"Andre Norton & Rosemary Edghill - Carolus Rex 2 - Leopard in Exile" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

PROLOGUE:
The Princes or the Air

(Paris, Walpurgisnacht, 1807)




The ancient house on the twisting Rue de la Morte had been an abode of the gentilesse some centuries
before, but the changing tastes, first of the nobility and then the bourgeoisie, had abandoned it to the
vagaries of Fate. When the Glorious '92 swept away both aristocrat and servant, the houseтАФa thing of
crumbling walls and canted floors long abandoned to mold and rotтАФgained a certain temporary
currency, for the twisting lanes of the worst district in Paris held a real attraction for conspirators and
rebels. But the star of Revolution was eclipsed in turn by the First Consul's Imperial ambitions, and the
house was forgotten once more.

Or not precisely forgotten, for its brief ascendancy had brought it to the attention of a man who required
just such a house, even in the days of Liberty, Equality, and fraternal love among all men.

Like many in the new government, he had prudently turned his coat years before there seemed any need
of it. He had been a soldier and a diplomatist, a husband, an aristocrat, and a philosopher, and in this last
role his writings had won their author some currency during the Days of Glory, as well as his release from
prison.

What surprised some was that an empire should have a use for such a man. Others, though they said so
with great circumspection, held that the Emperor Napoleon, having ground both Man and God beneath
the iron heel of his ambition, had only the Devil left to turn to.

The Devil and his servant, Donatien Alphonse Fran├зois, the CountтАФstyled MarquisтАФde Sade.

Imperial France had turned its back upon both the haut magie that had consecrated its kings and the
pacts with the Oldest People which had bound its nobility to the land. All that remained to the Emperor
were those darker powers of which M'sieur le Comte had made himself master during a lifetime spent in
slaking his vast appetite for pain. The Comte provided results, and so the Emperor provided patronage,
and carefully did not enquire into the methods that produced those results.

Though a man who had made the Pope kneel before him must be presumed to have no fear of demonsтАж

And when the Empire did not need his services, the ComteтАФlately created Due d'Charenton by his
grateful masterтАФpursued his studies and his pleasures. Age had granted him a certain wisdomтАФin his
67th year, the former Comte de Sade had learned the value of anonymity. He had purchased the old
house upon the Rue de la Morte through the services of an agent, and if screams were occasionally heard
here at night, well, such sounds were common enough in the district. And those who joined de Sade in
his pleasures and survived them were circumspect for many reasons.

But this night is different.

At ten of the clock, he had ridden out from his official residence in the black-lacquered crested coach