Manon Lescaut, The Abbé Prévost [best summer reads .TXT] 📗

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Manon Lescaut

by the Abbe Prevost

March, 1996 [Etext #468]

Project Gutenberg’s Etext of Manon Lescaut by the Abbe Prevost

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MANON LESCAUT I

Why did he love her? Curious fool, be still!

Is human love the fruit of human will?

BYRON.

Just about six months before my departure for Spain, I first met the Chevalier des Grieux. Though I rarely quitted my retreat, still the interest I felt in my child’s welfare induced me occasionally to undertake short journeys, which, however, I took good care to abridge as much as possible.

I was one day returning from Rouen, where I had been, at her request, to attend a cause then pending before the Parliament of Normandy, respecting an inheritance to which I had claims derived from my maternal grandfather. Having taken the road by Evreux, where I slept the first night, I on the following day, about dinner-time, reached Passy, a distance of five or six leagues. I was amazed, on entering this quiet town, to see all the inhabitants in commotion. They were pouring from their houses in crowds, towards the gate of a small inn, immediately before which two covered vans were drawn up. Their horses still in harness, and reeking from fatigue and heat, showed that the cortege had only just arrived. I stopped for a moment to learn the cause of the tumult, but could gain little information from