Maurice Leblanc 
The Secret of Sarek [EPUB ebook] 

The war has led to so many upheavals that not many people now remember the Hergemont scandal of seventeen years ago. Let us recall the details in a few lines.
One day in July 1902, M. Antoine d’Hergemont, the author of a series of well–known studies on the megalithic monuments of Brittany, was walking in the Bois with his daughter Véronique, when he was assaulted by four men, receiving a blow in the face with a walking–stick which felled him to the ground.
After a short struggle and in spite of his desperate efforts, Véronique, the beautiful Véronique, as she was called by her friends, was dragged away and bundled into a motor–car which the spectators of this very brief scene saw making off in the direction of Saint–Cloud.