"De Balzac, Honore - Ferragus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Balzac Honore De)

programme. Dramas steeped in blood, comedies filled with terror,
romantic tales through which rolled heads mysteriously decapitated,
have been confided to him. If readers were not surfeited with horrors
served up to them of late in cold blood, he might reveal the calm
atrocities, the surpassing tragedies concealed under family life. But
he chooses in preference gentler events,--those where scenes of purity
succeed the tempests of passion; where woman is radiant with virtue
and beauty. To the honor of the THIRTEEN be it said that there are
such scenes in their history, which may have the honor of being some
day published as a foil of tales to listeners,--that race apart from
others, so curiously energetic, and so interesting in spite of its
crimes.

An author ought to be above converting his tale, when the tale is
true, into a species of surprise-game, and of taking his readers, as
certain novellists do, through many volumes and from cellar to cellar,
to show them the dry bones of a dead body, and tell them, by way of
conclusion, that THAT is what has frightened them behind doors, hidden
in the arras, or in cellars where the dead man was buried and
forgotten. In spite of his aversion for prefaces, the author feels
bound to place the following statement at the head of this narrative.
Ferragus is a first episode which clings by invisible links to the
"History of the THIRTEEN," whose power, naturally acquired, can alone
explain certain acts and agencies which would otherwise seem
supernatural. Although it is permissible in tellers of tales to have a
sort of literary coquetry in becoming historians, they ought to
renounce the benefit that may accrue from an odd or fantastic title--
on which certain slight successes have been won in the present day.
Consequently, the author will now explain, succinctly, the reasons
that obliged him to select a title to his book which seems at first
sight unnatural.

FERRAGUS is, according to ancient custom, a name taken by the chief or
Grand Master of the Devorants. On the day of their election these
chiefs continue whichever of the dynasties of their Order they are
most in sympathy with, precisely as the Popes do, on their accession,
in connection with pontifical dynasties. Thus the Devorants have
"Trempe-la Soupe IX.," "Ferragus XXII.," "Tutanus XIII.," "Masche-Fer
IV.," just as the Church has Clement XIV., Gregory VII., Julius II.,
Alexander VI., etc.

Now, then, who are the Devorants? "Devorant" is the name of one of
those tribes of "Companions" that issued in ancient times from the
great mystical association formed among the workers of Christianity to
rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. Companionism (to coin a word) still
exists in France among the people. Its traditions, powerful over minds
that are not enlightened, and over men not educated enough to cast
aside an oath, might serve the ends of formidable enterprises if some
rough-hewn genius were to seize hold of these diverse associations.
All the instruments of this Companionism are well-nigh blind. From