



Produced by David Widger





THE IMMORTAL;

OR, ONE OF THE "FORTY." (L'IMMORTEL.)

By Alphonse Daudet,

Translated From The French By A. W. Verrall And Margaret D. G. Verrall

Rand, McNally & Company, Publishers - 1889




IMMORTAL; OR, THE "FORTY." (L'IMMORTEL)




CHAPTER I.

In the 1880 edition of Men of the Day, under the heading _Astier-Rehu_,
may be read the following notice:--

Astier, commonly called Astier-Rehu (Pierre Alexandre Leonard), Member
of the Academie Francaise, was born in 1816 at Sauvagnat (Puy-de-Dome).
His parents belonged to the class of small farmers. He displayed from
his earliest years a remarkable aptitude for the study of history. His
education, begun at Riom and continued at Louis-le-Grand, where he
was afterwards to re-appear as professor, was more sound than is now
fashionable, and secured his admission to the Ecole Normale Superieure,
from which he went to the Chair of History at the Lycee of Mende. It
was here that he wrote the Essay on Marcus Aur