La Carmélite by Ernest Daudet
"In peril on the sea" by Montague T. Hainsselin is a novel written in the late 19th century. It appears to be a dramatic study of faith, sacrifice, and family honor centered on Nicolette, a devout young woman in southern France whose desire to become a Carmelite collides with the world when she shields her sister Irène from scandal. Entangled with Irène’s domineering husband and the sister’s cavalry-officer lover, she is pressed
toward a marriage of duty rather than a life in the cloister. The work explores piety versus passion, conscience, and reputation. The opening of the story follows Nicolette as she prays at a Carmelite convent in Beaucaire and confirms to the prioress her wish to enter as a novice. At home, we learn her sister Irène is unhappily married to the hot-tempered Jacques Malivert. One night Jacques surprises Irène with her lover, the hussar Frédéric de Varimpré; Irène drags the officer into Nicolette’s room, and Nicolette claims he came for her to save her sister from ruin and possibly death. Malivert then forces a marriage prospect, and Nicolette’s confessor counsels her to accept this sacrifice as God’s will. Frédéric’s formal suit follows; in a guarded conversation in the garden, Nicolette sets terms—he must respect her vow of chastity until the Church releases it, allow her rigorous religious life, and embrace honorable conduct. She makes a final retreat at the convent, bids a painful farewell to the cloister, and the section closes with the town preparing for the imminent wedding. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77272.html.images | 464 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77272.epub3.images | 330 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77272.epub.images | 330 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77272.epub.noimages | 288 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77272.kf8.images | 531 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77272.kindle.images | 505 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77272.txt.utf-8 | 438 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77272/pg77272-h.zip | 260 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Daudet, Ernest, 1837-1921 |
|---|---|
| Title | La Carmélite |
| Original Publication | Paris: Plon, 1883. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica)) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese |
| Subject | French fiction -- 19th century |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77272 |
| Release Date | Nov 19, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 193 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |