The Chartreuse of Parma

This novel was written in the year 1830, in a place some three hundred leagues from Paris. Many years before that, when our armies were pouring across Europe, I chanced to be billeted in the house of a canon. It was at Padua-a fortunate city, where, as in Venice, men's pleasure is their chief business, and leaves them little time for anger with their neighbours. My stay was of some duration, and a...