The Three Friends of Brussels

Some years ago there resided at Brussels three young men, named Charles Darancourt, Theodore de Valmont, and Ernest de St. Maure, whose friendship for each other was of so ardent a nature, they were generally known by the title of The Inseparables. The first link which bound these youths together was the remarkable circumstance of their having been all three born on one day, and, being all of good families, they had been constant playfellows in childhood, and studied at the same academy as schoolboys, and had become members of the same university in their more advanced years. Through all these stages of their existence, they had exhibited the same unvarying affection for one another, and had displayed a great similarity in their tastes, feelings and pursuits. On reaching manhood, however, circumstances led them, as might be expected, to adopt different courses of life. Darancourt, the son of an eminent physician, selected the profession of the law as the road to eminence and respectability in the world. St. Maure, whose father was a nobleman of decayed fortunes, chose the army as most suitable to his birth and pretensions. De Valmont, on the other hand, preferred the captivating study of letters and the fine arts to the pursuit of any positive profession; and the circumstances of his father, a retired colonel of engineers, enabled the young man, for the time at least, to indulge his tastes in this respect.

Ernest de St. Maure, at the period whence this narrative takes in date, had not yet… Read More