The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Rudolph Erich Raspe (best time to read books TXT) 📗

by dozens on the spot. The members of the Assembly, and the fishwomen, continued to invoke their great Voltaire, and all their masters in this monument de grands hommes, imploring them to come down and succour them against the Aristocrats and the sword of Munchausen. Their cries were horrible, like the shrieks of witches and enchanters versed in magic and the black art, while the thunder growled, and storms shook the battlements, and Rousseau, Voltaire, and Beelzebub appeared, three horrible spectres; one all meagre, mere skin and bone, and cadaverous, seemed death, that hideous skeleton; it was Voltaire, and in his hand were a lyre and a dagger. On the other side was Rousseau, with a chalice of sweet poison in his hand, and between them was their father Beelzebub!

I shuddered at the sight, and with all the enthusiasm of rage, horror, and piety, rushed in among them. I seized that cursed skeleton Voltaire, and soon compelled him to renounce all the errors he had advanced; and while he spoke the words, as if by magic charm, the whole assembly shrieked, and the pandemonium began to tumble in hideous ruin on their heads.

I returned in triumph to the palace, where the Queen rushed into my arms, weeping tenderly. “Ah, thou flower of nobility,” cried she, “were all the nobles of France like thee, we should never have been brought to this!”

I bade the lovely creature dry her eyes, and with the King and Dauphin ascend my carriage, and drive post to Mont-Medi, as not an instant was to be lost. They took my advice and drove away. I conveyed them within a few miles of Mont-Medi, when the King, thanking me for my assistance, hoped I would not trouble myself any farther, as he was then, he presumed, out of danger; and the Queen also, with tears in her eyes, thanked me on her knees, and presented the Dauphin for my blessing. In short, I left the King eating a mutton chop. I advised him not to delay, or he would certainly be taken, and setting spurs to my horse, wished them a good evening, and returned to England. If the King remained too long at table, and was taken, it was not my fault.

Colophon

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen
was published in 1785 by
Rudolph Erich Raspe.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
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Alex Cabal,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2006 by
Emma Dudding, Dagny, John Bickers, and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Baron Münchhausen Underwater,
a painting completed before 1896 by
Gottfried Franz.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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