him of his adventure. Then the King restored to his friend the fief that was stolen from him, and gave such rich gifts, moreover, as I cannot tell. As for the wife who had betrayed Bisclavaret, he bade her avoid his country, and chased her from the realm. So she went forth, she and her second lord together, to seek a more abiding city, and were no more seen.
The adventure that you have heard is no vain fable. Verily and indeed it chanced as I have said. The Lay of the Were-Wolf, truly, was written that it should ever be borne in mind.
The Wolf Leader
(Alexandre Dumas Père)
Table of Contents
Introduction. Who Mocquet Was, And How This Tale Became Known To The Narrator
Chapter I. The Grand Master Of His Highness’ Wolf Hounds
Chapter II .The Seigneur Jean And The Sabot-Maker
Chapter V. The Pact With Satan
Chapter VI. The Bedevilled Hair
Chapter VII. The Boy At The Mill
Chapter VIII. Thibault’s Whishes
Chapter XI. David And Goliath.
Chapter XII. Wolves In The Sheep Fold
Chapter XIV. A Village Wedding
Chapter XV. The Lord Of Vauparfond
Chapter XVII. The Baron De Mont-Gobert
Chapter XVIII. Death And Resurrection
Chapter XIX. The Dead And The Living
Chapter XXI. The Genius Of Evil
Chapter XXII. Thibault’s Last Wish
Chapter XXIII. The Anniversary
Chapter XXIV. Hunting Down The Were-Wolf
INTRODUCTION
Although the introductory chapters were not signed until May 31st, 1856, The Wolf-Leader is to be associated in conception with the group of romances which Dumas wrote at Brussels between the years 1852 and 1854, that is to say, after his financial failure and the consequent defection of his collaborator Maquet, and before his return to Paris to found his journal Le Mousquetaire. Like Conscience l’Innocent and Catherine Blum, which date from that period of exile, the present story was inspired by reminiscences of our author’s native place—Villers-Cotterets, in the department of the Aisne.
In The Wolf-Leader Dumas, however, allows his imagination and fancy full play. Using a legend told to him nearly half a century before, conjuring up the scenes of his boyhood, and calling into requisition his wonderful gift of improvisation, he contrives in the happiest way to weave a romance in which are combined a weird tale of diablerie and continual delightful glimpses of forest life. Terror, wood-craft, and humour could not be more felicitously intermingled. The reader, while kept under the spell of the main theme of the story, experiences all the charm of an open-air life in the great forest of Villers-Cotterets—the forest in which the little town seemed to occupy a small clearing, and into which the boy Alexandre occasionally escaped for days together from the irksome routine of the school or from the hands of relatives who wanted to make a priest of him.
Thus Dumas, the most impressionable of men, all his life remained grateful to the forest for the poetic fancies derived from its beauty and the mysteries of its recesses, as well as for the hiding-places it afforded him, and for the game and birds which he soon learnt to shoot and snare there. Listen to his indignation at the destruction of the trees in the neighbouring park. We quote from his Memoirs:—“That park, planted by François I., was cut down by Louis Philippe. Beautiful trees! under whose shade once reclined François I. and Madame d’Etampes, Henri II. and Diana of Poitiers, Henri IV. and Gabrielle—you had a right to believe that a Bourbon would have respected you, that you would have lived your long life—the life of beech trees and oaks; that the birds would have warbled on your branches when green and leafy. But over and above your inestimable value of poetry and memories, you had, unhappily, a material value. You beautiful beeches with your polished silvery cases! you beautiful oaks with your sombre wrinkled bark!—you were worth a hundred thousand crowns. The King of France, who, with his six millions of private revenue, was too poor to keep you—the King of France sold you. For my part, had you been my sole fortune, I would
