Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

ALFRED DE ROSANN. 57 verre de cognac the first thing in the morning, and a bottle of beer in the course of the day, are all they require beyond their regular meals. They are there- fore temperate and trust-worthy, incorruptible as to the integrity with which they discharge their duty, diligent, active, and penetrating. Their cunning and alertness in detecting crime, and in securing the au- thors of it, are proverbial : the quickness with which they follow up the slightest suspicion, and the im- portant and correct conjectures they form from the most trivial circumstance, when employed in hunting out a malefactor, are not less notorious. And such in habiliments, in principles, and in dispositions, were the Gendarmes who escorted the chain of convicts that were now delighted to seek the protection of an almost roofless barn against the violence of the storm. Let us take advantage of the moment to say one word relative to Belle-Rose. | This hardy galerien or forcat was a man of about thirty-five years of age. His life had been a continual scene of debauchery and licentiousness, save when the prisons of Brest or Toulon furnished him with quar- ters which the law carefully provided for so turbulent a subject. He had inherited some fortune on attain- -ing his majority; but an ill-assorted marriage, vicious examples, bad associates, and a natural predilection for gaming, soon compelled him to descend to any means to obtain the necessary supplies for supporting his extravagances. The first time that he expiated a portion of his crimes at Brest, was for bigamy. He had inveigled a rich widow into the matrimonial noose, and was visited the next morning by his other wife, who doubtless called to congratulate him on his felicitous hymeneal speculation. An unwelcome eclaircissement took place ; a trial ensued—and the galleys received Monsieur Pierre Belle-Rose. But chains and lofty walls could neither curb his restless disposition, nor abridge, for any length of time, his personal freedom. At the expiration of three or four months he had enfranchised himself from the limits CoOnmicooolks (GO)