



Produced by Charles Bowen from page images provided by
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Transcriber's Notes:
     1. Page scan source:
        The Works of G.P.R. James, Esq.--Volume 16
        https://books.google.com/books?id=dTYoAQAAIAAJ
        (University of California, Davis)
     2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






[Illustration: frontispiece]







THE WORKS
OF
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.


REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR.
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE.


"D'autres auteurs l'ont encore plus avili, (le roman,) en y mêlant les
tableaux dégoutant du vice; et tandis que le premier avantage des
fictions est de rassembler autour de l'homme tout ce qui, dans la
nature, peut lui servir de leçon ou de modèle, on a imaginé qu'on
tirerait une utilité quelconque des peintures odieuses de mauvaises
moeurs; comme si elles pouvaient jamais; laisser le c[oe]ur qui les
repousse, dans une situation aussi pure que le c[oe]ur qui les aurait
toujours Ignorées. Mais un roman tel qu'on peut le concevoir, tel que
nous en avons quelques modèles, est une des plus belles productions de
l'esprit humain, une des plus influentes sur la morale des individus,
qui doit former ensuite les m[oe]urs publiques."--MADAME DE STAËL.
_Essai sur les Fictions_.

    "Poca favilla gran flamma seconda:
     Forse diretro a me, con miglior voci
     Si pregherà, perchè Cirra risonda."
                       DANTE. _Paradiso_, Canto I.



VOL. XVI.
DE L'ORME.



LONDON:
PARRY AND CO., LEADENHALL STREET.
M DCCCXLVIII.






DE L'ORME.


BY

G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.


AUTHOR OF

"MARGARET GRAHAM,"
"THE LAST OF THE FAIRIES," ETC.



-------------------------------



LONDON:
PARRY AND CO., LEADENHALL STREET.
M DCCCXLVIII.






PREFACE

TO THE THIRD EDITION.


Romance writing, when rightly viewed and rightly treated, is of the
same nature as the teaching by parables of the eastern nations; and I
believe, when high objects are steadily kept in view and good
principles carefully inculcated, it may prove far more generally
beneficial than more severe forms of instruction.

The man who is already virtuous and wise, or who, at least, seeks
eagerly to be so, takes up the Essay or the Lecture, and reads therein
the sentiments ever present in his own heart. But while the same man
may find equal pleasure in the work of fiction addressed to the same
great ends, how many thousands are there who will open the pages of
the Novel or the Romance, but who would avoid anything less amusing to
their fancy? If, then, while we excite their imagination with pleasant
images, we can cause the latent seeds of virtue to germinate in their
hearts; if we can point out the consequences of errors, follies, and
crimes; if we can recall good feelings fleeting away, or crush bad
ones rising up under temptation,--and that we can do so with great
effect, may be safely asserted,--we can benefit, in the most essential
particular, a large body of our fellow-men; a much larger body, I
fear, than that which can be attracted by anything that does not wear
the form of amusement.

Such has been my conviction ever since I entered upon a career in
which the public has shown me such undeserved encouragement; and with
such a purpose, and for such an object, have I always written. In some
works I have striven alone to impress those general principles of
honour and virtue, and those high and elevated feelings, which do not
seem to me to be increasing in the world. In others, I have
endeavoured to advocate, without seeming too much to do so, some
particular principle, or to warn against some particular error. In the
following pages my purpose was to expose the evil consequences of an
ill-regulated spirit of enterprise and a love of adventure, and to
deter from errors, the magnitude of which I may have felt by sharing
in them.

To do so, it was necessary to choose as my subject the life of a young
man placed in circumstances of difficulty and temptation; and no
writer can ever hope to produce a good effect by painting man
otherwise than man is.

At the same time I have ever been convinced that no benefit can ensue
from drawing the mind of the reader through long scenes of vice and
guilt, for the sake of a short moral at the end; and in writing the
history of the Count de l'Orme, I determined to show, as was
absolutely necessary, that he was led by the love of adventure into
error nearly approaching to guilt: but to dwell upon his errors no
longer than was absolutely required; to point out, even while I
related them, that their consequences were terrible; and to make the
great bulk of the book display a life of regret, pain and difficulty,
consequent upon the fault I sought to reprehend. This I have done to
the best of my judgment, restricting all details of the error into
which the principal character of the book fell, to some ten or twelve
pages. Having read those pages again, after a lapse of many years,
with the deepest attention and consideration, I send them forth with
scarcely an alteration; being firmly convinced, that the mind which
can contract any evil from the terrible scene which they depict--a
scene which, I have every reason to believe, really occurred--must be
foul and corrupt ere it sits down to the perusal. One thing I
certainly know, that those pages were written in the spirit of purity,
and with the purpose of good; and I will never believe that such
feelings can generate, in the breast of others, likewise pure, aught
but their own likeness.

De l'Orme was first published in 1830, and was written while I was
residing in France. The incidents, however, had been collected and
arranged long before, and only required form and compression. For some
curious details regarding the battle of Sedan I was indebted to a
gentleman of that city, and I believe the facts of the famous revolt
of the Count of Soissons will be found historically correct, even to
very minute particulars.





DE L'ORME.




CHAPTER I.


I was born in the heart of Bearn, in the year 1619; and if the scenery
amongst which we first open our eyes, and from which we receive our
earliest impressions, could communicate its own peculiar character to
our