the many difficulties, the many essential details of a drama so
doubly dreadful and so cruelly bloody. Among the reasons which
render me now almost, it may be thought, foolhardy, I count the
desire to finish a work long designed to be to you a proof of my
deep and lasting gratitude for a friendship that has ever been
among my greatest consolations in misfortune.

De Balzac.




SONS OF THE SOIL




PART I

Whoso land hath, contention hath.



CHAPTER I

THE CHATEAU

Les Aigues, August 6, 1823.

To Monsieur Nathan,