traverse the heights and depths of society, scorning to take any place
in it, since all was theirs. If the author learns the reason of their
abdication, he will communicate it.

And now the author is free to give those episodes in the History of
the Thirteen which, by reason of the Parisian flavor of the details or
the strangeness of the contrasts, possessed a peculiar attraction for
him.

Paris




THE THIRTEEN




I.




FERRAGUS,
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC