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ISABEL OF BAVARIA:
OR,
THE CHRONICLES OF FRANCE
FOR THE
Reign of Charles the Sixth.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF
ALEXANDRE DUMAS,
AUTHOR OF “DIANA OF MERIDOR,” “MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN,” &c.

Price Fifty Cents, Complete.

It has been frequently remarked, that the romance of real life abounds wita events
infinitely more extraordinary and interesting than anything that has ever emanated
from the imagination of the poet or the novelist; and a persual of the following pages
will amply prove the truth of this assertion. After a careful examination of the sources
from which the author professes to have derived his materials, the Translator is satisfied
that every event recorded in these Chronicles is historically correct in all its most
important features, and that the characters here depicted are genuine representations
of the originals.

That vividness of style and those animated descriptions in which M. Dumas so
greatly excels, may not, in the translation, be found to possess all their original brilliance;
but the utmost care has been taken to preserve the many useful lessons that
may be derived from this diffuse yet minute sketch. Much vice is here portrayed,
without offending delicacy; and the description of those turbulent times of old—of bigotry
combined with loose morality—of unlimited power with impotent laws—may
induce us to congratulate ourselves that we live in an age when Christianity is something
more than a name, and the laws by which society are regulated and controlled
something more than a dry inefficient code.

A few notes, in addition to those in the original, have been appended by the translator;
and for these, which cannot be mistaken, he alone must be held responsible.

It is therefore at St. Denis, since we are there, that we will open the mysterious
archives of that singular reign, which passed, as says one of our poets, “between the
vision of an old man and that of a shepherdess; and which left, as the only memorial
of its duration—a bitter sarcasm on the destiny of empires and the fortune of men—a
pack of cards.”

For some fair pages that this book will contain, we shall meet many red with blood,
many dark with mourning; for providence willed that all here below should be tinged
with these three colors, when it instituted the heraldry of human life, and gave to it
for a device—innocence, passions, and death.

Let us now open this book, as God opens life, at its fair pages: we shall soon
enough arrive at its pages of blood and of mourning.

WILLIAMS BROTHERS, Publishers,
24 Ann-street, New York, and 6 Water-street, Boston.