Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... was so weak in health. The truth was, they had only succeeded in purchasing one child, and the buying of the other might stand over till a favourable opportunity offered. On the very night of his birth it was claimed that he was carried away to the country to be left at nurse in a village!" Though he was weak, richetty," always ill, during three weeks his mother never went to see him. She even left the city for Rheims without ever seeing him. All this was admitted in the case; and then for sixteen months was he left at the village, in the hands of strangers, without any of her friends at Paris being asked to look after him or inquire about him! Of course this was assuming the truth of the fabricated story, for there was, of course, no child to look after or visit, for he had not yet been found; but the tale is inconsistent with the case of a real child who had been born to her. Again it must be asked, Is all this confusion and tracasserie consistent with a plain, genuine, honest birth, taking place in the light of day, and without fear of anything or of any investigation? But now a fresh embarrassment for the pair was the matter of the baptism. How was this to be contrived? The bought child had indeed been baptized by its own legitimate parents, but it would be dangerous to register it according to law afresh. Still the pair felt that as the incidents of the birth were so wrapped in mystery, it was necessary to have some sort of official recognition or proclamation of the event which could be appealed to in times to come. What could be better than a public and ostentatious christening at Rheims? But the parties were all Protestants, and even if a minister could be procured, it must necessarily have been of a private character. But it...
