WHICH?

OR,

BETWEEN TWO WOMEN.

BY ERNEST DAUDET.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY LAURA E. KENDALL.

"Which? or, Between Two Women," is the latest and most powerful novel from the pen of the celebrated French novelist, Ernest Daudet. It is fully worthy of its famous author's great reputation, for a more absorbing and thrilling romance has seldom been published. The interest begins at once with the flight of the gypsy mother with her child and her death in the Château de Chamondrin, where the friendless little one is received and cared for. The plot is simple and without mystery, but never, perhaps, were so many stirring incidents crowded within the covers of a novel. The scene is laid in Paris and the country, and some of the most striking events of the times are vividly reproduced. The reader is given a very realistic glimpse of Paris, and part of the action takes place in that historic prison, the Conciergerie, where nobles and others accused of crimes against the French Republic were confined. History and fiction are adroitly mingled in the excellent novel, which may be termed a double love story in that two women are passionately attached to one man. On the thrilling adventures and heart experiences of this trio the romance turns, and the reader's attention is kept constantly riveted to the exciting narrative. The other characters are all naturally drawn, and the book as a whole is one of the best and most absorbing novels that can be found. It will delight everybody.

NEW YORK:
W. L. ALLISON COMPANY, Publishers,
1893.

COPYRIGHT:
BY T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS.
1887.

WHICH?

"Which? or, Between Two Women," is the title of a new, very thrilling and intensely interesting novel, by Ernest Daudet, one of the best known and most widely read of the living French novelists. A highly romantic, attractive and touching love story, in which a gypsy girl of great beauty and heroism, named Dolores, and Antoinette de Mirandol, an heiress, are rivals for the possession of Philip de Chamondrin, the hero, forms the main theme, and it is most skilfully and effectively handled. About this double romance of the heart are clustered a series of exceedingly stirring episodes, many of which are historic. The adventures of Philip, Dolores and Antoinette in Paris are graphically described and hold the reader spell-bound. The book is highly dramatic from beginning to end, and especially so that portion where the Conciergerie prison and its noble inmates are depicted. Very stirring scenes also are the attack on the Château de Chamondrin, Coursegol's struggle with Vauquelas and Bridoul's rescue of the condemned prisoners on the Place de la Révolution. But the entire novel is exceedingly spirited, exciting and absorbing, and every character is finely drawn. "Which? or, Between Two Women," should be read by all who relish an excellent novel.

CONTENTS.

WHICH?

BY ERNEST DAUDET.

CHAPTER I.

THE BOHEMIANS.

Early one morning in the month of March, 1770, a woman bearing in her arms a new-born infant, was hastening along the left bank of the Garden, a small river that rises in the Cevennes, traverses the department of the Gard, and empties into the Rhone, not far from Beaucaire. It would be difficult to find more varied and picturesque scenery than that which borders this stream whose praises have been chanted by Florian, and which certainly should not be unknown to fame since it was here the Romans constructed the Pont du Gard, that gigantic aqueduct which conveyed the waters of Eure to Nîmes.

The woman of whom we speak was at that moment very near the famous Pont du Gard—which is only a short distance from