Résumé
Résumé de Maugis le Sorcier
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who love tales of knights, sieges and daring escapes will find plenty here, along with a love story, a rivalry between old friends and a sorcerer who struggles to keep his word.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Maugis, Ye Sorcerer is a medieval adventure by Lord Gilhooley, the pen name of Frederick O'Hoolihan, who died in 1913. It retells the old French legend of the four sons of Duke Aymon and their cousin Renaud, who defy the emperor Charlemagne. At its center stands the eldest brother, Maugis, a seven-foot knight who also commands strange powers he has sworn not to use.
The author presents the tale as a manuscript handed to him by a half-mad scholar in the old town of Mouzon, in the Ardennes of northern France. The scholar made him swear to keep it secret until the man was dead. The story itself is set in the eighth century. It shows a world of fierce loyalty, quick tempers, courtly manners and a deep dread of hell, and it is told in the plain, lively way of a traveling minstrel. You will find duels, sieges, disguises, midnight raids and daring escapes.
You also get a hero who keeps his word even when it costs him dearly, an emperor who is generous and stubborn by turns, and a circle of plotters who feed on the emperor's pride. And there is a love story, tested again and again. Let us begin with the strange meeting in Mouzon that sets the whole tale in motion.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A dying hermit trusts a stranger with a secretFree
- 2A prince's death starts a war
- 3Ganelon's treachery drives Maugis from court
- 4Montfort holds, then burns
- 5Love and a kingdom in the south
- 6Roland arrives and Yon betrays his guests
- 7Maugis breaks his oath and fights a duel
- 8Honor and loyalty pull against each other
- 9A minstrel's voice and a framed manuscript
Point clé 1 sur 9
A dying hermit trusts a stranger with a secret
The book opens with a short cable sent to the author in New York. A hermit who lived in an old house in Mouzon, a small walled town in the Ardennes, has died, and his rooms have been found stripped bare. For years neighbors whispered that he owned manuscripts from the time of Charlemagne. Nothing remains now except a few scraps of burned parchment.
The author then goes back three months, to a merry breakfast at a château in Haraucourt, where his cousin Albert offers to take him to Mouzon. There a schoolmaster, Professor Victor d'Alembert, leads them through crooked streets and tells the town's stormy history, from Roman roads and King Clovis to the cavalry charges before the Battle of Sedan. He points to a thick oak door and says it once belonged to Maugis, the warrior sorcerer.
Curiosity pulls the author to that door, although the professor warns that its occupant hates visitors. Albert goes along. An old man with wild gray eyes lets them into a low room with an enormous fireplace, then sends Albert away and keeps the foreigner. He is Charles Voudran, a former schoolmaster from Pau, and he tells a bitter tale.
Thirty years earlier he read a paper to the Society of Ethnography at Nancy about a coded document found in a ruined castle. The scholars laughed, called Maugis a myth, and drove him out. He followed the code to a hiding place behind the iron plate of this very fireplace and found a hoard of papers. Since then he has read them and burned them, obeying a vision he says visits the room every night.
Before the last pages are gone, he has written a summary of the life of Maugis, and he insists that the sorcerer served God and not the devil. He makes the author swear on a prayer book never to show it in France, and never to reveal its contents to the world until Voudran is dead. After that he is to publish it with a scornful dedication to the society that mocked him. The author keeps the oath, and what follows is the tale itself.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Questions about Maugis le Sorcier
What is Maugis, Ye Sorcerer about?
It follows Maugis, eldest of the four sons of Duke Aymon, who defies Charlemagne after a series of murders and betrayals. He builds fortresses, wins a wife, and uses secret knowledge to survive against the emperor's armies.
Who is Maugis the sorcerer?
Maugis is a legendary knight of the Charlemagne cycle, a seven-foot warrior who learned occult knowledge from an Eastern scholar. In the book he fears his powers as sin and uses them only when no other path remains.
Is Maugis, Ye Sorcerer a true story?
It is based on a medieval legend, not a documented history. The book wraps the tale in a story of a scholar and a lost manuscript in Mouzon, and it gives the eighth century a colorful setting.
Who are the sons of Aymon in the book?
They are Maugis, Alard, Guichard and Richard, the sons of Duke Aymon of Dordogne. With their cousin Renaud they resist Charlemagne, and they are known for their loyalty to one another and to their horse Bayard.
Is Maugis, Ye Sorcerer worth reading?
If you enjoy chivalric adventure, it offers sieges, disguises, duels and a love story told in a clear, storytelling voice. Short chapters and strong scenes make it easy to follow, and the cast is easy to keep straight.