This is a novel. The Brass Bell ; or, The Chariot of Death is the second of Eugene Sue's monumental serial known under the collective title of The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages. The first story The Gold Sickle; or, Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen fittingly preludes the grand drama conceived by the author. There the Gallic people are introduced upon the stage of history in the simplicity of their customs, their industrious habits, their bravery, lofty yet childlike such as they were at the time of the Roman invasion by Caesar, 58 B. C. The present story is the thrilling introduction to the class struggle, that starts with the conquest of Gaul, and, in the subsequent seventeen stories, is pathetically and instructively carried across the ages, down to the French Revolution of 1848.
