The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II

A nostalgic narrator recalls early years at an ancestral chateau in the south of France, describing sunshine-soaked slopes, seasonal pastimes, and the pure pleasures of youth. Taken in as a needy relation by the castle lord, the narrator enjoys initial kindness that shifts after the lord brings home a beautiful, wealthy bride who greets him with warm interest. Festivities and rural sports contrast with an undercurrent of changing fortunes as the lord’s generosity gives way to resentment tied to marriage and inheritance. The account proceeds through memory, examining social dependence, family tension, and the bittersweet persistence of childhood innocence amid domestic change.