Sue Eugène

1945 · rif. 2344565 — Philadelphia Pennsylvania: The John C. Winston Co 1945. Reissue. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. No publisher date pencil date dated 1945. No jacket. Volume II: Boards lightly soiled. Both volumes: Pencil name and date on front endpaper. v 698; v 772 pp. Two volume set. Red boards with gilt titles and decor on spine top edge gilt. The Wandering Jew French: Le Juif errant is an 1844 novel by the French writer Eugène Sue. Two figures cry out to each other across the Bering Straits. One is the Wandering Jew the other his sister Hérodiade. Wherever the Wandering Jew goes the cholera epidemic follows in his wake. The siblings are condemned to wander the earth until the entire Rennepont family has disappeared from the earth as Hérodiade's descendants are also the descendants of Marius de Rennepont Huguenots persecuted under Louis XIV by the Jesuits. The siblings are compelled to eternally protect that family. The Renneponts meanwhile are unaware that their protectors exist. The family lost its position and most of its wealth during the French persecution of the Protestants after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. A small fortune was given to a Jewish banker before the Renneponts dispersed all over Europe and Asia and this fortune has grown into a huge sum because of compound interest. In 1682 each Rennepont got a bronze medal telling them to meet back in Paris 150 years later at which time the fortune will be divided among the surviving members. So much time has passed however that almost none of the still-living Renneponts have any idea why they need to come to Paris. They nevertheless set out from India Siberia America France and elsewhere to make their way to rue Saint-François No. 3 in Paris by 13 February 1832. The members of the family are not only dispersed all over the world but also all over the social ladder as laborers factory owners and the independently wealthy. In India one Rennepont is a prince. The Jesuits have heard of this huge fortune and want to have it. Jesuit Père d'Aigrigny is in charge of obtaining the money for the Society of Jesus and dispossessing the Renneponts. Their plan is to have only the unwitting Gabriel Rennepont the Jesuit missionary show up to claim the fortune. Since he is a monk and can have no possessions of his own the fortune will go to the Jesuits. Gabriel entered the order because his pious mother manipulated by the Jesuits persuaded him to become a member. The Jesuits have spies all over the world and use them to put obstacles in the paths of the Renneponts as they make their way back to Paris. The John C. Winston Co hardcover books