brothers--would
soon leave vacant. Then our King would restore us our estates, I should
rebuild La Tournoire, and there we should pass our days in the peace that
our Henri's accession would bring his kingdom. Blaise should marry
Jeannotte and be our steward.

So we gave word to our intentions and hopes, those that I have here
written and many others. Some have been realized, and some have not, but
all that I have here written have been.

Once, years after that night, having gone up to Paris to give our two
eldest children a glimpse of the court, we were walking through the
gallery built by our great Henri IV., to connect the Louvre with the
Tuileries, when my son asked me who was the painted fat old lady that was
staring so hard at him as if she had seen him before. In turn I asked the
Abbe Brantome, who happened to be passing.

"It is the Marquise de Pirillaume," he said. "She was a gallant lady in
the reign of Henri III. She was Mlle. d'Arency and very beautiful."

I turned my eyes from her to Julie at my side,--to Julie, as fair and
slender and beautiful still as on that night when we rode together with
my soldiers towards Guienne, in the moonlight.

THE END.

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