The Two Orphans - Production & Contact Info (original) (raw)

The two poor children, thin, sick, shivering, wander in the countryside, seeking shelter. From a low, hermetically sealed house, a door opens, letting a woman with a stern face pass through. She examines the children with her wicked eyes, ...See moreThe two poor children, thin, sick, shivering, wander in the countryside, seeking shelter. From a low, hermetically sealed house, a door opens, letting a woman with a stern face pass through. She examines the children with her wicked eyes, sunken under the eyelids, like they were suspicious animals. Despite the terror that this witch inspires in them, the little ones, overcome by suffering, by fatigue and by hunger, allow themselves to be drawn into the ambiguous den where lie here and there, in the middle of goods of all kinds, men with faces. sinister, haggard and terrible. From that day on, the children are condemned to the hardest work, to begging, leading the life of galley slaves. And the shrew had irresistible arguments to overcome their resistance. After vigorous beatings, the children resigned themselves. One day as they were begging from one village to another, the chance of the roads led them to the edge of the castle where the squire welcomed them with great pity and alms. At nightfall, as the count returned to the castle, a sudden attack petrified him: before he had time to scream or run, he was seized, gagged, tied up, thrown into a quarry, an abyss of limestone and clay, as there are around the fortifications of Paris. A few hours later, the chatelaine received from the hands of the witch, a letter ordering her to pay twenty thousand francs for her husband's ransom. But at the same moment, it, delivered by the grateful children, stood like a living punishment before the terrified old woman. And the two little orphans, the abandoned poor, thanks to their lovely courage, are adopted and raised by the chatelaine and, saved definitively from the degrading poverty, become good and happy children. Written by Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé See less