Alfred de Rosann — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALFRED DE ROSANN. 69 the most important object of his wishes next to the desire of possessing Eloise. He loved his native France as dearly and as enthusiastically asa William Wallace era Tell could have adored, the one the Highlands of Scotland, the other the Canton of Uri ; and his heart leapt at the idea of being shortly able to tread his parent soil a free-man once again—un- shackled by ignominious bonds—unaccused of damn- able frauds —fearless of being recaptured and conducted to a goal. But, in order to obtain that unconditional pardon—in order to regain his forfeited rights as a citizen of France, and to return to its shores as the free-man he was desirous of becoming—he must suc- cumb to a hard condition, and linger idly in a land which he did not love, and whence he was anxious to depart. He had visited England for the purpose of ascertaining if the property of the late Marquis de Denneville still remained at the disposition of an heir —and he not only felt it his duty to place the docu- ments, which alone could recover that property, in the hands of their rightful owner, and thus secure to himself the pleasure of fulfilling a sacred trust reposed in him by something more than chance ; but he was anxious so to do for other reasons that savoured of an interested and selfish nature. It was true he could effect the same purpose by means of epistolary com- munication: but he had so fondly calculated upon being the bearer of such important tidings as the re- covery of a considerable sum of money to a person who deemed it lost forever, that he would have shed tears to resign the joy he thus anticipated with such pure and fervent delight. And surely, after all the trouble and labour he had undergone in terminating the affair so promptly and so judiciously, the reward he promised himself cannot appear too exorbitant. It was in vain that the perplexed mind of our hero sought to reason calmly on both sides of the question, and to arrive at some conclusion relative to the im- portance he ought to attach to Leblond’s letter. If he waited to obtain his pardon, he would certainly CORMICGLOOOKS