THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING : : : : OR : : : : THE FAMILY OF LEBRENN
Daniel De Leon translation
A Tale of The French Revolution of 1848
B y E U G E N E S U E
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY
DANIEL DE LEON
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY, 1911
Copyright, 1911, by the NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
INDEX
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACEI
CHAPTER
I GILDAS AND JEANIKE 1
II GEORGE DUCHENE19
III MARIK LEBRENN40
IV PRADELINE60
V CARDINAL AND COUNT70
VI JOEL AND NEROWEG82
VII "THE SWORD OF BRENNUS"103
VIII ON THE EVE OF BATTLE113
IX POPULAR JUSTICE127
X ON THE BARRICADE139
XI LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!161
XII THE GALLEY-SLAVE AND THE GENERAL168
XIII HOME AGAIN181
XIV SACROVIR'S BIRTHDAY190
XV THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER198
EPILOGUE219
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
With this story, The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn, closes the series of the nineteen historic novels comprised in Eugene Sue's monumental work The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages.
They who have read the preceding eighteen stories will agree that from the moment they began the first volume of the series, The Gold Sickle; or, Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, down to the eighteenth, The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic, they enjoyed a matchless promenade as they followed Sue through the Ages of History, from the time of the invasion of Gaul by Julius Caesar, shortly before Christ, down to the great epoch marked by the French Revolution. Nor will their expectations concerning this closing story be disappointed.
The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn is staged on the Age that witnessed the downfall of Louis Philippe—the last of the Bourbon line—and the aspirations that raised the Second Republic. While several of the figures are historic, in this story historic characters step forth less pronouncedly than historic principles. In this story are found the Principles, the old and the newest, that have since occupied the stage of man's history, and the clash of which, down to our own days, occupies man's attention.
Inestimable as the previous stories are to the understanding of the Age of the present story, the present story, enlivened with the vein of romance, is inestimable to the understanding of our own Age.
DANIEL DE LEON.
Milford, Conn., February, 1911.